This and That

A day off and of course it is raining to beat the band and therefore no time in the garden. I'm pretty much caught up with the plan and only have the okra and chard starts to move to the garden and they'll be fine in the greenhouse for a few more days.

I did finish up Michael Pollan's "Cooked" this morning and it was a worthwhile read and recommend it heartily to any of you food lovers and cooks. While I tried a short cut version of his bread recipe the other week which turned out very nice I just embarked on the full length version. The flour and water are mixed and resting for 24 hours and the sourdough starter has been fed and is busily turning into a leaven which I will add to the flour/water mix tomorrow and begin the bulk ferment. This is basically a "no knead" bread and so it consists of merely turning the dough during the ferment to develop the gluten. My shortcut version(I didn't let the flour and water rest overnight before beginning the bulk ferment) turned out with good gluten development in spite of being 70% whole wheat and I can imagine it will be brilliant with the 24 hour rest. I've seen this long rest of the unleavened dough in a couple of German recipes and it makes sense since they typically used rye and needed all the help they could get. We shall see, but the first trial was positive. 

It does make a pile of dough with 1 kilo of flour and 850g of water plus about 150g of the leaven. The first batch had to be baked in two shifts since the oven wouldn't hold both loaves and I might make 3 loaves instead of just two this time but we'll see at baking time. As you can see by the flour/water ratio it is a very wet dough and somewhat difficult to wrestle around. Remembering my early baking days I can imagine inexperienced bread makers would be freaked by such a wet dough.

The garden has produced a lot of broccoli and I'm getting saturated. Last night I made a quick cream soup with a pile and it turned out pretty nice for an off the cuff recipe. I'll post the recipe in a separate post in a while. It's a good technique that will work for just about any vegetable and it's quick.

That's about it for now though I can't help but mention that I am resisting going to the market for some needed items afraid that I'll succumb to the desire to make Mr. Pollan's recipe for kim chi. Madam will kill me if I do. For someone who actually lived in Korea it's amazing how much she dislikes it. I have a jar of commercial kim chi in the fridge but I have a real urge to make a batch of my own. Must resist.