Wood Fired Breadsticks

One of the joys of summer in our household is lingering by our outdoor fireplace. One of the dreams I've had now for a while is to figure out how to put a wood burning oven in our backyard, but living in a rental house in the middle of the city makes that difficult, even potentially dangerous. Funny this is one of a few things that R fears more than I do!

Tonight, however, tonight! Tonight I saw possibilities of those worlds coming together. The coals of the fire looked just right, and I thought--if I push those over, I can fit a quarry tile or two in there (the tiles that line a shelf in our oven). I happened to have some pizza dough rising in the fridge (new recipe, more on that later this week).

We tried it out and made some quick breadsticks. They were delicious. We only preheated the tiles for about 5 minutes or so, probably another 30 minutes preheat might make it work for a pizza. We'll see if I give it a shot soon. The breadsticks got charred nicely and had some flavor you can only get from burning wood--a really wonderful way to end a day.

Pizza Dough Recipe

Warning...sometimes baking can turn your kitchen into a disaster zone. Like above.

This is Rachel...

I have rights to post on Sean's blog since he took over my Seattleats blog and turned it into this. It has become a justice issue, you are the masses in need and Sean is holding onto all the power (aka money, privilege etc) the the readers of this blog that Sean doesn't post recipes with this bread photos and descriptions.

Since Sean's greatest genius in our baking life has been his pizza...it is now time to share...

Pizza Dough

4 1/2 Cups high gluten flour (no whole wheat you health food nuts- this means white flour)

1 3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp yeast (instant yeast- the standard kind not uber quick rise just regular old store bought yeast) and yes if you are a consistent baker that is fairly small amount of yeast!

1/4 Cups Olive oil

1 3/4 Cups ice cold water

So stir together all the dry ingredients

and then, if you are lucky enough to own a nice mixer put on the dough hook and put in the dry ingredients and then the wet ones on medium for 5-7 minutes. Try to make sure that the dough doesn't slowly climb up the dough hook.

The dough should stick to the bottom and not the sides othe bowl.

THEN,

Cut into 4 pieces and let it sit in the fridge overnight...it will rise in the fridge nicely. If you want to freeze it- do it then.

So here is the uber trick...make sure you oven has been preheating forever at the highest possible temp (usually 550) with tiles or a pizza stone or even a baking sheet if that is all ya got inside of it.

So when you are ready to take it out of the fridge you take it out and roll it out- or moreover work it out slowly put the toppings on (some possibly need precooked) and then put it in the oven with flour on the bottom for like 7-10 minutes. Keep an eye on 'er.

Enjoy.

Source: This Recipe is derived from Peter Reinhart, The Bread Bakers Apprentice

Whole Wheat Bread

I've been working on some bread recipes recently, and found one I really like--Peter Reinhart's Recipe for Whole Wheat bread from Brother Juniper's Bread book. It is 2/3s white flour and 1/3 wheat flour so that's probably why!

Still, the flavor works great, and you feel a little better about yourself afterwards than if it was just purely white flour.

Found some locally grown tomatoes at the market today (ok, British Columbia, but still pretty local), and decided to go for them for some bruschetta. Combined with olive oil from Big John's PFC (more about that later) it was a great appetizer.

Fennel and Sausage Pizza

This is my latest creation, a braised fennel and sausage pizza inspired by 1) leftovers from our CSA box last week and 2) a pizza at Delancey in Seattle that features fennel-flavored sausage. See here, Delancey is amazing and the best pizza we've had in Seattle, or in a long time:

www.delanceyseattle.com.

Also I tried out a new dough recipe and am really happy with it. The overnight rise really helps the dough to be more stretchable and easier to work with, also better for small hands (like J's) to play with without tearing!

The dough recipe can be found here, reference to Peter Reinhart:

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001199.html

Trappist Whole Wheat Bread

So its been a while, but last week I had an excuse--a trip to Salt Lake City for a national conference.

Part of that was an excursion to the Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah. Before I left I did some research, since I've always loved about monasteries that they tend to have some sort of culinary art--chocolate, bread, beer, something they make by hand. I wondered about this monastery and found out they were known for bread and creamed honey.

R, J and I were looking for a good whole wheat sandwich-style bread, and there was the recipe! Gave it a try and was really pretty happy with the results. You can find the recipe here:

http://www.holytrinityabbey.org/recipe.htm

Lots of snow when I visited, but admired the monks for how they are present to their losses (average age of community is 81, so they are grieving frequently) and for seeing how deep, compassionate presence and care can be expressed even when I totally am not in the same place theologically.

They have lived in temporary quonset huts since the founding of the abbey in the 1940's, and have a very simple but beautiful chapel with one stained glass window.

Whole Wheat Bread

I've been looking for a bread recipe where the bread will last more than a few hours--made some delicious stuff right out of the oven, but then it gets rock hard and no good the next day.

Any ideas? I went with a Whole Wheat bread recipe from Cooks' Illustrated, but the problem is there are way too many sessions of waiting for it to rise for the time I have as a parent of a 17 month old...so instead everything has been overnight (45 minutes, nope, overnight in the fridge...60 minutes, no overnight in the fridge).

This bread is going to be ridiculously old by the time it gets baked. We'll see baking comes tomorrow.

Eltana--a oasis in Seattle's Bagel wasteland

This is S...

So one of the first things that R, J and I do anytime we go to canada is look for montreal style bagels. This started the very first time when visiting my high school friend Mark in Burlington during college, and took off when my folks were living in Toronto and we would go down to St. Laurence Market for them, bagels that are smaller, a bit sweeter and way more complex in flavor than anything we could find in the US. Montreal style bagels are boiled and then baked in a wood fired oven.

Since then we've been bringing home at least two dozen bagels anytime we go to Vancouver.

But recently a wonderful thing happened--into the bagel wasteland of Seattle came Eltana, a montreal-style bagel place with some really friendly folks working there, and it opens early--6 AM. About 6:45 AM last weekend J and I were there since she decided to get up and they gave us a tour, gave her dough to play with, amazing.

Even more amazing, those bagels are awesome. I have a dream of making a brick oven in our backyard if/when we ever buy a house, and bagels would be part of that.
I totally agree with this reviewer:
http://blog.seattlepi.com/tastingmenu/archives/238299.asp

Go check it out for yourself.

Cooks Illustrated Thin Crust Pizza

This is S.

The best recipe I've found in a while comes from a source we use all the time for things that aren't pizza: cooks illustrated online. I won't put up the whole recipe, but key elements include:

* An overnight rise in the fridge. I don't think I'll try rising dough again another way because the dough that this creates stretches beautifully and doesn't break part or tear which can be super, super frustrating. This relates to the nice color on the crust too.

* Mixing the dough in a food processor and then only a little kneading. Seems to work better for me than other recipes I've tried with a dough hook.

Here's some photos of the results:

Spirituality of pizza

This is S...


R has been encouraging me for months now to restart this blog, to share and remember some of the best meals we've had in Seattle recently and especially to write about pizza. I've been spending a lot of time with dough--actually, one of J's first words was dough and she is always trying to press out balls of dough into little rounds of pizza. When I was a kid I never knew where I could turn to be creative--art wasn't it, athletics wasn't it--and now with R's support I am finding some outlets, my guitar, and also especially making pizza.

Something about this pizza making has been healthy, even healing for my spirit:
I love how messy I can get. I love the playfulness of trying to toss and stretch and knead. I love how embodied I feel, hands sticking to risen dough that is alive, filled with the gift of yeast fermenting and moving and changing it. I also love sharing what I create with R and J, and the joy that comes from eating something I have made.

Plus, pizza is delicious, and I am trying to find a place of simplicity with it.

Here's a poem/prayer that's been very meaningful to me these past few months:

BakerWoman God
Bakerwoman God,
I am your living Bread.
Strong, brown, Bakerwoman God.
I am your low, soft, and being-shaped loaf.

I am your rising bread,
well-kneaded by some divine and knotty pair of knuckles,
by your warm earth-hands.
I am bread well-kneaded.


Put me in fire, Bakerwoman God,
put me in your own bright fire.
I am warm, warm as you from fire.
I am white and gold, soft and hard, brown and round.
I am so warm from fire.

Break me, Bakerwoman God!
I am broken under your caring Word.
Bakerwoman God,
Remake me.
Alla Bozarth-Campbell