Birthday Feasting

Yes it was a FEAST!  I cooked and baked and rolled and stirred and whisked and floured and let rise and painted and spread and sprinkled and diced and chopped and squeezed and stirred and served! It was a day filled with verbs...

First we sat and ate guacamole at our new picnic table, and then had Anya's homemade pizza (I mean really really homemade... pizza sauce, dough.... OK, OK I did not make the cheese or the pepperoni but even I have my limits OK?)... and then of course,  blueberry pie for dessert.  Let's just look at the food OK?!

Guacamole secret ingredient?  SOUR CREAM! Shhhhh!  Also in there: minced garlic, jalepeno, cilantro, lime, salt, cayenne...

The picnic table (... Brandon is just sitting down... I think...?)

And then the pizza...

The dough was really really good!  I tried a new recipe I found at allrecipes.com and makes a crust that is crunchy on the outside but still soft and chewy in the middle... it made enough dough for 2 good size pizzas.  The recipe is available here.

Now for a variety of toppings... (yes that is homemade pizza sauce!)

Building pizza numero uno...

A little oil...

Spreading some homemade super spicy pizza sauce...

Cheese please...

Pepperoni...

Some black olives...

Funghi... my fav...

Jalepenos... (this was some spicy pizza!)

Slid it onto the preheated pizza stone...

15 minutes later...

A piece for me please?

YUM.  That was the b'day boy's pizza.

But we had enough dough for another one... (although not quite enough sauce... :(... )

We had some leftover grilled chicken from Saratoga... it was smoky and delicious... I threw it on there...

Cheeeeeeseee

Peppers and shrooms...

Jalepenos and some leftover proscuitto...

Cooked it up..

Yes... let's eat this too...

A happy chef...

OK so we couldn't really do that much damage... but we tried... and we have more than a whole pizza to eat another night... not too shabby!

Wait! Let's look at the pie real quick...

Mmmm blueberries... sugar... flour...

Yes... that is butter...

Pretty!

YUM.

OK so we vegged out.... a bit... I took pains not to think about (or mention) the calories... I hit the gym hard today... and I am resisting pie as we speak... that will last about 5 more minutes... literally... Rachel Maddow is telling us about the health care decision... I think this is all the more reason for PIE!

Find my pizza sauce recipe and the blueberry pie recipe under my recipes page... they will be there soon!

I will leave you with this family pic... a bed for each of our kids...

They. are. ridiculous.

-- Anya

The Sourdough Chronicles - The First Great Success!

Welcome back to The Sourdough Chronicles.  I promised to update you on the first loaf using the true old-school sourdough starter.  (That's the one that started as a blob...

...but came alive, started producing bubbles, and was, as I hoped, smelling sour and doubling in size after a week...

...).  I followed a no knead sourdough recipe I found online here.   It turned out amazing! 

It was dense and sour, but not too sour, and the crust was crusty and YUM.  OK so here are step by step pics.  By the way, this whole process takes anywhere from 20 to 24 hours so plan accordingly. 

Ingredients:

1 cup sourdough starter
6 cups bread flour
3 cups water
2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. active dry yeast (i am not sure this is necessary and probably will not use it next time).

Instructions:

1.  Combine 2 cups room temp water and sourdough starter

2. Whisk it up... aerate it a LOT!

3.  Add 1/4 tsp yeast (if using), and 3 cups flour... stir it up!

4.  Add remaining water (1 cup) and salt (2 tsp.) and... yeah, you got it.. stir it up again!

5.  Add last 3 cups flour, STIR IT UP!

6.  Cover loosely with a kitchen towel and leave in a draft free place for 12-15 hours.  (Make sure this is a REALLY REALLY BIG BOWL!  It will double in size)

7.  Check on it occasionally - it should be bubbly and BIG.  Bubbles should not be popping so catch it before that starts to happen.  It will look like this:

8.  Cover your hands in flour, and turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface... this will take several hand dips in the flour bowl and some maneuvering.  Tuck in edges to make it round.

9.  Wash out the bowl.  This part SUCKS.  A good trick is to use a plastic card you don't need (like a membership card you don't use)(mine is from Micheal's Arts and Crafts :)) and scrape the dough off the bowl.  It will destroy any sponge.  Beware.

10.  Put a little oil in the bowl and gently lift the dough back in.

11.  Time for the second rise.  This could be anywhere from 2 to 5 hours depending on the environment and temperature in your kitchen.  It should double in size but be careful that the dough doesn't start collapsing in on itself.  It took about 3 hours in my kitchen in summer.  It will look like this:

12.  A half hour before the dough is ready, preheat your oven, and whatever you will be using to bake the bread, at 450 degrees.  I split the dough in half (I highly recommend doing this, unless you want a really large loaf) and used two dutch ovens that were 4.5 and 5.5 quarts in size. Make sure you have a cover.

13.  Remove the preheated dutch ovens from the oven (BE CAREFUL!  HOT!!). Sprinkle some cornmeal or oatmeal (I used oatmeal and it gave a nice crunch to the bottom) in the bottom of the pan.  Carefully turn the dough into the pots.  Cover and cook for 30 minutes.  Remove the lid and cook another 15 minutes or so until the bread is a nice brown color and sounds hollow when you knock on the bottom. 

Voila! Let cool if you can resist cutting in.  Be generous with the butter people!  Or cheese! Or oil and vinegar!  Just eat it.

Enjoy!  Stay tuned for the next issue of The Sourdough Chronicles where I will try using a slightly different recipe.

Happy Birthday Brandon! (and other BIG news from Voorheesville!)

Today is Brandon's 33rd birthday! Our plans are... well so far for me to cook and us to eat :)
The requested birthday menu: guacamole, followed by homemade pepperoni, mushroom, olive and jalepeno pizza, and for dessert, blueberry pie.  Stay tuned for pics/recipes. 

Besides that, our plans for the day are up in the air.  We picked up a beautiful handmade cedar picnic table yesterday (a gift from my mom and Eddie) at a locally owned and operated three generation furniture place.  We need to assemble it today and hopefully if the weather warms up some we can enjoy our dinner outdoors by the garden...(and by the way, fresh peas may end up on the menu tonight!)

I have other really big news!  I got a call on Monday from my new job asking me to start early... as in this coming MONDAY! This is a huge change for me and for us and one I am excited about and nervous about and of course torn about losing the remaining time off and time with Brandon but I mostly feel really good about it.  It has been amazing to have 6 months to move, adjust, and recover from the last work experience.  I am refreshed and ready for the challenge.  End verdict: this is good news!  Result: less frequent baking and blogging... but I will try to regularly post and will definitely still bake on weekends so don't fret!

Well that's it for news but of course no post is complete without a few animal pictures!  Lupa and Sasha have grown close... Yesterday Lupa climbed into bed with Sasha... Look at them! (this KILLS me)...

Awwwwwwwww!!!! I can't handle it.  And one of Lupa and Betsi...

OK I am off to make pie crust and go to the gym and go by the tailor to get my suits tailored (!!!) and then back to bake pie and spend the day with my birthday boy! I will post about my sourdough too later. I promise!

--Anya

A week in review... and confessions of a bake-aholic

Hi all!  So I am back home and trying to catch my breath.  We had guests last week... first our friend from New York and then my sister and her boyfriend, and then we spent a long weekend in Saratoga Springs with the fam.  I promised to blog from there... but alas, it never happened.  Anyway, we just got home to Lupa and Sasha (who I missed so much!).  Lupa ran to the window to greet us and Sasha hid and was mad but it has been an hour and she has her appetite back and is forgiving me... well gradually...

SO quick recap of the last week.  I made sourdough bread with my starter!  It came out AWESOME. 

It had great texture, density and flavor.  We ate it in 2 days... with help from my sister and her boyfriend.  Stay tuned for details in the next issue of The Sourdough Chronicles (probably later today!).


I also baked a peach crisp... which was delicious...

 (look at the speed with which my hands move! :)) I failed to do step by step photos of this one... next time.

OK... so let me pause here and confess... I am a bake-aholic... (for those of you who have not yet figured this out or experienced it first hand).... and by the way my love for baked goods started long ago...

me devouring a cake of some kind...

... breakfast in bed with grandpa Dave... mmmmm croissants...

So this relationship with baked goods runs deep.  As I grow older, I delight more and more in the process of baking... (OK and eating)... nothing pleases me more - rain, shine, winter, summer, holidays, weekends, tears, celebration... so there it is.  (by the way, I am fantasizing more and more about quitting law and starting a baking business... the first step may be pies at farmer's markets next spring... so stay tuned).

OK, back to the week in review.  My sister got here last Wednesday... for dinner I made salmon topped with homemade pesto and tomatoes, asparagus, potato salad, and of course the sourdough bread...

Then it was really really hot on Thursday so we went to the lake.  It was beautiful...

Betsi and Rocco (my sister's Chihuahua) chilled in the yard... (betsi is yawning! she looks so cute)

Lupa got to play with Rocco's tail... he was a good sport...

And Saratoga was nice... i didn't take a lot of pictures, but here's a few...

 

And while we were gone the garden grew and grew! Here are some pics from before we went... the peas are going to get harvested this week!  I can't wait.

Whew.  Well I think I caught all the week's highlights... I am back to regular blogging (and yes, baking) so stay tuned!

-- Anya

Off to Saratoga Springs for a long weekend

I know what you are thinking... I haven't posted in days.  I am really sorry!  But my little sister and her boyfriend have been in town and we have been eating and exercising (well, the girls) and fishing (well, the boys) and we all went swimming yesterday to cool down from the 95 degree heat (well the boys stayed in the water and we dipped and tanned, dipped and tanned) and yes the sourdough was AMAZING and YES I will blog about it all and took pictures. But right now we are off to Saratoga Springs for the weekend where my dad has rented a house for us all to enjoy forced family fun until Monday.  But it will be relaxing.  There is a hot tub and huge kitchen and a gazebo so it will be good times.  I will blog from there, hopefully!