I made the best loaves of “Como” bread last week from the book Local Breads by Daniel Leader. I’ve really only followed through on the Italian-style breads thus far, as some of the others require feeding a starter for an extended period of time. I was attempting a sour German rye, but Mr. Market tossed it out thinking it was compost. 

You have to start the biga the night before, and you are supposed to refrigerate it after an hour, but I forgot and left it out all night, and it still worked out fine. The next day you put the rest of the dough together, and mix it in a heavy duty mixer for 10-12 minutes. This is the part that was shocking to me — his methods for “old world” breads require some serious stand-mixing! For his ciabatta, you have to knead it at a high speed for about 15 minutes, and the mixer will practically walk off the counter. 

Anyway, the dough is beautiful and strangely glossy at this point — it looks almost like meringue:

It ferments for a couple of hours, and then big, pillowy proofing:

And then in the oven on a baking stone. I didn’t put the ice cubes in for a chewier crust this time. It was great just the way it was. 

Our local farmers market finally opened for the season around a month ago, and for local produce we are currently looking at onions, rhubarb, and asparagus. We did get some lovely beets and greens from our CSA, as well as some ramps — all of which I promptly roasted and stuck in a wrap with some herbed cream cheese. I often find that is our default menu when I am not feeling energetic in the kitchen — roast’em and poke’em. It is probably not the wisest in terms of thrift because you are condensing them down and the water in raw veggies is what helps fill you up. So, it is pure, concentrated, goodness.

I am on the search for beet recipes, as my editor is looking for ones that don’t “taste like dirt.” Any ideas on getting the “earthy” out of beets?

So, after our first two weeks of a mostly bean diet, there was a little grumbling. And I don’t mean the digestive kind. So, things have broadened out a bit, and here’s a list of things we are eating over an 8-day period:

California Rolls, seaweed salad, miso soup (pkg) – Big hit, pretty inexpensive if you have Asian pantry items.

Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie w/ Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes – Okay. Caused more stomach distress than the beans though!

Homemade Veggie Pizza – We make the best pizza in town.

French Lentil Soup w Tarragon & Thyme – from Chowhound. Awesome, cheap, elegant, and easy. 

Black Bean Soup 

Nachos (w/left over black beans)

Italian-Style Haddock (wild caught, on sale) – Okay. Like Italians, I can’t get over cheese on fish.

Filipino Adobo-Style Chicken – love the vinegar!

One great tip for a foodie on a budget is Mark Bittman’s No-Knead Bread. It is so easy and so darn fast, and it seriously rivals the European breads you can buy at places like Whole Foods. Last week I needed something in a pinch for an appetizer plate for a get-together, and with some Kalamata olives mixed in, it was fab. This week I am doing a rosemary/kosher salt variation, as well as a roasted garlic loaf. I highly recommend giving it a go. If you follow this link you do have to register with the New York Times to see it, but there was so much internet talk about this when it came out that you can find another version easily enough if you search for “No-Knead Bread” — including videos!

  Mark Bittman’s No Knead Bread

Mr Market and I have had to start a (for us) fairly stringent food budget this month due to some unforseen medical bills. I shudder to think what we spend when we go unchecked, but I think it is around $1100/mo. That includes me cooking whatever-the-hell-I feel-like, hubby training his 6′3, 200# self for one of the many athletic endurance events that he likes to do (the man can put away some calories), and one growing boy.

I will say that we have too much waste and unwise management of the larder. We also like to eat organic food as much as possible. On the plus side, I cook most everything from scratch, and we don’t eat a lot of meat. I am Queen of the Bean, really. So this month, we are shooting for $600 in groceries, and $100 in eating out. I know many people feed a family of 5 on that, but we are already over-budget in the first week. We do have some behaviors that have to be modified (like eating lunch out, hubby eating all the leftovers for breakfast, lunch, and snack the next day.) 

But I am curious — how much do you spend on groceries a month? 

Some friends and I got together Saturday night and had and Ethopian potluck. The host make injera, and the other dishes were Doro Wat (a chicken stew with hardboiled eggs which were strangely good), a tilapia stew (which the bringee said was East African), Miser Wat (a red lentil wat, which I brought), a great dessert of honey ice cream & bananas & an orange-juice honey sauce, and honey-wine. Oh, and we had an appetizer of chickpea fritters in a really great berbere sauce. I could have kicked myself for not taking my camera, but I’ll attach a link to the great Miser Wat recipe that I used.  I really enjoyed the spices and all of the dishes in general. I especially appreciate the efforts of the friend who tried to perfect injera — not an easy undertaking.

Miser Wat: http://utopiankitchen.wordpress.com/2007/05/23/died-and-gone-to-ethiopia-miser-wat 

And I just used an epicurious recipe for the berbere spice mix. For the chiles I used New Mexico dried chiles that I baked until crisp-dry — about 10 minutes at 350.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/104015     

Both hubby and I were vegetarians for years, so I am a bit of a neophyte when it comes to cooking meat. I actually believe that cooking vegetarian meals for so long has given me a great set of skills that I might not have developed otherwise. It is, however, more labor intensive than throwing a steak on the grill or a piece of fish in the oven.  We still eat vegetarian the vast majority of the time at home, but my birthday meal was a happy exception.*

I went out to a small, local, family farm this week where they pasture-raise all of their animals, and brought home a lamb shoulder, which my dear husband cooked up the Roasted Lamb recipe from “The River Cottage Meat Book.” It involves cutting slits in the meat and tucking rosemary, anchovies, and garlic into each crevice. He then glazed it with some red currant jam that I had put up this summer. The lamb comes from a sheep variety called the Katahdin, which is markedly less “lamby” tasting than other lamb I have had. (I have to admit — I like my lamb to taste more like lamb. But, it was good nonetheless.) 

*I have come to believe that meat eating, if you choose to do so, should be a sometimes thing, or a celebration, rather than a daily given.  I also try to  make sure I know where it comes from, and that it was raised in happy circumstances. I don’t always meet this ideal, but it is what I aspire to.

Well, I have officially started making a levain, or a starter for some bread that I am going to make in, um, it looks like somewhere between two and nine days from now, depending of how funky my stuff gets. I recently got the book Local Breads (subtitle, “Sourdough and Whole Grain Recipes from Europe’s Artisan Bakers”) which is by the author of Bread Alone. As the subtitle indicates, most of these breads require some significant planning ahead. That, I can do. What worries me more is babysitting the starter. Anything I am required to tend to daily, or any approximation of daily, is usually not terribly successful.

Anyway, the author assures me that after I get it established I only need to refresh the starter once a week — and that he even successfully used one once that had migrated to the back of his refrigerator for three months. So — the basic ingredients: bit of unbleached flour, bit of rye flour, and water. We’ll see! I did make a very convincing Ciabatta from the book. The method was fascinating — after making a biga, you beat the dough half to death in a KitchenAid mixer until it is glossy — almost like marshmallow whip. It was sticky and strange looking, but came out looking just as it should.

Quick pic of the new shelves at the local grocery. I did a piece on winter salads, and this was the best looking veg I could find in my midwestern town. I love the layout, but if you look closely, some of the vegetables look a little tired.

Is there a generic “blog voice?”

When I sit down to blog, my voice is noticably different than my regular writing voice. It has an omniscient narrator quality to it. Not quite like a diary, but different than, say, my creative nonfiction voice. I think I often hear this voice when I read others’ blogs as well, but perhaps not the really successful ones. Maybe that is part of what makes good blog: finding a blog writing voice that is personable and interesting, without sounding like you are writing “Dear Diary” or preparing an Acadamy Award acceptance speech in your bathroom mirror.

In the past I’ve had a few blogs centered around different interests. I am not a good daily-task sort of person, so often I let them fall by the wayside. Since I am writing about food for my job, I thought this might be a good place to keep some of the things I end up not using in the column. Perhaps I’ll even go more local and have it be a local food resource.

Or, maybe I’ll throw out philosophical questions and wonder what in the heck I am doing. . .

I took a class tonight on Indian food, which brought to mind my failed attempts at paneer last year. It was grim; the first batch didn’t make curds (turns out Organic Valley milk is ultra-pasteurized) and the second batch set up curd but I accidentially dumped half of it in the sink. Then, when I did finally have my tiny little pile of paneer, it stuck in a cinematic fashion to my non-nonstick pan. What a disaster! The spinach dish I made to put it in was to die for, however. If I find the link I will add it later.

There was no paneer making tonight — so the mystery of how one can thriftily and successfully make paneer at home is still to be solved. And of course every set of instructions I have read about it stresses how easy it is. Well, let me be the first to admit in public that I failed at making paneer; it really isn’t that easy.

I have an article due on winter salads, so tomorrow I will putzing around in the kitchen and doing research. I’ve come up with a really tasty spinach salad with fennel, toasted almonds, and a light orange vinaigrette. I am working on a roasted butternut squash with Moroccan spices salad-esque dish as well. I may also play around with some watercresss. . . Honestly, sometimes I think I have the best job in the world.

The picture has nothing to do with anything, other than we are in the “Deep Midwinter” here, and it was nice to eat spicy food and think about warmer climes. . .