food processor

Bulletproof Baguettes

October 12, 2009

You can shoot me if you don’t agree this is the easiest and best bread recipe you’ve ever tried. If, indeed, you have ever tried any.

I have planned to so this post forEVER. Well, at least since last April — which seems like forever. I did the Ciabatta Recipe, and the Crackerbread Recipe…

Oh my gosh! I just realized that I never actually did a blog post for the crackerbread. It only exists on youtube! How funny.

Anyway, I started this whole bread thing as videos, and then quickly realized that videos are a pain in the ass! Editing takes forever, upload takes forever. When I realize I forgot to film something, or I run out of batteries (always) it’s such a pain to reshoot it, re-edit it… you get the picture. So, for most everything else, I’ve moved to still-picture storytelling. For bread though, I think it’s worth it to show video. And that’s why it took me so long to do. The video still isn’t perfect, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it never will be. Not while I’m living this life. So please try not to be too critical of the fact that I never actually show the bread going into and coming out of the oven, there are three finished loaves instead of four, Etc. Etc.

This is the very first successful bread I ever made. I bought The Best Bread Ever, by Charles Van Over when I got my new Cuisinart food processor about 6 years ago. I had tried and tried to make rustic loaves prior to the discovery of this book and I have to tell you: it was an utter failure. No matter how I tried (and I tried, and tried, and tried), my loaves were pathetic, dense, ugly beasts. Oh sure, they tasted OK, but I tend to think of myself as invincible. Please note that I am not a perfectionist. That’s something else entirely. No. What I mean to say is that I have an inflated ego. So when I come up against something that I fail at, it makes me really, really mad. I can’t say I totally gave up on making bread, but I shelved it for a while.

Until I bought the Cuisinart.

When I opened the box, it came with the standard instruction manual with some recipes in it. (I confess: I am a manual reader.) When I was reading it, I saw this totally bizarre bread recipe. Having made countless loaves the traditional way — proof the yeast in warm/tepid/not hot/not cold/not below 110/not above 120/GiveMeABreak water — I thought the Cuisinart recipe must be a mistake. It listed the recipe source as having come from, The Best Bread Ever. So, I googled it to see what I could find out. Turns out, the book was out of print, but I found a used copy. This guy has researched the food processor technique ad nauseam. He has so much information and such detailed directions, it would make your head spin. And no, the recipe was not in error. Genius: you don’t have to proof the yeast!

But what I love about it: the recipes work every single time. Even when I forget about the dough and it bursts out of it’s container. Even when I put it in the refrigerator for 2 days. Every single time. It is so fast and easy. Seriously. You’ve got to try it. Hands on, it takes about 15 minutes to make dough and shape loaves, a couple hours of rise time and 10-15 minutes to bake. I very rarely have to even look at it anymore. But I still covet it. Thank you, Charles Van Over. You made a bread-maker out of me.

So get off the damn computer and go try it.

Watch the video:

And, here’s the recipe with written instructions to print:

Country Baguettes: The Best Bread Ever

ONIONS!

October 1, 2009

Ok, I know most gardeners have long since dealt with their onions, since most are ready to harvest in June. In Minnesota, most of us didn’t harvest until July because of the weather. I pulled all mine out in early August, let them air dry outside for a day or two, then put them in our lower garage, which serves as my pseudo root cellar. I have to say, though, August and September don’t really do much for storing root crops. Flipping back through the notebook I keep in my office with all my to-do’s I see that I started writing “Chop Onions” as early as September 2nd. You will be happy to hear that I was finally able to check that off my list… On September 30th.

I would like to share how I deal with my onions.

Maybe it’s just me, but my onions do not keep through the winter. I don’t know if it’s because I am a bad gardener or because I’m a bad store-er. I’m guessing it’s a little of both. Should I cut the tops off before I cure them, or leave them on? Should I let them dry in the sun a day before shuttling them off to the dark depths of the lower garage or let them dry longer? You can find support for just about any variation. Seriously. I’ve researched this. I’m willing to chalk my failures up to variations in circumstances. That rationale has served me well in all areas of life, by the way.

This year was a good onion year, albeit a late one. After harvesting, I leave the tops on, letting them dry for a day in the sun. Then, I put them in a ventilated box (mine is the lid to an old rabbit hutch, the occupants of which I decided would be happier if left to roam the wilds of our 40 acres) and put them in the lower garage, which is dark and cool.

I write “chop onions” on my to do list about a month later. After ignoring that line item for about a month, I decide to “chop onions” on the day that I also have to “make salsa.” It would be easy to continue to ignore “chop onions” except for the fact that I need a lot of chopped onions to “make salsa.” So, the two would seem to go together quite nicely. (“Make Salsa” post coming in the next day or two.)

In the past, I have been totally anal about the chopping of my onions, preferring perfectly diced cubes, which of course requires hand chopping. This year, however, I have decided to cut corners and pulse the onions in the food processor to see if it makes any difference.

First, however, I have to decide which onions to chop and which to store. Since this was a good year for onions, it appears that I have lots I might be able to store for at least a few months. It would be a lot easier just to store them all, but I have to say: grabbing a handful of chopped and frozen onions during the winter for sauteing is a luxury I have learned not to live without. Plus, when I first started growing onions, I learned the hard way that many of the onions start to rot from the center out. That resulted in a lot of wasted onions for me. Now, I am ruthless when it comes to judging whether an onion should be stored or chopped.

If there is any give at all in the stem area of the onion, it goes into the chopping pile:

Sometimes I am right in my assessment:

Sometimes I am wrong:

But this year, I am very happy with my storage pile. It’s always nice to have some back-up onions ready for chopping:

The rest, I peel and quarter and chop.

But either way, let me give you a great tip: USE GOOGLES FOR NO TEAR ONION HANDLING!

Cute, huh?

I actually saw some onion goggles at a kitchen store in Colorado during our Road Warrior trip. They were $24 dollars! Insane, when you can wear these charming specks designed by Speedo.

Anyway, I put the the chopped onions on to cookies sheets in a layer about 1/2″ to 1″ thick. And let me give you another valuable tip: USE WAX PAPER AS A SHEET LINER. I did not, and now I have onion smelling cookie sheets. Morgan made some cookies yesterday that have a very peculiar onion aroma that I can’t say added much to the flavor of the cookies.

I freeze the sheets, and then break into pieces and store in freezer bags.

Once you try this, you will find yourself growing more and more onions. It is an unbelievable time saver.

Your Ticket to Absolute Power & Supremacy: Learn to Bake Bread

March 23, 2009

I make bread. Does that make me some amish-type throwback? A freak show to be ridiculed? A do-gooder wife and mom? Super mom? (I actually AM SuperMom, but that’s stuff for another self-glorifying post.)

Maybe I’m just tired of paying $4.29 for a loaf of the (extremely delicious) take and bake variety at the store. We eat bread in mass quantities. The whole no-carb craze never reached our family. Nor WILL it ever reach our family. Plus, and friends of mine know this, I keep my house at the miserly temperature of 64 degrees during the winter. It’s DAMN cold in here, right up thru May. Making bread really serves many purposes. In decreasing order of importance, it sets me up as a deity to be worshiped, it makes my friends feel like terrible, lazy wives and mothers, it warms my frigid home, it feeds my family, and it saves me money.

The recipes I use could not be easier. Honestly. There is hardly a way you can screw this up, people. Give it a shot. I’m pretty sure that you will love the bread, but I guarantee you will become addicted to the drug that is absolute power and supremacy over your friends and family.