Donnez-nous aujourd'hui notre pain de chaque jour

Gee, who studied French in a Catholic high school? Thank you Soeur Assumpta, after nearly 30 years I can still recite the Notre Père cold. Anyhow, since everybody in the US is at the beach, the stragglers and non-US-ians who read me are going to get a bonus from my kitchen today.

I fancy myself to be a baker of some competence and I have been on a bread making kick lately. To that end, I've been playing around with a baguette recipe that I am now declaring fully tweaked and a consistent producer of some really good bread.

I'm convinced that bread baking is easy, but few kitchen projects offer such a rich return on investment. Bread baking is a contact sport which is what led me to it originally. It's also easy to fit into a schedule. Most bread recipes require short bursts of activity spread out over the better part of a day so it's easy to work around. In addition to those benefits, there is no food so satisfying to prepare. To me anyway. Flour, water and a friendly mold work with a baker to produce a food that's still the bedrock of most diets the world over. Human beings have been baking bread since the Stone Age and I mean that literally. Baking bread in 2009 isn't a very different process from how someone in 9,500 BC would have done it.

Well, that's not entirely true. The recipe I've been playing around with is for a baguette, an archetypal French loaf that's only been around since the mid-1800s. And without further ado, here goes.

1 teaspoon active dry yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

1 ½ cups warm water (105°--115° F)

4 to 4 ½ cups bread flour

2 ½ teaspoons salt

olive oil

In a large bowl, take ½ cup of warm water, 1 cup of flour and a pinch of the yeast and mix together. Cover and let sit overnight at room temperature. The next day, add a cup of water to your starter and mix. Dry mix 3 cups of flour, sugar, salt and yeast and then fold into the larger bowl. Mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon.

Take the remaining ½ cup of flour and use it to lightly flour your hands and a kneading surface. Turn the dough in the bowl onto the surface and knead thoroughly for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Rinse and dry the bread bowl. Lightly oil the bowl and transfer the dough back into it. Turn the dough to oil it top and bottom. Cover the bowl and let the dough rise at room temperature until it doubles in size (1 ½ to 2 hours).

Preheat oven to 400° F.

Take a cast iron skillet and fill it ¾ full with water. Set in the lower rack of the oven.

Punch down the dough, turn it out onto the floured surface and form it into a long, slender loaf around 3" in diameter. Lightly grease a baking sheet and set loaf onto it. Let rise for ½ hour at room temperature.

Make 3 or 4 diagonal slashes across the the top of the loaf. Lightly brush the top with olive oil. Bake on the center rack for ½ hour or until the crust is golden. Remove from oven and cool on a rack.

This is a simple recipe and it yields a loaf of surprising complexity and texture. Though the resulting loaf is fatter than a true baguette, its size makes it perfect for sandwiches. I like it still warm from the oven with good oil and a pinch of salt. When it's toasted and slathered in apricot jam on day two it will make you never want to buy bread in a bakery again.

Lazy people take heed! Pre-made cookie dough has a body count.

See this?

If you have any of this symptom of of social decay in your fridge, take it back to the store where you bought it before you poop to death. Nestle is recalling all of its Nestle Tollhouse Cookie Dough products immediately. An E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak traced to their pre-made cookie dough has already sickened 68 people. Even though E. coli can be killed by cooking anything contaminated with it, Nestle's not taking any chances and is encouraging customers to return or discard all of the product. Don't cook it, don't touch it, don't eat it.

Now I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. Stuff like this makes my inner Calvinist come out. There are no short cuts folks. There are no short cuts to baking, there are no shortcuts to happiness, there are no short cuts to life. Nonsensical products like pre-made cookie dough are the symptom and the result of the lie that somehow "we're too busy" nowadays to make cookies. Because "we're too busy" it becomes OK to feed yourself and your family out of a microwave, it becomes OK to do away with dining rooms in favor of TV trays, and it becomes OK to have shorthanded text messages substitute for talking to your mother. Bull! I say it's bull. "We" aren't to busy, but "we" have screwed up priorities.

If you want cookies that won't sicken you or your family, here's a recipe.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels

1 cup chopped nuts

Directions:

PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

I make these cookies for myself every couple of weeks as a reward for good behavior. It takes a whopping 20 minutes to put the batter together and about an hour to crank out two dozen cookies. Baking things like this for myself is easy, allows me to control what I eat and doesn't expose me to E. Coli 0157:H7. make your own! It's cheaper, safer and provides a sense of accomplishment break 'n bakes can't.

Embarrassingly simple Christmas recipe

I bake like a man possessed on holidays and take great pride in the fact that I still make things the hard way. I suppose it's my Scots heritage, but in my mind taking shortcuts is cheating and I won't have it. I may be the only one at the table who gets it that my pie crusts are authentic and that my cookies are the real deal, and a lot of times that's all that matters. Baking without pre-prepared shortcuts makes me feel like I'm carrying on a dying tradition --I feel like I'm keeping alive the memories and traditions of my grandmothers. It gives me a tremendous amount of satisfaction to share the results of those efforts with the people I love.

Though it pains me to admit it, probably the most popular thing that comes out of my kitchen at Christmas is a confection that every fiber of my being tells me is all wrong. It's embarrassing to put them out on the table and I wrestle with whether or not to make them every year. My public demands them and who am I to stand up to popular opinion? Besides, they're good to the point of obscenity. I'm referring to something called a Rolo Turtle. A Rolo is a chocolate-covered caramel that's not anything I've give a whole lot of thought to under ordinary circumstances. Combine a melted one with a pretzel and a pecan half though, and the humble Rolo is elevated to something that defies description.

An old friend of mine who's a huge fan of shortcuts brought them out at a party a couple of years ago and despite my inclination to turn up my nose and scoff, I couldn't get enough of them.

Here's the recipe but please don't credit me if you make them yourself. I have a reputation to maintain.

ROLO TURTLES

 

Ingredients:

 

1 package small square pretzels

1 13-oz. package Rolos 

1 package Pecan Halves

 

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 250 Degrees.Cover a cookie sheet with 

aluminum foil and place pretzels individually to form 

one layer only. Place one Rolo on top of each pretzel. 

Bake at 250 degrees for 4 minutes or until the Rolos are 

softened. Immediately remove from the oven and quickly 

place a pecan half on top of a candy and push down to 

squish the chocolate into the pretzel and flatten out. 

Cool for 20 minutes, then place uncovered in refrigerator 

for about 20 minutes to set. Transfer to a decorative platter.

From the land of the shoo-fly

I was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; and no, I'm not Amish. I've been away from those gently rolling hills for a long time but Thanksgiving makes me nostalgic. I may not be Amish, but it doesn't take an Amishman to appreciate pretty countryside and an urge to make things by hand.

Arguably, Lancaster County's signature dish is a little something called shoo-fly pie. Shoo-fly pie is one of those things that everybody's heard of but never encountered first hand. Shoo-fly pie is one of my favorite things to bake and it can't be the holidays in my house without it.

The first time I ever made one for a party, everyone thought it was so exotic and cosmopolitan. That is funny on so many levels at one time I can't stand it. Anyhow, here's my recipe for cosmopolitan and exotic shoo-fly pie.

Pie dough for a nine-inch pie
1 cup of all-purpose flour
2/3 cup of firmly packed, dark brown sugar
5 tablespoons of unsalted butter (softened)
1 cup light molasses
1 large egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup boiling water

Roll out pie dough and turn into a nine-inch pie plate. Trim and flute the edges. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, brown sugar and softened butter. Mash with a fork until it reaches a consistent, crumbly consistency. In a separate bowl, beat together the molasses, egg and baking soda with a large spoon until blended. Stir in the boiling water and mix thoroughly (this will begin to foam). Stir half the crumb mixture into the molasses mixture and pour into the crust. Sprinkle the remaining crumb mixture evenly over the top. Bake a 400 degrees, on the center rack, for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake until the pie filling has puffed around the sides and is firm in the center, about 20 to 30 minutes more. Cool on a rack.

Bring on the fennel

Mark Bittman writes a column for the New York Times Dining and Wine section called The Minimalist. Additionally, he writes a Times blog called Bitten that's always worth a look.

Mark Bittman is one of my food heroes. He likes good food, but backs away from the unnecessary hoopla that often surrounds it. Great ingredients, simply prepared; who could ask for anything more?

This week, he took on one of my favorite vegetables, fennel. I run it through a mandoline, throw it in a bowl with some cut up oranges and a handful of cashews and tuck into a bowl of heaven. Really. It tastes like Amalfi.

This week, Bittman combined fennel with one of my other favorite vegetables, celery. Fennel and celery have strangely similar textures and it never occurred to me to combine them. This is a perfect counterpoint to a season of holiday overindulgence.

2 medium fennel bulbs, trimmed, some fronds reserved
3 celery ribs, trimmed
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, more to taste
Salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper, more to taste
Freshly shaved Parmesan cheese.

1. Cut fennel bulbs in quarters lengthwise, discarding outer layer if it is exceedingly tough. Use a mandoline to slice quarters thinly; slice celery equally thin.
2. Put sliced fennel and celery into a large bowl and drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper and toss gently to combine. Top with lots of freshly shaved Parmesan and chopped fennel fronds if you like.

Psst. Need a quickie appetizer recipe for tomorrow?

Here's another great and clever recipe from my pals at the New York Times.

Parsley Salad
2 ounces (about 1/2 cup) soft, fleshy oil-cured black olives, pitted and halved
2 ounces (about 1 cup) flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
2 ounces (about 1/3 cup) red onion, coarsely chopped
1 ounce (about 3 tablespoons) capers, rinsed of salt or brine
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
10 large anchovy fillets, chopped, or additional 1/4 cup black olives
Freshly grated zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
Lemon juice, to taste
Salt, to taste
Thin slivers of Parmesan cheese
Buttery crackers, small biscuits or toasted slices of baguette brushed with olive oil, for serving.

Just before serving, combine olives, parsley, onion, capers, garlic, anchovies, if using, and lemon zest in a bowl, and toss well to combine. Add olive oil and black pepper, and mix well. Add lemon juice and salt to taste (ingredients are very salty, so you may need only a small amount). Spoon onto a serving plate, scatter with Parmesan, and serve with crackers, biscuits or toast.

Yield: 10 to 12 servings; can be doubled.