Fresh homemade ciabatta bread

I know what you are already thinking, especially if you’re living somewhere where it’s very hot and you do not have air conditioning. “Why are you posting a bread recipe in August?!” I’m glad you asked, and I have two reasons to give. First off, I had a craving and it’s hard to say no to a craving no matter what time of year it is. The second reason is because we live in a climate where the summer has mostly felt like spring, so it’s easy to keep on baking no matter what time of year it is. And I love baking. I really love baking.

I don’t actually bake a lot of bread, at least not recently, but when I do my favorite kinds to make are of the rustic variety. There’s just something about fresh, rustic bread that is hard to resist: the crusty outside, the spongy inside, and the feeling of accomplishment.

I realized after making my first rustic bread that it really isn’t as hard to make as it appears. I think Americans are so used to soft, overly glutinous breads that to think of making a boule or baguette makes the heart palpitate and the glands sweat. There’s no need, because rustic bread is less about difficulty and more about patience because of the time needed to allow the bread to rise and do its thing.

After eating store-bought ciabatta bread throughout the years, I finally decided to try my hand at making it for the first time a couple of years ago or so. When I made it, I chose to make it using only white flour, but I decided that at some point I would attempt using at least some whole wheat. I did this for the first time this last weekend, and I am pleased to say that it turned out well! It’s not fully whole wheat – that may be a future experiment – but all the recipe needed was just a little bit more water since I did use some whole wheat (which tends to soak up more water than plain white flour).

Ciabatta Bread
This recipe is based on the one found in No Need to Knead by Suzanne Dunaway

IMPORTANT: If you choose to use only white flour, reduce the water in the biga to 1 cup, and the water in the Ciabatta to 1 1/2 cups. If you don’t, the dough will be much too runny!

Biga

• 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
• 2 cups whole wheat flour

Ciabatta

• 1 3/4 cups lukewarm water
• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 4 cups white flour
• 2 teaspoons salt dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
• White flour for dusting

The evening before you bake your bread, proceed with making the biga. First, mix your yeast and warm water in a large glass or ceramic bowl.

Mixing the yeast and the warm water

Add in the whole wheat flour, and stir until everything is well combined. The dough should be wet like a biscuit dough.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit overnight at room temperature. You can let it ferment for up to 18 hours.

Making the biga

The next day your biga should look similar to my next pictures. You’ll see that it will have risen a little bit, and the whole mixture will be covered with little bubbles. When you take off the plastic wrap, there should be a slightly sour smell. If it is more than slightly sour – that’s okay! The point is to get the starter active and fermented.

Fermented biga

When you are ready to proceed making your ciabatta bread, add the lukewarm water from the second portion of your recipe to a larger bowl then sprinkle the yeast over it. Stir until the yeast is dissolved.

Mixing the water and yeast together

Next add the biga into the water and yeast mixture. It will take a few minutes and some patience, but mix the liquid and the biga together until it’s pretty well combined.

Mixing the biga with the yeast mixture

Add the flour and the salt mixture, and mix well. The dough will be soft and sticky, which is exactly what you want. You don’t want the dough to be too dry. Remember – this is a rustic loaf you’re making, not an American loaf which tends to have a drier dough.

Mixing the flour and biga/yeast mixture together

Cover the dough and let it stand in a warm place for about an hour or until it has doubled in size. What I like to do is turn on the oven for a couple of minutes (not much more than that – you don’t want it to be too warm), then turn it off and let the bowl sit in there. This is especially a good idea if you’re house is cold. It’s easier to get bread to rise in a warmer environment.

Tip: If you are using plastic wrap, spray it with some cooking oil first and then cover the bowl – this will make it so the dough does not stick to the plastic wrap. It will be easier to remove the plastic wrap later, and you won’t lose any dough either.

The first rise

After the first rise is complete, take a spatula and lift up the dough and fold it over on itself. Do this a handful of times. This allows the gluten to rest. Cover it again and allow it to rise a second time for about 45 minutes or until it doubles in size.

Allowing the gluten to rest

I loosened the plastic wrap a little bit so that the dough could rise beyond the top of the bowl without having to press up against the wrap too much. This was probably a good thing because my dough went a little crazy! It was fun to see, though, and no harm done.

I think the dough has risen!

The recipe in the No Need to Knead book says that at this point you can refrigerate the dough, and two hours before you form your bread for baking, you can take the dough out of the refrigerator. It will rise again and it should be soft and silky.

I don’t like to wait, though, so I forged on ahead.

Every time I have made ciabatta I have used a little bit too much flour when I have dusted my baking pans (if you use too much flour, it can burn and smoke up the kitchen – not a good idea), so I decided to take a different approach this time. First, instead of using just a cookie sheet, I used a silicone baking liner on the cookie sheet, then dusted that lightly with flour. In the picture I am using a small tea strainer (which worked perfectly!).

Dusting the pan with flour

Dump the dough onto the cookie sheet.

Getting ready to shape the dough

Divide the dough into two equal pieces and place the other half on another cookie sheet. Stretch the dough so it winds up looking like a large rectangle.

Stretching the ciabatta dough

Fold over each end of the dough, but not so they are touching.

Folding the ciabatta dough

Allow the dough to rise another half hour or until it has doubled in volume.

The final rise

About 20 minutes into the final rise, preheat your oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit (yeah, I hear you people who have hot hot weather right now – how about you just bookmark this recipe for fall, hm?).

I don’t have a picture of this, but after the dough has finished rising, turn it over so that the folded portion is on the bottom of the loaf instead of the top. It isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do, and if you have your dough a little misshapen after you turn it over, no worries – you can award yourself more points for an even more rustic loaf!

Place the two formed loaves of dough into the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Turn down the oven temperature to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for an additional 15 minutes. But honestly, you may only need an additional five to 10 minutes. Just keep your eye on it and take it out when it is a nice brown on top.

In the oven!

Once the bread has finished baking, allow it to cool. When you first take it out of the oven, it will seem quite hard on the outside, but as it cools it will soften a little and have some give when you squeeze it.

Finally! Ciabatta bread!

When you cut it, you’ll find that your loaf will have some large holes in it. Mine didn’t have uniform holes, so some portions of the bread were a little more dense.

Holey ciabatta bread, Batman!

And how to cut it? I like to slice the loaf in half like you see in the above picture, then I like to cut those pieces in half, then finally I like to cut those pieces in half lengthwise. Perfect for sandwiches, dipping in olive oil or vinegar, or just slathering with some vegan butter. Very yum.

Do you ever bake bread? What is your favorite kind to make?

Carrot cake muffin with vanilla soy yogurt

A couple of weeks ago when we went strawberry picking at Boxx Berry Farm, we also had the fortunate opportunity to pick some vegetables from a small farm called Half Acre Farm located on the same property. They had a variety of vegetables ready, but we decided to pick only a couple of items – some Walla Walla onions and two of bunches of carrots. As we dug the vegetables up, we had a really nice visit with the couple who are running this one-acre farm (yep – it’s one acre). They both work full time, but are passionate about gardening, so decided to start up a little vegetable farm. Seems ambitious, but I admit that we were standing there feeling a bit jealous. In our minds, being able to garden and have a positive impact on the community is a worthy combo.

When we got home, Matt opted to juice the carrots which resulted in a rich and sweet liquid. The other thing that resulted was about a cup of carrot pulp that I couldn’t face throwing away. After doing a little bit of research I realized that juicing takes away a lot of the flavor of the carrots, so if you try to make dishes where grated carrots are a large part of the ingredient list, you’ll find that you won’t taste them quite as much. I finally decided to try making some muffins. In the end the carrot flavor was definitely mild, but if you are not a big fan of carrot cake, this may be a viable alternative for you.

Carrot Cake Muffins
Makes about 12 regular sized muffins

• 1 cup white flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground flax mixed with 3 tablespoons hot water (or egg replacer for one egg)
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup vegan milk
• 1 cup grated carrots or carrot pulp
• Vegan vanilla yogurt, optional

Turn on your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners or grease them with vegan butter (or spray with a cooking spray).

In a large bowl, sift your flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger together. Mix in the brown sugar.

Mixing together the dry ingredients

In a separate bowl, mix together the flax seed mixture or egg replacer, oil, vanilla extract and vegan milk.

Mixing the wet ingredients together

Take the shredded carrot or carrot pulp and mix it in with the wet ingredients.

Mixing in the carrot pulp

Add the carrot mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until it is just combined.

Carrot cake muffin mixture

Add the mixture to your cupcake/muffin tin, and then bake in the oven for 25 or 30 minutes.

Carrot cake muffins about to go into the oven

Allow the muffins to cool before serving. You can serve with vegan butter or with a dollop of vegan vanilla yogurt.

Fresh out of the oven carrot cake muffins

The carrot flavor of the muffins was definitely mild, but I felt that what really made these was the addition of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. They added a nice balance of spice with the other ingredients. The muffins were also dense, yet moist.

Also, while I don’t really like nuts or raisins in my muffins, I am sure the addition of a handful of walnuts, pecans, raisins or cranberries would be a nice complement to these.

Carrot cake muffin

Do you ever bake or cook with carrots? If so, what is your favorite recipe?

This is the third post in a series focusing on how to save money by making foods that you would normally buy already made. Not only is it cost-effective to make a lot of your own food, it’s just so much more satisfying and rewarding.

With Mexican being one of my husband’s favorite foods to eat, we nearly always have tortillas or tortilla chips in the house. We’ve kept saying that we should try to make tortillas instead of buying them since it would probably save us money, but we never have done it. With my recent foray into trying to make more things from scratch, however (like pita bread, for example), I decided to just go ahead and do it. I tried a couple of recipes, but while the first was decent, I found it to be too dry. The second recipe I found is a keeper, though, and I’ve already made two or three batches of tortillas using this recipe. It’s now been weeks since we’ve purchased tortillas at the store.

A lot of times when I am trying to find a good recipe, I often look for videos that walk you through the process. I found the following video, which I found to be interesting because instead of using shortening or oil, they use walnuts to make their tortillas. I decided to try it and we really like this recipe.

Whole Wheat Tortillas
This recipe makes about 16 8- to 10-inch tortillas

• 2 cups hot water
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup walnuts I think you could probably also use pecans
• 1 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups white flour
• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

Blend together the hot water, rolled oats, walnuts and salt for a couple of minutes. If you have a high power blender you can probably get away with less time, but lower powered blenders probably need a full two or three minutes.

While your liquid mixture is blending, stir together the white and whole wheat flours in a large mixing bowl.

Pour your liquid mixture into the flour and mix.

I like to stir it by hand first…

…then use an electric mixer to knead.

Once the tortilla dough is done mixing it will be soft.

Cover the mixing bowl with a damp towel or with plastic wrap, and let the dough rest for about thirty minutes.

After the dough has finished resting, flour a clean surface and take a piece of dough about the size of a ping pong ball or golf ball and roll it out to your desired thickness.

You may find that it’s challenging to make it perfectly round, but with practice you’ll find that it gets easier. You could also use a tortilla press, but it’s not necessary.

Heat a large skillet or pancake griddle over high heat. Place a tortilla on the skillet. Watch it closely, and once you see small bubbles forming turn it over.

It should continue to form larger bubbles.

Wait about 15 to 20 seconds, then turn it over again and let it go for about 10 seconds.

Repeat the process until all tortillas have been made.

These tortillas have a really nice flavor, and you can’t taste the walnuts at all. They can be used for burritos and wraps, or torn up and used for dipping.

They also are pretty cheap to make. Let’s look at the cost difference.

Looking up a random grocery store’s prices on the internet, we can see that a package of whole wheat tortillas (a count of six tortillas) costs $2.89, while a package of eight 8-inch white flour tortillas costs $3.19.

When looking at our ingredients list, the most expensive is the walnuts which is $6.03/pound. There are four cups of walnuts in a one pound bag. Next, the rolled oats comes in at $5.29/42-ounce canister. In this size, there are 15 cups of oats. The whole wheat flour is $3.19/5-pound bag, and the white flour is $3.69/5-pound bag. A 5-pound bag of flour contains 20 cups.

Based upon the above we can see that it costs us 300% more per tortilla if we were to buy the whole wheat version at the store or 233% more per tortilla if we were to buy the white flour version. That’s just crazy how much you can save by making your own! Sure, it can be a little time consuming, and a bit of a workout if you roll each out by hand, but believe me, it’s completely worth it. They taste great, and they keep well in the fridge for about a week, if you’ll let them last that long. :)

Do you have a favorite tortilla recipe?

This is another post in a series focused on how to be more frugal in the kitchen. Recession or not, it’s a great feeling to know that you can create good homemade food for less.

I love pocket pita. I love dipping it in baba ghanoush or hummus, and I love cutting it in half and filling it with avocado and sprouts for a simple, yet delicious sandwich. I usually buy pita at the store, but lately I’ve decided to start making my own to save money. Not only that, it’s actually kind of fun to make pita because of how interesting it looks as it puffs up in the oven.

This is so easy that you’ll probably wonder why you haven’t gotten around to making it at home yourself. Sure, not every single pita puffs up the way you may hope, but it’s fresh and still tastes really nice.

The recipe I’ve been using comes from The Fresh Loaf, and has extra info and pictures that you may find helpful. I’ve replaced the non-vegan ingredients with vegan ones.

Pita Bread
This recipe makes 8 pitas

• 3 cups flour (white or whole wheat, or a mixture of the two is fine)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar or agave nectar
• 1 packet yeast (or, if from bulk, 2 teaspoons yeast)
• 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups water, roughly at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, vegetable oil, vegan butter, or shortening

If you are using active dry yeast, follow the instructions on the packet to activate it. Otherwise, mix the yeast in with the flour, salt, and sugar.

Add the olive oil and 1 1/4 cup water and stir together with a spoon.

All of the ingredients should form a ball. If some of the flour will not stick to the ball, add more water (I had to add an extra 1/4 cup).

Once all of the ingredients form a ball, place the ball on a work surface, such as a cutting board, and knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes (or until your hands get tired). If you are using an electric mixer, mix it at low speed for 10 minutes.

(The purpose of kneading is to thoroughly combine the ingredients and to break down the flour so that the dough will become stretchy and elastic and rise well in the oven. A simple hand kneading technique is to firmly press down on the dough with the palm of your hand, fold the dough in half toward you like you are closing an envelope, rotate the dough 90 degrees and then repeat these steps, but whatever technique you are comfortable using should work.)

When you are done kneading the dough, place it in a bowl that has been lightly coated with oil. Form a ball out of the dough and place it into the bowl, rolling the ball of dough around in the bowl so that it has a light coat of oil on all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and set aside to rise until it has doubled in size, approximately 90 minutes.

Here you can see that it has approximately doubled in size.

When it has doubled in size, punch the dough down to release some of the trapped gases and divide it into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, cover the balls with a damp kitchen towel, and let them rest for 20 minutes. This step allows the dough to relax so that it’ll be easier to shape.

While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. If you have a baking stone, put it in the oven to preheat as well. If you do not have a baking stone, turn a cookie sheet upside down and place it on the middle rack of the oven while you are preheating the oven. This will be the surface on which you bake your pitas.

After the dough has relaxed for 20 minutes, spread a light coating of flour on a work surface and place one of the balls of dough there. Sprinkle a little bit of flour on top of the dough and use a rolling pin or your hands to stretch and flatten the dough.

You should be able to roll it out to between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick. If the dough does not stretch sufficiently you can cover it with the damp towel and let it rest 5 to 10 minutes before trying again.

Open the oven and place as many pitas as you can fit on the hot baking surface. They should be baked through and puffy after 3 minutes.

It should start forming bubbles after about a minute of baking.

This one has awkwardly puffed up, so this one will likely be used for dipping in hummus.

This one has puffed up perfectly. I can cut this one in half and use it to make a sandwich by filling it up with hummus, avocado and sprouts.

If you want your pitas to be crispy and brown you can bake them for an additional 3 to 5 minutes, but it isn’t necessary.

Let’s figure out how much I’ve saved by making this at home.

I’ve grabbed all the following prices off of a random grocery store’s website I’ve found online. The final price may vary for you, but this should give you a general idea of how much you can save.

In my calculations below I am only including the cost of the flour and the yeast. The other ingredients are so minimal that it would be hard to figure out exactly how much they add to the cost of individual pitas. If you think it would be more accurate you could add on a few cents.

A package of store-bought pita costs $2.39 for six pitas, effectively making each pita cost $0.40.

One five-pound bag of flour contains 20 cups (thanks Google!). Whole wheat flour costs $3.19/five-pound bag (I believe it actually costs more than this at my local grocery store, but I don’t think it’s gone beyond the $4 mark yet), and all-purpose white flour costs $3.69/five-pound bag. So to figure out the cost of one cup of flour, you’d do $3.19/20=$0.16. A packet of yeast, which contains three sections of yeast, costs $2.59. Each section costs $0.86 ($2.59/3). I used one section in this recipe.

This recipe ultimately costs $1.36 for eight, but let’s compare the cost of a package of six pitas to the cost of six homemade pitas (assuming that we’ve used the same recipe to make six larger pitas as opposed to eight smaller pitas). I’ll show how much this would cost depending on a few different flour mixtures.

It’s amazing how much you can save by making your own pita at home (and you may be able to reduce the price even further by using natural yeast). The first time or two is a little time consuming, but once you’re used to making them it can go really fast. The thing to keep in mind is that you will need to make sure that you have time to make these since it does have rise time, plus the time it takes to bake them. I can usually bake two at a time, but since it only takes three minutes to bake them, the entire baking time is less than 20 minutes.

Do you make pita? Do you make it any differently? And how do you eat it?

It has been amazingly hot here in New York City. “Heat wave” doesn’t even do it justice. It has only been yesterday and today that we’ve seen a reprieve from 100+ degree weather – today was high 80s, and tomorrow promises to be a cool 82 degrees.

A couple of weeks ago, however, when the weather was more tolerable I spent some time in front of a hot stove and made some Indian food. While I’ve made food from other cuisines like Chinese, Mexican, and Italian, I’ve rarely made Indian food, aside from that mango lassi I made in February. Perhaps I’ve been too intimidated by it – the exotic spices, the unusual breads, the aromas… The whole cuisine is almost other-worldly.

Lentil Curry
Based upon a Red Lentil Curry recipe from Allrecipes.com

• 2 cups red lentils
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• 3 Tbsp. curry powder
• 1 tsp. ground turmeric
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. white sugar
• 1 tsp. garlic
• 1 14.25 oz. can tomato puree
• 1 pkg. firm or extra firm tofu, drained and cubed

Wash the lentils in cold water until the water runs clear (this is very important or the lentils will get “scummy”), put the lentils in a pot with water to cover and simmer covered until lentils tender (add more water if necessary).

While the lentils are cooking: In a large skillet or saucepan, caramelize the onions in the oil.

While the onions are cooking, combine the spices in a mixing bowl, and mix well. When the onions are cooked, add the curry mixture to the onions and cook over a high heat stirring constantly for one to two minutes.

Stir in the tomato puree and reduce heat, allow the curry base to simmer until the lentils are ready.

When the lentils are tender drain them briefly (they should have absorbed most of the water but you don’t want the curry to be too sloppy). Mix the curry base and tofu into the lentils, and serve immediately.

Roti
Recipe taken from Manjula’s Kitchen

• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup lukewarm water (use more as needed)
• 2 tsp. vegan butter
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour for rolling

In a bowl, mix the flour, salt and water. Add more water if the dough is too hard. Knead the dough well to make a medium soft dough. The dough should be soft but not stick to your hand. Set the dough aside and cover with a damp cloth. Let the dough rest for at least ten minutes or more before you start rolling.

Divide the dough into eight equal pieces, and roll each piece into a smooth ball, then press flat. Take one ball and press it in dry flour from both sides and start rolling it into a six-inch diameter circle. If the dough starts sticking, dust it with more flour.

Heat the skillet on medium high heat. According to Manjula an iron skillet works best, but I used a non-stick skillet and it worked fine. To see if the skillet is ready, put a couple of drops of water on it. If the water sizzles right away, the skillet is ready.

Put the rolled roti in the skillet. You will see the roti puff in different places and change color. Turn the roti over. Flip again after a few seconds. Take a flat spatula and press lightly on the puffed parts of the roti. This will help the roti completely puff. Flip the roti again. The roti should have light golden-brown spots on both sides. Butter the heated side of the roti (the side that is facing the skillet).

Make sure to put the rotis in a container with a paper towel covering the bottom, and then cover the container after each roti is made. This will keep the steam in and ensure the rotis are soft.

Whenever I make a new recipe, I usually rely heavily on a paper version of it. This time all I did was watch Manjula’s very informative and helpful video.

I also have to say that I wouldn’t mind going to her house for some homemade Indian food, especially since she has some great vegan recipes on hand. ;)

Overall both recipes turned out really well. I did mess up and put way more tomato puree into the lentil curry than I should have. This dampened the taste of the spices, but not so much so that I couldn’t taste them at all. I also froze the tofu, which, if you have never done that, makes the tofu’s texture a little more spongy.

The roti was also very easy to make, which was a nice surprise. I had actually intended to make naan, but it was going to take a little more time than I had. Roti was an excellent, easy, and fast alternative.

Making this has made me realize that Indian cooking, so far, is not that difficult. I’ll need to make some other Indian food…but let me wait until it’s at least in the 70s again. :)

P.S. In case you are interested, I made this handy little image to let you know which spices are which.