Bread Update

In my last post, I mentioned that I'd just checked out Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day from the library. This week, I've tried out the basic dough recipe, and I'm totally impressed. It took about 5 minutes to whip up this (very wet) dough in my stand mixer with a dough hook.

This rises on the counter for 2 hours then in the fridge for 3 or more. I let it go overnight, then forgot to take a picture.

The next morning, I pulled off a hunk, shaped it into a loaf, and let that rest on the counter for half an hour. Then I transferred it to the preheated pizza stone in the oven (this was the trickiest part, resulting in a much less attractively shaped final product) and after baking for 30 minutes, I had this loaf of bread.

It was super easy (I went through the shaping, resting, baking, and cooling steps while I did my Saturday morning chores), but it tasted really great. (Mark and I both tested a slice with lunch).

For dinner on Saturday night, I decided to use the rest of the loaf to make cheesy bread and to experiment with some of the refrigerated dough as pizza crust (again, following--more or less--the instructions from the book). Here's how dinner turned out:

Mark wasn't sold on the pizza crust, although I quite liked it and would be interested in trying it again (with a few adjustments). But the cheesy bread was a smash hit--we'll be having that again for sure! (The picture really doesn't do it justice).

I've got a little more dough in the fridge, which I plan to use to make pita bread (another variation from the book) later this week to go along with this recipe from Our Best Bites. I expect it to be tasty, too. I plan to test a few other recipes from the book (like the wheat bread) before I decide for sure, but I'm starting to think this is a book I'll need to buy! Not only is the process pretty simple, but (as you can tell) the dough is versatile. I'm also sure it's much cheaper to bake the bread at home than to buy it at the store, so I'm interested in the sandwich bread recipes, too.

I also started a tiny herb garden with two plants (basil and chives) I bought for $1.75 each at the Downtown BG Farmers' Market last week. I bought two very inexpensive pots and some soil, and now I hope to keep these little plants alive and find good ways to use them!