What’s Food52sday, anyway?

I was just looking through the remaining recipes that The Beloved and I chose from The Food52 Cookbook. Believe it or not, there are very few desserts represented. Maybe it’s because I know how to make a cake and can modify it to suit my tastes.  I can make a pie–if not exactly like a recipe demands, it’s at least a tip of the hat to the original.  I can make a dessert sauce. I can modify a crumb topping.

I’m not trying to sound braggy  or icky or anything. These are just things that I have learned to do as I’ve journeyed to learn to cook–not to follow recipes, but to really cook. I’ve internalized many of the Big techniques, and I’ve achieved enough automaticity in the kitchen that I feel that very little stands between me and what I want to make. I know what I want to make, I can imagine how I want it to taste and know what to put together to make it taste that way.

That’s why Food52sday, for me anyway, is a time for me to play with other folks’ recipes. To have fun with them. To respect the original dish and to do it honor by making it my own and bringing my own personality and style to it.  So the desserts that do/have shown up on the list tend to be things I’ve never made or heard of.  Pudding chomeur? Wow–that was an incredible, eye-opening dessert. But it’s also a technique. A way of poaching dough in a sweet, rich sauce. Roger that. Got it. Next time I make it, it’ll probably be different. Or not.

The rhubarb curd shortbread? I ended up turning that into a citrus sabayon tart, but the basic idea of the original teaches me that any curd baked on top of any pre-baked crust, will set up and be sliceable. This is a Good Thing to know, for sure.

And that brings me to today’s inspiration.  I’ve never heard of a posset before. But it sounds like it’s a word that belongs in a nursery rhyme: “Little Miss Mosset held tight to her posset”–an old-fashioned kind of Britishy sounding word.  It actually was a drink in which milk was boiled with some sort of something that would curdle it–usually wine or ale. According to our friends at Wikipedia, it was often spiced.  And it is British. They considered it to have medicinal properties, and a holdover of that in modern times is drinking some hot milk before bed. I’m a Fan of that myself.  A squirt of honey, maybe a splash of vanilla and a wee pinch of salt in hot milk, and I’m a happy girl.

Anyway, back to the actual Recipe Inspiration in Question: the Lemon Posset.  It contains 3 ingredients and it kind of reminds me of key lime pie filling without the egg yolks. You boil dairy and sugar and then stir in some citrus juice. This ends up curdling the whole deal. But not like lumpy curds and whey. It just thickens it in exactly the same way that the key lime juice starts to thicken the sweetened condensed milk in a key lime pie.

I want to play with this technique and see what happens. I hope you’ll join me. Tune in next Tuesday to see what I come up with, and if you cook along, please share your results here or over on the facebook page.

Until then, check out the original recipe by mrslarkin. I love that name: mrslarkin. I think she might solve mysteries in her spare time or something.  I hope you’ll be as inspired by this seemingly simple dessert as I’ve been.

Thanks for reading, and have a lovely day.

You see, I live in North Carolina. I love living here. Truly I do.  My family is here. My friends are here. Our home and our kittens are here.  Yet I am sad that Amendment 1 passed here on Tuesday.  I am sad for all of the people who want to marry their Beloveds but cannot. I got to marry my Beloved, and I do not understand how letting others marry theirs would hurt my marriage or my life in general.  I believe it would even strengthen both because we would no longer have to harbor a little corner of “Why can’t everyone have what we have?”

I have some Thoughts about the political machinations behind the May vote and its possible effect on the vote in November, and I will just say that this issue has only been decided temporarily.

I am also saddened by the hatred being slung around by folks standing on both sides of the marriage issue.  It makes me Ill to read comments from folks saying that they will nevernevernever come to North Carolina because all the people here are backwards and small-minded and that we all marry our cousins.  It makes me equally Ill to read all the comments from folks singing the praises of North Carolina for voting on the side of Truth, Justice and the American Way.

For many, the definition of marriage is a volatile one that wraps religion, morals, justice and emotion all up in a messy package.  Because of how volatile it is, I think it is imperative that people on both sides of the debate maintain a respectful tone.  Feelings are at stake. People’s happiness is at stake.  People’s civil rights are at stake.  The legal expression of love and commitment is at issue.  And I hear people spewing hatred. And it sickens me.

Every religion–Every religion–at its core contains some version of The Golden Rule. Treat folks as you want to be treated.  Always. Yes, it’s hard. It’s challenging. It feels impossible at times. But let’s all just take a breath and try.  Try to remember how you would feel if your son or daughter could not marry the love of their life. How you would feel if you could not marry the love of your life. How you’d feel if you were reduced to a stereotype. How you’d feel if your views, your opinions, your fervent beliefs were openly scorned by others.  How you’d feel if people hated you just because you are who you are and you believe what you believe.

Our country is being torn apart. This is but another chapter in the draft of the book called The Civil Rights Movement.  Are we where we need to be? No.  Are we moving ahead? I believe that we are. And it is painful. People are scared. People on both sides of this issue are scared. Terrified. And when you’re scared, you tend to be Less Rational than you would be if you were content. And none of us are content right now.  We’re uncomfortable.  All of us.  Because we’re, hopefully, growing.  Our President has come out publicly in favor of gay marriage. And whether you are thrilled or disgusted by that, it is a Fact.  And it is a step in the direction of tolerance and eventually toward acceptance. And it’s scary.

So folks get behind their computer screens and the speak out of anger, out of fear, out of righteous indignation and even out of smugness.  It is my wish-hope-prayer that we all remember that every disembodied comment or blog post or status update is tethered to a person with feelings and a family and a position and a belief system.  Remember the ideal of The Golden Rule and strive to follow it.

I recognize your position, whatever it is. I recognize your right to your position. I recognize that I might not agree with your position but that your position is no less valid for that. Our views are informed by our experiences. Since no two people share the exact same experiences or process them in the exact same way, our views will differ. We have the right to differ. We do not have the right to tear each other down. To condemn anyone. To judge. To feel superior or to try to make others feel inferior.

We are a nation gripped by fear. Fear of attack, fear of infiltration, fear of Other.  And we are growing, changing, evolving, and that’s scary too.  So please, let’s just all take a breath before we speak. Let’s try to exercise our empathy muscles just a bit, to consciously make the effort to put ourselves in others’ shoes, not to necessarily agree with a position–but to understand that position and recognize others’ rights to that position.

Last night, on our neighborhood’s facebook page, somebody posted the question “Have you guys been hearing a loud noise around 10pm the last few nights?” Folks responded, some seriously and some with funny hypotheses. We were actually having a good time when a neighbor wrote that the loud sound that we had heard was the sound of the door slamming on the liberals.

My knee-jerk response was to be Mean, I admit. Rather than do that, I chose to exercise my empathy muscles and be respectful: “As you’ve said before, let’s stay on task on this page. Only talk about politics and religion face to face. It is too easy to become uncivil when we’re all behind keyboards. Thanks. ”  (I use a lot of emoticons on facebook, and even then, tone is sometimes hard to convey).

This was his response this morning: “Sorry, you are right and I apologize. It was too easy an opportunity for me to be funny. I didn’t hear any sound, must’ve been dead asleep. I gotta stop commenting on stuff late at night, as I don’t always think so clearly.”

Did I change his mind? No. But I think I managed to defuse what had the potential to be an ugly exchange. And I was respectful. I did not sink into the muck; I chose to take the high road. And in this case, he joined me there. I consider it a small victory. And the road to equality will be paved with small victories and dispassionate, respectful discourse.

I will leave the comments open for dispassionate, respectful discourse. If you have something to say, you have the right to say it. But please say it respectfully and thoughtfully.  Practice being nice here in my little corner and then go practice on a larger scale.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for being respectful. Have a lovely day.

Right?! How can you say no?  The lovely Terra from Cafe Terra said, “Hey, we should make that thing.” So I went to look. And was a little sad, because the recipe started with Yellow Cake Mix. Ack. Blech. No thanks. But still. Moscato Pound Cake. And I make pound cakes. A lot of them.  What’s to stop me from putting some wine in my pound cake?  Nothing. I tweeted back to Terra–I don’t wanna make a box cake. And she was all, “Ew–no! I never bake from boxes.” So we both did our Own Thing.

She made hers with grapes. Makes sense, right? Grapes. Wine. Wine. Grapes. And Greek Yogurt. The Greeks drank wine, so there you go.  Her cake is lovely. See! Click either picture to go straight to her blog post and recipe for Grape Moscato Pound Cake.

Love the glaze!

You know you want a slice, right?

I wasn’t really sure what kind of moscato pound cake I was going to make until…Kismet! The Beloved and I won an extra Gallon of strawberries from our produce box delivery service. Yay. But a gallon on top of the quart we had equaled a Very Lot.  And there are only so many sour cream and brown sugar-coated strawberries you can shove into your face before things turn ugly.

I thought, hey strawberries are Quite Nice with champagne. And champagne is a white wine. And so is Moscato. (I really have to plot these things out with a compass). So, I whipped up (or cooked down, which is really more correct) some strawberry-Moscato puree.  This I didn’t measure. I threw a about a quart and a half of the strawberries in a big pot, glugged in some Yellowtail Moscato (I like it–it’s fizzy), some lemon zest, a bit of lemon juice and a handful or two of raw sugar.  I let all of that bubble away on low-ish for about 45 minutes until the juices were a bit syrupy. Then, I tossed everyone into the Blendtec and pureed them.  I strained the puree through a fine mesh strainer to catch the zest and seeds.

I, of course used the standard Van Halen Pound Cake recipe with just a few tweaks.  I used the puree plus some extra Moscato for the liquid and reduced the sugar by a couple of ounces to keep it from a)being overly sweet and b)browning too much.  I probably could have dialed it back even a bit more, but it was still lovely as it was.  I was going to fold in some whipped cream at the end of mixing since berries and cream are always a good idea, but I loved the flavor of the puree and wine and didn’t want to mute it, so I ended up stirring in an extra ounce each of puree and wine.  Next time, I’ll just add it all in 2 additions instead of waiting until the end.

After baking, I wrapped that guy up tight and threw him in the fridge.  The resulting cake was extremely moist and cut cleanly, both with a fork and a knife.  Next time, I’ll probably let it cool uncovered since the wine and the additional cut up berries I put in the batter will keep things plenty moist enough.

I used 2 glazes on the cake. One was just 10x powdered sugar, the strawberry-Moscato puree and a pinch of salt.

Okay, I know this looks like Murder in the Snow, but I think the puree is a lovely color.
The bright red shades more toward orange when mixed with the sugar.

To balance out some of the sweetness, the other glaze was just straight lemon juice and 10x along with a pinch of salt.  The consensus so far from everyone who has tried it, including me whose Slice Count currently stands at 3 1/2, is that this is definitely a keeper. But the cake won’t keep beautifully for too long because of the fresh fruit in it.  Make it one day and serve it the next. It’ll last for maybe one extra day, but I wouldn’t push it past then just because it won’t be as Aesthetically Pleasing, although it will still taste good. If you’d like it to keep longer, leave out the diced berries entirely and just serve with a Swoosh of puree.

Yes, I know my strawberry cake is not pink. But I am not a fan of food coloring, and Starbucks used up all the beetles. Therefore, my cake is au naturale.

I hope you try it and that you enjoy it, and I’m also hoping that, if you don’t know Terra or haven’t visited with her in awhile, that you’ll go say howdy. You can get to her pound cake post by clicking on her beautiful pictures up there, or you can just go straight to her site here, find her on twitter or on her facebook page.  She’s a great recipe developer, she loves animals and–get this–she walks her dog past my old elementary school almost every day. Small world, huh?

Thanks for checking out our keen pound cakes. You should probably make both.

Have a lovely day.

Bánh mì, like tagine, has two meanings. As a tagine is a cooking vessel and the name of a dish cooked in Said vessel, Bánh mì is both a Vietnamese take on a French baguette and a sandwich made on Said bread.  French mayonnaise and liver pâté cozy up with Vietnamese cold cuts, vegetables and pickles. It’s fusion food, for sure.

Apparently, the airy quality of the bread is a huge component of the sandwich, and I couldn’t find a facsimile anywhere. I suppose I could’ve gone to a Vietnamese restaurant and bought a couple of baguettes off of them, but I thought a visit to Grand Asia Market–a 30,000 square foot Asian grocery carrying everything from curry to rice to quail eggs to tea to a keen pre-packaged snack called Happy Mouth that I came this close to buying–would score me a bánh mì or three. But alas, no. I whined on facebook and twitter that from now on, they shall be known as Adequate Asia Market. A Quick Witted twitter buddy suggested that I refer to them as Asia Minor, and so I shall.

At any rate, I bought an American version of a French baguette at a southern-based grocery chain and just went with it.

Now, before I get into the Ins and Outs of the Sammich, I want to take a hot minute to talk about eating locally.  I mean, can anyone really expect to replicate the experience of eating a messy/drippy bánh mì on the street corners of Saigon in Garner, NC, home of 2011 American Idol Scotty McCreery? I think not. Nay, I know not.  I mean, heck. We are now ordering our produce from a local farm; we buy happy meat from local ranches. Our eggs come from Across The Street.  We grow a lot of our own herbs. The only stuff I don’t worry about sourcing locally pretty much is baking stuff–flour, sugar, baking powder, etc–and spices.

I live in North Carolina. I like calling North Carolina home. It’s home to sweet potatoes and corn. To Krispy Kreme and Cheerwine. To Lance crackers. To livermush and biscuits and gravy. To amazing, succulent barbecue that is as different on the coast as it is in the mountains as Cincinnati chili is different from Texas chili.  And while we are fortunate enough to live in a culturally diverse area–thank you hospitals, universities and Research Triangle Park–and can find almost anything we could want (except for bánh mì at Asia Minor. Ahem), we’ve been eating more and more locally. And all of a sudden, I find it necessary to make an authentic Vietnamese street food. Really, Jenni? What is wrong with you?

Don’t get me wrong–it’s not like it wasn’t a great sandwich. It was. (More on that in a bit). It’s just that I should know better.  Since we aren’t Vietnamese, the mise en place was ridiculous for this sandwich. What are staples in Vietnamese kitchens are exotics in mine, and it showed.  The next time we make bánh mì, we’ll have no problem, but stocking up for the first one was kind of epic. More epicness than a sammy might deserve, if you want the Brutal Truth.

Enough of that. I see I’ve spent about 500 words on that little rant, so I shall move on to the Discussion of the sandwich In Question.

The Beloved and I were so excited when we chose this Recipe Inspiration.  We have enjoyed every single Food52sday meal we’ve made, and this was no exception. Truly.  It was just a lot of futzing about.  We stayed almost completely true to the original, so I’m not going to post a recipe. Just go see monkeymom‘s fabulous original recipe. The only things we did differently were to add some marinated crimini mushrooms into the mix, just because I don’t like the idea of liver pâté on a sandwich without its good buddy mushrooms. In this, I took another cultural cue from the classic Beef Wellington, in which duxelles and liver pâté coat a lovely fillet. For my ‘shrooms, I quartered and marinated them in soy sauce, garlic rice wine vinegar, raw sugar, salt, white pepper and some fresh thyme.

The other changes I made were more stylistic. Rather than quartering or sixth-ing the radishes and carrots, I sliced them in long thin ribbons. Well, the carrots anyway. I sliced the radishes super-thinly too.  I just thought they’d stay on the sandwich better that way while still providing some crunch and brightness. I was right. Yay me!

The last difference was that I chopped the meat after cooking it. I didn’t want to have to chew through large pieces of meat. And while some did fall out On Occasion, I did like the fact that it was all in bite-sized pieces.

Now, without further ado, here’s a story of Building a bánh mì in pictures. Enjoy!

Pâté and mayo.

Leaf lettuce and marinated mushrooms.

Chopped caramelized pork.

 Pickled radishes and carrots and fresh jalapenos.

After that, the sammiches only needed a sprinkle of chopped cilantro and a little coaxing to close (thank you, tongs), and we dug in.  I really do wish we had found light and airy rolls. The baguette we had was a bit chewy. Which is nice in some applications, but not in this one.  The bread needed to take a back seat to the fillings, and the chew of the crumb made it a little too assertive. Nevertheless, we Ate Them Up Yum.

The flavors all worked very nicely together.  I bow to Asian cooks for their masterful way with balancing flavor notes–sweet, salty, sour, bitter and savory.  Everyone showed up to the party.  The marinade and the pickles brought the sweet. The pickles also provided a salty/sour acidity.  Savory came along with the pâté, the fish sauce and the pork and the cilantro provided a hint of lemony bitterness. Nice.

And that concludes today’s Food52sday/local food rant post. If you cooked along, please share your link below and/or over on the facebook page.  Tune in on Tuesday, May 15 for the next recipe inspiration. Until then, have a lovely day.

This Giveaway is now Closed. Thanks to everyone who entered and an extra thanks to those who donated!

So, it’s the end of April. It’s a kind of a lovely day here; I’ve had my coffee and some breakfast, and I am Filled with Good Will Towards Man. And coffee. Made in my Chemex. Which is just The Best Thing.

I’ve given away a Chemex before, but I’m doing it again. Because I really want you guys to experience the Chemex Goodness.

Wait. What’s a Chemex? Fair question. I mean, I didn’t know until I started searching for coffee makers that didn’t contain plastic or rely on Pods. I am not a Pod Person. Bad things come out of Pods.

Anyway, the Chemex coffee maker is nothing more than an hourglass-ish shaped glass vessel. I say that like it’s no big deal, but it is magic. It’s designed to hold a conical filter in the top part and drip Gorgeous coffee down into the bottom part.  Why are they so great? Well, for one: the filter. It’s thicker than a standard filter, and it keeps out a lot of the weird oils that can end up floating on top of your cup once it starts to cool off a bit. For another: you boil your own water and pour it over the coffee yourself. So you can brew with water that’s hot enough to actually extract all the goodness without all the bitterness.  The result: a clean, bright cup of coffee.

The only trick is to grind your coffee Just So so that you can pour all of the water through in no more than about 6 minutes.  Four is ideal, according to the Chemex folks.  If your grind is too fine to allow brewing in 6-ish minutes, you’ll start pulling out flavors that you Just Don’t Want in your coffee. And you’ll be sad.  It’ll take a few tries for you to find your perfect grind and pour-over time, but it is so worth it.  Just ask anyone who has a Chemex or just loves pour-over, or manual drip, coffee.

So, what do you get? You get one 6-cup (in the Wonderful World of Chemex, a “cup” is 5 ounces, so yours will hold 30 ounces) Chemex coffee maker and a box of 100 Chemex filters.  There are two styles of Chemex coffee maker. One employs a cool wooden collar that goes around the neck of the Vessel so you can grab it. It is Very Cool Looking, but kind of inconvenient and awkward. My Chemex, and the style I’m giving away, has a glass handle to make grabbing and pouring much easier. I was tempted by the cool wooden collar, but I’m glad I have the one with the handle, so that’s what you’ll get.

And how do you enter? Leave a separate comment for each entry.

• Leave a comment to let me know how you take your coffee.
• Tweet about my giveaway and then leave a comment saying you did, along with the url of your tweet. (Find your tweet. Click open then on details. Copy/paste the url into your comment over here).
  
• For 2, yes TWO BONUS ENTRIES, donate to my fundraiser. There’s a link over there in the sidebar underneath my picture that says “Donate to my JCAPL Fundraiser. Just click there and follow the rules to give however much you’d like.  Then leave a comment letting me know you donated.  There is no minimum donation–even a dollar will go straight to the Johnston County Animal Protection League, and whether you give twenty dollars or one dollar, you’ll get two extra entries!

I’ll be choosing a winner using the random number generator at Random.org on Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at noon, EDT, so be sure to have your entries in by then.

Rules  The Giveaway is Now Over
Unfortunately, this giveaway is only open to US and Canadian readers.
Please leave separate comments for the first two entries.  If you combine the first two chances in one comment thusly “I like my coffee black and I tweeted. Here’s the url,” it will only count as one entry. 

If you do decide to donate, one comment is sufficient for two extra chances, so you’ll be leaving a maximum of three comments.

Please leave me a valid email address so I can get in touch with you. If I don’t have a valid email address for the winner, I’ll choose another. Claim your prize via email within 48 hours–by Friday, May 4, 2012 at noon, EDT–or I’ll pick another winner.  And again, have your entries in no later than noon, EDT on Wednesday, May 2, 2012.

The Chemex folks have nothing to do with this giveaway. I just love my Chemex and want you to have one too. I’m buying this with my own pennies just because I want to spread the Chemex love.

And that pretty much does it. Thanks for reading, good luck in the giveaway, and if you do decide to donate, thank you so very much. It means a lot, and possibly everything to unwanted animals in our community.

Have a lovely day.

But, remember the scene in which Vivian first meets Edward? They’re in pre-Costanza Jason Alexander’s car, and Edward asks her what her name is. Her answer: “What do you want it to be?” Which really means, “I am a blank slate onto which you may project all your sexual fantasies.”  But I don’t think that line would’ve played well in a Garry Marshall film.  Anyway, that’s what these cookies are. Whatever you want them to be.

I could say that you have to make these cookies Exactly the way that I made them, but why would I say that? I mean, have you ever known me to say that? Of course not.  What we have here is a Basic Cookie Dough. To which you can add five cups (by volume)–Five Cups–of whatever you want.  Once you have your dough, if you want to wrap it around a piece of candy or–gasp!!–another cookie and bake ‘em that way, do it. Or just scoop and bake.

You can make ‘em chocolate by subbing 1 oz (by weight) of Dutch process cocoa powder for 1 oz (by weight) of the flour. You can leave ‘em blonde.  The only place you can’t leave ‘em is On the Plate.  Because they are that good. Boom!

Here’s your basic dough:

• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar (packed dark or light, or granulated. Your choice. Or half and half)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt (less if you’re using fine salt, and always to taste. But you can’t leave it out. Because I’ll be able to tell if you do, and you’ll wonder why these cookies aren’t as good as I said they are.)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla (or whatever)
• some spices. Or not. Cinnamon is always nice with brown sugar. Probably no more than 2-3 teaspoons total per batch
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 8 oz all purpose flour (or 7 oz AP plus 1 oz Dutch process cocoa powder)

Make the dough with the creaming method. I cream the butter and sugar together with the salt, vanilla and spices, because fat carries the flavor so well.  Add the eggs, one at a time, and make sure they are very well incorporated. Whisk the baking soda in with the flour or flour/cocoa powder, and beat it in on low speed just until mixed.

Now you have your cookie canvas. Your template. Your tabula cookie-rasa.  Now, you have 5 cups of goodness to add. Five cups! Enjoy the freedom.

Ideas? You want ideas? OK, then.

• whole grains
• chocolate
• dried fruit
• granola
• trail mix
• pretzels
• potato chips
• nuts
• healthy stuff, like flax
• marshmallows
• popcorn
• flavored chips–cinnamon, peanut butter, toffee, etc
• Crushed hard candy
• gummy bears
• mints
• cereal
• Et Cetera

Those 5 cups of…whatever…are what makes these cookies yours. Name them whatever you want. These cookies will save you. And you will save them right back. So you can Eat Them.

Here’s how I made mine. You can make ‘em this way if you want to, because they are Incredibly Yummy. But don’t feel like you have to. If you like Kit better than Viv, make yourself Kit cookies.

I made these to send with The Beloved to work. He reported that today they are still soft and chewy. Plus, his boss raved about them. I’m telling you–it’s the cumin!

Enjoy your cookies, however you make them. Have a lovely day.

Yes, you read that right: Car-a-mel-ized Pork Bánh Mì.  When The Beloved and I were leafing through the Food52 Cookbook (before I gave it away), we almost didn’t need to read the ingredient list.  The title alone says it all.  It’s a Gestalt Title.  Crispy/tender pork tenderloin piled up on airy French bread.  Who wouldn’t want? I bet nobody wouldn’t want. Except vegetarians. And folks who don’t eat pork. But other than those 2 factions, I’m pretty sure everyone else will be All In for this one!

The original recipe is by MonkeyMom. She is a scientist, and I’m pretty sure I love her.  The list of ingredients necessary to pull off this bánh mì is Impressive, but they read like a Love Letter. Or, rather, like a List of Things I Love. Here’s a partial list for those of you too weak in the knees–or fingers–to click over to the original recipe right now:

• pork tenderloin
• maple syrup (!!)
• fish sauce (I love thee, fish sauce)
• garlic
• jalapeños
• pâté (!!)
• airy French bread with a crackly crust

See what I mean?  I don’t mean to wax Overly Rhapsodic about a dish I’ve not made yet, but I’m telling you, I can Not help myself.  So, check out Monkey Mom’s original recipe. If you’re as inspired as I am, why not cook along this week?  And actually, I won’t be posting the Recipe Interpretation for two weeks, so you’ll have plenty of time to Assemble your Ingredients and get cookin’!

See you back here on Tuesday, March 8 for the interpretation post. And remember, you don’t have to make This Exact Sandwich. Feel free to put your own spin on it. With an ingredient list like this, though, I’m know that I’m going to be sticking pretty much with the original.

Alrighty then. Have a lovely day.

To brew beer, you can either use a malt extract, which is an evaporated form of what you’d get if you boiled cracked whole grains. Or, you can start with the cracked grains and boil them to extract a lot of the flavor.  The leftover grains–pounds and pounds, even for fairly small batches of beer–are generally composted or fed to chickens or otherwise tossed away.

But just because they’re called “spent grains” doesn’t mean that they are completely bereft of goodness.  They still have some flavor left, a bit of the wort (pre-beer) clinging to them, texture and fiber–all good things, when it comes to bread. Unless you’re a fan of the bread with Colorful Circles on the wrapper. In which case, you are in the wrong place entirely.

If, however, you like a bread with a strong bready character and flavor, one with a moist, soft-yet-chewy crumb and caramelized crisp-chewy crust, then you are Totally in the right place. You must make this bread. Do you have to use spent grains? No, but if you do make home brew or have a craft brewery in your area, it’s worth it to ask for some of their spent grains. Chances are they will be happy to let you have some.  If you can’t come by spent grains, you could easily substitute soaked grains such as oatmeal, farro or wheat berries.  Or quinoa. You could even throw in some sunflower seeds, if you want.

When I made the ciabatta for Food52sday this week, I purposely doubled the amount of poolish so I could use it later in the week.  Traditionally, you shouldn’t let a poolish hang out too long, but I Laugh in the face of tradition. Ha. Ha! Also, I might have been unaware of that tradition…

What can happen if you let a starter hang out too long (but didn’t, thankfully) is that the yeasties can end up eating up all of the goodies in the flour, rendering it gluten-less and therefore Not stretchy.  Fortunately, this did not happen in this case.  I did make sure to check that the poolish was still active before using it, and as it was, I went for it.  So, while I made the poolish on Saturday evening and didn’t use it until Wednesday morning, I wouldn’t recommend that you do the same. I was lucky this time, but you may not be. And I might not be if I try that little trick again.

Do use a poolish, though, as it is what lends complexity and chew to your finished bread. Breads made with starters, or pre-ferments (a mixture that lets the yeast get a head start), are chewier than breads made without. If you’re a fan of chewy bread, definitely use a starter of some sort.

I also turned the poolish into a sponge, which is another interim step that isn’t strictly necessary, but as I didn’t want to use very much yeast at all, making a loose sponge allowed the yeasties that were there to multiply and eat and stretch without having a heavy dough weighing it down.  If you want to skip the sponge step, just add more yeast.

Science-y Part
Want a little bread baking science? I shall give it to you.  However much flour you are using in your bread is considered 100% of the flour. Because 100% is another way of saying “all.”  A poolish is made of a portion of that 100% of flour, and can comprise up to about 50% of the total weight of the flour. So, if your bread will contain 500g of flour (500g=100%), the flour in your poolish can weigh up to 250g, or 50%.

Poolish is also generally considered to be equal parts, by weight, of flour and water along with a smidge of yeast.  In this particular bread, my poolish was 5 oz (142g) each of flour and water.  My bread ended up containing 25 oz (709g) of flour, 5 oz (142g) of which was contained in the poolish. So the percentage of flour in the poolish is calculated thusly: 142/709 x 100=about 20%.

Of course, there’s more to the formula than just the flour. The other major player in bread dough is, of course, the liquid. (weight-wise, at least. I realize the yeast is a pretty big player!) In regular sandwich bread, the liquid, usually water and/or milk, is scaled at 50% the weight of the flour. This percentage of water is pretty much the standard and allows for an even, tight crumb which is good for spreading butter on without it dripping through.  In artisan-style loaves, the hydration percentage, or amount of water, is sometimes as much as 75%.  That’s what gives you that lovely open crumb and big old holes. Lots of character, but not so great for a pb&j.

In my loaves, between the poolish, the sponge and the water I added plus any liquid left in the grains, my hydration percentage was about 56-ish%, or 14-ish oz of water to the 25 oz of flour.

Fear Not
If all that science-y stuff is Upsetting to you, please fear not.  I did not sit down and do the math before beginning. Nope. That requires planning, and you guys know that I’m not a planner. Plus, I’m pretty sure that the Bakers of Yore didn’t do a ton of math either. They just baked by feel. That’s what I did, too. But I’m doing the math now to show you how you can figure out how much dough to make and how much flour and/or water to put in if you’re Inclined to do Math.

OK. Enough talk. On to the bread.  Remember, only make your poolish half a day or so (12-ish hours) before starting to bake.

For those of you who hang out on the fan page and/or twitter (hi, guys!), you know that this is round 2 for the spent grain bread. The first try was good, but I knew it could be so much better. It wasn’t exactly a failure, because we ate it all, but it was definitely a learning experience that I put to use to make this second batch as yummy as it is.

It’s great to get things 100% correct the first time you try, but I find that I learn so much more when I get things maybe 75% right, or even just half right.  Failures and partial successes force us to troubleshoot and analyze. We truly do learn from our mistakes.

This was an Extremely tasty learning experience, indeed!

 Attempt Number 1. Not bad, but not great.

Attempt 2. Now this is what I wanted!

Serving Suggestion because I am Helpful:

And here’s what I did with attempt Number 1:

                                                                     Croutons!!

And there you have it. I hope you enjoy it; we certainly did!

Have a lovely day.

PS, if you’re interested in a bread made from the beer that these grains were used to brew, check out my ciabatta from Food52sday.

The recipe inspiration this week was from ChezSuzanne (The Wimpy Vegetarian), and called for a poolish, stout beer and a moist oven to encourage a crackly crust.  I indeed made the poolish (which is Fancy Talk for equal parts of flour and water with a smidge of yeast left to sit for twelve or so hours).  I made the dough with a mixture of bread flour, all purpose flour and white whole wheat flour (all made by King Arthur) and added an overnight rest in the fridge for the dough after a long, slow rise during the day.  Instead of using stout, I used one of The Beloved’s home brews, an ESB. ESB stands for Extra Special (or Stout) Bitter. It’s very hoppy on the front end and malty on the back end. Perfect for this–the piney hoppiness reinforced the rosemary up front while the maltiness added to the bready flavor profile in the finish. An excellent choice, indeed.

Also, rather than brushing my dough with water and sprinkling it with flake salt (which also would have been nice), I just doused the loaves with flour.  And because I did that, the last thing I wanted to encourage was a super moist oven since I didn’t want the flour coating to end up as paste. So, dry oven it was.

Before I get to the Recipe Proper, a few comments are in order.  Susan’s original recipe calls for 3 teaspoons (or 1 Tablespoon) of kosher salt. I thought, “Yippee! A recipe with enough salt in it!” and poured it in.  When I first tasted the dough, it was bordering on too salty, and I got A Little Concerned.  Which is why I decided to just flour the top of the loaves rather than salt them. I sliced the bread while still just a bit warm, and again I thought, “Whoa, maybe too much salt…”

Then, once the bread was completely cool, The Beloved and I began to Compulsively Eat It, dousing it with extra virgin olive oil and chompling it with some room temperature cheddar. And we decided the bread was Nigh On To Perfect: Chewy, even crumb. Chewy crust with the slightest hint of bitterness from the white whole wheat flour on top. The perfume of the rosemary.  Dang, it was some Good Bread. Honestly, I might cut the salt back by 1/2 teaspoon or so when I make this again, but then again, maybe I won’t. My initial Concerns faded into ravenous hunger, and only one loaf remains.  I’d take that as Strong Loafal Approval.

Please, try out the original recipe, try my version or do your own thing. But do make this; it is Very Good Indeed!

I’m pretty sure there’s nothing left to say. Either I’ve convinced you to make this or I haven’t. I hope I have, though. It is fantastic.

To see Terra’s version over at Cafe Terra, click here!

If you participated in Food52sday this week, please leave a link to your post in the comments here or over on the fan page.  I’ll update this post as (if) they come in.

Thanks, and have a lovely day.

She turned 92 on Friday, and to help her celebrate, we took her to the English-style pub Pinehurst for fish and chips.  We had a really great visit. Uncle Ray was pretty chipper during our stay, and Auntie ‘Leenie continues to surprise us all–herself included, I think–with her vitality.

It’s funny sort of, the yardsticks by which we measure good visits. They’ve changed over the years.  Long ago, a good visit meant challenging conversation, lots of laughter and good food.  Later, “good” meant that Auntie Ev was in good enough shape to go out to eat.  Now, a good visit means that Uncle Ray is in a reasonably good mood, that he doesn’t demand that we let him go to the bathroom by himself, that he keeps his oxygen on and eats enough for lunch.

That’s life, I guess. I know.  Our family is our family, and if our yardstick must change, then it must.  Visits will never be like they once were. But they can still be good. And they are, and for this we are grateful.

Here’s a quick supper idea for you guys. We had this last night, and I think it was on the table in about 30 minutes. Easy and tasty.  We served ours with leftover fish from Auntie ‘Leenie’s birthday lunch (thankfully battered, fried fish reheats reasonably well in the toaster oven), but this would be great on its own, too, with maybe a nice poached or sunny side up egg or two.

And that’s pretty much that.

Enjoy your family while you have them, and be willing to meet them where they are, not where you wish they were. Even if it can sometimes make you a little sad.

And enjoy this whenever you want. Take care, and have a lovely day.