Bread
Friday was a day well spent in the kitchen. I decided to try a new recipe out of my latest baking book, Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. I was very excited to try out his whole grain Swedish Limpa Rye. I had tasted my first limpa rye about 20 years ago and have never forgotten how wonderful it was. Limpa rye is a light rye (less than 30% rye) flavored with anise and fennel seeds, cardamom, orange peel and molasses. I was able to use my sourdough starter and grind some fresh rye for this batch. The dough was quite tender and I had pretty good success kneading the dough using the French technique of stretching and folding (it really is more like slamming and folding because you grab one end of the dough with two hands, swinging it above your shoulder like your holding an axe, slam it to the counter top so that it stretches into a long piece and then fold it over onto itself. My teacher said that when he was learning this technique and practicing at home he knocked out a couple tiles from his counter top!) The bread was quite easy to shape and it smelled heavenly as it baked...I couldn't wait to cut into it. We tried thin slices with a smoked tofu spread, hummus, and Cypress Grove's Purple Haze Chevre. The bread was heartier than what I remembered, probably because it was whole grain while what I tasted 20 years ago was white bread. I liked the goat cheese best, Jack liked the smoked Tofu. Two days later I'm still enjoying it toasted with Fig-Ginger jam.
Limoncello
A friend traded me a big box of fresh lemons for a credit towards dinner. I had been wishing for a windfall of lemons after reading my friend anthrogrrl blog about making limoncello. I found the the recipe that she tried on another Vox blog (limoncello post) and started peeling lemons. It is pretty simple - just lemon peels, vodka and simple syrup. I bought one of those big bottles of vodka from Costco and used up most of it for this first batch. I only made it through part of the top layer of lemons in my box so I guess I'm heading back to Costco for more vodka. I'm going to let my mixture infuse for at least a month before I try it out. I'll keep ya'll posted.
Oatmeal Cookies
I also made a double batch of thin & cripsy oatmeal cookies. The recipe is from Cooks Illustrated. I love the variation with coarse salt on top...sweet & salty, thin & crispy oatmeal cookies!
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