Bacon Bread

Today I made Pain au Bacon from the Ken Forkish cookbook Flour Water Salt Yeast.  The kitchen smelled amazing while it was baking.  This is my first time making the Pain au Bacon and the bread is delicious.

See all those bacon bits?

This bread is a levain bread, made from the wild yeast that is everywhere.   I got interested in these recipes when our neighbor, Peter, shared some amazing bread he baked from the Ken Forkish book and method.   Peter bases his recipe on the book recipe Field Blend #2 adding fennel seeds and caraway seeds and some honey.  I call it Peter's Bread and it is John's favorite bread ever.  So for John's birthday, I learned how to make Peter's bread.  I've made it several times and it is really good.

Yesterday we bought a 50 pound bag of Shepherd's Grain flour, which is what Ken Forkish uses.  Shepherd's Grain is a Northwest Regional group of farmers who are good to the soil.  Their flour is used by many of the local artisan bakeries, including Ken's Artisan Bakery (Ken Forkish bakery).  We bought a 50 lb bag of Shepherd's Low Gluton flour at Cash and Carry for $17 .

Besides the book and Peter's tips on making the bread, I found a series of YouTube videos Ken Forkish made  to illustrate his methods.  They were very helpful.  Here is one on feeding the levain.

Chicken broth production

We make our own chicken broth and use it as a staple in our cooking.  I can't imagine getting along without it.  Hardly a day goes by that we don't use a container.  Here is this week's production of 14 large containers and 8 small ones.  Makes me feel rich, rich, RICH!!!

Here is a photo of our five gallon pot from a previous post on making chicken broth.

Toad in a hole with homemade Anadama bread

This post is for Dave.  John made himself toad in a hole with my Anadama bread.  He said it was exceptional.

I love this bread so much that I seldom make any other kind.   It's wonderful hot out of the oven (freshly killed yeast) and it makes great toast.  Here is the story about the source of the name Anadama.  

Here is the bread recipe.   I put some notes in parentheses.

Anadama Bread from A World of Breads

 1 cup scalded milk (I use buttermilk)
 1 cup boiling water
 1 cup yellow cornmeal (Bob's Red Mill fine ground)
1/4 cup butter
 ½ cup molasses (Grandma's unsulfured)
 2 teaspoons salt
 2 cakes yeast (dry yeast works as cake yeast is getting hard to find)
 1/2 cup warm (110 to 115 degrees) water
 6 cups sifted flour (Bob's Red Mill Artisan Bread flour) 

Combine milk and boiling water,  Slowly add cornmeal. Add butter, molasses and salt; let stand until lukewarm. Sprinkle the yeast into the warm water and let stand until it bubbles, about 5 minutes. Stir into cornmeal mixture; beat in flour. Turn out onto a lightly floured board and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. Place dough in a buttered bowl; cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours. Knead again and divide into 2 loaves. Place in buttered loaf pans; cover and let rise until doubled again. Bake 40 to 50 minutes at 375 degrees F.   Remove from pans immediately and cool on racks.

Tangy spicy green beans

 Tonight we had tangy spicy green beans, a favorite meal.   The beans are washed and dried, coated with coconut oil and oven roasted.  Then they are stir fried with ground pork and a sauce.  Yum!

How Dave makes gnocchi

I mentioned making gnocchi in a recent post and my friend Dave (of Leave Without Pay) sent me these photos of how HE makes gnocchi, in Australia!  Isn't it interesting that the kitchen looks like it is from another part of the world?

Making pasta

We've been making all sorts of dough things that we haven't made for a long time.  Potato gnocchi... John said they were the best he ever had.  Chinese pancakes for mu shu pork.  And handmade pasta.  They all came out well.  The handmade pasta is the most labor intensive.

This is the pasta drying a little before it was cut into noodles with a knife.

Making chicken broth

We make our own very rich and delicious chicken broth.  We use it for so many things.....a base for soups and stews, flavoring stir fried vegetables, simple Asian noodles we have for breakfast, cooking chicken thighs.

The ingredients are lots of chicken/chicken bones (this batch has one whole chicken, three packages of necks and backs, one roasted chicken carcass), celery, onions, carrots, bay leaf, pepper corns, ginger.  I leave the salt out, which gives me more freedom when I use it.  You can always add salt.  The recipe makes about a dozen 24 oz containers ( 9 quarts) of very rich broth.  For some recipes, we thin it with water.  A concentrated broth takes less room in the freezer.

Here it is starting to cook.  We simmer it about four hours after it starts to a boil.  Then we strain it and refrigerate it.  The next day we package it into containers for the freezer.

Here it is starting to cook.

That's a five gallon pot.  Before we had it, making broth was a lot more time consuming and MUCH messier.  Our big farm sink helps, too.  We set the pot on a cutting board in the bottom of the sink for straining and packaging.  It's a much better height and any broth spills happen in the sink.  The sink is also great for washing huge things like that pot.  Can you tell I love my sink?

John making dinner... and, a new camera!

In my last post I expressed my disappointment in both the Coolpix L30 and the S6800.  I remembered my friend Dave had a P series Coolpix that he used on his big adventure with Nancy.  He really liked it so I decided to give one a try.  I got a Coolpix P340 and I found my new camera!

It fits in my bib overalls pocket.  It seems to be better at everything than my old camera.  And, not surprisingly, it cost more.

My L22 had a limited light range that it would work in without a flash.  And the flash made the colors really garish.  That meant I couldn't take acceptable indoor photos unless the light was really bright.  I couldn't take photos of John making dinner.  I couldn't take good photos in our kitchen.  But now I can.

This camera has more functions and features than I know how to use but right out of the box, with no work on my side, it does better than my old one.

Last night John made a delicious beet soup.

the beautiful cabinets John made

Sushi feast

John made a sushi feast last night.  He wore his new apron.  I think that is why the sushi was so good.  I am not even that big a fan of sushi so it must have been the apron.

Brownies with Almond flour

I tried making a batch of brownies with almond flour and guess what?  I like them better than brownies made with wheat flour.  The flavor and texture are both divine.

For the chocolate, I used 2 squares of baking chocolate and a half cup of chocolate pistoles.  My neighbor turned me on to these and they are excellent for baking and just plain eating.  When I need a chocolate fix, I have a few of these right out of the box.  They are about half the price of any other chocolate I like.

Here is the Brownie Recipe

World's best tomato gravy

1 to 1.5 lb pork shoulder, cut into chunks and browned in duck fat (or a lesser fat if you don't have duck fat)
6 cloves garlic minced, add to the pan and cook 30 secs
1 can San Marzano diced tomatoes
some oregano (maybe 2 teaspoons)
1-2 cups rich red wine such as chianti
salt and pepper to taste

Simmer for an hour to an hour and a half.  The tomatoes and pork will start to melt together.

It is sooooo very good.  And so simple!

Like nectar of the gods

That's how good our homemade chicken broth tastes... like nectar of the gods.  We use the very best chickens we can find, from local farms.  And, yes, it DOES make a difference.  It's twice as good as the best chickens we can get at even high quality grocery stores.  We add the usual suspects... onions, celery, carrots, garlic, ginger, bay leaves, parsley, peppercorns.  And we simmer it in our five gallon pot for several hours (three to four).

Ready to cook

Done!

The next day, after it has spent the night in the refrigerator, we put it in containers and freeze it.  I always feel rich when we have a new batch of chicken broth.

Today we used the first quart to make our breakfast which is broth with carrots, Chinese cabbage, Annie Chun's mini wontons,  cilantro, ginger, green onion, and lemon grass.  Oh, so very good.  Mmm mmm.

Breakfast soup

Roasted Vegetables

We are in love with roasted vegetables.   Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, coat the vegetables lightly with olive oil, spread them on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.  Do not crowd them.   Bake about 20 minutes or until they brown lightly.  Take them out and salt them with some nice salt.

Heirloom carrots in the oven

Carrots coming out of the oven

Cauliflower ready to bake

Cauliflower ready to eat

Tangy Spicy Green Beans

One of my very favorite dishes is tangy spicy green beans.  It's a Chinese dish.  The original recipe calls for deep frying the green beans in the wok.  Recently we started roasting the green beans in the oven instead of deep frying them.  Makes the dish taste even better and is easier to do as well... a win, win.

green beans drying on towels after washing

Putting a little olive oil on the green beans before roasting

Ready to eat... yum!

General Tsao's Chicken

I think the ability to use a knife is at the top of the list of things I miss with a broken wrist.  I do have at least some use of my opposable thumb now so I can dress, put in my barrette (awkwardly), tie my shoes and zip my coat....I couldn't do any of those things the first few weeks.   I still can't use a knife and I really miss that... can't cut up an apple, can't cut a piece of bread.    ...can't do dishes either but I don't miss that so much.

When you can't use a knife, it means cooking is pretty limited.  so...  John has been doing almost all of the cooking.  He is a great cook and I have been very well fed!  Here he is in action making general tsao's chicken.

ingredients

making magic