Cooking and The Art of Making Bread
The Bread Making Book and Tools
In addition to gardening, one of the other pleasures in life that bring me great joy is cooking. A few years back a dear friend introduced me to the process of making bread and the most amazing book titled “The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” by Jeff Hertzberg, M.D. and Roe Francois. This book was a game changer for me! With a few simple ingredients including salt, yeast, water, and flour I could make the most amazing and tasty peasant style bread imaginable. I started with the classic French Boule Artisan Bread, then once I master that (which didn’t take long), I moved on to baguettes and the rest is history! With the aid of this book and this basic dough recipe (plus the addition of olive oil which is a recipe also included in the book), I’ve gone onto make my own pizza crust for our beloved Friday Pizza night. This past year I experimented with making Rosemary and roasted onion focaccia which turned out to be a fantastic accompaniment to my home-made spaghetti with white clam sauce and Vichyssoise soup which in my house I serve both cold (the traditional way) or hot which then makes the soup a standard Potato soup.
One of my favorite ways to eat this delightful artisan bread in the morning is as a crispy slice of toast with some Irish butter and a bit of course sea salt, or if I’m having a sweet tooth moment with raspberry or apricot jam. If its lunch time and I’m peckish for something more substantial than a salad, I might make myself a grilled cheese sandwich with Havarti cheese, kale, a thin rub of unsalted butter and two slices of the boule loaf. This bread dough as you can see is so versatile you can have it in many different iterations for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! If you are interested in making your own bread and in the market for a useful book, I highly recommend this one and the recipes that are in it! In addition to this useful text, you also might want to pick up the plastic container and bread mixing tool shown in the picture accompanying this post (if you look closely, you will see there is even dough in the container!) Both are also listed in the cookbook as helpful kitchen tools.
Bon Appetite!
