Monthly Archives: February 2009

No-knead pizza

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I haven’t made homemade pizza dough in years, and the King Arthur Flour recipe was just staring me in the face. What’s a girl to do? Get cooking, obviously!

I cut the recipe in half because just The Yankee and I would be eating it (as discussed, The Kiddo doesn’t like anything), and it made one small pizza — perfect size for supper for two.

The dough as soon as I finished mixing it was nothing special — looked more like batter than dough, actually:

The next morning it was downright sloshy:

Then the kneading. I added a LOT of flour. A LOT. All patted out on parchment paper it looked pretty promising:

I baked it for about 10 minutes, then added toppings:

And baked into yumminess:

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Yankee said it’s a keeper. The Kiddo wanted to know where the Cheerios were. As always.

I wouldn’t call this perfect, but it was my first attempt. Next time I would definitely bake the crust longer before I put the toppings on. The KAF recipe said to bake till browned but I got impatient and rushed it a bit. Still, no leftovers = recipe success.

Almost No-Knead Bread

baking 6 Comments

As I understand it, this recipe came from, or at the very least appeared in, Cook’s Illustrated. It came to me, however, printed on a white sheet of paper and tucked into my favorite Christmas present of 2008: a 6.75 quart Le Creuset oven. After eating this bread The Yankee pronounced that the oven had actually been a gift to himself, it turned out. I like his perspective. Also, this recipe requires three ounces of beer, leaving nine ounces that someone just has to drink. The Yankee makes many, many sacrifices in the name of my cooking.

So, the recipe:

15 oz. unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 t. instant yeast
1 1/2 t. salt (I use kosher; not sure it matters)
7 oz. room-temperature water
3 oz. mild-flavored lager
1 T. white vinegar

1. Whisk flour, yeast, and salt in large bowl. Add water, beer, and vinegar. Fold mixture until shaggy ball forms. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 8 to 18 hours.

Behold a shaggy ball:

2. Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface and knead 10 to 15 times. Shape dough into ball. Transfer dough, seam-side down, to parchment-lined 10-inch skillet. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise until dough has doubled in size, about 2 hours.

3. About 30 minutes before baking, place 6- to 8-quart heavy-bottomed Dutch oven AND LID on lowest rack, and preheat oven to 475 degrees. Sprinkle loaf lightly with flour and make one slash, about 1/4″ deep, along top of dough. Take preheated pot out of oven and remove lid. Pick up dough by the edges of the parchment and ease into pot. Put lid back on and place in oven. Reduce temperature to 425 and bake, covered, for 30 minutes. Remove lid and bake another 20 to 30 minutes, until loaf is deep brown and measure 180 degrees in the center. Transfer to wire rack and cool.

Bready yeasty goodness:

I’m hungry all over again just looking at this. Yum. We serve this with, um, anything. Or nothing. My mother-in-law, who is diabetic, chooses this over dessert when she’s here. That’s a compliment!

Pineapple cornbread

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Does this make me Sandra Lee?

My in-laws were in town and I wanted to make some cornbread to go with the tortilla soup. The Yankee likes his cornbread total Southern style, no foolin’ around with it.

The Yankee wasn’t here. 😉

So, in the names of convenience and experimentation, and inspired by a recipe a friend sent me.

I mixed up:

  • One box of Jiffy cornbread mix
  • Half a can of cream of corn
  • Half a can of diced pineapple (it’s what I had on hand) that I buzzed around in the food processor a bit till it was more like crushed pineapple.

Naturally, I baked it in a cast iron skillet, according to Jiffy package directions.

The end result:

It was great! The corn made it so, so, so moist (that’s right, I said moist), and the pineapple made it a little sweet. Yum! My in-laws declared it a two-thumbs-up dish, and The Yankee didn’t have to see his cornbread fooled around with. A win!

Fooling around with cornbread

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Does this make me Sandra Lee?

My in-laws were in town and I wanted to make some cornbread to go with the tortilla soup. The Yankee likes his cornbread total Southern style, no foolin’ around with it.

The Yankee wasn’t here. 😉

So, in the names of convenience and experimentation, and inspired by a recipe a friend sent me (more on that coming soon) I mixed up one box of Jiffy cornbread mix (SO. GOOD.) with half a can of cream of corn, and half a can of diced pineapple (it’s what I had on hand) that I buzzed around in the food processor a bit till it was more like crushed pineapple.

Naturally, I baked it in a cast iron skillet.

The end result:

It was great! The corn made it so, so, so moist (that’s right, I said moist), and the pineapple made it a little sweet. Yum! My in-laws declared it a two-thumbs-up dish, and The Yankee didn’t have to see his cornbread fooled around with. A win!

Cooking with kiddos

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Some of my very favorite kids came over to play yesterday — a nine year old boy and five year old twin girls. The girls’ favorite game at my house is, “Hey can we make… (pause while scanning inventory of my pantry… mini cupcake liners spotted) CUPCAKES??”

I love having kids in the kitchen! I say the earlier they learn a love of cooking the better. And kids are more likely to eat food that they helped prepare; any tools you can use to increase kids’ food variety are great. So we baked! Alas, not a lot of pictures, because there were actually four kids (2, 5, 5, and 9) in my kitchen at the time and I didn’t have a second to stop and take pictures.  I did have time, however, to think of a few tips for cooking with kids:

First, of course, safety. Use common sense. If it might be dangerous, do it yourself. No knives, ovens, burners or food processors for kids, and use extreme caution with any electrics, like the stand mixer.

Second, and the kids would say this is the most important, you have to be FAIR! Nothing like the whine of, “No faaaaiiiiirrrrrr!” to put a damper on things. We needed to sift two cups of flour yesterday, so A sifted while L dumped in the first cup of flour, then they switched. And in switching, of course, about 1/2 cup flour ended up on the floor, but no biggie.

No job is too little to be entertaining. I filled up the measuring cups with ingredients and handed them off, and the kids dumped from the cup into the mixing bowl. They felt this was a terribly important job, and I loved it.

The kitchen is a great place to work in a little math, too. While they were putting liners in the mini muffin tins we talked about how many they had filled, and how many they’d need to finish the pan.

Kids are surprisingly willing to help clean up during cooking. Picking up toys? Lame. Sweeping up sugar? No problem! Put ’em to work! It’s a good lesson to learn that it’s part of the deal to clean up after yourself.

And the best part for last: when you need them occupied long enough to know you can safely open the oven? Time to lick the bowl!

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