Red, White, and Blue Potato Salad

Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans!

I got this recipe from Bon Appetit magazine and first made it about 2 years ago. I love it - dill and caraway are two of my favorite flavors!  Making it with purple, white/yellow, and red-skinned potatoes gives it a little flair for the weekend cookouts, and tastes amazing, too!

Ingredients
2 lbs potatoes
1 shallot, chopped finely
1/3 C olive oil
S&P
1/4 C vinegar
2 Tbsp fresh dill, chopped
2 tsp toasted caraway seeds

Instructions

1. Cover potatoes with cold salted water, bring to a boil, and cook until tender; drain and transfer to a large bowl.
• I found that my purple potatoes needed more time than the others - I would recommend starting them a bit earlier or cooking the potatoes in color/type batches.
2. In a small, dry skillet, lightly toast the caraway seeds until warm and the aroma begins to fill the air.  Remove and set aside until later.
3. Heat oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chopped shallot and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring often, until soft.
• The original called for 1/2 an onion, chopped.  I'm not a huge fan of onion and find that I prefer the gentler taste of a shallot.  Use what you like.
4. Remove from heat and mix in vinegar.
• The original recipe calls for apple cider vinegar. I'm planning on playing with various vinegars to get a taste that I really love. I might try something more sweet and less abrasive. I love the bite of vinegar, but I don't like when it's all I taste.
5. Add to warm potatoes along with dill and caraway seeds. Toss, crushing potatoes slightly; season with salt and pepper.
• It's important to add the dressing while the potatoes are still warm or hot. They will drink up the dressing and infuse each bite with flavor.

This is wonderful served warm or even room temperature.  It's great for picnics and cookouts because it doesn't have mayonaisse (no need to try to keep it cool).

Asiago Cheese Bread

It probably comes as no surprise that I like cheese bread.  I've already made a Cheddar Cheese Bread back in January.  Lately, I've been craving Asiago - so I found a recipe at Seasons and Suppers and (of course) adjusted it.

Asiago Cheese Bread

Ingredients:

• Dough
• 14 oz bread flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2.5 Tbsp sugar (white or brown) or 1.75 Tbsp honey or agave
• 1/2 C lukewarm water
• 1/2 C (plus 1 Tbsp) milk or buttermilk
• 1 pkg (7 g/.25 oz/2.25 tsp) Active Dry yeast
• 2 Tbsp butter, melted
• Filling
• 1.5 C Asiago Cheese
• 1/4 C butter, softened
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder (or about 2 tsp. minced fresh) - Optional
• 1/4 cup minced herbs (parsley works well) - Optional

Instructions:

1. Mise en place!
   
2. Melt the 2 Tbsp of butter and set aside to cool.
   
3. In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the flour, salt, and sugar.
   
• Note: If you're using honey or agave, add them to the liquid ingredients instead of the dry.
4. Warm the water and milk to ~105°-110°F.  Add the yeast and let it bloom for 5-10 minutes, until it is bubbly on top.
   
5. Add the yeast mixture and cooled melted butter to the flour mixture.  Using the dough hook, mix the dough for 2 minutes.
   
6. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
7. Continue kneading the dough until it is smooth, soft, and tacky.
8. Turn the dough into a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap and a tea towel.  Let rise somewhere warm until doubled (about 90 minutes).
   
• For me, somewhere warm is my oven.  I turn it on to the lowest temperature for a few minutes and then turn it off.  You can also just turn the light on, if you have one.  It will be enough warmth to encourage your wee yeasties to rise!
• Alternate: If you want, you can cover the dough and put it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days (according to the original recipe).  I haven't tried this yet, but I'm sure I will.  A long, cold proof is supposed to be amazing for the flavor of the bread.  If you opt for the refrigerator proof, bring it out about 2 hours before you'd like to work with it, allowing it to come to room temperature before the next step.
9. Lightly flour your work surface and turn the dough out.  Roll it into a rectangle about 10" by 16".
10. Spread the softened butter across the whole rectangle and cover with cheese, garlic, and herbs.
• I opted to just do cheese and lots of it!
• Note: I did too much cheese and too much butter!  Stick to the recipe...
11. Starting on the shorter side, roll the dough into a tight roll and pinch the final edge closed tightly.
12. Grease or line a 9x4" loaf pan and place the bread in, seam side down.
    
13. Cover and let rise somewhere warm until over the rim of the pan.
• Again, I used my oven as a proof-box.
14. Remove the pan from the oven!
15. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
16. Bake for 45-50 minutes.  Cover with foil if the bread is browning too quickly.
17. Let cool for a few minutes in the pan before trying to remove.
18. Remove bread and let cool at least an hour on a cooling rack.

Enjoy!!

You'll notice the cheese seemed to sink to the bottom... and I think I used too much butter.

The Clever Carrot's Sourdough Noir

I skipped posting last weekend, so this will be a mid-week catch-up post.  I turned 43 on Monday, so decided to take a break from cooking and posting.  I love celebrating birthdays - I think it's important to celebrate life and not worry about the numbers.

Maybe because it's my birthday week... or because I'm a girl... or because I have a love-love relationship with it... whatever the reason, I have been craving chocolate.  I am swimming in sourdough starter (haven't figured out how to tame it yet) so I went looking for something chocolate-y.  I decided to try the Sourdough Noir from The Clever Carrot.

I didn't take a lot of pictures this time - call it part of my lazy birthday week attitude. ;)

The Clever Carrot's Sourdough Noir

Ingredients:

• 150g active fed starter
• 350g water, preferably filtered
• 50g sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract or 1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped
• 500g bread flour
• 50g cocoa powder
• 8g fine sea salt
• 150g semi sweet chocolate chips

Instructions:

1. Mise en place
• Get your stuff together.  You'll use almost all the ingredients in the first 10 minutes.
2. Autolyse
• Combine the starter, water, sugar, and vanilla extract until well combined.
• It will be wet.
• I used strong coffee in place of most of the water.  Coffee tends to enhance the chocolate flavor and I'm wanting a chocolatel-y bread here.
• Sift in the bread flour and cocoa powder.
• Mix to combine.
• I used my stand mixer with the dough hook.  Don't knead it to death, just get it to combine into a slightly sticky dough.
• Cover and let rest (autolyse) for 2 hours.
  
  ***Note: This time I decided to use my mixer to help with the dough.  My last few I've been trying to be a "purist" and hand mix only.  The mixer worked out much much better for me.  I'm giving up the "purist ideal" and going with what actually works for me.  No one is going to come into my kitchen and tell me I'm doing it wrong; if it tastes good and Scott and I like it.... it's good.  Done.  No stressing about what I'm supposed to do or what it's supposed to be.  If it's edible and I'm happy with it.... then it's perfect... for us.
  
3. Dough
• After the autolyse, add the salt and any other add-ins you would like.
• Knead gently until combined.
• The original calls for walnuts and raisins (65g each) along with the chocolate chips, but if you know me you know I don't like nuts or raisins in anything.  It's a texture thing.
• I realized partway in that I didn't have any chocolate chips.  Ooops.  I do have a chocolate bar.  It's not quite enough, but it's better than nothing.
4. Bulk Proof
• Once the salt and add-ins are mixed in, cover and let rise.
• The original calls for 4-12 hours at room temperature, depending on the temperature of your home.
• I'm choosing to do a refrigerated retard for this bulk proof.  This will buy me some time, since I don't want to bake for 24 hours and should intensify the flavors as well.
5. Divide, form, and second rise
• Remove the dough from the refrigerator.
• Divide the dough into 2 equal parts.  This recipe will make 2 smaller loaves than the recipes I've been doing previously.
• Gently form into 2 rounds.
• Line 2 bowls or bannetons with clean towels and dust generously with rice flour.
• Rice flour doesn't mix with the moisture from the dough and make a paste.  It stays dry and becomes like ball-bearings to keep the dough from sticking.  It's a HUGE difference and really worth having on hand.
• Invert the dough into the bowls so the bottom is now the top.
• Cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel.
• Let rise for another hour.
6. Prepare
• While the dough is resting and rising the last time, place your pans in the oven and preheat to 400°F.
• When the dough finishes rising, invert it out of the bowls onto parchment.
• PARCHMENT!!  Do not forget this step like I did once before...
• Slash the top of the loaves with a sharp knife or bread lame.
• Using the parchment, lift and lower the dough into a pan and cover.
7. Bake
• Place the covered pans into the oven and bake for 20 minutes.
• Remove the lid and bake for an additional 20 minutes.
8. Cool
• Using the parchment, carefully lift the breads out of the pans and put on a rack to cool.
• Let it cool completely before cutting into it!!
• Yeah.... good luck with that... it smells SO chocolate-y!!

The bread is chewy and the crust is crisp but not super-crunchy (so I'm a happy girl).  It tastes like chocolate, but isn't overly sweet either.  I would definitely make this again... and I'm sending one of the loaves to Scott's daughters so they can enjoy this treat!

Sourdough bread - Recipe and pictures

The background of some of my research and learnings are over on the Overview page.  Feel free to read there and then come back here... we'll wait... no really, go ahead and read it.

Welcome back! Today's experiment is taken mostly from Sourdough Bread from The Kitchn.  I always want to give credit where credit is due.  I didn't make this process up - I'm just documenting how I followed it and what I learned to hopefully make it easier for someone else.

Today... Today we bake bread!  I'm so stinkin' excited!!

The ingredients and procedures for the Starter and Levain are on their respective pages.  Here is the last list of ingredients and procedures for our Sourdough loaves.

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon salt
• 525 grams water, divided
• 700 grams all-purpose flour or bread flour

Instructions (this is apt to get very lengthy):

1. Mise en place... well...kind of not necessary today.  There is no "Mise" to "place"! :)
2. Test the levain... or don't.  There are varying views on this.  I didn't and mine was fine.
3. Dissolve the salt.
• Mix the salt with 50g of room temperature water.
• Stir to dissolve.
• I only have kosher salt in the house and might consider keeping some fine sea salt around for baking.  It will dissolve better.
  
4. Make the dough.
• Mix the levain with 475g of water.  Stir until mostly blended.
  
• Add 700g flour and stir until the dough comes together, there are no more pockets of dry flour, and it resembles a shaggy lump.
  
5. Rest #1
• Cover and let the dough rest for 30 minutes to 4 hours.
• This is called the "autolyse".  I still don't understand it fully, but we're letting the flour get hydrated without working it to death and building up too much gluten.
6. Mix in the salt water.
• Pour in the salt water.
• Get messy!  Stick your hands into the goo and start squishing it all around.  I found this was faster and more effective than trying to work in the salt water with a spatula or wooden spoon.  And it was fun.
  
7. Stretch and Fold
• Imagine your bowl is a clock.  Grab the dough at 12 o'clock and stretch it upwards. I was using cheap plastic bowls and this was very tricky.  The dough didn't want to stretch, it just dragged the bowl along with it.  I ended up holding the bowl down with my elbows.  Yeah - it was pretty funny.  Should have had someone here to take pictures... anyway...
• Once you have stretched it a bit, bring the part you have up in the air back down to the bowl and fold it over the dough so you've brought 12 down to 6.  Does that make sense?  It does to me, but I did it.  And it is harder to explain than I expected... anyway...
• Turn the bowl a quarter turn and repeat.  Do this all the way around the clock - so you've folded 12 to 6, 3 to 9, 6 to 12, and 9 to 3.  I really hope that makes sense...
• Repeat this process every 30 minutes for a total of 6 times.  I did this at noon, 12:30, 1, 1:30, 2, 2:30.  Make sense?
• This series of photos is after each S&F.  Blogger isn't liking when I add captions to these pictures so they're here in order 1 through 6.
  
• The dough didn't change as much as I think it should have.  I need to work on this process a bit more, I think.
8. Rest #2
• After the last S&F, cover the dough and let it rest for 30 minutes to an hour.
9. Divide and pre-form (Rest #3)
• Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.  I actually needed to gently knead in a little flour.  My dough was really sticky.  But in the end, I think it needed to be a bit sticky.
• Split the dough into 2 equal-weight pieces.  I used the kitchen scale again to make sure they were close.  They need to be close or the same to bake at the same time and temp.
• Gently form them into rounds.
• Cover and rest for another 30 minutes.
10. Prepare the proofing bowls or baskets
• Line 2 bowls or baskets with clean dishtowels.  Do this... I didn't and I wish I had.
• Dust them heavily with flour.  No really.  Go to town.  This is going to save you later.  Use plenty of flour.
• Rub the flour into the bottom and sides.  There should be a layer all around.  Excess can always be brushed off later, but stuck dough will be stuck.
11. Shape the loaves and put into the proofing baskets
• This is even harder to explain.  I'm going to quote The Kitchn because I can't even begin to explain...
• "Dust the top of one of the balls of dough with flour. Flip it over with a pastry scraper so that the floured side is against the board and the un-floured, sticky surface is up. Shape the loaf much like you folded the dough earlier: Grab the lip of the dough at the bottom, pull it gently up, then fold it over onto the center of the dough. Repeat with the right and left side of the dough. Repeat with the top of the dough, but once you've fold it downward, use your thumb to grab the bottom lip again and gently roll the dough right-side up. If it's not quite a round or doesn't seem taut to you, cup your palms around the dough and rotate it against the counter to shape it up. Repeat with the second ball of dough."
• Transfer the formed rounds into the proofing baskets with the seam side UP.  Yes, up.  The bottom is exposed in this step so that when we invert the basket to remove the dough later the bottom is down.
  
12. Rest/Rise #4
• Cover with plastic wrap and a tea towel and let rest 3-4 hours.
• Alternately, you can put it in the refrigerator at this point and let it cold rise overnight (12-15 hours).
13. Preheat the oven and pans to 500°F
• Don't cheat this step.  The heat is very important in both the oven and pans.  I know, you can often get away with other baking if the oven isn't quite to temp.  Don't try it here.  Give it plenty of time to preheat.
14. Transfer the loaves into the pans
• USE PARCHMENT PAPER!  Cut 2 fairly long strips of parchment paper.  You'll use the long ends as handles to pull the bread free when done.
• Invert the proofing basket/bowl over the parchment and let the dough gently fall onto the paper.
• With a very sharp knife (or a bread lame), score the top to allow the bread to rise correctly.  This is worth doing some additional research on...people get really creative with this!
• Lift the parchment with the dough down into the preheated pans.  Preheated pans.  They're hot...watch your arms!
• Cover the pans with their lids.
• You'll notice here that mine are neither on parchment nor scored.  The dough and I were fighting and tonight, the dough almost won.  Trust me... use parchment.
  
15. Bake!  Finally...
• Bake at 500°F for 20 minutes.
• Turn heat down to 450°F for 10 more minutes.
• Remove the lids and cook at 450°F for 15-25 minutes until beautifully golden brown and they sound hollow when you thump them.
• Use the sides of the parchment paper and a spatula or tongs to remove the bread from the pans.
• Place on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before slicing.  Waiting is sooooo worth it.  But it's almost impossible.
• Grin like a goofball when you can hear your loaf crackle and sing as it cools.  This seriously made me feel like a rockstar when it did this!

These are the remains of loaf #2.  I really really wish I'd remembered to use parchment...

All-in-all, this was a success.  The bread tastes amazing and I have every intention of trying again.  Just maybe with parchment paper...

Sourdough Bread - Overview

**Warning: I ended up splitting this into a couple of posts.  Sourdough is complicated, but SO worth it.**

Since I started practicing breadmaking about 2 months ago, I've had more success than I'd ever dreamed.  It's been so exciting and has inspired me to get more adventurous.  Which is what led me to want to try Sourdough.  Not just baking the bread, but creating my own Starter!

Last night I prepared the Levain and now today, I'm making my first loaf of Sourdough bread!

I'm a researcher at heart, so I've been reading information and recipes all over the place.  Currently, I'm focusing on Sourdough Bread from The Kitchn but I'm sure over time I'll develop more of my own style.  But my general practice when learning anything new (not just baking), is to start with what someone else has perfected, determine what I like and don't like about the result, and make adjustments as necessary.

Sourdough was daunting to learn.  There was a TON of information to process and understand and "unpack" for a casual, beginning baker.  And it's quite possible that some of this is wrong or at least not complete.  I'll learn and we'll learn together.

The super-high-level overview of making a sourdough loaf is this:

1. Starter
• This is simply flour and water, left out to capture wild yeast.
• This part takes the place of packaged yeast.
• You can purchase it online, or get it from a friend, or make your own!  I made my own which meant I started this bread over a week ago.  Now that I have a starter, I will be able to make this whenever I want, provided I take good care of my starter.  It's a bit like a pet - and a lot of baker's name their starters.
2. Levain
• This step combines a small amount of the starter with some of the flour and water for the full recipe and sits overnight (or for 8-12 hours).
• Because of the nature of wild yeast, it takes longer to work.  Active Dry yeast and Instant yeast from the store are designed to work quickly, while this process is letting things happen naturally.  No rushing this bread, really.
• I put mine together last night.
3. Prepping the dough: proofing, kneading, and forming
• There are many methods here.  I've chosen a variation of the "no knead" idea which includes:
• Autolyse - This step lets the flour hydrate and glutens develop without getting cut up by the salt.  At this point, all the ingredients except the salt and a small amount of water are in the bowl.
• Stretch & Fold - Instead of kneading in a traditional sense, the dough is gently stretched and folded back onto itself in order to develop the gluten gently and not overwork the dough.  It takes TIME - 2.5 hours for this stage alone!
• Proofing baskets/bowls - Because the dough tends to be more sticky/wet than a traditional bread dough, it needs a little help staying put while rising.  It also takes a lot longer to rise, so can lose the shape you spent time creating.  Using bowls, or baskets (bannetons) helps control this stage.
4. Baking
• There are lots of ways to do this.  Each baker I read had differing opinions... it was complicated.
• I decided to stick with what I could do with the equipment I have on hand and that has a chance at producing a loaf I'll enjoy.  If this becomes something I do regularly, I'll invest in a couple of dutch ovens, probably.
• Lots of people use dutch ovens or other covered bakeware.  I happen to have an enamel pot with a lid that is able to be used for this kind of baking (I checked).  For this first attempt, I'll bake it in this.  I might do the second loaf freeform on a sheet pan, since I don't have 2 pots.  Or maybe turn it into a bunch of small mini-loafs or rolls.  We'll see.  Still several hours to go before that decision needs to be made.

So that's the background to what's happening in my kitchen as I type this.  At least one more post tonight, possibly two.  It'll depend on how long it ends up being with the full recipe, instructions, and pictures!  Thanks for hanging out with me in my kitchen while I practice what I'm learning to love!

Current state of my dough, almost done with the S&F phase

A childhood favorite: American "Pumpernickel" Bread

I LOVE American pumpernickel bread.  LOVE.  And my husband has a love for a good Reuben sandwich.  So, on this journey to becoming a better baker, I decided to tackle the Pumpernickel loaf.

Besides knowing it was related to, or a variation on, rye... I really didn't know what went into that lovely dark brown loaf that I love so much.  So I did what any good nerdy girl would do - I researched!!

My husband likes to joke about my excellent Google skills - and he's right.  I can often find pages on the strangest topics that no one else manages to find.  It's fun.

First thing I learned: to differentiate between "real" pumpernickel (known as Westphalian) and American.  They are VERY different.  Very.  Do not be confused.  (And check out this page on Cooks Info for the details and great images of the differences.)

So then I went on the hunt for a nice recipe for American Pumpernickel.  Most of the results that sounded right to me... were written for bread machines.  Oooops. No.  I don't have one and right now I don't want one.  I like my process.  So then I had to do math (good thing this nerdy girl LOVES math and spreadsheets) to convert the recipes.

My recipe below is based on:
Red Star Yeast
Betty Crocker
Shipton Mill
and Make Your Own 

So here is my version, which I think came out pretty great!

Jenn's American Pumpernickel

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup strong brewed coffee, cooled to 110°F
• 2 Tbsp oil
• 1/2 Cup molasses
• 1 pkg dry active yeast
• 1 Cup bread flour (more later in the list)
• 1/3 Cup (or less) cocoa powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 Cup Rye flour
• 1 Cup bread flour (for a total of 2 Cups)
• 2 Tbsp toasted caraway seeds (optional, but highly recommended)
• up to 1 Cup (~ish) of AP flour

Instructions:

1. Mise en place!
• Get all your stuff together before you begin.  Measure, prep, chop so that when you start moving forward, you don't have to pause to do something!
   
• This is a good time to lightly toast the caraway seeds in a dry pan until warmed through and you can smell the yumminess.  You're not looking to overly brown them, just wake up the flavor.
  
2. Proof the yeast.
• Test the temperature of your coffee and when it's about right for working with yeast (around 110° Fahrenheit) add the oil and molasses and packet of yeast.
• Let proof for about 10 minutes until it's foamy and the yeast is clearly working.  If it doesn't get foamy, throw it out and try again!  It isn't going to magically "fix itself" later on in the recipe.  Not that I would be guilty of trying that myself... *ahem*
  
3. Make the dough.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer, add 1 Cup bread flour, cocoa powder, and salt.  Use the paddle attachment to mix together thoroughly.
  
• Add rye flour, remaining bread flour, and caraway seeds.  Mix for 5 minutes until well combined.
  
• Switch to a dough hook and add up to 1 cup of AP flour, as needed, to bring to the correct consistency.  Knead for 5-7 minutes until smooth and elasticy as a yeast dough generally is.
  
4. Bulk Proof (a.k.a. first rise)
• Coat a bowl lightly with cooking spray or oil.  Turn the dough into the bowl and flip once to cover completely with a light coating of oil.  Cover with plastic wrap and a tea towel and place someplace warm for at least an hour.
  
• Note: If you keep your home on the cool side (*cough* like ME *cough*), turn the oven on to the lowest temperature while you're kneading the dough.  When you're ready for the rise, turn the oven off, place the covered bowl in the warm oven and keep the door shut.  Make-shift proofing box!
  
5. Form and second rise
• Punch down the dough and form into loaves.  Put in pans, if desired, or form into a round boule or any other shape you'd like.  I used 2 8x4 loaf pans hoping to make sandwiches with it.  They came out a bit small, so I might do one loaf in 9x5 or even a free-form boule next time.
  
• Cover and let rise again for 30 minute to an hour.
  
  
6. Bake
• Bake @ 400° F for 30-35 minutes.  Tent it for a portion of the cook if your oven tends to over-brown things (like mine).
  
  
7. Cool
• Pull from the pans and let cool completely on wire racks.
  
  
8. Enjoy!
• I enjoyed this with just simple butter.
• Husband made reubens:
  

The beautiful brown color comes from cocoa powder, coffee, and molasses!  I did not know that going in.  Mine came out a bit chocolate-y, so I might reduce the cocoa next time, but it will be less brown, I'm sure.  Otherwise, we were both quite happy with this experiment in my Practice Kitchen!