Goal 8: Bread - Truly Easy No Knead Bread

Goal #8: Learn to Make Bread!!

This is the bread I learned to make this weekend. My very first loaf of homemade bread - and it's good! It's cheap, it's incredibly easy, and it's tasty!

I had this image of working out frustrations kneading bread dough. Romantic ideas, even, about how it would transfer to love in the bread making process. That was not to be.  At least not this time. But that's because this bread was so easy to make. Easier to make than chocolate chip cookies. By far.

For those of you paying attention to my 40 before 40 list - I'm not crossing this one off quite yet. I have bread ambitions yet before I'd feel ready to cross this off the list. I'd like to conquer kneaded bread at the very least!

But for now - I'm feeling like I'm off to a grand start!  





Ingredients: 
1 1/2 Cup Water
3 Cups Flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dry active yeast. 

Step 1: Mix Dry ingredients (flour, salt, yeast). 

Step 2: Add water & mix.

Congratulations - you now have bread dough! Even if it doesn't look like much at this stage.

Step 3: Cover with saran wrap and let sit 12-18 hours. This is easily done by making it in the evening and letting the dough rise overnight. As the dough takes almost no time, this should be fairly doable to do regularly!

You'll know the dough is ready when it's doubled in size and has little air bubbles. Success!

Step 4: On a well floured surface, form the dough into a ball.

This was much easier than it sounds. I was having some bread making fears bubble up at this stage, but really - transferring the dough from the bowl to the floured surface was almost all it took to get the dough into a ball form. It basically fell into formation!

Step 5: Cover with the saran wrap again, and preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
After the oven is warmed, put the cast iron (or clay pot) into the oven to warm it. I let mine warm about 15-20 minutes to be sure it was good and hot.

Step 6:  Put the dough ball into the oven warmed dutch oven, cast iron pot, bread making vehicle of your choice - and cover. Bake for 30 minutes.

Step 7: Take off the lid and bake another 15 minutes.

Eh, Voila!! You have delicious, fabulous bread!!

Here's the hardest part! You have to wait until the bread is "quiet" before cutting into it! You can hear it crackling as it settles. Which is pretty fabulous.

 Enjoy!!

Mozzarella Fail!

I sincerely hope that this is the Part 1 of 2 blog posts. And I sincerely hope that the second post is raving about success. Because this is really just to share a complete and dismal failure.

Victoria (of Ricotta success fame) came over to make mozzarella.  We were so excited.

We had before us 2 Gallons of milk. As experienced cheese makers, we knew that a challenge was at our feet. We knew that mozzarella was going to be more complicated than the oh-so simple ricotta. While we also knew from past experience that we should have more than one gallon at the ready, we commented that when things worked out smoothly it would be great to have two - yes 2 - mozzarella cheeses.

Oh-ho-ho. The hubris. Little did we know.

The end of the first Gallon looked like a cross between cottage cheese and ricotta. First failure.

Gallon 2 went largely undocumented as it went much the way of Gallon 1. 

By Gallon 3 we thought we might have hit the right note. 

Look at how it looks like it might be stretchy!!

We were so sure we were on a roll this time!

We started to have some concerns right around here....

We stayed with the instructions and tried to turn it into a log.

Um..... Our log.

 The closest we ever got... it looks more like goat cheese. It's not. It was disgusting.

Full disclosure: the wine either saved or doomed the night! We may have poured the wine with a little bit of a heaver hand as the failures continued to mount.

The evening ended in success! To boost our egos, we made another delicious batch of ricotta and decided to blame the milk!

And Zoe, our cheese making companion, still loved us!

Classic 5 of 40: The Sound and The Fury

 The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner.

Why the Sound and the Fury? 
I wanted to read something by Faulkner. I was browsing through the used books at the Portland Airport Powells, and found this, and thought, "Perfect!" And away I went.

My Mini Book Review: 
Total honesty: I hated this book. Every page was a challenge to read. I wanted to like it. I wanted to appreciate it. But I couldn't. It made me feel dumb. It made me angry. The book is dark and depressing as far as content goes, but I failed to find the joy in it. I suppose it wasn't intended to convey joy.  There were a couple of poignant moments, some amazing insights into the human condition, but overall - I didn't feel it was worth it. This book was a slog.

I could actually go on about the reasons I disliked this book. But will suffice it to say, it just wasn't my cup of tea!

Recommended?
For those interested in a literary challenge. If you're a lover of true literature. Fans of Shakespeare, and the old classics. But this not a light beach read, by any means!