It looks like we will have quite the fruit harvest this year from our garden!
Here we have a tomato baby…
Multiple plum babies…
And an abundance of apple babies…
Now we just have to try to protect all our babies from bugs and pests!
Archive for June, 2009
More soup
In Food, Justin, Justin's Les Halles Challenge on June 26, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Today I made soup for dinner. It was “Fennel and Tomato Soup”, and was one I was looking forward to. I like tomato soup and really like fennel, so I figured the combination would be a hit, and I wasn’t disappointed. Plus, it was really simple to make, although I did manage to have a blow out near the end. To start, I just took a bunch of fennel, a potato, and an onion, all chopped up, and cooked them down for awhile, then I added tomatoes and cooked it some more.
Once the tomatoes had cooked a bit, I added broth and let it simmer for about an hour. During that time Julie grabbed some of her paprika cheddar biscuits out of the freezer and got those ready.
Once that was all cooked, I transferred the entire pot to the food processor to blend it. This is predictably where the blow out occurred. I didn’t realize that the food processor isn’t meant to be filled more than 60% or so or it starts to leak, so I ended up spilling some of the mixture out onto the counter and floor, all while the phone was ringing (shout out to Jim!). It wasn’t that bad, and I managed to puree everything in two batches. The end result was some pretty stinking good tomato soup.
Good food
In Food, Justin on June 26, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Yesterday was a good food day. Julie and I made root beer floats in the afternoon, and then we went out to eat with our friends Dan and Bethany Volz. They have been watching our cats while we are away this summer and we took them out to Christian’s, one of our favorite restaurants. We noticed on the menu that they had “veal sweetbreads” as the appetizer of the day, and we had a discussion about what part of the calf that actually is. I was guessing it was an organ, like a liver, and Julie thought it was brains. Turns out they are thymus glands, either in the throat or around the heart. They came served in a creamy sauce, with peas and tomatoes
They had a really nice texture, with a mild veal flavor, not overpowering at all. The texture was softer than chicken, but still kind of firm, and it went with the sauce and vegetables really well. The fresh peas were definitely a hit with Julie who is not normally a pea eater (her view: “They squish like little brains”). We also had an order of gnocchi, just in case the sweetbreads didn’t turn out 
For dinner, Julie had the grouper special, which was grouper on a cauliflower and potato puree, covered in garlic mushrooms with a caramelized onion sauce. She really liked it, to the point where she ate the entire thing and regretted it (a definite Gasper family tradition). I tried a piece (just the fish, no mushrooms), and it was really good.
I had the mahi mahi special, which was a filet of mahi mahi over pasta in an orange butter sauce, covered in 3 giant asparagus. It also came with 3 sea scallops, which was a big part of my decision making process It was really good. I like “fruity” flavors, so the orange butter was definitely right up my alley. It wasn’t too overpowering, but you could definitely taste the orange, and the fish and scallops were done perfectly. The asparagus were huge and were perfectly cooked, nice and firm.
It was a typical, wildly successful trip to Christian’s, and we had good company, getting to hear about Bethany’s upcoming trip with the youth group to Iowa, among other things.
Moving day = New Man Cave
In Justin, Miscellaneous on June 24, 2009 at 11:11 am
Yesterday was a big day of moving things around in the house. We had two rooms that had kind of become dumping grounds for various random stuff and we decided to flip some stuff around to make better use of space. Pictured above is one bedroom that we had used as a reading room. It had just kind of become cluttered with “stuff” that didn’t really belong anywhere. Also, Trav’s old bedroom in the basement was just space that we never used, but it’s nice and naturally cool during the summer.
I decided that I needed to convert the basement bedroom into a “man cave”, filled with my Xbox, Wii, Wii related accessories, and the TV. Julie was hesitant at first. She gave me the stipulation that if we converted the upstairs room into the extra bedroom that it’s door had to fully close. The door was from a different part of the house and had been painted a number of times, so it didn’t ever really close. After a lot of time spent readjusting the latch plate and shaving paint off the sticking areas, the door now closes easily, so we went to work. The first thing we did was empty the upstairs room so we could clean the floors and windows and then we moved the bed and matress up from the basement. Getting the mattress up the basement steps and around the corner was not an easy task. We got everything in place and Storm immediately staked her claim to the bed. Julie threw a sheet on the bed to make sure the cat hair didn’t get all over the comforter. I don’t think Storm has moved from this spot in almost 24 hours.
After that was complete, we started moving everything from the second floor down the deck stairs and then down into the basement. There were three big things to move – the TV, the loveseat, and the TV stand. The TV was purchased before flat panels were affordable, and it is not fun to move around. It weighs about 175 pounds, so we grabbed the dolly from our building downtown to get it moved. The table and loveseat were a lot easier. I wired everything up, got the Xbox online and was able to play Call of Duty with Trav last night in my new “man cave”, after I got back from setting up my dad’s new Father’s Day Xbox. I just have to figure out where the Icee machine will go….
Burger Me!
In Baking, Julie on June 22, 2009 at 7:49 pmSeveral weeks ago I ran across this photo while browsing, and immediately printed it out to make. Well, time passed, but it was always in the back of my mind. I had been thinking about making them this weekend, when all of a sudden, amazing miss Bakerella had this post! Now it looks like I’m copying her brilliance. Which, really, is alright with me, but isn’t the case (this time). 
I used yellow cupcakes to make the “buns,” and chocolate fudge cupcakes to make the “burger.” Then yummy vanilla buttercream frosting tinted with food coloring for the “ketchup,” “mustard,” and “lettuce.” Plus (real) sesame seeds for the tops. They were definitely a hit with Justin’s dad for Father’s Day, and with the King family tonight for dinner (helped fuel us up before visiting their backyard waterpark – aka – the hose).
Strawberry Shortcakes
In Baking, Julie on June 20, 2009 at 9:30 pm
To celebrate our first in-season strawberries, I made sweet shortcakes. I actually have a recipe in my files somewhere, but I felt like trying something new. I went with this recipe on Allrecipes.com. It came together quickly and easily. Grating frozen butter is a great time saver, as opposed to cutting or crumbling butter in and trying to get it to the right consistency. The key is to move FAST with any biscuit dough. The faster you get it into the oven, with the least amount of handling, the better. If the dough warms up too much, and it starts sticking to your hands or to the work surface, place the cut biscuits into the fridge or freezer for a few minutes before baking for a tender finished product. This recipe does result in a really tasty shortcake. Not quite as sweet as I would have liked though. If I decide to make this recipe again, I would probably add another 2 or 3 tablespoons of sugar to the dough. Hmm… and maybe a dash of nutmeg or cinnamon, just to give them a little extra umph!
My Aunt Jean sent over some flower-shaped cookie cutters after a big bakeware sale. I thought they were perfect for berry shortcakes!
Leaky Memory
In Julie, Miscellaneous on June 19, 2009 at 3:14 pmAs is the case with many grandparents, Gigi and Gramps accumulated a heavily used set of toys to have on hand for when various kids dropped by. As we sorted through boxes and cabinets and dressers and closets this past weekend cleaning out their condo, someone came across this uncommonly captivating game:
Have you played with one of these in your childhood (or yesterday)?
I remember playing this “Waterful Ring Toss” game many many times at my own grandparents house as a kid. You squeeze the white button on the bottom, and a jet of water inside forces the rings to float about, with the purpose being to get all the rings onto pegs.
Like this:
Yeah, I rocked it.
And yeah, it leaked water down the front of my shirt while it got rocked.
Just like when I was a kid.
New Music I’ve Been Listening To
In Justin on June 17, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Ok, so when I was in high school, I had some interesting musical tastes that I’m sure thrilled my parents. I had a cheesy RCA stereo with a CD player from which I played my music at a higher than reasonable volume, in a room lit solely by blinking Christmas lights that I wired directly into the light fixture in my room so they worked on the switch. Matched the flower border perfectly….
Anyways, with that background, I figured I would share some of the new music I have been listening to lately and would recommend. Recently it’s been pretty much all indie rock, some new this year, and some a little older.
Trav just clued me into a new album “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix“, by “Phoenix”. “Lisztomania” is the single, but I prefer “1901″ as the catchy song on the album, and “Love Like a Sunset” as the building, sweeping song. All the songs are pretty solid, well thought out, and well executed. Definitely a good, catchy summer album
Next up is “Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes)” by “Cloud Cult”. This has a more electronic feel to it than the “Phoenix” album. The first track is a great building track. It starts slowly and builds and builds to a dramatic finish. There’s a lot of variety and energy in this album. Recommended.
“Birdmonster”’s album “From the Mountain To the Sea” is a little more low key than the previous two, so it’s good for a change of pace. It’s very easy to listen to, with good melodies and a straightforward leading voice.
I’ve probably been driving Julie nuts with “Furr” by “Blitzen Trapper”. I listen to a couple of songs off this one quite a bit – notably “Furr” and “God & Suicide”. This is a little more mainstream album, but really well done and solid. This is one that I’ve listened to straight through a few times. Probably more than a few if you ask Julie. Great energetic songs and a lot of variety in this one.
Finally, the other one I have been listening to a lot is “Now We Can See” by “The Thermals”. A solid, straightforward pop-punk album with lyrics that are definitely more interesting than normal.
Dragon Pretzels
In Food, Julie, Snacks on June 16, 2009 at 8:37 pm
This past weekend I made glazed pretzel sticks for a get-together. I’ve had the recipe for years, and have made them multiple times, but I decided to play with the recipe a bit this time around. The directions are ridiculously easy. Combine some honey, melted butter, onion powder and chili powder, pour over and stir into pretzels sticks, and then bake for a few minutes. This time, though, I decided to substitute Chipotle powder in place of the chili powder, for a spicier, smokier flavor. The result is much spicier and much smokier than I had in mind, and Justin has coined them “dragon pretzels.” While he is thoroughly addicted to the zippier blend, they are a little too hot for my taste. I love the sweet component to them, and that is what you taste first, but then the fiery chipotle takes over. I’ll definitely make them again, and use the chipotle powder, but I’m thinking I will cut back the amount, just a little!
Here is the recipe I used for this batch:
1 bag (about 8 cups) pretzel sticks
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon chipotle powder (using chili powder results in a much milder finished product)
Combine the honey, butter, and spices. In a large bowl, combine the pretzels with the honey mixture. Line two rimmed cookie sheets with aluminum foil and spray foil with non-stick cooking spray. Divide pretzels between cookie sheets and spread out a bit. Bake at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes, stirring pretzels halfway through cooking time. Allow to cool, stirring every few minutes to keep pretzels from sticking together (they will be very sticky!).
Travel days are *not* healthy eating days
In Food, Justin, Travel on June 14, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Lots of food was eaten today, and none of it was even remotely healthy. Today we left Cincinnati to drive back to Stevens Point, with a quick drop-off of my brother Luke in Madison. The day started with me seeing a sign for a Dunkin’ Donuts, and since we were running a little early, I figured it couldn’t hurt to stop. We each started ordering a donut or two, and the lady behind the counter was nice enough to point out that a dozen donuts is only $5.99, and individual donuts are 89 cents each, so the smart move was to get a dozen (bowties and apple fritters count as 2).
Next, we stopped in Indianapolis to visit my grandma, aunt, and cousin for a couple hours. While we were there, my aunt Shelley was kind enough to order not one, but 3 Papa John’s pizzas. Leaving there thoroughly stuffed, we stopped at a gas station to tank up and I got a Red Bull to keep me going, and then we made it to Madison to drop Luke off. On the way out of town, we stopped at A&W for a couple of mini corn-dog value meals.
I’m not eating anything substantial for at least a couple days. Tomorrow is a soup day.
On the way back, we got a couple of good shots out of the car of Madison. For whatever reason, there was a huge traffic jam going both north and south on I39 that we got stuck in for awhile. Hopefully Luke still had enough time to prepare for his concert tonight. We’ll be back home in 1/2 hour. Yay!
Nemo and Sebastian are in my belly
In Food, Travel on June 13, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Today was a long day of going through my grandma’s things and deciding which relative was going to take what, and cleaning out a lot of stuff accumulated over the years. It was cool to see some of the stuff she saved – apparently she got on a kick of recording phone calls in the late 70’s, so she had some cassette tapes of my dad calling home from college. After the clean up, we went to the memorial service and then went out to eat at a Peruvian restaurant here in Cincinnati.
This was pretty authentic (what Peruvian restaurant isn’t). Luckily, the descriptions were in English, and there were numbers by each of the individual menu items to order from, so they didn’t have to try to decipher my horrible attempt at reading Spanish. One disappointment was that Cuy was not on the menu. I figure they are missing out on a lucrative tie-in with the new “G-Force” movie
Luke and I got an Inca Kola to start (of course). Luke ordered half of a fried chicken. It was in the menu as “half fried chicken”, and I tried to convince him that it was actually half of a chicken and then deep fried. He didn’t believe me, until it came out.
Lynn got a potato dish with a black mint cheese sauce. Looked pretty interesting, and apparently didn’t taste “minty”, but I didn’t try any. There were also a couple of plantain appetizers being passed around that were good. One tasted like regular french fries, and the other was more sweet with a cinnamon sauce on it.
Julie recommended the “#19″ that she remembered from her time in Peru, and a number of people got that. It was the “aji de gallina” – shredded chicken and bread, rice, and potato with pepper cheese sauce. Just as good as she remembered in Peru.
I got the “#77″, which was apparently a Peruvian paella. I honestly felt like I was eating all the characters from Finding Nemo and Little Mermaid. There were so many different types of seafood in this dish it was hard to keep track. It was also a dish that fought back as I tried to eat it. Crammed into the rice on top was an entire small crab, and as I tried to break it apart, I impaled my finger on one of the sharp spines on it’s claw. The pain was well worth it when I finally got the meat out of it. There were also tiny octopii, squid, an oyster, a clam, shrimp, and maybe other stuff as well. All mixed with rice, peas and beans. It was really good, but there was way too much.
Overall, it was a successful trip, and much better than the first idea – Perkins.
Seriously Amazing Rolls
In Baking on June 11, 2009 at 9:16 pm
As I was meandering through the internets yesterday, I stumbled across this recipe for dinner rolls and orange rolls. I hadn’t really been planning on making anything from the bread book today, but after a dinner invitation from friends I thought I would try them out to bring. Good Decision. I followed the recipe to the letter, dividing the dough in half at the end to make both the dinner rolls and orange rolls. Great Decision. 
Both types of rolls turned out light and soft and oh-so-delicious. As the dinner rolls came out of the oven I hit them with melted butter, and then a generous sprinkling of kosher salt. Oh. Yum. And the orange rolls were bright, citrusy, buttery delights. Goodness Gracious. Please make these rolls this weekend. And eat them all before I get wind of it, or I’ll be knocking on your door soon enough!
Soupe au pistou
In Justin's Les Halles Challenge on June 11, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Today, in the “Les Halles” challenge, I made “soupe au pistou”, which is vegetable soup with pesto in it. There was a lot of prep work that had to go into this, including slicing garlic, an onion, tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, a leek, and a fennel bulb. The vegetables were all sweated down and simmered with a bunch of chicken stock.
Next, elbow noodles and beans were added and cooked. Finally, at the end, pesto was mixed in to give it some extra “pizzazz”. I cheated a bit on the pesto. Julie had a bunch frozen that I used instead of making my own. The end result was still really good. Not quite as good as the onion soup, but, in my opinion, way better than the fungus soup from yesterday. This recipe made a lot, so some went to the Kings. I am interested to hear if it gets better or worse overnight.
Mushroom soup = meh
In Justin's Les Halles Challenge on June 10, 2009 at 10:02 pm
I will be the first to admit that I am not a fan of mushrooms. This is something I am trying to overcome, but I am thinking it will take more time. Today I made mushroom soup. This soup is made from butter, an onion, a heaping pile of mushrooms, and a little bit of sherry.
It was cooked down for an hour and then blended in the food processor until “smooth”. I tried a bite and decided that my “soup” tonight was going to be Frosted Mini-Wheats. Julie assured me that the soup was actually good, but I will just have to take her word on it, since I wasn’t going to try more than the bite I had.
Baguettes with Pate Fermentee
In Baking, Bread: A Baker's Book Challenge on June 10, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Today’s bread recipe is very similar to the baguettes with poolish, with just a slight variation. A Pate Fermentee is usually a small amount of dough reserved from a previous mix which acts as your started and gives extra flavor when added to subsequent mixes. The main difference between a pate fermentee and a poolish is the presence of salt (the poolish doesn’t contain salt). Rather than reserving unbaked dough from my previous baguettes (mainly because I didn’t think to), I mixed up the pate fermentee as listed in the book. The resulting loaves are delicious, though both Justin and I thought the baguettes with poolish had slightly more flavor.
Baguettes with Pate Fermentee
–Adapted from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman
Pate Fermentee:
1 3/4 cups Bread flour
3/4 cup Warm Water
1 tsp Kosher Salt
1/8 tsp Instant Dry Yeast
Mix flour, water, salt and yeast together until smooth. Cover tightly and let stand 12-16 hours.
Final Dough:
5 1/2 cups Bread flour
2 cups Warm Water
2 tsp Kosher Salt
1 1/4 tsp Instant Dry Yeast
Previously mixed pate fermentee
–Add all ingredients to a mixing bowl except the pate fermentee. In a stand mixer, using the dough hook, mix on first speed for 3 minutes to incorporate all the ingredients. As the dough comes together, add the pate fermentee in chunks. If necessary, add additional flour or water. The dough should be moderately loose. Raise the mixer to second speed, and continue to knead for 3-5 minutes, or until smooth and elastic.
Spray a second bowl with non-stick cooking spray, or coat with about a teaspoon of vegetable oil. Add the kneaded dough to the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise in a warm place for about an hour.
After an hour, dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and fold in half. Return dough to greased bowl, cover, and allow to rise another hour.
After this second hour of rising, remove dough from bowl and cut into four to six portions. Lightly shape portions into rounds, and cover with plastic wrap. Allow dough to relax for about 15 minutes.
After dough has relaxed sufficiently, form each portion into a baguette, round, or oval loaf, as you choose. Transfer shaped loaves to parchment-lined baking sheets. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 1 to 1/2 hours.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Bake loaves for 20-25 minutes (depending on the size of the loaves) or until golden brown and internal temperature reaches 210 degrees.
Cooking = not too difficult
In Justin's Les Halles Challenge on June 9, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Well, the first recipe I tried turned out to be a rather big success, so I think I am going to declare that I have conquered “cooking” and must now move on to something else. Today I made Onion Soup out of the Les Halles cookbook. It took awhile to get to the end result, but the time spent was well worth it. The recipe starts with a bunch of onions, sliced thinly on the mandolin (I still have my finger tips), which are reduced down for about 25 minutes with a stick of butter.
Next, balsamic vinegar and port wine are added, along with some chicken stock, cubed bacon (I didn’t say it was healthy) and seasoning.
This is left to simmer for about an hour. Next, it’s ladeled into crocks, topped with a crouton (Julie’s bread from yesterday), and a handful of Gruyere and put under the broiler.
The result was some of the best onion soup I have ever had. It had a great flavor. Next time I think we could use a bit more stock, as the balance of soup to onion wasn’t quite where I would like it, and I will probably hit the cheese with the propane torch to give it a little “extra”, but overall it was a rousing success for my first try. This cooking thing isn’t too hard so far.
Kiwi taste test
In Food, Taste Test on June 9, 2009 at 11:38 am
For my birthday, Trav sent me a box filled with New Zealand “treats”. I put treats in quotation marks because the actual nature of some of what we ate definitely does not fall into the “treat” category. There was a wide selection, from drinks to chips to gummies to chocolate candy. This is kind of a followup post to a taste test of different NZ stuff Trav did.
First up was “Starburst Babies”. These are pretty much exactly what you would expect, candies shaped to look like babies. These are extremely disturbing. Normally, with gummy bears I like to eat the heads first and nibble off their arms and legs. This is much creepier when the candy is an actual baby and not a bear.
Overall these, were good but not great. Jim King and the girls liked these more than I did.
Rating – 6/10
With dinner, Dad and I split the “Demon Cola”. This is a product exclusively marketed to 12 year old boys. The can has a parental advisory on it, and the website (which I didn’t link to, but you can find it with Google), is what you would expect: girls in bikinis on motorcycles and lots of talk about how the cola has “balls”. The cola is actually pretty good, but extremely sweet.
Rating: 7/10
Next we have the thing that is going to haunt my nightmares forever. Does a meat flavored chip sound good to you? Me neither, but I guess in New Zealand they love these things. This is the “Kiwi As” chip, flavored with tomato sauce and mince pie. It basically tasted like death mixed with ketchup. I can’t describe how badly this tasted. The chip looks normal enough, so it would be kind of funny to use a practical joke, but that would be a very very mean practical joke.
Rating: -5000/10
Expect to be making this face if you ever get duped into eating those horrible chips:
I figured since we couldn’t have anything worse than the Kiwi As chip, we went on to “Burger Rings”. This is another meat flavored chip. It’s essentially a Cheeto ring flavored like a burger. They actually weren’t terrible, but this was right after the Kiwi As chip, so all sense of perspective was lost. They taste pretty normal, and kind of salty, but there is a clear “burger” after-taste. I have no idea what a surfing penguin has to do with a chip flavored like a burger.
Rating: 4/10
We moved on to candy to see if we couldn’t get something a little better. The “Mighty Perky Nana” was probably the strangest named candy I have come across. It’s basically a banana Laffy-Taffy covered in chocolate. Kind of strange, but not bad. Not sure how I feel about it being called a “chew bar” instead of a “candy bar” on the package. Dad liked it
Rating: 6/10
Jaffas were kind of the bland, safe candy. They aren’t objectionable, basically just candy coated chocolate spheres. The candy coating doesn’t have much taste and is a little too thick and crunchy and the chocolate inside is pretty middle-of-the-road. My biggest complaint is that they say “orange coated” candy, but the candy coating is very red and has absolutely no orange flavor to it at all.
Rating: 5/10
I was extremely wary of the next candy – the Nestle Aero bar. The two phrases on the package that scared me the most were “Foil Fresh” (huh?), and “Have you felt the bubbles melt?”. I had no idea what to expect, but this was easily the best candy of the bunch. It tastes like someone pumped a bunch of air into an Ande’s mint. Nice and creamy with a good mint flavor. Julie saved a piece until we made it through the taste test to make sure she remembered a good thing. I took one point off from the rating for the weird packaging text.
Rating: 9/10
The next candy is called a “Lump”. Not the most appetizing name. Julie was quick to point out that the packaging said nothing about the candy being good, just that it had been around since 1935. This was a weird candy. It was artificial pineapple flavored chew, covered in chocolate. They definitely weren’t terrible, but they say to try them chilled in the fridge for extra “chew”. We did this at the King’s house, and this was not the case. The chilled lumps turned crunchy and horrible. Not recommended.
Rating: 3/10
The dinosaur gummies were advertised as kind of an “all natural” snack. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but these were definitely #2 behind the Aero bar. They had a nice fruity flavor and nothing weird about them at all. Recommended for a gummi fix.
Rating: 8/10
Finall, we had the “Chit Chat” cookies and Energy chocolate bar. These were both pretty average. The Chit Chat cookies were kind of a chocolate graham cracker covered in chocolate. Not horrible, but not good either. The Energy chocolate bar was just plain chocolate, but didn’t actually taste very good. It was a cross between milk and dark chocolate and wasn’t as creamy as we would have liked.
Overall, the taste test identified a couple of pretty good stuff – the Aero bar, the dinosaurs, the Demon Cola, and the Starburst Babies, but after experiencing the Kiwi As, I still think that New Zealanders have pretty poor taste. There’s no way that something that tastes that bad should be made and allowed to exist as a product.
On an unrelated note, check out the nutrition information panel. This was the same panel for all the foods. I like how it lays out the information clearly in the little tabs across the top.
Baguettes with Poolish
In Baking, Bread: A Baker's Book Challenge on June 8, 2009 at 11:18 pm
The first chapter containing recipes in the bread book is chapter four: Breads Made with Yeasted Pre-Ferments. A pre-ferment is a mixture (typically) of flour, water, and very small amount yeast that is combined 12-24 hours before the final dough is made, and it helps to add a lot of extra yeasty flavor to the final loaves of bread. The first recipe in this chapter is Baguettes with Poolish. Poolish is a type of pre-ferment, that typically has a high ratio of water to flour, making for a very loose pre-ferment. It also does not contain any salt. All the flavor is developed from the yeast and flour. This is a very straight forward recipe, yielding a simple, flavorful loaf with a crisp-chewy crust. Goes perfectly with a delicious bowl of soup – especially soup made by great friends!
Baguettes with Poolish
(adapated from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman)
Poolish:
2 1/2 cups Bread Flour
1 1/2 cups Warm Water
1/8 tsp Instant Dry Yeast
–Combine Flour, Water, and Yeast in a bowl until smooth. Cover tightly and let stand 12-18 hours.
Final Dough:
5 cups Bread Flour
1 1/2 cups Warm Water
1 Tablespoon Kosher Salt
1 1/4 tsp Instant Dry Yeast
Previously Prepared Poolish
–Combine all the ingredients for the final dough in a bowl. With a stand mixer, use the dough hook and allow to combine on 2nd speed for 6-10 minutes, until dough is smooth and elastic. Dough will be moderately loose (add additional flour or water as needed in the first minute or two of mixing).
If mixing by hand, combine ingredients in a bowl with a wooden spoon or spatula until dough has come together for the most part, then pour out dough onto a floured work surface and knead by hand for 10-15 minutes, adding additional flour to keep dough from sticking to your hands or the surface.
Once dough is smooth, place in a clean, greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise in a warm place (75-80 degrees) for 1 hour. After an hour, pour out dough onto a floured work surface. Gently fold dough in half, and return to the bowl. Cover again, and allow to rise for an additional hour.
After an hour, pour out dough onto a floured work surface. Cut dough into 4 portions, gently form into rounds, and cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest for 15-20 minutes. After dough has relaxed, form into baguettes and place on parchment-lined baking sheets. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for another hour and a half. Score, or slice, the tops of the loaves after they have risen.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Pour a cup of water in a small oven proof pan (I used a foil mini loaf pan). Place this pan on one of the oven shelves. The steam will help create the characteristic crisp crust of a baguette. Bake baguettes for 25 minutes, or until internal temperature reaches 210 degrees. Slice, butter generously, and shove into pie-hole.
My chosen book = Justin crazy time
In Justin's Les Halles Challenge on June 7, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Julie tasked me with finding a cookbook to go through, to match her bread quest. To be clear – I am not a cook, unless pouring milk on cereal counts as cooking. This will definitely be much more of a challenge for myself. Expect lots of whiny cries of “Juuullliieee” as I go through recipies when I get stuck or don’t know what to do. The book I chose is “Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook“. This is a collection of French Bistro recipes for all sorts of different ingredients, from potatoes to seafood to pork. I chose this one because we have both read Anthony Bourdain’s other books and enjoy his writing style, and this cookbook follows in the same patterns. I like being berated in all sorts of colorful language when I read a cookbook. Plus, he turned us on to bone marrow, so I know the recipes will be good. I know there will be some horrible things going wrong as I attempt this (hooray for Polito’s and El Mezcal), and I know for a fact that we are going to have to be creative in how we obtain certain ingredients, but at the same time I have always wanted to learn how to at least feed myself, so this will be a good start. Normally when Julie is gone I mooch off friends, eat Portessi cheese fries, and go to my parents’ house for meals.
New Challenge
In Baking, Bread: A Baker's Book Challenge on June 7, 2009 at 7:51 pm
To try to encourage ourselves to eat at home more and try even more new recipes, we are each going to choose a cookbook and attempt to cook every recipe in them. I know this is not a new or original idea, but it is a fun one that I can get behind. Plus, lately I have been sticking with old favorites rather than branching out to find new ones. Justin is still deciding on exactly which book to commit to (after he first picked up my On Cooking text and I looked at him like he had lost his mind) and I’ve chosen one I know I can count on, Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes, by Jeffrey Hamelman. There are 118 recipes for different breads in this book, of which I’ve already tried about 15. Mmm… I’m already starting to anticipate the warm, yeasty smells! I promise to report on the failures as well as the successes – even though they’ll probably make me cry. Or gag. And please feel free to drop by to help clean the dirty dishes! First one to the sink gets their own loaf!
Bouchon
In Las Vegas, Travel on June 6, 2009 at 3:38 pm
When we were in Las Vegas, Julie and I ate at Bouchon at the Venetian for dinner. Julie had eaten there before a couple of years ago, and was excited to go again. I looked at the menu and was definitely excited to give it a try. Plus, we had a 15% coupon for the restaurant that we got at the bakery, so that helped, because we knew it *definitely* wasn’t going to be cheap.
The restaurant had a very cool feel to it. Not too “uppity” that I was uncomfortable, but nice. The waiter was friendly, attentive and helpful. It overlooked one of the garden and pool areas at the hotel. There were nice big windows to let a lot of light in.
Right away, they brought out bread and toasted pistachios for us to munch on.
The waiter explained the specials for us to consider. We got three of the items on the specials menu – an appetizer, an entree and a desert.
We split the “duck pressee” appetizer. It was duck wrapped in applewood smoked bacon and then cooked “en sous vide“, which Thomas Keller is pretty famous for doing in his restaurants. It was served with sunchokes and a huckleberry sauce. It was awesome. We started eating it before remembering to take a picture, so the picture is of the appetizer half finished
For the entrees, I ordered the scallops special (scallops are one of my favorite foods). It was scallops (flown in fresh from Maine that day) over caramelized endives and an abalone steak, with a carrot curry butter sauce. I hadn’t ever had abalone before, so it was a new food to try, which is always fun. Abalone was definitely an interesting thing to eat, kind of chewy, with a distinct flavor. It matched the rest of the food nicely. The whole thing came out served in an All-Clad dish, which was kind of cool.
Julie had the “steak frites”. It was a flatiron steak (probably our favorite steak at the moment), with maitre’d hotel butter and home made fries. The steak was perfectly cooked, and the fries were amazing. Needless to say, both got finished completely.
For desert we had probably one of the best desert dishes we can remember. We ordered the “bouchons”, which was three small brownies, each topped with a different flavor of ice cream – vanilla, mint chip, and peanut butter. When the waiter was describing it and mentioned fresh peanut butter ice cream, I knew that Julie wouldn’t want anything but that desert.
The vanilla ice cream was very good, but got overshadowed by how great the other two were. The mint ice cream didn’t taste artificially “minty”, it tasted more like mint leaves. Based on what we could tell, they used fresh pureed mint leaves to add the flavor, which gave it a distinct taste that was awesome. The peanut butter ice cream was incredibly creamy and tasted amazing – it was probably the best of the three.
Overall it was an awesome experience that will definitely happen again the next time we are in Vegas.
Tastes of Vegas
In Las Vegas, Travel on June 3, 2009 at 5:10 am
Yum. I think you could eat at a different restaurant, deli, or bakery for every meal, every day of the week for a year, and still not a make a dent on everything there is to taste in Las Vegas, even if you just limit it to the Strip! We’ve already had multiple fantastic meals and snacks, from New York pretzels, Hagen Daas Ice Cream, the Buffet at Mandalay Bay, and a Rice Krispie treat the size of my face. Here are some of the more interesting bites we’ve taken:
This is a Parisian Macaroon from Bouchon Bakery in the Venetian. This bakery is the bomb. Phenomenal. Everything looks beautiful and exquiste. Their Cheese Danishes are unbeatable. Parisian Macaroons seem to be all the rage at the moment. I see them on all sorts of blogs and in cookbooks, but have never had one (and didn’t want to try to make them until I knew what the result was supposed to be). And after having one that is reputed to be among the best, I’m not sure I’m a fan. They are beautiful and unique, but the flavor was similar to a Skittle candy! With a texture in between chewy and airy. Definitely interesting.
We also stopped at Canter’s Deli in Treasure Island for lunch a couple of days ago. And all tried REAL pastrami for (we all think) the first time. It was ridiculously good, bordering on obsene. The sandwiches were monstrous. But yet, you still wished you could fit more into your tummy for how delicious it was! Ruth is determined to get one more sandwich (all to herself!) before we leave.
We’ll see what happens across our palates tomorrow!
