I remember as a kid my grandparents had this long white, deep chest freezer that was in their basement with a single naked light bulb hanging above it. I imagined it would have been a good place to hide anything you never wanted someone to find. Inside the freezer were bags, and bags of tin foiled covered food that was older than I was. Layers and layers of freezer burned meats that had been on sale and vegetables from seasons ago. My grandparents grew up during the depression, so saving every last scrap of food was imperative to their survival even though they now were going grocery shopping every week. There was a an old metal coffee can next to the stove top for them to scrape their bacon fat into. And when it was full, it was placed carefully into that chest freezer in case the end of the world was tomorrow.
In their 'root cellar' were countless Bell jars full of preserves. I'm talking countless. Many shelves high and stacked to the back wall like a grocery aisle. I can vividly remember my grandparents working together like a machine to seal up jars and jars of pickles, beans, tomatoes, corn, everything from their huge garden every summer at their Winnipesaukee lake house. I don't know when they were planning on eating all that food, but it was there "just in case." It must of been done out of habit. I remember thinking that I was never going to waste my time preserving food, or freezing it. It seemed to silly when I could just go to the store and get a fresh rotisserie chicken, and a bag of pre-made salad.
I grew up on a dairy farm but was very uninterested in the business and concepts as a teenager. My mom spent hours in her gardens. She has the greenest thumb. She knows how to sew anything, cook everything and has a mean creative edge. I was never interested in what she was doing but certainly retained most of the information through what must of been osmosis.
I've come drastically far since I used to think those silly thoughts and now am more interested in all the things I didn't like as a younger woman. I don't know if it's part of my dna, or if all that work my family did in their gardens and craft rooms was imprinted onto me.
Because, I am in love with the idea of freezing food for later, canning for gifts, sewing, glue gunning, and stretching myself creatively.

I created this blog for my future and because of my past.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

I picked up some King Arthur Bread Flour with all intentions of making break for dinner.  When I got home and learned that you had to make a starter and let it rest overnight, my motivation flew out the window because I have the patience of a four year old.  A few days ago I had a hankering for carbohydrates and off to the kitchen I went to commence bread making. This will make a chewy but crusty loaf!
I started by gathering my ingredients.



All you need to do is add water.  I also added cheese to the inside this bread to make it super delicious!
Start with, you guessed it - the starter:
1 and 1/4 cups of unbleached bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon of instant yeast
1/2 cup cool water

I mixed all these things together with a salad fork in a huge bowl.  I added a bit more water because it was so dry it wouldn't come together.  Then I covered the bowl with a tea-towel and set on top of our fridge for 24hours.













24 hours later, as you can see below - it expanded.  It's also kind of bubbly.



















Then I made the actual dough.
Add to the starter:
1 and 1/4 cups of WARM water
3 and 1/2 cups of unbleached bread flour
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast

If you have bread maker, you probably wouldn't be reading my blog!  So wash those hands, and start smushing everything together!  I used my finger tips and knuckles to really push it all together.


Once it was all nice and smooth and mixed together, I put the tea towel over it, put back on top of the fridge and let it rise some more for about two hours it doubled in size.
Then I got out my biggest cookie sheet, sprinkled some flour on  it and plopped the blob onto it.
I spritzed it with some water and started flattening it out to fit the pan.  It sort of looked like I was making a pizza.  Then I spread out about 1 and 1/2 cups of cheddar cheese.  You could also brush some garlic oil* on it first (yum!).

*Garlic oil:  EVOO in a pan, add minced garlic and heat till the garlic sizzles.

Then I rolled the flat, cheese covered dough up into a log, seam side down on the sheet.  I pinched the edges shut. 




The tea-towel went back on, the pan went to the top of the fridge, and I waited another two hours.  It got puffy, but didn't get too much bigger.  As the two hours came to a close I turned to oven on and let it pre-heat to 425 degrees.



I sprayed a smaller cookie sheet with cooking oil and put the two loaves on it.  I pinched the edges shut and spritzed them with warm water. 













In the loaves went for 25 minutes!  If you do one loaf, try 35 mins.  And for four little loaves, maybe 20mins.
The loaf didn't come out of the over as golden brown as I wanted.  So, I could have left it for a little longer - but the outside felt crusty and it was cooked all the way through.


I took them out, let them cool, grabbed my best bread knife and "ooh'ed and aww'ed" over the cheesey goodness inside.



This bread was so delicious it was gone that day!  Of course I shared with some friends, but I know I could of polished it off myself.

I read up on the scientific basics of bread making on this site.  It was helpful - except I am not professional enough to weigh my ingredients.  Nor am I mass-producing breads (yet)......

These two loaves cost me about $1.70 to make each.  I already had salt, and spray cooking oil.  So, the investment for the yeast, flour, and cheese was about $9.00  But I can get many, many more loaves out of them. 
There are also a ba-zillion sites on how to make bread in less than four hours.  Much easier than the almost 28 hours it took me.  But, this was much less commitment in the kitchen since each step only took about 10 minutes each - then I could go do something else and come back to it.

Happy bread making!  The amount of money you'll save doing it yourself is well worth the time investment.
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