herbs

We haven’t made SD ciabatta in a long time and wanted to make one that included some YW in the levain, had some semolina, rye and WWW for flavor while using mostly AP and a little bread flour for the rest of the dry.  We added some VWG to up the gluten of this dough and improve its crumb.  We also took some of our standard pizza dough ingredients; the mix of herbs, garlic and sun dried tomato and added them with some chia seeds.

 The crust came out nicely browned and crunchy and softened as it cooled.  The crumb was open, soft,glossy and moist.  The herbs, garlic and sun dried tomatoes came though but were not over powering.  The SD tang was there in the background but it was subdued due to the YW and no retarding of the dough or starters to bring out the SD flavor.  We didn’t do two separate levains this time but mixed the YW right into the SD starter from the beginning.

 This might well be the best tasting ciabatta we have ever made – just delicious!

 It looks to be some fine sandwich bread for paninis by putting the crust of the bread on the inside and grilling the inside of the bread on the outside of the sandwich. Formula and Method follow.  Here is a nice beer can chicken sandwich with lettuce and Amish Swiss, chips, berries and some salad and a chocolate sandwich cookie. 

Method

Make the YW and SD levain in 3 stages each 4 hours apart for a total of 12 hours.  The levain will triple in volume

The next morning autolayse the flour with the water for 1 hour in the mixer bowl.  Add the levain and knead with dough hook on KA 8 for 8 minutes or until the dough releases from the bowl.  Add the salt and chia seeds and knead on KA 8 for 1 more minute.  Place in a well oiled plastic covered bowl for 15 minutes.  Do 4 S & F’s every 15 minutes in the bowl.  Add the herbs garlic and sun dried tomato and do 2 more S & F’s.  Let ferment and develop in a well oiled bowl until the dough at least doubles.  This will take about 3 hours

Turn out onto a well flowered counter, shape into (2) 8”x14” rectangles with an oiled dough scraper, dimple top with fingers, spray top with oil and cover with a dusting of flour and plastic.  Let rest 60 minutes.

After 60 minutes, preheat oven for 45 minutes at 500 F regular bake with steam and stone in place.  With 2 dough scrapers, transfer ciabatta to a floured parchment paper on a peel by flipping in over at the same time.  Reshape as necessary.  Slide onto stone and steam for 6 minutes.  Remove stream, turn loaves 180 degrees and bake another 6 minutes at 450 F convection this time.  When the internal temperature reaches 205 F it is done but not finished.

Turn off oven, leave door ajar and bread on the stone for another 8 minutes to crisp the ciabatta crust.  Move to a cooling rack to cool to room temperature.

So I'm planting my garden this year for the first time at this house. A couple years ago, while I was pregnant with Rinoa, I had a few tomato plants and a few pepper plants that didn't do too well because they were in an area with poor soil and way too much other stuff. This year I'm tilling up the backyard, finally, and doing things right.

I've noticed that, when I'm pregnant, I'm more prone to excess than when I'm not. I'm not saying that I'm not prone to it normally. Who isn't prone to going to excess at *something* now and again? Usually, though, it's just been too much bread. Easily taken care of when used to feed the birds. This time...things are slightly different.

I went to Wal-Mart. I hate Wal-Mart normally. I prefer buying my stuff at the local grocery store, but I do like going to Sam's Club occasionally...but that's beside the point.

I should get to the point.

I went into their garden section hoping to find a few tomato plants that I liked.

I came home that day with 28 tomato plants and 3 lonely zucchini. I then went to Hy-Vee, one local grocery store, and picked up 12 bell pepper plants and 4 more tomatoes, 4 little yellow squash seedlings. Gonna go back after they mark down some of the more expensive plants and get a few more bell peppers, some cukes, probably some acorn squash, sugar snap peas, and probably some carrots and green beans as well.

The real concern, though, is tomatoes. 32 plants. Add to that the fact that they'll produce right through until my first frost if I let them.

I think I'm going to need some sauce recipes, among other things.

I've thought of sauce (pizza and marinara), drying, canning whole and diced, salsa (I'll have to borrow some jalepenos from a friend). Can't think of anything else to do with them all. Even if you count only 5-6 pounds of tomatoes from each plant (which is conservative, I've heard, with the types I bought)...that's a lot of tomatoes. Canning time comes right around when I'll be 8 months pregnant, too. At least I feel good by then.

Anyone else know what to do with an overabundance of tomatoes? Of course there's giving them away or selling them, and I'm considering that, but first I want to think about what I can do to put them by. May as well get my money's worth.

I wanted to make dill bread so used Floyd’s wonderful recipe for Potato Rosemary Rolls yesterday but replaced the rosemary and sage for a huge pile of fresh baby dill.  Then I added another huge pile of freshly ground black Tellicherry pepper.  We really like things spicy but I was afraid the amount of pepper I used would overpower the dill.  Not having made dill bread before (Tingull's looks so good) I also wanted to try using fresh dill to get a feel for the amount desired.  I ended up using 2 1/2 teaspoons of freshly ground pepper and roughly 4 packed tablespoons of chopped fresh baby dill.  The flavor was outstanding.  My husband loved them!

I really love the way these taste not only because of the potato and potato water, which also helps them keep longer, but just the richness of the dough and texture when you bite into it.  It has a kind of chewiness to the crust but still moist and the crumb is great for juicy hamburgers.  We did have grilled ground sirloin burgers with fresh chopped garlic mixed into the meat and grilled sliced Vidalia onions.  It made a fabulous hamburger. 

Besides adding quite a bit of extra pepper and substituting fresh dill instead of rosemary and sage I didn't make any other change to Floyd's recipe.  I did brush the top of the buns with unsalted butter when they were hot from the oven. 

Inspired by Floyd's, Potato Rosemary Rolls:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/potatorosemaryrolls

And Tingull's, Country Dill Bread:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/3298/country-dill