Straight from the Farm

Alright, so first, let me tell you how grateful I am for the outpouring of support for my thematic tweaking of the blog and for my gutsy or wacky, depending on which peanut gallery you’re seated in, career change.  You ladies and gents rock!  I mean that!  I really have been second guessing my sanity the past few weeks so any and all morale boosters are much needed.  Did I mention I ticked off another decade this past week too?  I’m not telling you which one, but let’s just say I’m fearful I’ve left the “young woman” stage of my life behind.  On my birthday, I was on my knees, pulling weeds, and wondering which synapse exactly in my aging brain short-circuited when I decided to leave my cushy manager’s position for *this*.  Fortunately, I’ve since halted plans to surgically remove that faulty synapse, realizing after planting several 10-15 feet tall trees among towering 200 year old Hemlocks today, that this new role is pretty darn cool. 

So anyway, eons ago, when the temperatures were below freezing (strange how that seems far in the past already), I had those wonderful Weeks of Bread.  Remember?  And in one of those carbohydrate crazy posts, I showcased a recipe for Pumpernickel Bread that proved to be a bit untraditional and promised to make a stab at a more traditional recipe in the near future.  Well, let’s see…3 months later, I’ve finally got that traditional Pumpernickel Bread recipe for you.  This batch was much more along the lines of what most people think of when they imagine those dark, dense loaves with a molasses nip in the flavor. 

It is very time consuming though, so be forewarned.  And it still didn’t meet the standards of the pumpernickel aficionado (D), supposedly too “homemade” tasting.  Um, yes, it is homemade, my dear; how insightful of you.  I personally enjoyed its moist dense interior and crackly exterior, but I guess D was expecting, yet again, a loaf much more similar to that which he buys in the store.  Take that review for what it’s worth.  I would suggest trying this recipe for yourself and, assuming you like it as much as I did, planning to bake big batches of it at a time and freezing it until ready to use.  The fermenting period, coupled with the long sauna session in the oven, make this particular bread a bit difficult to “whip up”.  For the record though, the initial step of getting the ingredients incorporated into a dough is one of the fastest and easiest of any bread I’ve ever made. 

As may be foreshadowed by my slowness to post this recipe, making traditional pumpernickel is only for those with some reserves of patience or mad multitasking skills. 

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You know what I love most about blogging?  With a little dedication, time and encouragement, a virtual community starts forming and the flow of ideas starts going both directs – me to you and you back to me.  Actually, I guess ideas really start flowing three ways when you consider readers sharing hints with other readers in the comments section.  In short, you guys rock! 

Why the sudden outpouring of love?  Well, the Yeast Primer post got a lot of great discussion going in the comments, and I’ve started getting regular emails with helpful ideas and recipes too.  For example, the base recipe for today’s Seasoned Bread Bowls, the last of the bread recipes until next winter probably, comes from reader, Kim, and it helped me to offer an easy method for making bread bowls, a request made by another loyal reader, my mom. 

 

The original recipe was meant for baguettes, I believe, but I thought the seasoned dough would make nice bowls for soups too, adding a little extra flavor in the background.  This dough was very interesting to work with as it wasn’t like any other I’ve made before.  It started with making a batter!  And then beating that batter until it was nearly frothy wiht a heady yeast smell.  Then it became a very fast riser and generally much shorter process from start to finish, which is perfect if you’re trying to get a bunch of them together for a dinner party. 

Thanks to the milk, butter and egg, the resulting crumb of the bread is very light and soft with a good crust – perfect for bread bowls. The seasoning wasn’t as prominent as I expected so I’ve added some extra in the recipe below that I think will give it a boost.  I found I liked my second bread bowl better than the first since it had sat for a day, getting ever so slightly stale (I forgot to seal the bag) and developing its flavors more. 

  

I don’t have any to test it on, but I think this would be a great recipe to get the kids involved with, particularly the shaping of the dough balls.  The dough is super easy, even downright fun, to work with so have them thump it around a bit and then use their little hands, which are much better proportioned than adult hands, to rotate the dough to form small taught balls.   And how excited will the be to then eat their soup out of the bread bowls?  I know I sure was! 

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Ye who are faint of heart, step aside.  Ye who love a hefty loaf of bread, come right this way!  If ever there was a bread recipe that could serve as the poster child Slow Food International, this Honey Multigrain Loaf is it.  And I mean that in the nicest way possible.  You see, this meal-in-and-of-itself loaf requires a little advanced planning and time, but it’s well worth it in the end when you’re slowly making your way through a chewy nutty slice of wholesomeness. 

I’m proud to say this recipe is an original creation of yours truly, but I can’t take all the credit.  A coworker and recent bread making convert had asked me to post a recipe for bread using sprouted grains or wheat berries or something with more “umph” than your typical off-the-shelf loaf.  Ironically, she actually beat me to the punch and adapted the Miracle Bread recipe to include wheat berries and chopped walnuts.  Yes, she’s a superstar SFTF pupil!  But by the time I tasted her lovely loaf, I was already too deep in my noodling process to call off the hunt for a really hearty bread recipe. 

Internet searches and endless page flipping in my private cookbook collection yielded very little, at least for bread recipes including wheat berries, which I knew I definitely wanted to use.  There is one age-old recipe out there for sprouted grain bread, called Ezekiel Bread for its supposed roots in biblical times.  But frankly, after reading over several recipes for it, I didn’t find the idea of it very appetizing.  The [fruitless] search continued.

What’s a bread baker to do when she can’t find the right recipe?  First, she takes out a piece of scrap paper, paces back and forth in front of her pantry shelves, and scribbles down a rough inventory of the grains on hand.  Next, she takes that same scribbled piece of paper, flips it over and starts scribbling rough measurements – ratios really – for the available grains.  Then, she decides on a general method for the bread, including proofing the yeast first and the best shape for the loaves. [By the way, proofing the yeast first was very fortuitous as the first three batches failed to show any signs of life, and it would be a real pain in the buttocks to have prepared the wheat berries and wheat germ only to have the bread not rise in the end.]  Finally, she has to find another piece of scrap paper and a pen she doesn’t mind getting covered in flour so she can take notes throughout the assembly process as she adjusts the amounts of this and that, depending on how forgiving the dough turns out to be. 

WA-lah!!  I would say though that I have a little more fine-tuning to do, most of which is reflected in the recipe below.  The honey wasn’t prominent enough so I upped it a bit.  And the wheat berries were just a touch too prominent so I downed them a bit.  And the alfalfa seeds were delightful so I tacked on another tablespoon.  Otherwise though, I wouldn’t change a thing and plan on making this honey multigrain loaf a regular visitor to our dinner table.  I think I’ll also use it for sandwiches in my packed lunches.  It’s so filling that I’ll surely not be hungry again until dinnertime rolls around (I have a chronic problem with getting the “munchies” around 3 o’clock every day). 

Now, a word to the wise for the newbie bread bakers out there: this loaf is a tad tricky to knead so if you’re not comfortable just yet with the kneading process, you might want to practice with a few of the other bread recipes on the blog first.  The dough is sticky, making it very tempting to keep adding flour to it.  Since there is so much “stuff” in the dough already demanding more moisture than normal, you really have to let it just be sticky so the resulting loaf doesn’t turn out disappointingly dry.  Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it! 

Oh, and I realize my grains inventory might have been a little more diverse than some folks’ might be.  If you’d like to adapt this recipe to what you have on hand, I’d strongly advise keeping the wheat berries for the chewy texture.   You can get them at Whole Foods, Wegmans, or other stores with a diverse selection of grains (they are often found in the bulk bins near the produce section). If you can’t find the wheat berries, a potentially good alternative would be spelt, although that may be equally scarce.  Trust me though; it’s worth hunting these ingredients out.   Otherwise, you can easily substitute different varieties of grains for what is listed in the recipe; just keep the ratios about the same (approximately 5 cups of flours to 2 cups of other stuff). 

And remember to chew slowly!  There’s a lot to be savored in a slice!

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I think I might have to officially declare today “Idiot Day”.  I can’t disclose the full details of why I’ve made this official declaration since it has to do with my professional life and apparently somewhere along the way someone coerced me into signing a document that said I wouldn’t blab on the internet anywhere about topics concerning my job.  I suppose this agreement is ultimately in my best interest too, so let’s just leave it at this: my day isn’t going so smoothly. 

But enough of that; my time is limited today.  Let’s move promptly along to a much more pleasant topic – making your own artisan crackers at home.  Crackers are, after all, a form of unleavened bread, so I thought I’d sneak them in here during our last Week of Bread together.  I got my inspiration from Rebecca over at New Old Fashioned Gal when she submitted the recipe to last week’s Carnival of Recipes: A Menu. 

 

The possibilities of these crackers are endless, since you could very well use a limitless combination of seasonings and probably not have to make the same kind twice for a year if you really put your mind to it.  You could also get fancy with the edges and shapes, using special cutting wheels and cookie cutters.  I see my next batch as being round with wavy edges…

So I mulled over my choice of seasonings for quite a few days before making my first foray into cracker crafting.   I settled on giving priority to some of my dried herbs from the farm on this first go-around since they really are the best seasonings in my pantry – superb flavor and quality.  To keep the dill and oregano company, and mostly because I somehow think everything is better in three’s, I threw in coarse black pepper at the last moment.  Boy, did that pepper make them pop! 

I don’t think these would necessarily make good soup crackers – I mean, they might, but why bother smothering them in soup unless it’s rather bland and needs a cracker with seasoning.  My bag was quickly consumed by scooping up soft goat cheese and just plain snacking while I watched – gasp – the Knight Rider network movie on NBC Sunday night.  It didn’t take a genius to know that piece of entertainment wasn’t going to offer any Emmy-winning performances, but I was blissful in my viewing with my nostalgia and homemade crackers to keep me amused.  

Sadly, I’m now all out of crackers.  It’s comforting to know - especially on a day like today - that when armed with a nearly idiot-proof recipe like this , I can easily make some more.  What combination of seasonings do you think you’d like to try first?

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Everybody ready?  It’s time for SFTF’s third and final Week of Bread.  Actually, I’m hoping I really can rein myself in to keep this to just one last week.  You know me and bread; can’t get enough of the stuff.  Luckily, if only for the sake of my hips, we’re not too far away from the start of the growing season so I can get back to recipes featuring fresh locally grown produce.  The baby bok choy seeds are already pushing up out of the soil in their trays in the greenhouse just four days after we planted them.  Talk about your “go-getters”! 

With the promise of a new season, it becomes a little easier to stop rationing the preserves I put aside for winter.  I have just a few cubes of frozen basil puree left, most of which I want to use in soup and pasta dishes. Since fresh basil is still a few months away, it might be brash to throw two more cubes into a second bread recipe (here’s the first recipe).  But I couldn’t help myself as I really wanted to try these Saffron Basil Breadsticks. 

Saffron is fascinating to me. It’s such a precious commodity, taken from the heart of beautiful crocus blossoms, with what I consider to be an effervescent earthy scent.  I realize not everyone enjoys a smell reminiscent of fresh cut hay as much as I do – I am a farm girl at heart after all.  But taking into account saffron’s history in which kings would send ships half way across the world to get it, paint pictures of it all over their palaces, and offer it to their gods, I’m obviously not a complete loon. 

Fortunately for those of us who aren’t kings and thus have no armadas of ships to fetch our spices, there’s the good old internet.  Buying saffron in bulk (and by “bulk” I simply mean getting more than a mere dozen overpriced strands) online makes this princely seasoning quite affordable for even a pauper.  I got mine here and love using it lavishly without a single guilty twinge for my wallet. 

Saffron and basil, with its peppery bright flavor, are happy companions in most any dish.  They elevate these breadsticks from simple pasta accompaniments to an item on the menu worth noting.  The recipe yields more breadsticks than any normal person, save for a party host, would need at one time.  I froze half of mine and look forward to pulling a half dozen out at a time to bake off and serve with a weeknight dinner fit for a king! 

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