Tuesdays with Dorie Project 1: White Bread from "Baking with Julia" by Dorie Greenspan.

Today's project is White Loaves from Baking with Julia by Dori Greenspan.  Here we go!

I've owned Baking with Julia for a number of years. It's been a long time, however, since I've made the recipe for basic white loaves. I'm going to read it over, and then assemble the ingredients and equipment.

The recipe calls for unsalted butter at room temperature. I keep butter in the freezer until it's needed, so that must be taken out right away.

Next is flour.  This recipe calls for a lot of it.  But measuring flour is a pain! It's much easier to weigh the flour. The King Arthur folks say that a cup of flour weighs 4 1/4 ounces.

I'll weigh the water, too.  So simple.

So I have now gathered everything together.  Flour, water, butter, salt, yeast, and sugar.  Let's mix it up!

Water is poured into a large mixing bowl.  Sugar and yeast are then added.  The yeast is allowed to ferment in the bowl for a few minutes. When it is foamy, more water and half of the flour are added to the bowl and combined.

The rest of the flour is gradually added.  Next, the salt is added.  Then the dough is kneaded for several minutes.

Finally, the butter is added to the dough.  More mixing occurs until: Ta-da! The dough is pulled together.

But wait.  There's more.

The dough goes into a oiled bowl which is then covered with plastic wrap.  After an hour the dough has doubled in bulk, as is shown in the picture below.

I deflate the dough, turn it out onto a cutting board, and divide it in half using my big knife.  Working with one section at a time, I shape the dough into a rectangle, fold it like a letter, seal the edge, and put it into a prepared bread pan.

To keep dough from sticking to the cutting board or my hands, I use water.  I rub a little water on the surface of the cutting board and keep a bowl of water nearby to dip my hands into while working with the dough.

The dough rises for a second time in the bread pans.  Meanwhile, the oven is heating.

After the second rise, the dough bakes for about an hour, until it reaches an internal temperature of 200 degrees.  I absolutely do check the bread's temperature with a food thermometer before declaring it finished.  And there we have it, the finished loaves.

One loaf is perfectly shaped.  The second is a little lumpy because I made into cinnamon swirl bread and things got a little wild when rolling it up.  Below is an interior shot of the cinnamon bread.  This will make excellent toast.

Fun and easy to make.  Delicious to eat.  

Making Rice in the Slow Cooker

A New Year's Resolution is to (try) and eat vegetarian at breakfast and lunch.  This includes eating whole grain bread and rice rather than white rice or items made with white flour.  Today I made a blend of wild and whole grain brown rice in the slow cooker while doing other things around the house - it was so easy.

To begin, I sprayed the inside of the slow cooker with non-stick spray.  Then I combined one cup of the rice with two cups of water and a 1/4 tsp. salt in the crock pot.  I turned the cooker on high and let the rice cook for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally.   Super simple.  I'll definitely do this again.

Cookbook Shopping

Originally published at SomethingGoodtoRead.com

Remember Michael Pollan's advice?  "Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants."

If you, or someone on your holiday shopping list, are working on point three, or plan to in the New Year, here is an interesting list of vegan cookbooks from vegan.com.  I would add to this list my favorites, Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

Gift brainstorm:  A cookbook andproduce bags to keep veggies fresh.  A nice combination.

Photo:  ChicoBag Hemp-Cotton Produce Bags for keeping leafy greens fresh.

Buttermilk Substitute

If you have milk and lemons on hand, you can create a good substitute for buttermilk to be used when baking. Check it out at this link.

Cranberry Crumble

An easy, tasty cranberry dessert for Thanksgiving dinner.

For the Fruit:

1 pound fresh cranberries

Honey

1/2 tsp. lemon zest

For the Crumble:

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup light brown sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 cup butter, cut into pieces.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly spray an 8 x 8 pan with cooking spray.

Place the cranberries in a saucepan over medium heat. Stirring occasionally and gently, cook until the berries start to pop, and then continue cooking for one to two minutes. Do not allow the fruit to turn to mush! Add the lemon zest and a dash of honey to the fruit and stir.

While the fruit cools, prepare the crumble.

Combine the oats, flour, cinnamon and sugar in a large bowl. Add the butter and, using your very clean hand, blend the butter into the dry ingredients.

Place half of the crumble into the bottom of the prepared pan. Add the fruit. Place the remaining crumble over the fruit.

Bake for 45 minutes.

Adapted from The New York Times New Natural Foods Cookbook.

Kitchen Conversion: Cup-to-Grams Conversion List

Allrecipes.com has assembled a useful cup-to-grams conversion list.  Check it out here.

Roasted New Potatoes

Discovered this on Chow.  A classic dish because it tastes so wonderful.

1 pound new potatoes, washed and quartered.  It is very important to dry the potatoes thoroughly!  I used Yukon Gold B-Sized

4 Tbs. olive oil

3-4 cloves of garlic, peeled and either left whole or gently smooshed.

2 rosemary sprigs

Salt and pepper
______________________________

Heat the oven to 450.

Put the olive oil into the baking dish and heat the oil in the oven for about 3 minutes.  Remove the pan from the oven.  Carefully toss the quartered potatoes and garlic in the hot oil.  Season with salt and pepper and toss again.  Place the rosemary sprigs on top of the potatoes.

Place the pot back into the oven and roast the potatoes for 35 minutes.  Check occasionally and, midway through give the potatoes a stir.

Enjoy!

Lemon Cake

I love making small cakes.  This one is  particularly moist and yummy!

Adapted from Cooking Well for the Unwell by Eileen Behan.


1 1/2 cups AP flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup salted butter
1 C granulated sugar
4 large eggs, beaten
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp grated lemon zest

Glaze
powder sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon

Preheat oven to 325.  Prepare  an 8-inch square cake pan for baking.

Stir together the four and baking powder in a bowl.  In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter for about 3 minutes.  Add the sugar to the butter and continue beating for another 5 to 7 minutes.  Successfully creaming the butter and sugar together is essential in baking.

Alternating between the flour mixture and eggs, add these ingredients to the butter/sugar.  Beat well to combine.  Add lemon juice and zest.  Pour the beaten mixture into the prepared pan.  Bake for 30 minutes or until the top is golden, a cake-tester comes out clean, and the side of the cake pull slightly away from the pan.

Cool 5 minutes, then remove from the pan and onto a rack.  Allow cake to continue cooling.

 Juice the remaining 1/2 lemon and combine with powder sugar to make a glaze.  Pour over cooled cake.