Bread, Wine, Salt

Pre-feeding Post-feeding Pancakes, bread, english muffins, other thoughts?

Felix, Day 0 Originally uploaded by Mom_Me

“All else” here means me. There are days when I simply cannot do anything right. Sometimes a few of those days string together and I begin to wonder why anyone (kids, husband, friends, dogs) keeps me around. I could wallow on those days (weeks) or I could throw my shoulders back and do something I know will not be a disappointment. So sure, the world doesn't really need another banana bread recipe. My friend Justine just posted one the other day ( with chocolate chips! ) and if you Google “banana bread recipe” you get “about 3,330,000 hits.” But I needed something to work, and this always does. There are two basic tricks to quick breads and muffins, first, don't over mix. Once you add the dry and wet ingredients together, stir just enough to get the flour wet, and then stop. Second, watch the bread, not just the time. For reasons known only to my oven, a recipe that took 45 minutes one day will take only 35 minutes the next time, and an overbaked quick ...

Just suppose perhaps the baking powder isn't good? I used it out of the new can. And Mrs. Lynde says you can never be sure of getting good baking powder nowadays when everything is so adulterated. ~Anne of Green Gables Good intentions...crisper drawer...healthful vegetables...blah blah blah... This is a savory quick bread, so don't think zucchini bread when you look at it. Think soda-bread with vegetables included, or think quiche with integrated crust. It's tasty, with just enough honey to balance the natural bitterness of the greens. This will be breakfast tomorrow, along with eggs made to order. I used up a bunch of raw collard greens in this recipe, but you could also use it for doing something with the leftover greens from last night's dinner. Really, you could use any leftover cooked veggies, up to 2 cups worth, chopped small. If you're starting with raw greens, count on prep time to wash, chop, cook and cool the greens before you start making the bread. ...

I thought I was going to write about books, and how reading education is getting it all wrong. Certainly I was writing about reading books when I began composing this in my head. But, as is often the case with the things in my head, I didn't end up exactly where was expecting to. So this is not about books. I will write about books tomorrow, maybe. We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and to feel — “Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.” ~John Steinbeck If you wish to annoy me, utter the phrase “just a story.” Mostly I hear it about the Bible, but people use it to deride almost anything with a narrative. “Just a story” is supposed to mean that we don't have to take it seriously because it's not REAL. Of course, anyone who has read The Velveteen Rabbit knows that real is a fluid construct. ...

A letter to Carol, head of Almost Heaven Golden Retriever Rescue , regarding the two foster dogs we brought home yesterday. Carol, Rhett and Ruffie behaved angelically all the way home, so still and quiet were they that we didn't notice that Rhett had also worked his way out of his harness.  So when we got home, with the car backed in to the driveway up against the back gate, I opened the hatch prepared to catch Ruffie and deal with Rhett later.  Instead both dogs bolted, one to the left and one to the right, and then raced together down the driveway and off down the sidewalk as if they knew where they were going.  Fortunately they were curious enough to explore up and down people's driveways, and my exceptionally nice next door neighbor, her daughter and daughter's boyfriend helped us corral them.  Once they were safely in our backyard we released the beagle, who wanted desperately for them to pay attention to her, to follow the proper dog protocols, but they were...

If you've been following Bread, Wine, Salt in your RSS reader you may have noticed that my last couple of posts have been poorly edited, and then disappeared if you tried to click over to the blog and post a comment. ("Learn to edit, you ignorant twit," perhaps.) There's a glitch in the widget I've been using to send posts from the word processor I use for my initial draft to Blogger which apparently also sends out the RSS feed. Bad widget! I'll be using less elegant methods until the tech department figures out what the problem is. Thank you for keeping your ignorant twit comments to yourself.

I bought Uprisings , my first whole-grain baking book off the book-rack at a Fresh Fields grocery store in 1999. It was early in my bread-making career and I wanted a truly whole-wheat bread that made a good sandwich loaf. Golden Wheat Bread wasn't quite that loaf. But I loved it anyway. It was dense and chewy but not too heavy. The whole wheat flavor was good, but not overpowering. It makes really, really excellent toast. I also loved the book, and still do. It's a great resource for baking with whole grains and less-processed sugars. The handwritten and illustrated pages are charming and the recipes are consistently good. Like the banana sandwich bread , this starts with a sponge. The original recipe calls for barley malt syrup, but if you don't have an appropriately crunchy health food store near you, you can substitute with half the amount of honey. For the sponge: 2 teaspoons active dry yeast 2 2/3 cups lukewarm water 3 cups whole wheat flour ½ cup barley malt s...

I had plans for you, oh handful of people who read this blog. I had big, important plans. I had a list. And then the week went not so much wrong as agley. It wasn't Murphy's Law that got me, just Burns'. So I've been in survival mode, which doesn't make for great blogging. Do you need a picture and instructions for spaghetti with tomato sauce? I doubt it. But, as I go into another day of slapping dinner together, I do have some wisdom to impart. It's even something I learned during a graduate school seminar, so you know it's crucial to the future of humanity. Are you ready? Here we go: Pre-shredded cheese is crap. And not in a snooty, “processed food is EVIL” kind of way. It is demonstrably, scientifically, factually less delicious than block cheese. (This is graduate school level knowledge, remember?) There are two reasons. First pre-shredded cheese has anti-caking agents in it. I don't blame the food companies. They don't have a choi...

Sometimes astonishing things happen. The chocolate chips and hazelnuts are even better in your oatmeal cookies than you imagined they'd be. (That's 1 cup chocolate chips, ½ cup chopped raw hazelnuts, if you'd like to try it at home, and I recommend you do. You may never buy a Pepperidge Farm cookie again.) An old friend you'd written off calls out of the blue to say she's in the area and can she stop by for 20 minutes. A new(ish) friend says something really lovely about you about you for no reason. You out your blog on your facebook page and no one points at you and shouts “You're one of those blog blogging blogger people? Why on earth would anyone read that?” Your blog stats tell you that you have a reader in Canada even though you don't know anyone in Canada. (Seriously, neighbor to the North, please say hello, because I love you the most of all of my anonymous readers.) So in honor of astonishing things, I give you a picture-less, but astonishing...

Adapted from the Tassajara Bread Book. “Bread makes itself, by your kindness, with your help, with imagination streaming through you, with dough under hand, you are bread-making itself, which is why bread-making is so fulfilling and rewarding.” I was determined not to be two years behind in the delivery of bread to the mom with the new baby. So this morning, as I sorted out my day to get ready to make dinner for them, I cracked open my copy of Tassajara and settled on this yeasted banana bread. There's a lot going on here, and the banana flavor gets lost. I think you could leave out the orange zest and the cinnamon and have a perfectly yummy loaf of bread, but you could also leave them in and have a perfectly yummy loaf of bread. This is an almost whole wheat loaf, so it uses the sponge method. The ingredients are divided into two parts, the first for the sponge, a batter which allows the yeast to make your heavy whole wheat flour into a light and fluffy lo...

  I was way behind on cookie delivery.  A new baby arrived and I promised cookies, but then I got the plague (or a headcold, whichevs) and then and then and then...and then no cookies.  Two years later the same mom had another baby and she let me come, even though I hadn't made her any cookies.  The next day I brought these.  Of course sometime during labor I promised her bread, so now I'm behind again. Oatmeal is a common folk remedy for new mothers who are looking to increase their milk supply .   While a bowl of hot oatmeal is a wonderful way to start the morning, and I would certainly fix it if I were staying with a new mom, it's hard to give as a gift.  These cookies travel well, and while they're not quite as good for you as a bowl of steel cut oatmeal, I'd wager they're at least as wholesome as oatmeal from a packet, with the added advantage of being easy to eat one-handed during marathon nursing sessions. Of course, these guys are so...

This is what happens when you don't apply a second coat of egg wash halfway through baking. Look, there's bread on breadwinesalt! If you've never made yeast bread, this is a good place to start.  It's a very forgiving dough, and the results are both beautiful and delicious.    The key is to knead it thoroughly.  I almost never measure flour when I'm making bread, because I do it enough that I can feel when there's enough flour.  If you're just starting out I recommend adding in the minimum amount of flour and then adding more as you knead, just a sprinkle at a time.  When the kneading is done you'll have added enough flour. These are braided round loaves with the second coat of egg wash. Much prettier. 2.5 cups water, wrist temperature 1 Tablespoon active dry yeast 1/2 cup honey 4 Tablespoons softened butter or olive oil 4 egg yolks 1 whole egg 1 Tablespoon salt 8-9 cups all-purpose flour Clean an area of your co...

“I still think you should be a doula.” It was one of those big dinner outings, where you're ostensibly out with 20 people, but really you can only talk to 4 or 5 other people because the table is so long and the restaurant is so loud. “I'd love to be able to do that for my friends.” Three people and one conversation down the table the pregnant woman said “Ooo.” We both leaned forward and around to make eye contact. “Think about it.” I said, trying not to get my hopes up. “I will.” she promised. I vowed to say nothing more, not wanting to be pushy, not expecting to hear about it again. But a couple of weeks later she did bring it up. She asked what I would do as her doula. When I answered she nodded and said only “Yes.” I was excited and giddy and humbled to be invited into such an intimate space. And also, a bit worried. What if I'm really bad at it? We arranged to meet to talk about what she needs from me. It seemed straightforward. I read through m...