Leila's Commonplace Blog

No-Knead Bread: The Buzz

If you don't read the foodie blogs, then you may not know what a stir that no-knead bread caused. The blogosphere, usenet and the rest of the Internet went wild. There were reports of a run on instant yeast in Manhattan. People all over the world began baking the bread and reporting on-line: see here, here, here and here.

Many uploaded pictures of their loaves to Flickr.

The article was "most e-mailed" for a week, and still seems to have legs. Folks are adapting the recipe to make it whole wheat, or olive, or sourdough, and so on. Peter Reinhart, the prolific baker, teacher and cookbook author, says he may have to add a chapter to the book he's finishing just to accommodate this new technique.

One commenter thinks it's a sign of the end of the Atkins low-carb era. Bread is back!

Simple Pleasures

I don't do fast food, and rarely bother with frozen or convenience foods. Sometimes I'll cook frozen vegetables for the kids, if I haven't been shopping, and sometimes I'll throw a frozen pizza in the oven when the babysitter is going to give them supper. (She can't handle anything else). Hence I have to come up with strategies for nights when I have very little time or energy for cooking, but want to put a decent meal on the table. It's complicated by the fact that hubbie really can't eat just pasta for dinner. He's not low carb 100% but he needs an animal protein and a substantial amount of veg in his meal. The days when I could throw some broccoli florets into the pasta water and call it a one-dish supper are long gone.

Tonight I really, really didn't want to take too much trouble over dinner, but it still came out well: chicken legs baked in the oven with olive oil, salt & pepper, and many cloves of unpeeled garlic; leftover winter squash reheated; green salad; raw carrots and cucumber slices for the children; artisan Italian bread from the market; and a can of cranberry sauce. Yes, cranberry sauce. It was in the pantry and was just about expired. It was fine. It made the whole dinner, thrown together as it was, seem like a "real meal."

When my semester is over in ten days, I am planning to make no-knead bread, and fruit chutney, and Christmas cookies, and maybe a white fruitcake with pistachios and MIddle Eastern dried fruits, flavored with orange flower water. Alison, don't hold me to all these!

By the way, Jane dear, a little bird told me you're lurking. Post a comment and say hello! If you and yours try the no-knead bread, it would be a hoot to find out how it went.

Middle Eastern Recipes for Thanksgiving

America's big food holiday, Thanksgiving, is a week from today. I shall be going to my mother-in-law's house with a pan of roasted harvest vegetables. We'll eat the traditional fixings.

Some Arab-Anglophone cookbook writer or blogger stated recently that rice with heshwah makes a great Thanksgiving dressing. Cooking the turkey with Arab spices would also be lovely.

Other recipes from my online files that would be fine for the Thanksgiving table:

Mushrooms baked in grape leaves
Stuffed grape leaves
Sephardic/Arab Zucchini and cheese casserole
Tabbouli (we miss you, Dad)

Steve Gilliard's Food Blog

The tireless New York journalist and lefty blogger Steven Gilliard has started a new food blog.

They're mostly discussing Thanksgiving at the moment.

Basic Lentil Vegetable Soup

I make lentil soup about once a week. Everybody likes it (well, my kids are a gamble - some days they do, some days they don't) and it's good to make a large pot at the beginning of the weekend, to fuel lunches and suppers for the next two days. The following lentil soup, using green or brown lentils, can be varied in lots of ways to suit the contents of your vegetable bin.

Ingredients:

Olive oil
One onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 or 2 carrots, chopped
Chopped garlic - 1, 2 or 3 cloves - your choice
Two small or one large potato, diced
1 1/2 cups brown or green lentils, picked over and rinsed*
One 14 oz. can tomatoes (chopped or not, basil or not)
Bay leaf
6 cups water
Herbs - your choice
(Lemon juice or vinegar) (optional)
(spinach or other greens) (optional)
(Parmesan or other cheese for sprinkling) (optional)
(sausage or ham) (optional)

Sautee onion in at least one tablespoon olive oil in a heavy-bottomed soup pot (or pressure cooker) until onion softens and turns translucent. Add celery, garlic, carrots; sautee another two minutes or so. Add potato, lentils, tomatoes, bay leaf, water, and a fatpinch of dried thyme; you may also add basil and/or oregano. Cover the pot (if doing this in a pressure cooker, this is when you lock it down)

Cook for 35 to 40 minutes, or until lentils are tender. (Pressure cooker - cook for 10 minutes, cool down naturally without forcing it open) Then add salt to taste (you'll need plenty) and pepper. Stir and serve sprinkled with cheese. You may also add another drizzle of extra virgin cold pressed olive oil at the table. Lemon is another optional addition.

Optional ingredients - shorten cooking time by 2-3 minutes. Add spinach, let cook with lid off until greens wilt.

Fully cooked sausage or bits of cooked, chopped ham deepen the flavors, and may be added during the last ten minutes of cooking.

The lemon juice - at least half a lemon - adds tang and brings out the flavors, especially with the spinach variation. Red wine or balsamic vinegar is another tangy addition. These are not so good with ham.

This recipe is endlessly elastic; whatever veggies you have around usually work; of course short cooking veg should go towards the end (i.e. zucchini). Today we had dinosaur kale lying around that really needed to be used up. I put it in at the beginning of the cooking time.

If you have a leftover ham bone or lamb bone with bits of meat on it, add with the uncooked lentils. Without the meat (or cheese) this recipe is suitable for vegans.

If you want a Greek version of this, with rice, see here. My kids love this recipe.

Amazing New Bread Recipe

No kneading. Mark Bittman brings us the recipe in the New York Times.

The technique: stir the flour, water, yeast and salt until wet.

Let rise a hell of a long time (14-20 hours), then bake in a preheated, covered pot such as a Dutch oven, Le Creuset, or Pyrex baker.

Bake with lid on for half an hour, to build up steam and make a nice crust, then remove lid and bake further.

That's it.

Your pre-schoolers could make the dough. Don't let them put the dough in the hot pot - the chef who demonstrated it burned himself. See the New York Times article by Mark Bittman, the recipe, and click on the video. (Requires free registration)

The recipe was developed and demonstrated by Jim Lahey, a baker in New York. Readers at the Times cooking forum are raving - they all tried it and can't believe it. You let time and yeast do the work.

I'm making this dough tomorrow to bake Sunday with my kids.