No Knead Sourdough Bread

Ingredients:
3 ½ cups flour
¼ cup fed and bubbly sourdough starter
1 ½ cups room temperature water
2 teaspoons salt
olive oil, for oiling the bowl

Directions:
Dump the flour, sourdough starter, water and salt into a bowl and use a standmixer with a dough hook to mix the ingredients together on medium-low speed until they form a uniform ball of dough that cleans the sides of the mixing bowl, about three minutes.

Oil a 4-quart glass mixing bowl with a lid, and dump the ball of dough into the mixing bowl. Cover tightly, and let it rise in a warm spot for at least six to eight hours (I just leave overnight for up to 10-12 hours in the winter but probably less when it’s warmer out), or until doubled in bulk.

Place a 6-quart cast iron or Dutch oven in a cold oven, and then heat the oven to 450 F.

Flour your working surface, and dump the dough onto the floured surface, gently forming it into a boule. Cover it with the empty glass mixing bowl, and allow it to rise for 30 more minutes.

If the dough has spread, reform it.  Open the oven and remove the lid from the preheated Dutch oven. Dump the dough into the Dutch oven and cut a slit in the top of the loaf to let the steam escape. Cover and bake for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, remove the lid to the Dutch oven, and continue baking another 15 minutes until the bread is light brown.  Remove the bread from the oven and allow it to cool on a wire rack before slicing and serving.

Sourdough Directions - How to Feed Your "Pet Flour"

As some of you know, I have been obsessively distributing sourdough starter after our homemade family Christmas presents this year and the birth of my newfound sourdough obsession.  I brought some starter out to Portland in an attempt to lure Kurt and Hannah into getting back into sourdough since apparently they were sourdough people years ago.  So I go about explaining the idea of keeping your sourdough alive to Hannah. Hannah, who has been known to mistakenly use air quotes much like Joey on Friends, was getting the hang of this concept of strangely feeding this flour to keep it alive, and started calling it our "pet flour" because we were constantly worrying about getting our sourdough fed and ready in time for our next round of pita, pizza, bread, pancakes, you name it, and thus the term "pet flour" was born thanks to Hannah and her successful use of air quotes in the best and most perfect way possible.

Anyway so here are the directions for trying to keep your "pet flour" alive:

1. For those of you who have gotten sourdough starter from someone (ie me), the first step is to mix in 1/2 cup lukewarm water (preferably filtered or chlorine free) and 1 cup flour.  The starter will be fairly thick, like pancake batter.
2. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature (for up to 12 hours max), until it gets more liquidy and bubbly.  If it doesn’t get bubbly before 12 hours, stir the starter again, and divide it in half; discard half, and feed the remaining half with 1/2 cup lukewarm water and 1 cup flour.
3. Stir the starter down. Place it in a stoneware or glass container, loosely covered with a lid, or a screw-on top, not fully screwed on. Refrigerate it until you're ready to use it in a recipe.
4. Most sourdough recipes will call for 1 cup or so of "fed" sourdough starter. Here's how to turn your refrigerated starter into "fed" starter.
5. Up to 12 hours before beginning a recipe, stir the starter and discard 1 cup. You can give this 1 cup to a friend, or use 1 cup to make pancakes, waffles, whatever. Whatever you do with it, just get rid of 1 cup (or about half of the bowl) of starter.
6. Feed the remaining starter with 1/2 cup lukewarm water and 1 cup flour.
7. Let it sit at room temperature, covered, for 4 to 12 hours, till bubbly. It's now "fed" and ready to use in a recipe.  In the summer, it will get bubbly quickly and in the winter it may take up to 12 hours.  If it ever reaches 12 hours and it’s still not bubbly, discard 1 cup (or half of it) and feed it ½ cup lukewarm water and 1 cup flour again.
8. Once you've removed however much starter your recipe calls for (usually 1 cup), feed the remainder with 1/2 cup lukewarm water and 1 cup flour. Let this remaining starter sit, covered, at room temperature for 2 to 4 hours, until bubbly. 
9. Stir down, return to its container, and refrigerate again until the next time you want to use it.

To keep sourdough in the refrigerator:

1. If you're not planning on using your sourdough starter every day, take it out and feed it once every few weeks.  Starter that hasn't been fed for a month or more will still probably be just fine.
2. If you leave it for 3-4 plus weeks, your sourdough may have a substantial layer of green/gray/brown liquid on top. That's OK; it's simply alcohol from the fermenting yeast. However, if the liquid on top is pinkish; or if the sourdough smells "off" or bad (not simply tangy, or like alcohol), then your starter has attracted the wrong bacteria, and should be discarded.
3. Otherwise, stir the liquid on top into the starter below.
4. Keep stirring till it's smooth, then discard 1 cup (or about half of it).
5. Add 1/2 cup lukewarm water and 1 cup flour.
6. If you’re not planning to use it and just want to feed it and put it back in the refrigerator, stir till smooth, then cover and refrigerate it; no need to wait for it to become bubbly.

Roasting a chicken

When Kurt is finished with his rant about what kind of cook I could possibly be if I don't know what a mirepaux is and that no one who is not a fan of cooked carrots or celery is any friend of his, he is going to tell us how to roast a full chicken and I'm going to live blog the process...

Step 1.  Fail miserably at making your own mozzarella cheese.  Step 2.  Pour out the curdled but not cheesed milk you just spent 45 minutes stirring.

Some of you may be asking yourselves why on earth you would roast a chicken.  A roasted chicken is the single most delicious food item that you can serve the people you love (besides vinegar.) It turns out it's the easiest thing in the world to make so as long as you have enough time to roast it, which let's face it, you probably do, then it's basically buying a chicken and throwing it in the oven. Anyway here it is...

Step 3. Clean out the chicken carcass - pull out the giblets and save them for the gravy.  Anyone who throws out the giblets should be imprisoned or at least sent to bed without supper according to Kurt.  Rinse off the chicken both outside and in and be sure to pat it dry because if you leave it wet, it'll get soggy and the chicken skin won't crisp up the way you want it to.

Preheat the oven to 425.  Make a bed of roughly chopped carrots, celery, and onions (if you remembered to get onions from the grocery store, which I did not because he didn't think to mention it because he just assumed that I would assume that when he said vegetables, I would get celery, onions, and carrots).

Shove some lemon and rosemary up the chicken's butt.  Stop laughing, I'm being serious--cut the ends off of the lemon and get it inside there.  Rub some olive oil on the skin of the chicken, and add some salt, pepper, and paprika if you're into that sort of thing.  If you're Johanna, buy proper Hungarian paprika and keep it in the fridge for no longer than 6 months.  If you're Kurt, buy proper Hungarian paprika but leave it in the fridge for as long as you like.  If you're a regular person, not only is proper Hungarian paprika not a thing, but it's questionable whether you really need it on the bird with the salt and pepper so do it if you have it and don't if you don't keep that on hand.

Put the bird in the oven and roast it for 1 1/2 hours.  Take the chicken out of the oven and tent some foil over the top and let it sit.

If you feel like making a gravy to go alongside your roasted chicken, here is Hannah's recipe. Remove the chicken from the roasting pan and place onto a serving platter. Put the pan right on the stovetop. Mine covers both a front and back burner so the whole thing heats fairly evenly.

Turn the burners on to medium heat. Toss in the giblets, the wings of the chicken (just rip them off with your hands and in they go), a tomato cut into quarters (I usually cheat and use a bit of tomato paste), the lemon from inside the chicken, and a sprig of fresh rosemary. Fry them up for a minute or two.

Now there are two ways to do this: thick or thin. If you like a thinner gravy, skip this next step. When you have the pan drippings boiling, add 4 tablespoons of flour and stir it in. It will coat the vegetables that are still in there, but don't worry. Keep stirring and cook it until the flour turns tan in color. If it gets too dry and looks like it's going to burn, add a bit of olive oil to the pan.

Now add 1 cup of wine. If you added flour in your last step, add the wine slowly and whisk the entire time. Let this boil until it reduces by half, about 10 minutes. Now add the juices that have collected on your serving platter and 3 cups of chicken stock. Let the gravy reduce until it is as thick as you want it. It may take awhile, but it's worth it. When it has reduced, add some salt and pepper. Keep tasting the gravy as you cook and add salt slowly! When it is done, strain the gravy through a strainer, pushing down on the giblets/vegetables to squeeze out all the flavor.

Cooking Beans in the Crock Pot

I realize that I'm the only crazy person out there who takes my beans seriously enough to cook them myself instead of just buying canned beans but I'm posting this anyway.  I cook them in the crock pot and then freeze some for later because that's the kind of nerd I am.  It started in Ghana (well fine, it started in Honduras, but I wasn't the person on bean cooking duty back in those days) because canned beans were hard to find and really expensive, and now I somehow can't go back because they're just better and it somehow seems like cheating.

Ingredients
Any amount of dried beans and whatever kind you like—I just usually do one bag of them if it fits (If you're cooking kidney beans though, boil them for 10 minutes before cooking. This apparently neutralizes some toxin in there.)
1 teaspoon salt at the beginning and then another teaspoon per pound of beans at the end (depending on how salty you like them)
3-4 cloves peeled garlic and big chunks/slices of onion (1/4 of an onion)

Directions
When you cook them in the crock pot, pre-soaking them isn't as important, which is good because that overnight soak is usually what does me in because I don't plan that far in advance and can't seem to find two consecutive days where I can soak overnight and then proceed to cook them for a really long time. Anyway they say they're easier on your stomach if you do soak them, so if you're the kind of person who can soak them overnight and cook them the next day, then go for it. 

Soak: Rinse the beans under cool, running water and remove any shriveled beans. Transfer them to a bowl and cover with several inches of clean water. Let sit overnight (in the fridge). Drain before cooking.

Crock pot: Put them in the crock pot on low and fill it with enough water to cover the beans by at least 2 inches.  Add the onion and garlic at the beginning of cooking (if you just leave the cloves whole and the onion in big pieces, you can just scoop them out when you're done). I also add a teaspoon of salt at the beginning of cooking — a little salt added at the beginning of cooking actually helps keep the beans intact, so I know that this would be considered blasphemous in Honduras, but I've started doing it because my beans always explode and it seems to work.

Cook on low - it usually takes 6-8 hours, but start checking them around 5 hours and then every half hour or so until they're soft.

Cast iron rules

I'm trying to get over my fear of cast iron pans and saw this article and wanted to share it with all of you and with my future self once I finally start using mine.  I actually bought a pan so that's the first step, right?

Rules for a successful lifelong relationship with your cast iron

1) Season it when you get it. Even pre-seasoned cast iron can do with some extra protection. To season your pan, heat it up on the stovetop until its smoking hot, then rub a little oil into it and let it cool. Repeat this process a few times and you're good to go.

2) Clean it after each use. Clean your pan thoroughly after each use by washing it with soap and water and scrubbing out any gunk or debris from the bottom. I use the scrubby side of a sponge for this.

3) Re-season it. Rinse out any excess soap with water, then place the skillet over a burner set to high heat. When most of the water inside the skillet has dried out, add a half teaspoon of a neutral oil like vegetable, canola, flaxseed, or shortening. Rub it around with a paper towel. Continue heating the pan until it just starts to smoke then give it one more good rub. Let it cool and you're done.

4) Fry and Sear in it. The best way to keep your seasoning maintained? Just use your pan a lot! The more you fry, sear, or bake in it, the better that seasoning will become.

5) Don't let it stay wet. Water is the natural enemy of iron and letting even a drop of water sit in your pan when you put it away can lead to a rust spot. Not the end of the world, but rust will require a little scrubbing and reseasoning. I always dry out my pan with a paper towel and coat it with a tiny amount of oil before storage.

Here's the full article I got this from with all of the myths about cast iron.

Next step: USE cast iron pan.  It's been 3 months since I bought mine at the Amish market (it only seemed fitting - if you're going to get one anywhere other than inheriting it from someone, you can't pass up an Amish market cast iron pan, right?) and I think this just may be the month I start using it.

Roux

Roux (pronounced roo) is flour cooked in fat. Very basic, very easy, and very easy to impress your friends with. Flour is a thickening agent, as in it makes liquid thicker, like gravy. It is used in most delicious things, so you should know how to make one. We will talk about it's uses in a few minutes.

There are two reasons we cook flour. First, uncooked flour tastes like, well, uncooked flour. Not good. The second reason is that if you dump flour into liquid, it turns into blobs of glue. Not good.

The reason we use fat is because fat is delicious. Enough said.

Roux is a bit tricky to get right at first, but you can always wash the pan and start over. The trick is to go SLOW. It only takes 5 minutes, so take your time.

The basic process goes like this. Heat a pan over medium heat, add the fat until it is hot, add the flour, and stir. Don't stop stirring for more than a few seconds or it will start to burn. You want the mixture to be bubbling without going crazy and burning.

You will be able to tell when it is done by the color. For most things, you want it to be a tan color. The longer you cook, the darker it gets, but the color of khaki pants is about right for us.

What you do next depends on what you are making, but you will be amazed how often this is used in cooking basic delicious things. If we were to add some beef broth, we would end up with a brown gravy for roast beef, or the base for beef stroganoff or sweedish meatballs. Add milk and sausage and you have biscuits and gravy. Milk and cheese and you have mac and cheese. Chicken or turkey stock and you have chicken or turkey gravy. Add more stock and you have a stew. A little more stock, you have soup. Imagine that, 5 minutes of work and you have a dozen dinners. 

Anyhow, back to the process. Once your roux is a nice tan color, we add our liquid. If you are lazy or ham fisted, this is where you will wreck it. If you go slow, it will work out every time. Let's say we have two cups of liquid to add. If we just dumped it all in at once, the roux would turn to globs of glue and we would ruin everything. The trick is to add the liquid slowly, stirring with a whisk the entire time. Don't stop stirring!

Before we go on, I want to warn you. This next step happens fast. You can't take time to measure things out. Don't worry though, it doesn't require any expertise. Hannah is 11 years old now, has made a roux a thousand times, and has never screwed up once. All we are going to do is add a splash of liquid every few seconds and never, ever, ever stop stirring.

At first, add a splash of liquid, maybe a few tablespoons. It will quickly turn to paste while you stir. Once the liquid is soaked up, add another splash. Stir until the liquid and the roux blend thoroughly. As you continue to add liquid and stir, it will turn into a smooth paste. Don't add liquid until the paste is smooth. Also, don't add more liquid until the roux is bubbling again. You don't want the pan to cool down. When it becomes a paste, you can start to add more liquid each time. Stir until you can't tell the difference between the roux and the liquid. When it looks more like liquid than roux, dump the rest of the liquid in and stir for a few seconds.

Notes: if your roux seems lumpy, keep stirring until smooth before you add more liquid. Also, the first few times you make a roux, it might help to heat up your liquid first, as this will makes lumps less likely.

Red Sauce for Pasta and Pizza

Now that we have dough we need sauce.

A simple red sauce is incredibly easy. In theory. Getting it just right for your taste is a different story.  Do you want a sauce that highlights the fresh tomato taste, or a rich sauce that is heavy on the herbs and loaded with red wine? I prefer the latter, but whatever.

The basics are this: tomatoes and onion. You can dump a can of tomatoes into a pot, toss in a half of an onion, and cook for 20 minutes or so. How hard is that?

Since there are a million recipes online I wasn't even sure I should write this post. My point is not to give you a sure fire recipe, but to share what I have learned in the million times I have made it.

Since I am lazy, I use the same sauce for everything. Pasta, pizza, meatball sandwiches. Everything. I don't have a recipe for my sauce, but I will try to describe my method.

Like I said, I prefer a heavy sauce. You can use a recipe at first, but you will quickly see how easy it is to just wing it. I start with a can of tomato sauce (tomato sauce is one of the few things we use out of a can because peeling and seeding fresh tomatoes is a pain in the butt. We all have our limits, you guys.) I use a small can when it is just Hannah and I, and a large can when the gang is all here.

I then add oregano, basil, and thyme. It's basically 3 parts oregano, 2 parts basil, 1 part thyme. For a small can of sauce, maybe 1 teaspoon of oregano. You can always add more. 1-2 cloves of diced garlic. Half a yellow onion, diced. Next, a healthy pinch of salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Finally, I pour some of the contents of my wine glass into the pot. Simmer for at least 10 minutes until it is the desired thickness. You can always add some tomato paste to thicken it up.

A few tips. One, keep the heat low! If you try to bring it to a simmer too quickly, it will spit sauce all over your stove and your shirt. Two, keep it at a low simmer, not a boil. Three, use yellow onions instead of white. I read somewhere that there is nearly no difference in taste, but yellow onions have more of the chemical that makes your eyes water, which goes away when you cook them. If you are cooking them, yellow. If eating raw, white.

Finally, and most important, I was intentionally vague in giving amounts. This sauce is best when it is exactly what you want it to be. Don't be beholden to a recipe. This means you will be tasting it a dozen times while cooking. Add herbs and salt slowly. Learn by experience what you like. Can't taste the garlic? add a bit more. And, as usual, never underestimate the power of salt. If your sauce tastes a bit bland and you can't figure out why, add more salt. If you add too much, you can always put some more tomato sauce in the pot and it will dilute the salt.

Dough and Pizza

I'm going to admit right away that I am not much of a baker. And by not much, I mean not at all. But two things that usually go over well in this house are pizza and pita, and they both involve dough. We used to buy pizza dough from our local bakery, until I realized how stupid it was to pay $4 for something I could make for 20 cents.

We have been doing this for some time, so I can give a few tips. First, you need a KitchenAid mixer. If you don't already have one, it is the single best investment you can make for your long term happiness. Don't buy one new. Ever. There are a million of them on Craigslist from people who thought they might one day like to take up cooking. They are $300 new and I got mine that was a "wedding present, used once" for $45.

Second, waiting for dough to rise is what kills it for everyone. Who is going to come home from work and wait 2 1/2 hours before they can begin cooking dinner? Me, I guess, but I'm a bit weird. Luckily, you can speed up the process.

What you need to do is get the dough to 110 degrees and keep it there for 35 minutes or so, until it doubles in volume. There are a few ways to go here. I use a food dehydrator that someone gave me. I would never buy one because I'm a fan of hydration and that machine is sort of the opposite, but it works brilliantly. Another way is if you have a super-fancy oven with a proofing setting. Since we all suck at life, I assume no one has such a thing.

The last, and most practical way is to use a bread maker. Again, never buy one new. I got mine for $5 off of Craigslist because it was missing an important part. I went to a big box store and stole the part out of the display model. Okay, the real story is that I went to the store intending to steal the part, then I felt guilty and just ordered it online for $3.

If you get a bread maker, you technically don't need a mixer. They all have a setting to just mix and proof the dough, but you should get a mixer anyway. They make your life better.

The best part about this dough is that the same recipe can be used for bread, pizza dough, and pitas. We just use it for pizza and pita, but bread would be the same. I don't bake my own bread. I tried, but it made me feel like a girl and it was stale the next day.

One more pro tip: if you are single because you can't find anyone who will put up with your bullshit, this will make much more than you can eat in one sitting. Have no fear, this stuff freezes well. After the dough rises, we just cut it in half and put the other half into a ziploc bag and toss it into the freezer. Since I am an idiot, I always forget about the dough in the freezer. We currently have about 11 bags up there.

When you first start making dough, you will be annoyed and feel like a moron. You will never, ever get the ratio of flour and water correct the first time. It isn't you, it's us stupid Americans. We measure flour by volume, not weight. When you measure out that perfect cup of flour, scraping off the top with a knife, it is no guarantee that it is anything close to what you need. Have no fear.

What you do is just wing it. Scoop some flour into the mixing bowl an see what happens. If, after a few minutes in the mixer, it doesn't form a ball, add a bit of water. If it is sticking to the bottom of the bowl, add a bit of flour. One word of caution: add water or flour slowly. How many times have I added too much water, then too much flour, then too much water, only to end up with 8 pounds of useless dough? I don't want to talk about it. One tablespoon at a time, you guys.

It should be sticky, but if you touch it and some sticks to your fingers, more flour. If it isn't sticky, more water.

So here it is:

3 cups flour
1 cup warm water (about as warm as you would wash your hands in)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 pack active dry yeast (or 2 tsp if you have the big jar, as you should)

That's it.

First, measure out a cup of warm water. Add the sugar. Add the yeast. Let it sit in a warm place until it gets all foamy, 10-15 minutes or so.

Meanwhile, add the other ingredients to your mixer. When the yeast is all foamy, pour it into the bowl and set your mixer going with the dough hook. Check after a few minutes to see if you need to add more water or flour. Leave it going for 5 minutes.

When everything looks good, you will need to let it rise. I use the mixer bowl since it's already dirty. Pour in about 1-2 tbsp. of olive oil and rub it all around the bowl. Then rub the dough in the oil to make sure nothing sticks. Cover the bowl and put it in whatever warm thing you have chosen.

When the dough has risen, turn it out onto a floured surface. This is where we cut it in half and freeze the half we won't use. This recipe will make about 2 12" pizzas, so cut it in half and use both for 4 people.

The cut dough will be an odd shape, so I just manhandle that beast until it bows to my will. Once you have a roundish shape, cover it and let it sit for 10 minutes or so while you have a glass of wine with your friends and look at them in the most smug and condescending way you possibly can.

Finally, roll it out or just mash it with your fingers until it is pizza-shaped. The easiest way to bake pizza is to take a cookie sheet, turn it over, and sprinkle with corn meal to prevent sticking. Then, place your rolled out dough on the sheet, cover with sauce, cheese, and toppings. Bake at a super high temp until done.

Vinaigrette

Vinaigrette is a funny thing. It's ridiculously simple, requiring just two ingredients, but the possible variations are limited only by the number of ingredients on the planet.

Everyone should know how to make a vinaigrette. It takes less than 2 minutes and will surely be the most versatile thing you will ever make. It's the only salad dressing I use, but can also be a sauce for chicken, fish, potatoes, nearly anything you consume. It's a great base for marinating meat and vegetables, and is perfect on grilled vegetables.

There is no one recipe, just a basic ratio (which is also up to you.) Normally it's about 3 parts olive oil to 1 part vinegar. Because I love vinegar in a way that you never will, I use equal parts oil and vinegar. Oil and vinegar is the beginning, the rest is up to your imagination.

It is as simple as pouring oil, vinegar, and whatever else you can dream up into a jar and shaking it up. There is the cumbersome process of emulsification, but I'm too lazy to even describe emulsification, much less do it (although, if you are going to use it on pasta salad, which you should, do some research and figure it out).

I always add a pinch of salt and a twist of pepper. I think the salt mellows the bite of the vinegar, but not sure why.

The first thing you should try is the classic french dressing. It's a basic vinaigrette (oil, vinegar, salt, pepper) with a bit of dijon or brown mustard. Delish. (If you want to get ambitious, add finely diced shallots. +5 Delish.)

We once used red wine vinegar, blended in some roasted red pepper, and a bit of heavy cream and used it on grilled salmon. One bite and I had a sudden (and quite disturbing) urge to take my clothes off and... well, I suppose no one wants me to finish that story, so I'll just quit. Suffice to say it was a spiritual experience.

Fresh herbs? For sure. Black olives (good ones, not from a can!), garlic, capers, mustard, lemon juice, and an anchovy fillets? Blend it all up for liquid heaven. I've actually considered dipping the butt of an unsmoked cigarette in some leftover vinaigrette in order to combine the two most delicious things I know of. Buy some ingredients, and then add oil and vinegar to make them better. It's just that easy.

A final thought about the actual process: this is the most foolproof thing you will ever make. Too much oil for your taste? Just add a bit more vinegar. Too much salt? More oil, more vinegar. Too much vinegar? Haha, trick question. There is no such thing as too much vinegar.

A word about the oil and vinegar. The extra virgin olive oil you buy at the grocery store likely does not contain much, if any, actual olive oil. The vinegar you buy from the store is nearly inedible. I'm lucky in that I have a store less than a block away that sells nothing but oil and vinegar and the whole world is jealous of me.

I promise you it's worth a Google and a drive to find a specialty store. Even if you don't love vinegar as much as I do (and you don't), spend a few minutes trying different olive oils and vinegars. Some olive oil can be extremely strong, and sherry vinegar might seem like a kick in the teeth on your first try. Figure out which ones suit your taste, then put them on everything you eat.

If you honestly love the people you cook for, few things in the world will show them the depth of your love like a good (or even average) vinaigrette.