Blog posts

Hello and welcome to my first ever blog!

A little about me. I'm a serious amateur cook with a perfectionist streak. Whether that's good or bad depends on the day. I've baked bread before but have never been excited with the results and for many years I spent my efforts elsewhere. I have the good fortune of having access to quite a good bakery in Rochester, NY and when I visit Boston I often stop at my favorite bakery there. 

Hi

Here goes my first attempt at posting a recipe.  Alas I forgot to take any photos of this bread which is not altogether very helpful.  The recipe is also pretty rough and ready but this is a hard bread to get wrong.

For those that aren't familiar with Stottie bread it is a flat bread that originates from the north east of England.  It takes it's name (I assume) from being 'stotted'  (bounced) off the floor of the oven.

Ingredients:

250g ripe starter (@ approx 80%)

200g potato flakes

There is no question my apprentice likes to retard her pizza dough overnight but, sometimes you just don’t have that much time when the pizza urge hits you.  No worries!  We managed a very nice pizza in 8 hours starting at 10 AM yesterday.

After reading about how much better freshly ground flour is compared to store-bought I finally decided to wiggle a couple of toes in the water and try grinding some of my own.  I used my Krupps coffee grinder to make some Farro flour and also some Hard Red Wheat from grains I had purchased at Whole Foods previously.

Nothing new here, my old favorite: Hamelman’s Whole-wheat multigrain.  This time, though, and as I have come to appreciate sourdough preferments, as opposed to yeasted ones; I chose to skip the Instant yeast altogether. I have also chosen a new collection of grains for my hot soaker: Rolled oats, millet, Semolina,  and sunflower seeds.

I gave up on this bread completely not so long ago. The dough always started out OK, but by the end of the bulk ferment it would be extremely slack and sticky, and by the time it went into the oven it was essentially a puddle. 

Despite a late start we've had glorious summer weather this year here on Vancouver Island and the South Coast of British Columbia, with only a few cloudy days and no rain to speak of. Our garden has done extremely well as a result, producing Red Fife wheat, golden flax, quinoa, garlic, onions, potatoes, all kinds of herbs, raspberries and buckets of cherry tomatoes just to name a few. But by far our biggest crop is blueberries.

Sending this to Yeastspotting.

Click here for my blog index.

Another fine lunch for a lazy Sunday.  This time  Cotto Salami with veg and Colby, banana, red and green diced Hatch Chili on top of feta, carrot, celery sticks with sliced red pepper on the salad, cantaloupe, left over grilled onions and peppers, Dill, B&B and jalapeno pickles with brie on the watermelon, black grapes, raspberries and the best half of a nectarine sliced we have ever tasted.  Eaten by the pool with a nice limoncello made with diet squirt. 

Hamelman's "Vollkornbrot" is a 100% rye bread with sunflower seeds. The flour Hamelman calls for is "rye meal," which I just happend to have in quantity due to my error in ordering "medium rye meal" when I had intended to order "medium rye flour" from nybakers.com. Well, as Kubler-Ross wrote, "There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from."