Basic Country Loaf with Spelt

This Basic Country Loaf with spelt was a big hit in our house.

In fact, Mr. Kitchen announced that it was his favorite bread so far. Ever. This from Mr. White Bread? Go spelt!

About three years ago, when I first caught the bread baking bug, I picked up a copy of Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson at a Williams Sonoma outlet. I read it, adapted some of the methods, but never actually tried any of breads in the book. I'll admit that I was a little intimidated. The first recipe, including the starter, is 88 pages.

This is one of the reasons I am so happy to have been assigned Sally's blog, Bewitching Kitchen, for this month's Secret Recipe Club.  How did they know????? It was meant to be!

Let's start with the reasons why:

1. We both baked our way through Peter Reinhart's Bread Bakers Apprentice. That means we made every single recipe. 
2. She wrote this really cool post about how to revive a sourdough starter. She mentioned "shed a tear" in the same sentence with sourdough starter. This is a girl after my own heart. 
3. We both work at a university. 
4. We both believe in "everything in moderation, including moderation."
5. She broke the Basic Country loaf down to one page and made it with spelt flour. 

I'm in! 

Sally is not just about bread either. She has an amazing array of recipes on her index. It's worth a visit.

Basic Country Loaf

Adapted from Bewitching Kitchen, adapted from Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson

Starter

50 g whole spelt flour

50 g white flour

100 g room temperature water

1 T active sourdough starter

Dough

375 g room temperature water, divided into 350 g plus 25 g

100 g starter

450 g all purpose flour

50 g whole spelt flour

10 g salt 

Instructions

1. The night before you plan to bake the bread, stir the starter ingredients in a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it sit for 12 to 14 hours. 
2. The next morning, in a large bowl or Cambro 8-Quart Food Containermix 350 g of the water and 100 g of starter until the starter has dissolved. 
3. Add the flours, and mix with a large spoon or dough whisk until the flour and water are incorporated. 
4. Cover with a lid or plastic wrap and let sit for about 40 minutes.
5. Add the salt and the rest of the water and mix with your hands by pinching the salt into the dough. Then fold the dough until it comes together and forms a cohesive mass. Cover and let it sit for 30 minutes. 
6. For the next 2 hours, fold the dough by pulling the underside of the dough and folding it over the top from all four "sides" every thirty minutes for a total of four "stretch and fold" sessions. 
7. Let the dough rise in a warm (80 degree) environment for another hour. If your kitchen is cooler, allow more time. The dough should be bubbly, but not necessarily doubled in size. 
8. Remove the dough from the bucket/bowl, and lightly flour the top of the dough. Using dough scrapers, flip the dough over, and fold it over from all four "sides" to form a ball. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest for 20 minutes.
9. Heavily dust a banneton or towel lined bowl (about 9 inches wide) with a 50/50 mixture of brown rice flour and wheat flour. 
10. Fold the dough over itself from all four sides to create a ball, and lift it into the banneton with two dough scrapers or bench scrapers. Place it seam side up. Spray the top with spray oil, and cover loosely with plastic wrap. 
11. Allow the dough to rise for 3 to 4 hours. My dough was ready at 2 1/2 hours. 
12. About 45 minutes before you are ready to bake, place a cast iron Dutch oven in the oven and preheat it to 450 degrees F.
13. When the dough is ready, remove the Dutch oven from your oven and remove the top. (Be careful, it is hot!)
14. Place a piece of parchment paper over the dough, and place a plate on top of the parchment. Flip the dough over and lift off the banneton. Lift the dough with the parchment and place it into the Dutch oven. Score the dough, and cover. Place the Dutch oven back into the oven. 
15. Bake covered for 20 minutes. Remove the cover and bake for another 25 minutes, until the dough reaches 210 degrees internally. 
16. Cool on a wire rack. Or just break into it. 

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Spicy Long Beans with Sausage and Mushrooms | Wok Wednesdays

Gathering the ingredients for these spicy long beans was a fun adventure. Some of the things I discovered by making this amazing dish:

1. Chinese long beans are crunchy and delicious... and they are definitely long. They are also curly! Their taste is similar to green beans, but they seem to hold their crunch after cooking, and leftovers stay bright green. They came bundled with bands at the top and bottom of the beans and the bundles were the perfect weight for this recipe. 
2. Chinese sausage may look like skinny salami, but it must be cooked before you eat it. The Asian market where I purchased it had rows and rows of various varieties, so you have to look at the ingredient list and make sure you are buying pork sausage. 
3. Sichuan preserved vegetable... what? I spent a lot of time figuring out what this is both on the interwebs and in the store. It comes in cans or vacuum sealed refrigerated packets. The people I asked at the Asian market didn't seem to know what I wanted so I kept hunting. I finally found a 39 cent packet of something that seemed to come close... pickled mustard stem in a red chili paste. The packet was 2 ounces and the recipe called for 2 ounces so I went with it. 
4. Buying dried shiitake mushrooms at an Asian market makes a huge difference in the amount of time it take for them to soften. If you need dried shiitake mushrooms, get them at an Asian market. Clearly they don't sit around as long. 

So why all of the drama? It's time for Wok Wednesdays. Twice a month, we make a different recipe from Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge by Grace Young. This week, we are making Spicy Long Beans with Sausage and Mushrooms. 

This is my new favorite vegetable recipe. Seriously. Delicious. 

Chinese long beans, ground pork, Chinese sausage, shiitake mushrooms, Sichuan preserved vegetables, scallions, cilantro, soy, a bit of sugar, and salt and pepper. These ingredients, when stir-fried together, are amazing. This is not hyperbole. 

The Chinese sausage is a pretty amazing ingredient. You can try it in fried rice too. 

Get Grace's book. Make these beans. You will love them. So far I have loved every recipe. 

You can also get the recipe and check out Grace Young, our Wok Wednesdays guardian angel and wok demystifier, demonstrating wok cooking >here<. 

Chocolate-Hazelnut Madeleines

Madeleines with cocoa, chocolate chips, Nutella, and Frangelico. Little chocolaty cakes with the wonderful flavor of hazelnuts. I had to bake these.

Crunchy Seeded Crackers

These crispy and crunchy seeded crackers forced me to skip dinner the other night (not dessert though). Why? Because I kept eating them.

First, while they were in the oven to make sure they were crispy.

Second, while they were cooling to make sure they were crispy.

Third, once they were out of the oven, because I was already addicted and couldn't stop.

This is my second time attempting these crackers. I was fortunate enough to be a part of the King Arthur Flour test group that tried this recipe and provided feedback. They had provided the testers with the cracker recipe as well as some golden and regular flax seeds.

If I remember correctly, I had a really hard time getting them thin enough because the dough kept springing back. While I liked the golden flax seeds, I wasn't that thrilled with the crackers the first time I made them. While the seeds were tasty, the crackers were thick and tough. Now I wish I had saved the original recipe to compare because this time these crackers were simply amazing!

40% Whole Wheat Boules

I am completely addicted to Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast.  I'm not promising that I'm going to make every bread in the book (but I'm pretty sure I will, based on how much I've loved every bread so far).

This bread has an amazingly open texture for whole wheat. The flavor is perfect for sandwiches, toast, or fresh bread at the dinner table. I love it for whole wheat garlic cheese toast.

You can play around with the grains as well as the whole wheat versus white flour in this bread to create a loaf that is your own - just remember that you will have to add more water to compensate for more whole grains. I'm looking forward to experimenting with spelt, kamut, and other ancient grains.

This bread requires about a five hour bulk fermentation and then an overnight proofing in the refrigerator after shaping the loaves. If you want bread first thing in the morning, begin around 1:00 pm the day before. I started around 5:00 pm and made the loaves at noon the next day (I'm kind of a night person).

I am in love with the flavor and texture of this bread. It's miraculous. And so easy. Don't be afraid to make this. Making your own bread will change your life. Working with dough and getting to know when it's just right is a beautiful thing. Sharing it with your family and friends is uplifting.

Overnight 40% Whole Wheat Boules Recipe

Ingredients

600 g unbleached all purpose flour

400 g whole wheat flour

800 g/ 3 1/2 C 90 to 95 degree F filtered water

22 g fine sea salt

3/4 tsp instant yeast

Instructions

1. Mix the flours and water in a large tub or bowl (I used a 12 qt. Cambro tub) by hand or with large dough whisk until everything has been incorporated. Cover the container and let the mixture rest for 30 minutes.
2. Sprinkle the salt and yeast over the top of the dough and mix with your wet hands by folding the dough over itself a few times, and then pinching the dough to fully blend the ingredients. I keep a bowl of water nearby to re-wet my hands while mixing the dough. Repeat the folding and pinching until the salt and yeast is fully mixed in and distributed. This should only take about a minute or two. Cover the bowl/bucket and let it sit for 30 minutes.
3. Do three "stretch-and-folds" over a 90 minute period, covering the bucket in between. 
4. Allow the dough to rise until it has tripled in size. This should take about five hours.
5. Gently scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Cut the dough in half with a bench knife. 
6. Prepare two brotforms, bannetons, or towel lined 9 inch bowls with a dusting of flour. I usually use a mixture of whole wheat and brown rice flour. 
7. Gently form the two pieces into boules and place them seam side down into the brotforms. 
8. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight, about 12 to 14 hours. The loaves can be baked right out of the refrigerator. 
9. About 45 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 475 degrees F with two empty covered Dutch ovens placed on the middle rack. 
10. When you are ready to bake, cut parchment paper into two 9 inch by 15+ inch pieces. 
11. Remove the Dutch ovens from the oven and remove the tops. One loaf at a time, place the parchment over the dough and place a plate over it. Flip the dough over, remove the basket, and lift and place the loaf in the Dutch oven by using the parchment as a sling (leave the paper under the dough). While usually you don't need to slash the top of this dough because it is seam side up, I did roughly slash this dough. 
12. Cover the Dutch oven and place it in the hot oven. Repeat with the second loaf. 
13. Bake covered for 30 minutes, and then remove the Dutch ovens from the hot oven, uncover, and place the loaves on a baking sheet. Be careful not to burn yourself! Place the baking sheet into the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes more, until the interior of the bread reaches 205 to 210 degrees F and the bread is a deep brown. My loaves were ready sooner, so check early. 
14. Cool completely on a wire rack. 

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Whole Wheat Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

These whole wheat chocolate chip cookies are practically health food. 100% whole grain and bittersweet chocolate chips? Don't those contain whole grains and flavonoids? Totally health food, right? Perfect for back to school. The texture is soft and chewy, and the combined flavors of the whole wheat and dark brown sugar along with the bittersweet chocolate chips may put these on on your list as one of your favorite chocolate chip cookies.

Fried Rice with Crab and Peas

This fried rice with crab and peas takes only 20 minutes to make, especially if you have some leftover steamed or Chinese takeout white rice. It makes a great lunch or dinner with a salad. The rest of the ingredients are easy to find, and the dish is a lot of fun to make.

I used a wok to make this dish, but a large skillet would work too. What's so nice about the wok is that it develops a nonstick finish when you use it over time, but you can still use it with very high heat, unlike most nonstick pans.

Fried Rice with Crab and Peas

Ingredients

1/4 C soy sauce

1 1/2 T rice vinegar

1 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tsp sugar

1/4 tsp white pepper

2 T peanut or vegetable oil

1 T minced ginger

3 cloves of garlic, minced

3 green onions, thinly sliced

4 C steamed white rice

2 eggs, beaten

8 ounces of crab meat

1 C frozen peas

Instructions

1. Mix the soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, and white pepper in a small bowl. 
2. Heat a wok on high heat until hot and add the oil.
3. Add the ginger and garlic and stir for about 5 to 10 seconds and then quickly add the rice and stir fry for about 5 minutes.
4. Make a well in the center of the rice to expose the bottom of the pan, and add the eggs and quickly stir fry until cooked through.
5. Add the crabmeat, peas, and sauce and stir fry for about 3 more minutes. 

Adapted from Williams Sonoma: Food Made Fast Asian. 

Stir-Fried Chicken with Pineapple and Peppers | Wok Wednesdays

This stir-fried chicken with pineapple and peppers was so easy to make and so fabulously flavored. It's mildly sweet from the pineapple, but also savory-sweet from the soy sauce, caramelized chicken, and red peppers.

The only ingredient that may be somewhat difficult to find is dark soy sauce. Fortunately, I already had a bottle in my refrigerator from another stir frying adventure. Because you only need a teaspoon of it you should still make this stir fry even if you can't find the dark soy sauce. Everything else in this dish is readily available (however, hunting down the dark soy sauce in Asian markets is a lot of fun and worth the effort).

This stir fry is also perfect for the beginning wokker because is requires only a few steps, and, boom, you have dinner. Most of the ingredients... cornstarch, egg yolk, sugar, and soy sauces... are part of the chicken marinade. The only other ingredients are pineapple, red bell peppers, and scallions.

Big thrill? The red peppers in this dish were grown in a big flowerpot in our back patio. Score! We had this with rice made by Mr. Kitchen, who has become the rice cooker expert in our household.

This recipe is from Grace Young's Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge, an amazing collection of recipes and stories, and a James Beard Foundation award winning cookbook.

Check out the Wok Wednesday's site for others' takes on this recipe. If you'd like to wok along, click on the recipe schedule to see what we will be stir frying next.

Visit Grace's site to get the recipe for this dish. And then get the book. It is fabulous.

Overnight White Bread

This Overnight White Bread gets its name because you mix the dough in the evening and then let it rise at room temperature while you are sleeping.

At first glance, this Overnight White Bread bears a resemblance to the typical no knead bread... except it is anything but. For example, baking this bread involves some "stretch and folds" that help this bread develop structure and a thick crunchy crust. It's a revelation. You can feel the dough develop that tension that helps the dough hold together and bake into such a tall and lovely loaf. I also think there is some magic involved.

Honey Maple Garlic Baby Back Ribs

I made these honey maple garlic baby back ribs for my son's birthday. He loves ribs. His two boys love ribs, How could I go wrong? (And I love, love, love all of these boys and get so much pleasure out of feeding them with food that they love).

I've always been intimidated by making ribs, but I'm not sure why. I guess because I thought a barbecue would be involved. I'm pretty sure I could figure out a barbecue... pretty sure....

But this recipe is so much easier. Marinate the ribs.... bake them in the oven.... and then toss them in a glaze. All I know is that everyone loved them. (Can you keep a secret? I had leftovers for breakfast.)

So here's the deal about these ribs. They are not overly "barbecue-y" flavored. They are really meaty and inherently sweet.. but not too much. Just make them. You will love them. And so will the men in your life.

Honey Maple Garlic Baby Back Ribs

Ingredients

3 racks of baby back ribs, about 9 pounds total, membrane removed, and each cut into thirds

1 1/2 C honey

1/2 C maple syrup

1/3 C soy sauce

1/2 C Dijon mustard

1/2 C apple cider vinegar

6 scallions, white part minced, and green part sliced

8 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Whisk the honey, maple syrup, soy sauce, Dijon, vinegar, minced white scallions, garlic, cayenne, and salt and pepper in a large bowl.
2. Divide the ribs among three one gallon plastic bags. 
3. Add the marinade to each bag and seal. Refrigerate for up to 24 hours. 
4. Place an oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat it to 325 degrees F.
5. Line a baking sheet with heavy duty foil and place a wire rack on top of the sheet. Spray it with spray oil. 
6. Place the marinated rib racks on top of the wire rack. 
7. Place the baking sheet onto the oven rack, and add 2 cups of warm water to the baking sheet. 
8. Tent the baking sheet with foil.
9. Pour the rest of the marinade into a bowl, cover, and refrigerate.
10. Bake for about 75 minutes.
11. Remove the foil and continue to bake for another hour.
12. Meanwhile, bring the rest of the marinade to boil in a large (6-8 quart) Dutch oven and allow it to boil down to a glaze. This should take 5 to 10 minutes. Brush the ribs with some of the glaze and continue to bake for another 15 to 30 minutes. 
13. Transfer the ribs to a cutting board and tent with foil. Allow them to rest for about 10 minutes. 
14. Cut the ribs into individual pieces and toss them with the rest of the glaze in the Dutch oven. 
15. Transfer them to a plate and sprinkle with scallions. 

Inspired by the Feb/Mar issue of Cook's Country magazine. 

Ausytes | Lithuanian Onion and Bacon Buns

Ausytes are considered a special treat during Christmas in Lithuanian homes. they are small, about three bites, with a center of an onion bacon mixture. They are passed around as an appetizer accompanied with the salutation, "Linksmu Kaledu," which means Merry Christmas! I found this recipe in Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads, and the author credits the recipe to a home baker whose family is from the steel mills in northern Indiana.

Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread

This double chocolate zucchini bread contains both cocoa powder and half of a pound of chocolate chunks.... and two medium zucchinis.

Yes, it's zucchini season, that time of year when everyone has an overabundance. This is a great way to use some of that zucchini. In fact, my cousin, who grows amazing vegetables and fruits in her cantilevered yard in the hills of eastern Los Angeles county, gave me a good sized zucchini this year (along with some fabulous figs and heirloom tomatoes). If you look very closely, you can see evidence of the zucchini, but don't tell the kids.

I made this bread as a "cake" for a birthday dinner for my son. He's not a big fan of cake, so I thought a slice of this bread with a dollop of whipped cream might be just enough. We could stick a candle in it and call it a cake. What I did not anticipate was how much his sons would love it. Seriously loved it. Especially with the whipped cream. Just watching the oldest (age 9) enjoy his dessert was such a joy to me. He was in heaven, which is so much fun for me.

This bread reminded me of a large brownie. It is so moist from the zucchini, and will keep, wrapped, for a few days.