Breads

Since no work was permitted on the Sabbath, they prepared Saturday's meal in advance, assembling a stew, a cholent, with potatoes, barley, and sometimes a piece of meat. A sweet and savory pudding made from leftover bread simmered within the stew. Her mother removed the pot from the coal stove and covered it with brown paper, then tied it around several times with string. Sala wrote their name on the paper and carefully carried the large pot around the corner to Shimon the baker, who inserted it on a long paddle into the recesses of his giant oven. together with dozens of other pots from neighbors, each tied and identified, ready to be served hot for the next afternoon's meal.

-Sala's Gift by Ann Kirschner

Bread pudding is both good and weird at the same time. It tastes sweet and filling, yet I sit there thinking that it's a weird texture for bread - but yet again, it's not exactly bread anymore; then I think that it's a weird texture for pudding, but it's not exactly pudding either. It's almost like it is in this in between state of bread and pudding: not quite one or the other. A twilight zone of sorts.

One of our more frequent breakfasts is biscuits. I'm not a big one for biscuits and gravy, but I usually make some gravy for my husband. Me? I'm more of a biscuits and jam kind of girl.

The blind man had found a jar of batter in the refrigerator and was pressing waffles into shape between the hinged metal pans of a waffle iron. Luka could see the batter sizzling and darkening as it spilled over the circumference of the pan.

-The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier

When I was growing up my favorite breakfast was buttermilk waffles with just butter. Syrup was sometimes applied, but I often felt it wasn't needed. Now my tastes have changed somewhat, and my husband prefers savory more than sweet breakfasts, so I rarely make myself waffles any longer. The Brief History of the Dead gave me a good excuse to have them this past weekend.

As you can see though, I wound up with pancakes instead.

As you remember, a few weeks ago I made no-knead bread, a.k.a. Homemade Artisan Bread. As I was surfing the internet this evening I ran across a video from the New York Times which shows the exact process of how to make this bread. It's sometimes good to see how someone else does it, because reading or even looking at pictures can't quite convey what happens and what the results are. For me it's more of a confirmation that I did it right. I probably took more time and effort, but even then, mine still turned out much like it did for the baker in this video. Now I just have to go make it again...

UPDATE - If you can't see the video embedded below here is the link to watch it on YouTube.

I have always enjoyed dinner rolls. They are light, fluffy, and taste delicious - especially when warm and slathered with butter. I don't have them very often, though. They are usually high in calories, and not terribly healthy if made solely with white flour. I indulged this Christmas, however, and tried a vegan recipe for dinner rolls that I found on VegWeb.

While I am not always sustainable in my actions, I do attempt being green in many areas of my life. I'm inspired by a few external sources - my community supported agriculture, my farmers, and the farmers markets I attend. Another source of inspiration is Mother Earth News, "the original guide to living wisely." Whenever the magazine shows up in our mail I'm like a kid in the candy store - wanting to devour it whole, but wanting to savor every page and make it last until the next one arrives. So far I have been somewhere in between.

Each issue usually has a few recipes in it about what to do with your home-grown or locally grown crops. I keep swearing to myself that I will try one or two, but up until now I have not done it. The December 2007/January 2008 issue, however, offered up a bread recipe so easy and good looking that I had to try. They call it Easy, No Knead Crusty Bread - I call it Wow-I've-Actually-Made-Bread-That-Looks-Like-It-Came-From-A-Bakery Bread...okay, okay, I'm really calling it Homemade Artisan Bread.

I am still in the midst of reading The Shark God by Charles Montgomery, so I decided to share the results of this weekend's baking: vegan banana bread. This is a recipe that I make every couple of months or so, and have found it to be easy to make, delicious, and perfectly moist. For those of you who are vegan or who are trying to lay off of eggs, this is a great replacement for standard banana bread that uses eggs.