A little something for knead-a-phobes

It's the end of the road for my trusty bread maker. It has accompanied us through 6 moves (Beloit via Washington DC via Austin, TX) over the past 13 years, but it can no longer beat down raised dough. I bought a new knead bar, to no avail. So, I've been trying to figure out how to keep making bread, without having it turn it into an all-afternoon affair. I don't have a good kneading surface, I tend to overknead, I have an entourage that doesn't like a distracted mother.

Mark Bitten has come to my rescue. He is The Minimalist for the NYTimes and specializes in simple to fix, yet complex to taste, recipes, accompanied by a thorough description of what he is doing and why. He has taken a no-knead recipes for bread and shortened the prep time down to about 5 or so hours. Brilliant. The white bread is divine and, frankly, less work than the bread maker bread was.

Speedy No-Knead Bread
(adapted from Mark Bittman)
3 c. bread flour (MB says you can use reg. flour, but the loaf will be shorter. I recommend bread flour; it has more gluten in it which contributes to the chewy texture of bread. Usually gluten is developed through kneading, which we aren't doing, so I would think the extra would help)

1 package (1/4 oz.)instant yeast (I used quick rise, because that what I had for the bread maker...some comments on MB's blog suggested that was better)

1 1/2 t. salt
Oil as needed

1. Combine flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Add 1 1/2 c. water (I warmed mine slightly--100 degrees or so), and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest about 4 hours at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees. (I put mine in the microwave, which happens to be the warmest place in the kitchen. It's also a more consistant temperature than leaving it out on the counter.)
2. Lightly oil a work surface and place dough on it; fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest 30 min.s more. (I'm not sure you can call what I did "folding"; I slurped it around a couple of times and left it on the counter)
3. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6-8 quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) (I used a Corningware casserole dish) in the oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from over. Slide dough into pot, seam side up (?) and shake pan once or twice to distribute dough.
4. Cover with lid and bake 30 min.s, then remove lid and bake another 15-30 min.s until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

This makes a big, oval loaf that has a great crust. It is moist and almost sourdough-y on the inside--because of the yeast? I don't know but, anyway, it barely made it past dinner. We all had fourths.

Roxanne Neat

Mighty gusts of wind blew the doors open and sent great clouds of fall leaves rolling down the street today. I guess this means we're full into fall (which we are by the calendar, but it seems like we just started wearing coats about two weeks ago). It was nice to slip into the store for brunch and to listen to the lovely, clear voice of Roxanne Neat, a central Wisconsin folk singer.

She played for a little more than an hour, and treated the audience to guitar, keyboards and even (my fave) the banjo. Fresh from an appearance on WERN's (Madison) "Simply Folk," her selections ranged from traditional folk songs to modern ballads. She even slipped in the stores' un-official theme song, "I Love You, a Bushel and a Peck." It was delightful...and too short.

Perhaps she can be convinced to return...

The Start of Something Beautiful...

Saturday evening, we had our first cooking class, Cooking with the Cheap Cuts, Part One, taught by Rich Horbaczewski who is co-owner of Bushel and Peck's and Grass is Greener Gardens. Lamb shanks and an Angus beef roast were the cuts, and Rich prepared them in a traditional Italian Ossobuco style. He cooked and held forth on farming, eating, hunting, and cooking; we watched and listened (and snacked on fresh hummus and tabouleh, chips and veggies). When the sample pot was finished, he unveiled the final product (another version made earlier that day), which we enjoyed with wasabi mashed potatoes (G is G yukon golds), Bob McCabe's ciabatta bread, and jus from the pot. With a sampling of Bandit wine's cabernet savignon, it was the perfect meal to finish up a crisp fall day.

This is the recipe he used from New Italian Recipes.

This meal was an example of one of Rich's convictions that lamb can stand in for veal in most dishes (he's cooking his way through them to prove his point). Lamb is a tender, flavorful meat that retains these characteristics despite being pasture-raised and grass-fed. Veal calves don't have as carefree a life; to keep the meat tender they aren't allowed the wander and graze so the muscles don't toughen up. I won't go into the details much, but if you ever drive past a farm "growing" veal and see these young cows cooped up in their wire mesh cages it will probably make you want to turn to lamb, too.

You're certainly not sacrificing anything. The meat fell of the bones when it came out of the pot, the jus was rich and hearty with no need for thickening and the whole plateful cost (including the spuds and bread) cost about $7.

Here's what else I learned:
-The shank is the leg bone. Rich has his processed so the bone is sliced, and you can see the interior meat (still red because of recent butchering...New Zealand lamb often has red food coloring added to make it look more appealing, as older meat tends to be greyish). Also having the bone cut means more of the marrow will seep into the sauce and make it richer.

-Because of the grass diet, the meat is not as marbled (veins of fat throughout the muscle) and benefits from a longer cooking to keep it moist and tender.

-Owls only eat the head and gullet of chickens when they swoop down in the night and pick off unfortunate stragglers (see what you can learn?). Foxes just drag the poor suckers off into the woods.

Stay tuned, we have two seafood-themed cooking classes coming up in November and a couple of classes that are t.b.a.

Gourd Love

This is the time of year when we get squashed by squash. Acorn, butternut, pumpkin, delicata, etc etc. And while they are a delight to behold, all yellow-orange flesh and brilliant-colored skins, even the most diligent roaster can get a bit overwhelmed. My dear friend Jeff is currently under siege from his CSA in North Carolina; he asks, "What else can you do with an acorn squash besides turn it into a baked, sugary blob?"

Once you tire of the butter and brown sugar treatment (and it takes quite a few squash to get to that place), here is one of my favorite ways to use up a lot of squash. Pretty much any winter squash will do, altho it's probably best to stick to the same kind when making the puree. The quickest way to cook the squash is in the microwave: halve it, scoop out the seeds, turn the halves face-down on a dish and nuke them on high for 15-18 min.s. They are done when you can easily pierce the skin with a knife. You can roast it too (same prep, but cook cut-side up in a 425-degree oven for 30-45 min.s). Scoop out the flesh and mash it up--you can add a bit of water to smooth it.

Winter Squash Lasagne, serves 4-6
(adapted from Everyday Cooking)
4c. squash puree (I've used acorn, butternut and delicata)
1/2 t. dried rubbed sage (or 2t. fresh, finely chopped sage)
15oz. part-skim ricotta cheese
1 c. grated Parmesan Cheese
1 pkge. no-boil lasagne noodles (I always use Barilla...their American plant is in my hometown of Ames, IA)

-Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
-Grease an 8x8 baking dish, set aside.
-Mix puree with sage, 1t. salt and 1/4t. pepper; in a separate bowl mix ricotta with 1/2 c. Parmesan, 1/2t. salt, 1/4t. pepper.
-Place 2 noodles in the bottom of the baking dish and spread with half the squash mixture.
-Cover this with 2 more noodles and spread with half the ricotta mixture.
-Repeat 2 more layers, then sprinkle remaining Parmesan on top.
-Cover baking dish with foil, and bake until lasagne is heated through--about 45 minutes.
-Remove foil and continue baking for another 20-25 min.s. (Don't overcook, the no-boil noodles tend to dry out)

Here's a Business Plan...

Wouldn't this be a cool future for the Stateline area?

When I read the term "cheese cave," my mouth starts to water...

Bee-yoo-tiful

Ah, bees. Aside from the stinger, what's not to like? They pollinate, they make honey, they're striped. And, oh the honey. We had Dan and Terri Dodge in the store, last week, from Double D's Bs. They bottle different flavors of honey and also have created a skin care line that uses all natural ingredients, including honey. They keep hives here in Beloit and also in a rural area near town; they try not to move the bees too much, so as not to disturb the hives, but also so they can keep track of what pollen is making which flavor.

We tasted: linden (from the trees that line Grand street outside the store--how local is that!?!), clover (the most common flavor of honey), wildflower (my favorite--a bit clearer and more "flowery" than the clover), cranberry (a bit richer and green-tasting) and buckwheat (which was a beautiful dark brown and tasted a bit like sorghum, good for cooking and stir-fries) . They also had a jar of slightly crystallized "whipped" honey--I could eat that by the spoonful, and honey in the wax comb.

They also brought a chunk of hive, with the queen in it. She was industriously moving throughout the comb, laying eggs (1500 per day) as she went. Terri pointed out that the other bees move away as she comes by--"make way for the queen!" I think all the clamoring bees freaked Eamonn out, and he refused to taste the honey at all, despite lots of yummy noises made by his parents. He eventually was lured back and now refers back to the honey, and how much he loves it, on a regular basis.

I learned:
-Don't pull the first dandelions of the season, if you can help it. They are the first flowers to appear with both pollen and nectar in them, and the hungry bees need the calories to get up and running after winter.

-Colony Collapse doesn't tend to hit small hive owners like it does the larger beekeepers. The industrial keepers drive huge truckloads of bees around the country to pollinate cash crops; this traveling stresses the bees and also puts them in contact with bees from other parts of the country that may already be infected. Like everything else, keeping things small and local tends to be a bit safer and healthier.

-Some of the possible causes of colony collapse include disease, stress and exposure to pesticides. Cell phone tower (same frequency that bees communicate) and aliens (seriously) have been disproven. Aliens?

-Eating raw honey (unfiltered with bits of wax and insect parts in it) does seem to help people with intense pollen allergies. Terri says some local doctors have recommended Double DsBs to patients.

-It is most likely that Albert Einstein did NOT say that if bees disappeared from the face of the earth, mankind would only have four years left. However, the point is a good one...think of how effective a bee-based system of pollination works (what machine could individually dust every single flower of a plant-)-no bees (or bumble bees or black flies) would be catastrophic for our agriculture. No bees, no food chain. Think about that while you slurp down a spoonful of whipped honey.

A (sorta) Local Genius

The MacArthur Genius grants were announced last week. It's always interesting to read who gets the grants; it's such a diverse group of artists and scientists. This one caught my eye: Will Allen is an urban farmer in Milwaukee, who has developed education programs revolving around gardening and farming in the city--rather than rural areas--with his non-profit, Growing Power. They grow, they sell, they eat...with an emphasis on sustainable methods (of course).

What a cool project. (We've got our own version here in Beloit, at the Merrill Park Community Garden)