JGE 43 - 22 Most Wanted No-Knead Loaves

Good Day,

My No-Knead Bread array is 30% complete.  Jim's gotta eat.

22 loaves, 44 more to go.  66 to reach my flour and yeast habit. Jim's gotta eat.

Yes I use the same basic formula - 3 cups of flour; ½ teaspoon of yeast; 1 ½ teaspoons of salt; and 1 ½ cups of lukewarm water. Oven at 450° F. Covered La Cruset or covered Pyrex pots heated. 30 minutes covered; 15 minutes uncovered. Jim’s gotta eat.

Yes, I bend my basic recipe. White flour; whole wheat flour; hemp seeds; multi-grain flour; Kosher salt; sea salt; dried cranberries; raisins; cranberry juice. Jim’s gotta eat.

Similar loaves at Whole Foods Bakery - $4.99. 22 times - $109.78… Offset for expenses and ingredients, I may have saved $50.00. Jim’s gotta eat.

Loaf #23 - Cranberry Raisin -

Loaf #23 - Cranberry Raisin

And does Hillsborough County allow for chickens? Fresh bread and an omelet. Jim’s gotta eat.

Enjoy your day,

Jim

JGE 42 - No-Knead Bread, à la Hemp

Good Day,

No-Knead Bread, à la Hemp; Loaf #7 before and after

No-Knead Bread, à la Hemp - Before

No-Knead Bread, à la Hemp - After

…before the real after.

Jim's gotta eat.

JGE 41 – No Knead Bread - I Need!

Good Day,

Yes I love bread. Yes I love the making of bread. Yes, I love to eat bread. And I love the smell of bread wafting through the house when it is baking.

I decided that it was about time to start baking bread again…after checking out and comparing the prices of bakery breads offered at the local grocery stores. And of course my fallback is the easiest of bread recipes I’ve ever tried, the No-Knead Bread.

This recipe changes the need to spend a couple of hours in the kitchen to just about less than an hour…but I have to warn you that this recipes does take at least 24 hours.

Ingredients – 3 cups Flour; 1 ½ teaspoons salt; ½ teaspoon yeast; and 1 ½ cups of lukewarm water. That’s all you need, no pun intended, to make one loaf of a great loaf of rustic, crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, bread.

I discovered this recipe some time ago in Suzanne Dunaway’s 1999 cookbook No Need to Knead. Initially I didn’t believe it, but I tried it. And here I am again.

Here’s the history of no-knead bread from Wikipedia –

“Although no-knead bread was first described in the 1999 cookbook No Need to Knead, written by California baker Suzanne Dunaway and published by Hyperion Books, author Jeff Hertzberg notes such a method before the late 1990s in Italy. One reviewer described Dunaway's cookbook as, "a book that doesn’t care about kneading and still produces fantastic results!" Due to the popularity of her no-knead method, Dunaway's book was re-published in 2012 by Grub Street Cookery.

In 2007, Hertzberg and fellow author Zoe François published Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which uses a no-knead method of stored and refrigerated dough that is ready for use at any time during a 5-to-14 day period. New York Times journalist Nick Fox wrote, "... soon the bread will be making itself… The crusty, full-flavored loaf that results may be the world’s easiest yeast bread." New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman described Lahey's method in his November 8, 2006 column The Minimalist. Bittman praised the bread for its "great crumb, lightness, incredible flavor [and] enviable, crackling crust." Two years later, he noted the recipe's "immediate and wild popularity," and a 2009 cookbook described Bittman's column as, "one of those recipes that literally change the culinary scene with discussions on hundreds of blogs in dozens of languages around the world. " ”

Well I began the day before yesterday and I found an old package of yeast in the pantry. Needless to say that package was old. It was expired. I believe that the yeast was just a few years beyond its printed date and year, 2003. Guess what? Old yeast doesn’t work. I knew that. I know that…

There are many write-ups online regarding no-knead bread, but all are basically the same recipe. I found a very good online write up at Katrina’s site Kitchen Trials.

Well my first retry into making No Knead Bread was a bust. And so after waiting for my concoction to rise after 24 hours, guess where the unrisen blob ended up? That’s right, in the trash.

Armed with a brand new jar of yeast, some bread flour, and some kosher salt I started again. I mixed my ingredients, covered the bowl with Saran wrap and left it to rise overnight.

Nothing’s greater than the smell of baking bread on the 4th of July…

30 minutes baked, covered –

15 more minutes, uncovered and fresh out of the oven.

Hell, Jim’s gotta eat. And now I will just start to set a routine into by daily schedule of making bread…with fresh yeast of course. And most assuredly I will be experimenting, once again.

Jim’s gotta eat.

Enjoy,

Jim

JGE 40 - Vietnamese Caramel Chicken, Kale Salad, and Strawberries

Good Day,

I chanced upon the recipe for Vietnamese Caramel Chicken on Rasa Malaysia. Oh yeah, I get regular updates from Bee from her site.  And this recipe intrigued me.  The great part - 10 minutes prep time, and 10 minutes (give or take) in cooking time.

And damn for sure... it was quick and easy and as Jim's gotta eat.  The list of ingredients was super easy, but I did substitute boneless, skinless chicken breast for the boneless chicken thighs.

Ingredients - Chicken Breasts, Oil, Garlic, Jalapeño; Marinade: Fish sauce, Sugar, Black Pepper; Sauce: Fish Sauce, Water, Sugar, Apple Cider Vinegar.

Marinated chicken charred in a cast-iron skillet... Removed to rest.

The Sauce -

Garlic and Jalapeño to taste -

Chicken returned to skillet with oil, garlic, jalapeño...  And I turned the heat to simmer and covered for about 5 minutes.

Massaged Kale, Garlic, Lemon Salt, and Oil -

Fresh Strawberries as a compliment.  (Hell I thought I needed some other color, as well.)

My plate - Vietnamese Caramel Chicken, Kale Salad, and Strawberries.

"Professional food photography is a collaborative effort, usually involving an art director, a photographer, a food stylist, a prop stylist and their assistants."

This Jim's gotta eat.   And this will be a re-do.

Enjoy,

Jim

JGE 39 – Harira

Good Day,

Thank you Emeril Lagasse. A short time ago I stumbled upon Emeril Lagasse’s recipe Harira: Moroccan Chickpea Stew with Chicken and Lentils on the Food Network site.  I’m always looking for something different, but in this case I filed the recipe away because I was not willing to spend 10 hours and 25 minutes working on something that maybe I could fix in at least 1 hour. Hell when Jim’s gotta eat, Jim’s gotta eat.

And so I tweaked Mr. Lagasse’s recipe a wee bit.

The tweaked part - I substituted a can of chickpeas. I have never had success soaking beans or peas from the dried stage. Mine, no matter what I do, always seem to be too, too raw, that is, hard. So I figured what the hell, there isn’t anyone judging my dish. There’s just the two of us.

And as I had pulled a chicken breast out of the freezer I figured I would replace the call for chicken thighs.

But wait I also exchanged dried orange lentils for the suggested dried green lentils.

My ingredients – Chickpeas, Olive Oil, Skinless Chicken Breast, Salt, Freshly Ground Pepper, Onions, Celery, Carrots (this was my add-in), Ground Ginger, Tumeric, Ground Black Pepper, Ground Cinnamon, Ground Nutmeg, Can of Roasted Diced Tomatoes, Chicken Stock, Dried Lentils, Long-grain Rice, Cilantro, Jalapeño, Lemon Juice, Plain Yogurt.

My secret – Prep before I start cooking. I have a tendency to pull things out of cupboards as I go along. It is ever so much easier to have everything in place and ready to go.

Mirepoix - Onions, Carrots, Celery

On low for 30 minutes.

Yes I had two helpings… and leftovers for lunch.

Hell, Jim’s gotta eat.

Enjoy.

Jim

JGE 38 – Pasta alla Norma alla Smith

Good Day,

A recipe that I have never heard of before...not that that means that I am a walking encyclopedia of cooking techniques and recipes. Pasta alla Norma. I saw a picture in The New York Times, Mark Bittman's recipe, and I decided about a week ago that Jim's gotta eat and definitely try this one.  (The picture to the right is my creation.)

An Internet Google search of the phrase "Pasta alla Norma" produced 228,000 results.

I got myself a great looking eggplant from Urban Oasis.  And I had, more or less, all of the ingredients here in the house.

Pasta all Norma is a Sicilian dish, purportedly named for the opera Norma by Vincenzo Bellini. One could say a vegetarian meal, is something I would make again.

My concoction - Pasta alla Norma alla Smith. Jim's Gotta Eat.

Ingredients: Linguine, Eggplant, Mushrooms, Chilies, Tomato Pasta, Olive Oil, Vegetable Oil, Parmesan Romano Cheese, Salt, Oregano, Parsley. Filling and delicious, and who’d a think that eggplant could be so deceptive…in a very positive way.

Sliced eggplant fried in olive and vegetable oil. Removed from pan and not drained.

Oh yeah, my early morning blood sugar count dropped 15 points to 99.

And who was Norma?

"Simple to make and yet classy enough for a first course in a serious dinner, Pasta alla Norma was so popular in 19th century Sicily that it was named after Sicilian composer Bellini's hugely successful opera Norma to honor both the dish and the opera, whose perfection matched each other in the eyes of Nino Martoglio, a famous Sicilian theater director. It kept the name."

And Jim's gotta eat.

Enjoy,

Jim