Dinner Rolls

I have a recommendation for a dinner roll. I made it as dinner rolls to go with an asian soup last week. (Because asian soup definitely doesn't go with my usual crusty loaf.) But I will definitely be trying it out as sandwich buns in the future - one of the few things that I still buy bread for. It is much softer than my usual bread and substantial but not too dense.

As you can see from the picture I just blindly followed the recipe and made 24 for some reason. So I have been popping the leftovers for snacks and also spreading some tinned salmon on them for lunches.

It is a really easy quick recipe with just a few minutes of kneading - just enough to make you think 'yes I really am making bread'. You can find the recipe on the Mother Huddle here.

A New Bread Recipe

I tried out a new bread recipe today, the main recipe from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. I had read that this book was the opposite of my usual book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day so I was just curious and got it from the library. It wasn't as much work as I thought it would be, it's all about a 'delayed fermentation process' so I started making the bread the day before I baked it but there wasn't too much kneading which is more important to me in terms of being easy/doable.

But the taste of my first loaf of bread from the book was just ok, less good in fact than the whole wheat loaf from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day in my opinion. So now I know it's not the book for me and I appreciate even more my usual easy recipes.

Here are some cute things Henry was doing today.

Playing with my apple core.

Playing with his belly button. He's been very interested in mine for about a week, always poking his finger in there when I'm trying to nurse him. So the other day I showed him his. I put his finger there and he pokes around and laughs and smiles sometimes too! He doesn't look down to see it, guess he doesn't realize he can yet. Still no progress on learning to walk or talk but he is becoming a belly button expert at least.

Soup and Sourdough

I made Sourdough bread according to the instructions in Wild Fermentation. The sour starter had this terrible cheesy smell and the bread kind of had the same smell/taste. So it didn't turn out well. It did rise by itself from the wild yeasts and taste sour so that was exciting. I guess the yeasts around here just aren't tasty?


We had it with a new soup recipe that I got off Soulemama's blog. Cream of Broccoli. It was really tasty except it had the problem that I have with all pureed soups, I just don't find them filling and I'm not willing to make something to go along with them.
http://www.soulemama.com/soulemama/2009/09/bits.html

Bagels

Kevin and I made Bagels from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day Book yesterday. They turned out really well. They taste a lot more bagel-y the next morning. They weren't hard but had a lot of steps. After making the dough and shaping them there was...

The boiling stage:

Out of the water:

Sprinkle with sesame seeds:

And after baking they were ready to eat!

Portugese Corn Bread

I tried a new recipe from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day book for Portugese corn bread. It was good, not as cornmeal-y as I would have liked, tasted just a bit different than regular white crusty bread. The crust was really really good though so I definitely will make it again.

We ate it with a soup of squash, carrots, the very last of the garden green beans, potatoes, and black eyed peas. And later that evening we roasted and ate the squash seeds.

Sourdough

My sourdough starter that I made was finally ready and so I made sourdough bread. The bread was pretty good but didn't taste much like sourdough. Don't know if it was the recipe or my starter. Anyway I won't be trying it again anytime soon. But it was really soft and fluffy and perfect for sandwiches. I might try using the baking method to make my regular dough into a better sandwich bread.

Good sandwich bread recipe

My neighbours have lent me their copy of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, the book that my white crusty bread recipe comes from that I've been thinking of buying. Today I tried the whole wheat sandwich bread recipe from it and Kevin and I both think it is the best whole wheat bread we have ever tasted!
We ate it with avocado and chive sandwiches with chives from the garden. They were so good!