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Melanie's Cooking Adventures

For those who know me well, the first 28 years of my life
did not include a good relationship with food. At one point,
the list of foods I could safely eat was a very short list. And
I spent many years wishing I was like a cow and could just
happily eat one thing all my life. But all that changed...

My health slowly improved so that I could once more
enjoy a variety of foods, my husband's love of food
became contagious, and then...
I met the Barefoot Contessa :)
(well, I didn't actually meet her - I discovered her cookbooks).
Was it the glossy colour photos?
Was it her passionate writing?
Was it the awesome recipes?
Whatever it was, it started me on yet another adventure...
the joy of cooking!!!!

This adventure continued when we hired
an absolutely amazing vegan chef.
She taught me so many unbelievable techniques.
She gave me the courage to make pies and pizzas
(and with spelt crusts no less).
She gave me the courage to follow my nose
and develop my natural instincts for cooking.

And now... I'm venturing into the realm of bread.
I just recently noticed that I often don't actively
search out new knowledge and skills. I keep
my senses open to the opportunities that
God drops in my lap. I often feel led towards
developing a new skill or realm of knowledge.
Bread making is the latest. It began with
a few friends mentioning an interest in bread making,
sounded interesting, then I researched useful books
on the topic, one specific book started popping up
frequently in my life in different situations. After resisting
to purchase this tome twice in one week, a friend offered
to lend me the book: The Bread Baker's Apprentice.
I devoured the book and began to create!

I decided to start a pre-ferment as soon as I got home.
It could ferment while I read the book and learned how to
actually make a loaf of bread. As I read, I learned that I had
made two mistakes with the pre-ferment so I decided to
throw it out and start over. I was anxious to actually cook
and eat something, so I started with a challah
which could be made in one day
(and let me tell you... it took all day!)

The 10 minutes of kneading really worked up
a sweat. I used an unbleached organic stone-ground
bread flour - it's very different from the regular unbleached
bread flour the recipe called for. I couldn't achieve the
right extensibility, the rise took longer, the dough was
quite a dark brown. But I persevered. :)
2pm: March 13, 2008

Can you believe this!?! Is this gorgeous or what!?!
Yes...yes... I actually braided bread dough.
(can you tell I'm proud of this loaf?)
An egg white wash and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.
8pm: March 13, 2008

The baked loaf with a nice sounding "thump".
I'm not sure if the challah was supposed to bloom
but I think it has a lovely bloom (splitting open).
Do we have the patience to wait the full hour
for the starches to continue gelatinizing?
10pm: March 13, 2008

Nope! Half an hour seemed perfectly respectable.
The bread does look more like a whole-grain.
The middle is soft and chewy - good texture.
The crust is perfect - crispy but not too hard
and the right thickness. The flavour is complex
and has surprising depth. It's nothing like
the dyed-yellow, sweet, cotton-candy-like challah bread
in the grocery store. The kids love it. I've never tasted
anything like it. I did it!!!
The next question is: What do I try next?
A pain a l'ancienne with a cold-fermentation,
a pain de campagne with a pate fermentee,
or a miche where I make my own seed culture
from wild yeast in our home environment?
10:30pm: March 13, 2008

Here's my second attempt at making bread.
These are two loaves of marbled rye.
March 18, 2007

What a beautiful marble effect inside.
I used an organic stone-ground white bread flour,
but it doesn't appear to be very "white". The dark rye
is dyed with cocoa powder. The texture of this bread
was too cake like. There doesn't seem to be the proper
amount of gluten in this type of bread flour. Try again!
March 18, 2007

Here is my second attempt at marbled rye bread
using Robin Hood's Homestyle White Bread Flour.
They looked and tasted better than the first batch.
April 4, 2008.

This third attempt at making bread was a huge success.
Pain de l'Ancienne baguettes made using
cold-fermentation to bring out more complex flavors
in the wheat protein strands.
These were surprisingly quick and simple to make.
March 22, 2008.

I steamed the oven walls at the beginning of baking
to simulate professional baking ovens and to give
it a nice crisp crust.
March 22, 2008

I now understand why the French
are so passionate about baguettes.
The crust was crispy, the interior creamy.
I ate one whole loaf VERY quickly.
March 22, 2008

I've been busy making these 3 recipes over and over again
to get comfortable with them. Today, I made two loaves of marbled rye and six baguettes and this is all that's left.
April 4, 2008.

It's September....apple season!!
We went to pick baskets of apples
at an organic orchard 45 minutes north
of us. We made lots of pies, cakes, and apple sauce.
The apples had lots of worms though,
so we won't be going back again next year.
September 15, 2008.

Yet another super-delicious pie. The recipe comes
from the Barefoot Contessa. I like it with just orange
zest and 2 tbsp. orange juice (no lemon). And
caramel pecan ice cream on top makes it HEAVENLY!
September 26, 2008.

I bought 50 lbs. of flour at Upper Canada Village.
No chemicals, stone ground at a
steam-powered mill. So I'm crazy-busy making
about 5 loaves of bread a week hoping to finish
using the flour before it starts growing worms and bugs.
This picture shows 2 loaves of honey-white and
one loaf of bread-machine challah.
My favourite bread is the hand-made braided challah
(shown in previous pictures). It's so much better than
what the bread machine can do. I think it's well worth
the effort to make bread by hand - actually...
with an electric mixer... I've done 10 minutes of
kneading by hand and it's a workout - I recommend
the electric mixer for kneading with a couple of
minutes of hand-kneading at the end.
September 2008.

Ginger-Maple Roasted Squash
January 2006

Jeanne's super-secret hummus.
December 27, 2006.

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