sunday supper

Hello Chicas!

This weekend Ryan and I took the plunge into the world of artisan breads. We are completely hooked - after only 3 kinds of bread! Ryan bought The Bread Baker's Apprentice recently and has been mesmerized. Is that the book you and M have, Decker? As it turns out, the book is written by the bread professor at the nearby cooking school in Providence, Johnson and Wales. In addition, he consulted heavily with the bakers at our favorite local bakery here: Seven Stars (thanks to Leslie for that introduction!). I had never met a danish that I loved until Seven Stars entered my life. It really was love at first bite.
So! Back to our weekend baking adventures! (DK - look - I'm baking!)
For starters, we made a flat bread dough - you know the kind you buy at whole foods or the coop that costs $12 a bag. Ha! I scoff at your high prices designer grocery stores! With the help of our trusty pasta roller, our aging food processor and a little brute strength, we turned out lovely herbed flat bread that was crispy, nutty and delicious! No pics of the flat bread, but I'm sure we'll make it again. As it turns out, you can use the same dough to make pita bread! So, at a slightly different thickness and texture, we used our pizza stone to make gorgeous puffed up pita shells! They were hands down the best pita I've ever had. Delicious!
The same day we started the dough for Pain a L'ancienne (loosely translated as bread of the ancients or ancient/old bread.) With a food processor or stand mixer it is deceptively simple to mix the ingredients together, put them in a bowl and toss the whole thing in the fridge overnight. This allows the yeast and the gluten time to wake up without being ready to bake right away.
On Sunday we brought the bowl up to room temp and let it sit until the dough doubled in size. As delicately as possible we shaped 6 small loaves and had an adventure baking them at 55o degrees! (ps - 550 is the max our oven goes to... and it was 95 degrees outside yesterday... it was altogether TOO hot in our kitchen!) So, perhaps bread baking isn't the best summertime afternoon task, but we both thought it was worth the sweat!
We also learned a thing or two that could be useful for any other klutzy readers out there:
1) NEVER spray the light bulb in the oven directly with water. Especially when your oven is already at 550 degrees. hot wet light bulbs = light bulb explosion! Not good when your bread is already in the oven...
2) Don't lock your cat on the sun porch while you're baking bread. No matter how annoying he is being, you will get side tracked and forget about him. And when you go out there a few hours later, he will NOT be pleased that he's been stuck out there alone. FYI.
3) ALWAYS listen to music whilst cooking. We hooked up a wireless speaker in the kitchen, so the playlist from Ryan's computer streams right in. Perfection.

So, my dear friends, the fruits of our labors were GLORIOUS!
Oh, and we made fresh pasta and pesto to go with it too... but the BREAD! the BREAD! MAGNIFIQUE!