Honey Oat and Rye Herb Bread

It's a bread day! I started a basic French bread starter and have decided on a honey oat and a herb rye loaf. I divided the starter in two for the first rise and prepped two batches of add-in flour, one that's unbleached white flour and oats, another that is stoneground rye and a touch of brown sugar. I'll add blackstrap molasses to that loaf during the first knead.

I never make a loaf the same way twice, rather always adding a lil of this or that. Like this day:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/07/great-day-for-bread.html

Today's loaves came out fantastic! I rolled them thin and long (very French). The white bread came out boring, really, but the spinach-herb-rye bread was super enjoyable.

I've been trying for two days to find the basic recipe so I can try and chronicle my deviations (as if I remember now) and finally here it is (with an adorable photo of my daughter in her seersucker train engineer/baker hat): http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/01/more-bread.html

So, facing a 90 degree day after a heat wave of 100 degree days, I got out my bread bowls. In the first very large bowl, I mixed:

• 4 cups unbleached white flour
• about 2.5 teaspoons fresh ground salt.

In a smaller bowl I put:

• 2 cups stoneground rye flour

and set beside it:

• blackstrap molasses
• about one cup fresh spinach
• 1 heaping tablespoon parsley
• 1 tablespoon dill 
• 1/4 cup sorrel
• about 1 cup basil

In another smaller bowl, I mixed:

• 2 cups unbleached white flour
• 1 cup whole oats

In the final large bowl, I mixed:

• 3 cups warm water
• 2 tablespoons yeast
• 2 tablespoons honey

From the flour/salt bowl, I added about 3 cups of the white flour to the liquid yeast mix. I worked it into a dough and let it sit until it tripled in size. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap. It's supposed to take three hours. Mine took about two.

This is what I'll refer to as my starter dough. After it rose, I took the dry ingredients from the rye bowl and poured them onto my lightly floured work surface. I added half the starter dough and mixed. I added the herbs and the molasses as I kneaded. Then I divided the kneaded lump into two pieces, oiled lightly and returned it to the rye flour bowl and another bowl. Covered with a towel to rise.

I repeated this with the rest of the starter and the white/oat flour. Knead. Divide. Oil. Cover. Leave to rise.

Let sit until doubled in size. About an hour.

Preheat oven to 450. Divide into loaves. Let rise 20 more minutes. Place a bowl of water in the oven. Bake baguettes for 15 minutes, remove bowl of water. Cook baguettes for ten minutes more, maybe less. *I often turn mine when I remove the water, helps the consistency of the crust.

Or I leave the water. Because it's hot and dangerous. Sometimes they cook quickly.

Honeyed Grilled Cheese on Rye with Broccoli

I had originally hoped to make beef burgundy sometime soon... but stew is not an apropos choice when it's 90 degrees and humid.

So, instead, I used my homemade rye bread to make little grilled cheese sandwiches with white sharp cheddar and a touch of honey on one side of the bread, added right before you take the sandwiches out of the pan.

I sautéed the fresh broccoli in some seasoning I wasn't real keen on.

The recipe for honeyed grilled cheese is actual a ham-and-cheese sandwich and should be available by clicking on sandwiches.

Great Day for bread!

It's humid. Humid as in take one step outside and the humidity coats your body.

So I started bread. Lord knows the yeast likes this weather. I experimented with a wheat-white-rye loaf.

In my big glass bowl, I mixed:
2 cups warm water
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon yeast

(The honey really gets the yeast really moving. It's not necessary.)

In another bowl, I mixed:
2 cups (and a little more) unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup rye flour
3/4 teaspoon salt

Then I put three cups of that mixture into the water/yeast froth and stirred with my wooden spoon until dough-like. I covered with a damp towel and now it needs to sit for three hours. Then I'll add the rest of the flour and need.

PB&J Taster's Platter

My daughter has enjoyed a lengthy repetition of PB&J for lunch lately. To spice things up, I made a peanut butter taster's platter for lunch (with a side of corn). I sliced the baguette my husband bought into thin slices and prepared three mini peanut butter sandwiches: JIF Natural Peanut Butter and honey, PB and the American classic of grape Smucker's jelly, and PB and organic raspberry fruit spread (that shockingly has vitamin A & C). The preschooler selected PB & honey as her favorite and has eaten two PB & honey sandwiches, the two others, the corn, and a glass of chocolate soy milk and is now on a glass of water.

Our Six (plus?) Course Meal

I don't buy much meat, but I probably spend the meat portion of my budget on fancy cheese. It was very hot today (again) so, inspired by last night, I opted for a "fancy dinner" presented in my own special way (with a tad of French influence.) Each course was served on its own, with the next not even being prepared until after everyone finished. We got through everything in about ninety minutes (compared to our typical 15-20) and our daughter did well, both in what she ate and how she stayed at the table. And I skipped the entrée. The whole point was to avoid turning on the oven.

1. apéritif: for the adults: Vouvray with raspberry lime seltzer (my attempt to stretch one glass of wine into enough for two and make it a tad more refreshing on a nasty hot day). For the daughter, I substituted white grape juice for wine.

2. fruit: watermelon, cubed and served in bowls

3. meat: (my American nature will show through on this one) turkey breast and lebanon bologna rolled and held together with a piece of uncooked spaghetti (I didn't have toothpicks.) I purchased $3 worth of meat at the deli counter and still have enough lebanon bologna leftover for lunch tomorrow.

4. salad: Dole Asian Island Crunch. Yeah, a bagged salad. On sale for $3.50, normally $4. Iceburg lettuce, carrots, snow peas, dried (and sugared) pineapple, crunchy Asian noodles, sliced almonds and ginger dressing. Served the three of us and still enough for a small salad or a wrap tomorrow.

5. cheese: the last homemade baguette from the freezer with nearly a half-pound block of Port Salute cheese (imported French, $8). Luckily, we loved it and we hardly put a dent in it so I will be enjoying it for several more meals. My daughter had at least three if not four slices of bread and cheese.

6. dessert: black raspberry ice cream with yesterday's fruit salad on top.

7. coffee: decaf with flavored non-dairy creamer

Garlic Bread Pizzas (aka Veggie Melts?)

For dinner last night we had another round of my famous "French bread pizzas" which are more like veggy melts. My husband and I sliced one of my homemade baguettes in half. We melted a couple tablespoons of butter and mixed in a generous amount of garlic powder and grated parmesan. Next we sprinkled on leftover cooked carrots and raw broccoli. We seasoned those with my pizza and pasta seasoning and garlic pepper. Then we sprinkled with asiago and shredded cheddar. We cooked under the broiler until the cheese melted and the edges of the bread turned brown.

Hamburger-stuffed bread

A long time ago, my husband found a recipe database software for $9 and it came with "10,000 recipes." The software was Soft Key Home Gourmet and it no longer worked with Mac OS 9, so this is going back a few years... But hamburger stuffed bread was one of the recipes I discovered in that program. A variation is zucchini stuffed with sausage. I used my homemade bread, and I saved the bread torn from the inside to make my own breadcrumbs. In addition, I served mine open-faced whereas in the original recipe these meat-filled boats have lids. On to the recipe...

The original recipe:

Hamburger Stuffed Bread

1 loaf French bread (unsliced)

1 pound ground beef *

1/2 green pepper diced

1 can cheddar cheese soup

3 slices American cheese

2 cups bread crumbs

1 tablespoon Worcestershire

1/2 cup celery, diced

salt and pepper to taste

1. Brown hamburger. Drain. Add celery, green pepper, salt, pepper, Worcestershire, and soup. Simmer for five minutes.

2. Slice a lid lengthwise off the bread and hollow the inside. (Save guts to make breadcrumbs later.) 

3. Remove meat mixture from heat. Stir in breadcrumbs.

4. Place hollowed out bread on sheet of aluminum foil (on cookie sheet). Fill with meat mixture. Top with cheese. Replace lid. Wrap in foil.

5. Bake 10 minutes at 325 degrees.

Now, if you want the filling cheesy and gooey, cut the breadcrumbs down to 1 cup. If you want to make it funky and add fun and more nutrition, this is the meal as featured in the photo:

Hamburger/Veggie/Cheetos Stuffed Bread:

Alter ingredients list as follows:

Homemade Baguette

About a 1/2 pound ground beef

several cups frozen California blend (cauliflower, carrots and broccoli)

1 can broccoli cheese soup

Several ounces ultra sharp cheddar

2 cups crushed cheetos (leftover from broccoli with cheetos)

About 2 teaspoons reduced sodium soy sauce

garlic pepper, sea salt and four pepper blend to taste

More bread

With all the baking that I do, and all the cooking that goes on in this house, you wouldn't think bread would become a major event. I made a single batch of "baguettes" today and LOOK-- one resembles a baguette.

 

The one in the middle is for a party Monday. The one with the baguette shape I'm saving for a beef burgundy night. It had the right color! It "looks" real. The one in the foreground we chomped into right away, and the way the bread snapped when  cut into it, it had the perfect crust. We smeared it with butter and ate it while still warm. Mmmm... 

What amazes me about this process is how I do nothing noticeably different from time to time and the bread keeps getting better. Have my hands learned? Does practice really make perfect?

Why did I ever use a bread machine?

I live very close to a bread factory. Really. I do. When the wind blows just right, you can stand on my back porch and smell baking bread from the yard. When we drive by, our daughter always says "I smell toast. We're almost home." And it's true. It's a good thing. The neighborhood could smell like sewage or something. I think my college roommate once lived not-quite-close enough to a coffee processor. She couldn't smell it from her house, but she'd drive by occasionally.

We don't eat much bread because we don't do processed lunch meat. If you don't consider sandwiches the staple lunch, bread loses a lot of its necessity. That said, my neighborhood Giant Food Store makes a multi-grain sandwich bread that makes the GREATEST toast ever. So I indulged, about a loaf a month. Until the price reached $4.50/loaf.

Then I started with the bread machine. My results were unpredictable. One loaf would fall flat. One would be perfect. One would be sticky. Now years ago I tried making bread by hand and had the same problems. The recipes all came from my Betty Crocker cookbook and Betty had disappointed me.

And then one day I wanted a baguette. But I didn't have the car. (We only have one in our family.) And I could walk to the grocery store. But the kid... wouldn't. It's too far. I wanted that bread so bad...

So I looked on the internet...

And found a simple recipe.

And now, about six months later, I have finally made a baguette that resembles French bread. The shape has improved. The outside crisp and the inside soft. And bread is indeed an art. Funny thing is... today is the first time I deviated significantly from the original recipe.