Category: tucking in

  • another sourdough day

    It’s a random Wednesday morning in March and I’ve just pulled my starter out of the fridge. The lovely box of yeasty goodness will celebrate it’s fourth birthday next month and my daughter is keen to break out the sourdough recipe book and try some recipes that are not bread.

    In the meantime, I’ve been writing quite a bit in my daily thread this past month and a half about my sourdough and it felt like a good day to combine, mix, fold and proof those words into a proper post here.

    Set oven to hot and…

    sourdough loaves

    I’ve stopped counting how many loaves of bread I’ve made with my starter. It passed the three hundred mark about six months ago, and I ran out of room for tick marks on the lid of the container where I keep the magic.

    I made two more last night, sandwich loaves in little cast iron loaf pans, crispy on the outside and fluffy and delicious on the interior.

    This morning (February 13th) there are about one and a quarter loaves left. That’s what happens when four adult (or at least three adults and one not-quite-but-eats-like-an-adult) lives in your house. Fresh bread does not last long.

    sourdough first day

    I sometimes tell people who ask about my bread that sourdough isn’t difficult. It’s just twenty minutes of work spread across two full days.

    On day one I start in the morning and take my starter out of the fridge. Some people will tell you that you need to keep in on the counter, feed it every day, and care for it as if it were a child. My starter will be four years old next month and he comes out of the fridge for about 12 hours at a time, just long enough to prime for action… then fed, watered, and right back to bed.

    My starter comes out of the fridge at about 7am, before I head out to work, and by the time I get home it’s warm and bubbly and active.

    I mix my dough, and while I’ve got the flour out on the counter, I replace the half of the starter I used with two parts flour and one part water and double him back up to his regular size with a good mix.

    The starter goes back in the fridge. The dough has some countertop time and some folds over the next couple hours, and it joins the starter.

    Ten tough minutes of work, spread across that first day and I’ve got a fed starter and a bowl of dough resting for tomorrow.

    sourdough second day

    The dough spent the night in the fridge and this morning, shortly after I got up and while I was bustling around the kitchen to feed the dog and make coffee and wake up, I put the covered bowl onto the counter to warm up a bit.

    It was still cool an hour later when I weighed, cut, kneaded and rolled the dough into a pair of loaf blanks and dropped them into my parchment-lined cast iron loaf pans.

    Those two loaves will rest and proof on the counter, out of the way from disturbance, covered and quiet and warm at room temperature until later today. Maybe it will take ten hours, twelve hours or even fourteen — it all depends on the mood of my yeast this week. (But I’m guessing 12 hours.)

    When those loaves rise up over the lip of the pan and start to look and feel ready, I’ll heat the oven up to 450F and put them inside for a thirty minute bake.

    When the timer chimes, I’ll pull them out onto a cooling rack and savour the smell of fresh baked bread through the house while it lasts. It only lasts a while, sadly.

    Ten more minutes of work, spread across the second day and I’ve got two loaves of fresh sourdough ready to enjoy for breakfast in the morning.

    sour flour power

    The flour makes all the difference to the end product… at least according to my daughter, who will devour a half loaf of bread in a sitting when I use 100% white bread flour to make my weekly breads versus a slice here and there when I substitute even as little as 10% for rye, whole wheat or some other blend into the mix.

    I prefer the grainy breads and the darker results.

    But there is something captivatingly powerful to the teenage mind for white bread, it seems.

    This is doubly strange when one considers that we never buy white bread. Not that we buy bread much (or ever really) now anyhow but back when loaves of sliced bread were still on our shopping list we would always go for the grainy, wheat-ish, non-white bread every time.

    Hamburger and hot dog buns, sure. White bread.

    But sliced loaves? Never.

    So, all this means that I’ve had to limit my flour experimenting to alternate bakes, white one week, blend the next, repeat, to surrender to the allure and power of white bread flour.

    dough, soured

    The thing about sourdough is that there is an advantage to a long proof.

    So, when you mix your dough on Wednesday night, say, and intend to rest in the refrigerator overnight and then countertop proof it the next day so that, say, you can bake it on Thursday evening… but you forget and go to work instead and leave the dough in the fridge…

    Well.

    You can countertop proof it on Friday and bake it up Friday evening (instead of Thursday as you had intended) and not only is the final bread fine, it is arguably better for the longer rest in the fridge. Better flavour. Better rise. Better all round.

    Amazing.

    This may have definitely been a true story.

    bread journaling.

    Do you keep a baking journal.

    I know, if you’re not a hardcore baker or sour-bread-head, then maybe that sounds a little nutty.

    But after nearly four years of baking sourdough from my little kitchen and having a few of photos and plenty of tasty memories, I realize I haven’t kept great notes on what I made, how I made it, or when or why or how or whatever…

    I blogged a bit, and you can find it here.

    I made lots of tick marks on my starter-ware to denote a baking event.

    But I couldn’t tell you the specifics.

    Specifics and details and notes are how you learn and get better.

    My bread is pretty good, but it could always be better, right?

    So. Maybe a journal isn’t a terrible idea.

    How do you keep a bread journal and what kinds of things do you write in it?

  • while I worked…

    …and my daughter had the day off from school, she baked.

    Tomorrow is Pi Day. March 14th. 3-14, if you write it out the proper way to look like the first three digits of the mathematical constant pi, 3.14…

    She baked a pie.

    It is an apple pie, with ingredients she found stuffed away in various cupboards, pantries, and freezers.

    While I worked the smell of fresh apple pie wafted through the house.

    Tomorrow is Pi Day.

    Tomorrow.

    There is a fresh apple pie on my countertop filling the house with lovely apple pie smells, and it must wait until tomorrow.

  • Moka Express

    In my quest to find a great replacement for my afternoon cup of coffee, having ditched the pod machines and spent a solid year tuning and enjoying my pour over game, Santa was kind enough to bring me a moka pot for Christmas this year.

    And I’ve been having a great, well-caffeinated time learning to use it.

    As I understand it, the moka pot is a bit old fashioned. Originating in Italy, it was a popular home brewing gadget after the Second World War but prior to the proliferation of the drip machine.

    A three part contraption, the funnel-filter in the middle is filled with ground coffee and as the water boils in the bottom chamber it pressure-rises through and up, percolating and filling the upper chamber with espresso-like coffee.

    The result is not a true espresso, though it’s close. An yet it’s much stronger than drip coffee.

    I’ve been mixing hot-to-boiling water into mine at a ratio of roughly 1 part moka brew to 2 parts water, and the result is an almost-Americano-like drink that is full of flavour and body in a way that even my best drip coffee pour overs have trouble achieving.

    About a scoop and a half of ground coffee fills the filter and less than ten minutes on my simmer burner has a steaming cup of better-than-average-joe in my mug and ready to fuel the afternoon office push of video meetings and budget plotting and government paperwork.

    None of this is push button, but between my pour overs (which are cheap, fast, and simple) and my moka pot americanos (which are slower, use a bit more raw ingredients, but overall tastier) I think I’m narrowing in on some old fashioned solutions to a modern problem: single serve simple afternoon coffee for the work-from-home desk jockey.

    At the end of the day, my whole scheme here is one of reducing the number of plastic, disposable pods I formerly used to create mediocre (and relatively expensive) afternoon cups. Pour overs and moka pots are about exploring something quick and easy in the coffee brewing effort.

    And overall I’m rating this adventure quite high.

    Also… the Coffee Singularity Has Arrived

    I asked ChatGTP how to make coffee with a moka pot. Here’s it’s answer:

    A Moka pot, also known as a stovetop espresso maker, is a simple and traditional way of making coffee. Here’s the basic process for using a Moka pot to make coffee:

    1. Fill the bottom chamber of the Moka pot with cold water, up to the level of the pressure valve.
    2. Add ground coffee to the metal filter basket in the middle chamber, tamping it down lightly.
    3. Assemble the Moka pot by placing the middle chamber with the coffee and filter basket on top of the bottom chamber with the water. Make sure the gasket and filter plate are properly in place.
    4. Place the Moka pot on the stovetop over medium heat. Do not use high heat or let the water boil.
    5. As the water in the bottom chamber heats up, it will begin to create pressure, forcing the water through the coffee and into the top chamber. Once the coffee has started to fill the top chamber, you can hear a gurgling noise, at this point you can remove it from the heat to prevent the coffee from getting burned.
    6. Once all the water has passed through the coffee, the pot will make a distinctive “hissing” sound, indicating that the coffee is ready. Carefully pour the coffee into cups, being careful not to burn yourself on the steam or hot metal.

    Note that, Moka pot often extract a strong coffee with a bold, rich flavor and a thick crema on top. Also remember, to clean the pot after each use, to ensure that you’ll always get the best flavor out of your coffee.

  • Scratch Soup

    Regular readers may recall that following a hearty New Years Eve dinner with friends, I upcycled the leftover beef bones and made a big pot of new years stock.

    Beef stock.

    Yum.

    …which, of course, can be used for all sorts of amazing things, and in particular homemade soup.

    I make soup quite frequently, but claiming that I follow any sort of recipe is quite far from reality.

    I tend to make scratch soup.

    Soup. From scratch. From whatever.

    For example, the scratch soup I made recently from my (also recently) made beef stock looked a little something like the photo below:

    Scratch soup has a little of this. And a little of that. And a little of this other thing, cooked together into a lovely, luscious meal in a bowl.

    For example, this bowl of scratch soup looked a little something like this:

    a (kinda) recipe

    2 cups beef stock
    2 cups of water
    1 tablespoon of flour
    1 tablespoon of olive oil
    handful leftover roast beef chunks
    the leftover peas and carrots from dinner
    a bit of leftover chopped onion
    the remains of that bag of dried pasta
    salt, pepper, and a squirt of hot sauce

    Using up leftovers, scrounging bits of vegetables from the refrigerator, gauging spices, and adding bits that make texture and flavours and spicyness to what you and your culinary audience likes… this is what makes a good scratch soup.

    Tomorrow’s soup might look a lot different. For example, I know we’ve got a half can of black beans, a partial bag of gnocchi and a leftover sausage in the fridge. Sounds good to me, but the day after that those same ingredients will be gone and I’ll be working with a new collection.

    Scratch soup is whatever you make it.

    Maybe you use leftovers.

    Maybe you keep a few key ingredients handy or frozen nearby.

    Maybe you go simple.

    Maybe you love complexity.

    Ultimately it’s your scratch, to itch with whatever you think would make a great soup.

  • taking stock, making stock

    New Years Day and it’s officially 2023.

    We host a party every new years with our camping friends. We don’t camp on new years eve, but instead we cook a big meal in our warm house and then wander over to the park to skate or sled or (if they’re not cancelled like last night) watch the fireworks.

    We play games. We talk. We drink and we cook a big meal.

    We splurged last night and spent inflation-grade prices for a huge piece of beef prime rib that we cooked and carved and served.

    Left over was a small stack of beef bones that I carefully shaved the best bits of meat off of and then promptly hid in a baggie at the back of the fridge. Gnawing on a big old bone would not be unheard of with our crowd, but I was saving these for my New Years Stock.

    Recipe

    beef bones and leftover trimmings
    onion
    garlic
    carrots
    parsley
    celery
    bay leaves
    spices
    water

    In a big ol’stock pot, bring it all to a boil then let it simmer for as long as you can. Four hours, for hours, for ever. Ideally about five to ten hours of cooking renders all the beef tissues and pulls all the aromatics from the vegetables and turns leftovers into a golden-hued liquid that is amazing for all your upcoming cooking needs.

    New Years is a time for taking stock.

    We make resolutions to be better or do better or feel better.

    I made stock, which was a kind of literal taking stock of some things about using up leftovers and cooking even more at home and thinking about flavours and ingredients and other foodie-type thoughts.

    Not a bad way to end the old year, and an even better way to start the new one.

    Happy New Year.