Four months

 Well, that was an unplanned hiatus. Here’s a quick recap of key events since my last post:

The month of June was dominated by a two-week trip to England which was a combination of work and holiday. We were mostly in London, with excursions out of town on the weekends. The highlight of these was a trip to Oxford, our former hometown and Miss B’s birthplace, where we caught up with various friends and revisited old haunts. These included my favorite place, the Covered Market, here still sporting some yarnbombing to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee, which had happened in May.

Speaking of Miss B, the theme of July was some big life stuff happening for her. One thing involved her being away for most of the month, on a three-week pre-college course that enabled her to delve into her love of history and start getting a taste of university life in an extremely historic location (as well as help her parents start preparing mentally and logistically for the next phase).

She finished up right at the end of the month, just before a milestone birthday. Luckily not yet too old for a themed cake though!

We kicked off August with our final major event of the summer, our annual jaunt to the coast. This is our fourth year at Cape May, and we love it as much as ever - plenty of sun, lazing by the ocean, and New Jersey farmstand produce. 

My cooking highlight this year, to make the most of some great local tomatoes, was a MacGyvered focaccia. I made the same basic bread recipe that I always make, then after letting it rise I gave it the focaccia treatment - i.e., spreading it in a baking pan with lots of olive oil, poking dimples in it with my fingers, sprinkling salt on it, and then baking it. It was yummy, and since then I’ve continued to work it into the regular bread rotation. 

This rotation has gotten more regular as August shifted into September, because along with other transitions, I’ve made some changes to my work commitments which I’m hopeful will allow for better balancing of priorities across multiple areas of life. 

I posted a picture of the pillow on the left on Instagram a few weeks ago, describing it as “turning anxiety management (handstitching) into home decor”. Ideally (among other things) I’d like more of the handwork and less of the anxiety.

I'm not quite at this point, but it's something to aspire to. More to come soon, I hope, and that your anxiety is minimal and your contentment maximal in the meantime.

Snow days

Happy 2022! We got an unexpected bonus weeklong extension of holiday mode around here when Virginia got the first snow of the season last Sunday night. It turned into the biggest snowstorm in 3 years (the last one was our first winter here) and led to treacherous road conditions and cancellations and closures galore, including this I-95 clustercuss, our weekly milk delivery, and most of the school week. A second storm overnight on Thursday finished things off, and we all got some extra down time with no pre-dawn alarms and no good reason to attempt to drive anywhere.

I went back to my normal work schedule, but with most of the global academic community also still in holiday mode, things were relatively quiet and I had a little extra brain space to get creative with my overstuffed pantry:

Kung Pao Chickpeas: Monday lunchtime I was craving some Asian flavors to go along with the weekly batch of Instant Pot rice which is already a fixture on the schedule in order to meet Miss B’s insatiable carb demand. I decided to see what I could do with legumes, and ended up adapting this recipe for kung pao lentils to work with what I had, which was canned chickpeas. It was a success and has now been added to the list of Recipes That Only I Will Eat But Are Still Worth Making.

Speaking of which…behold my first attempt at Whole Wheat Sourdough!

As usual, I’m about 2 years behind the starter/sourdough trend, and this is one that I’ve actively resisted, as previously mentioned. However, I requested and received Bittman Bread for Christmas, and the method of making a sourdough starter described therein finally convinced me to give it a try. After following the prescribed 3-day feeding plan, I now have something living in my fridge (on purpose for once!), and produced this as my first output. On the one hand, I can see that I’ve got some work to do on my folding technique. On the other hand, even a pretty imperfect first attempt is still pretty damn good bread. I’m looking forward to developing my knowledge, and will provide further reports as warranted. 

Alas, it’s raining today, so I expect there will be no further impediment to returning to the regular school schedule tomorrow, including the 6am alarm call. Hoping your weekend is peaceful, relaxing, and free of Sunday Night Blues.

Day 66

We’ve been in quarantine for nine weeks. I still haven’t made a sourdough starter.

I’ve been reading blog posts and seeing social media photos for years showing other people’s amazing sourdough loaves. The pace at which these appear has ratcheted up significantly over the past two months as quarantine sourdough has become trendy.

Every time I see one of these, I think, maybe I should finally do it. I should commit. I already know how to make bread. I love sourdough. I could have all the sourdough I want. I should do it. Everybody else is doing it.

So I read the recipe again. And then I think the same thing, every time: it seems like so much work. You have to know you want to make bread, like, two days ahead of time in order to feed the starter enough to be ready, and you have to start the actual bread dough not much later than that.

And the thing is, I already make bread all the time. I always have bread dough in my refrigerator. I can pull it out and make homemade rolls for dinner on a whim, and when my dough container starts to look empty, I can whip up a batch of slow-rise bread in about 5 minutes in the morning or afternoon and have freshly baked bread the same day. I use the same dough to make pizza, pita bread, and recently, bagels. I always keep the end of the previous batch to act as a starter for the next batch, so it’s an integral part of the cycle in my kitchen. 

On Sunday morning, I woke up unusually early - my anxiety has been manifesting in weird ways during quarantine, and periodically waking up extra early has been one of the weirdest - wanting to make a pan loaf of bread. What Miss B calls a “toast loaf”. I already knew I had a big batch of dough in the fridge that I’d made the night before (using my standard recipe), so I went downstairs, ripped off a chunk of it, shaped it into a loaf, and dropped it into a small loaf pan that I’d greased and floured. I let it rise for over an hour until it had doubled in size, and then put it in the oven to cook while I was making Sunday breakfast.

It doesn’t look all that impressive, and it’s certainly won’t be confused for an artisan loaf. But it tastes good, and it does the job. And it’s a reminder that having the time, the ingredients, and the resources to make any bread at all is a privilege, now more than ever. 

Global update

home sweet home

Well, it's been a while since I've been around here. I've been updating plenty on Instagram, so if you want a more detailed recap of the last eight (shriek) months, head over there to rovinglemon. A few high points here:

Miss B is thriving and days away from finishing her extra-long stint in eighth grade. Her first-day assessment of her (no longer) new school has been sustained, and she's already looking forward to ninth grade - after an appropriately slothful summer vacation, of course.

DP is also flourishing; busy as always with work, juggling multiple commitments and getting another new program up and running - just the way he likes it.

My work is also pretty full-on. Last year was one of professional as well as personal transition for me: after 19 years with the same global organization I decided it was time for a change, and am now working (still from home) with a much smaller non-profit startup in the same research area. I love the challenges of working in a startup, even on the days when I feel like it's swallowed my life whole and left me no time to think about anything else.

Home is great: moving to metro DC was dictated by DP's job, but we're really enjoying it - feeling settled in the house, getting to know the area, and in a great location for work trips, family visits, and weekends away. Our plan is to give Miss B a good long stretch of staying put, and it's a huge mental relief not only to be able to think about the future with that in mind, but also to look forward to the prospect.

Food is of course what this blog always comes back to, so here are my top five recipes from my blog hiatus:

1. Shortbread This isn't about a specific recipe so much as it is a technique that I finally realized this Christmas: after multiple disappointments with making shortbread, I finally decided to try a throwaway suggestion from an Australian friend: chilling the shortbread dough before cutting and baking it. And I mean really chilling it - at least two hours, and preferably overnight. This did the trick of improving both the shape and the texture of the finished product, and I will now do this with any shortbread recipe I make from now on, whether the recipe mentions or not. (Here's a good one.)

2. Dutch baby I've written about this before, so I won't rehash the recipe; this is really just a reminder to us all of this as a delicious, easy, scalable, and impressive recipe that can be adapted to almost any situation.

3. Hand pies / turnovers / DIY toaster pastries Whatever you call these, they're delicious, and if you make them square, there's almost no dough wastage. Use this Genius Recipe for pie crust, fill with fruit, jam, ganache, Nutella, whatever. For the next batch, I'm going to cut the dough into rectangles and freeze ready for use, so that I can make these to order. Having a batch of six sitting around ready to eat is too dangerous.

4. Whole wheat sliced bread After multiple failed attempts over the years, I've finally got a recipe for whole wheat bread that I really like. The recipe is a mashup of several others, with a few tweaks of my own, plus one key step from here that makes a major difference to rising and texture.

Slow rise whole wheat bread for slicing

250 g/8 oz whole wheat flour

250 g/8 oz bread flour/strong flour

2 g/.5 tsp kosher salt

3 g active dried yeast

300 ml/1.25 cups liquid, comprising roughly equal parts Greek yogurt, milk, and water

15 ml/1 Tbsp canola or vegetable oil

15 ml/1 Tbsp maple syrup

1. Measure flours, salt, and yeast into large bowl.

2. Measure Greek yogurt, milk, and water into microwave-safe measuring jug and heat until just hot enough that you can stick your finger in and keep it there for 10 seconds. (You can also do this on the stove if you don't have a microwave.)

3. Add liquid, oil, and maple syrup to dry ingredients and stir together briefly. Let this stand for about 20 minutes to allow the flour to absorb the liquid.

4. After 20 minutes, continue mixing the dough until fully combined and consistent, then knead by hand until the dough is smooth and springy. You can continue to add flour as you knead, but it should be a little sticky rather than dry.

5. Put dough back in bowl to rise and cover with a cloth. Leave to rise until doubled in bulk; with the smaller amount of yeast used here, this should take a couple of hours. I prefer this because it gives me more schedule flexibility, and develops the flavor of the bread.

6. When the dough has had its first rise, grease and flour a loaf pan. Shape dough into a loaf (there's a good tutorial here on how to do this) and place in the pan. (The cook who provided the standing technique also says: "It's important that the surface of the loaves be stretched taut; this helps them rise and prevents an overly-dense interior.")

7. Let the dough rise a second time until it starts to rise over the edge of the pan; this should take 40-50 minutes. Heat the oven to 425F/220C.

8. Before putting bread in the oven, make a slash down the middle. Bake at 425F/220C for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 375F/190C and bake for another 30 minutes before testing the bread for doneness.

9. The traditional way of testing bread is color (golden-brown) and sound (hollow), but these days I like to use an inserted thermometer to confirm that the bread's internal temperature is the recommended 190F/88C.

10. Remove loaf from pan and cool completely before slicing.

5. Zoodle carbonara Given the above list, you may not be surprised to read that I've also decided to make a concerted effort to be more mindful about my carb consumption. I've been doing what I call a "Keto-ish" diet for the last couple of months, and this is my go-to low-carb meal these days.

1. Chop up and fry 2 pieces of bacon.

2. While the bacon is frying, turn 1 medium-sized zucchini into noodles. Add these to the pan with the frying bacon.

3. In a small bowl, mix together 1 egg, 2 tablespoons grated pecorino romano, and 8-10 grinds of black pepper.

4. Pour egg mixture in pan and toss to coat everything.

5. Top with more pepper and cheese and serve immediately.

Serves 1. Can be scaled up.

cookbook collection in its new home

That's about all for now; the only other thing to share is the newest member of the household:

And to hope that you're having as peaceful and enjoyable of a weekend as she is.

Hands off

Hello! Please insert standard apologies for another long silence here, along with reassurance that I thought often, if not every day, of this blog and how I wished I was posting to it. (Not that that made any visible difference, but maybe it gets me some karmic brownie points for good intentions?)

Anyway, here's a snapshot of what I've been up to since Easter, which may help explain my lack of blog-related focus and posting....

A few months ago, we decided spontaneously to organize a fun mini-break at the beach during Miss B's April school holidays, figuring we'd get some lovely mid-autumn weather. Instead, we timed it perfectly to experience the 'storm of the century' which battered Sydney and the surrounding coastal areas for three days, dumping something like 20 cm/12 in of rain in 48 hours on the town where we were staying. Luckily we had brought lots of videos and we never lost power, unlike a lot of other people. We even managed to sneak out onto the beach between storms a few times to admire the moody skies and gigantic, terrifying surf. (Full disclosure: I am quite likely to find Australian surf terrifying even on a regular beach day.)

,

Sometime after we had already booked (and paid for) the abovementioned mini-break, another travel opportunity came along that we couldn't (and decided not to) refuse. The good news was that it meant we got to spend a week in London as a family. The bad news was that it came up at pretty short notice, and required that we fly out of Canberra two days after getting back from the coast. Fun! Well, the getting-there part, not so much; but the being-there part was fun - even the parts like this: wandering in Hyde Park on our first evening, trying desperately to stay awake until bedtime and taking in a few sights along the way. Other highlights of the week included taking Miss B to my favorite British museum, the V&A, for the first time (a success) and attempting to take her into a pub to meet some of my colleagues (a failure - they chucked us out on account of no children being allowed in after 5pm!).

Part of the reason that the London trip came together is that I was already scheduled to fly to Europe - when the week was over, DP and Miss B flew back to Australia, while I went on to Greece for a week-plus of work meetings. (Yes, my job is very gruelling.) Here's a view of one of many glorious sunsets I witnessed with the Parthenon looming picturesquely in the middle distance.

Needless to say, with all the travelling and other stuff going on, I haven't done a huge amout of cooking in the last several weeks (although I did eat some pretty amazing food in Greece, particularly at this place down the street from my hotel, where I think I ended up eating at least one meal every day that I was in Athens). But I have still found the time to become enamored of two things new to my kitchen:

1. Fried toast. Inspired by this post on food52, this has become my go-to vehicle for gussying up leftovers. The photo above may not look particularly earth-shattering (have I mentioned winter is coming in Canberra, which means no more natural light for dinner photos for a while?), but any kind of sliced bread fried in a pond of olive oil is the perfect carrier for anything involving sauce or gravy. Also stupendous at breakfast time (and a dramatic improvement on fried bread, which honestly I never saw the point of, probably because there wasn't nearly enough olive oil involved).

2. Hands-off dinners. (Ah, we come to the point of the post name at last! Did you think I was referring to the multiple-week silence here? Let's call it a pun.) I've been doing some experimenting lately with the whole roasting-pan-dinner concept - as in, you put a bunch of stuff in a roasting pan and put it in the oven, and when you take it out, that's dinner. I'm not sure why I haven't picked up on this concept sooner, especially given how long I've been cooking dinner, but I'm kind of loving it, especially on school nights. This is a current favorite (again with the crappy pictures): chop up some carrots and potatoes and toss with olive oil and seasonings, then place in a roasting pan and stick in the oven at about 375F/190C. While those get going, prep these devilled chicken pieces (the original recipe calls for legs, but I use drumsticks) and add to the roasting pan. Roast the whole business for 30-45 minutes (giving you time to clean up the kitchen, supervise homework, maybe answer a few emails from your boss who just came online overseas - oh wait, maybe that's just me), or until everything is cooked to your liking, hopefully with some brown crusty bits here and there.

And that's the news update from here. Hope all is well wherever you are?

Stuffed focaccia

It’s been nagging at me that I promised further info on this, oh, about two months ago. Better late than never, right?

This recipe is a good example of where recipes come from. Here’s how this one evolved: nearly two years ago, I had lunch in one of my favorite Canberra cafes: a hearty minestrone, with pesto cheese toast alongside. The combination lodged in my brain, and when I made minestrone for guests last winter, I made pesto cheese crostini to go with it, to the appreciation of all. So now the two items are forever associated in my mind. The last time I made minestrone for guests, however, I didn’t feel like doing the last-minute faff that is required for the pesto cheese crostini. I mulled over alternatives, and then hit upon the idea of putting the pesto and cheese inside the bread, so I could get that part out of the way ahead of time.

It so happened that, around the time I was pondering all this, I was also researching focaccia recipes, trying to determine whether I could use my regular bread dough to make it, or whether I had to make a customized bread recipe. Having come to the conclusion that it’s the presentation (flat, with a dimpled top) and the accessories (brushed-on olive oil, salt, herbs, etc.) that make plain old bread into focaccia, I resolved to make a focaccia with a layer of stuff in the middle. This is the result.

Stuffed focaccia

I’m usually pretty lax about rising times when I make bread, but I will note that a second rise of at least an hour at room temperature is an important feature of this recipe. It helps provide the puffy texture that good focaccia has, as well as helping the whole construction to seal itself together.

1 recipe bread dough

3-5 heaping Tbsp pesto (or basil-cashew-parmesan dip, since it’s multi-purpose and I’m way more likely to have it around)

2-3 handfuls shredded parmigiano reggiano

2-3 Tbsp good-quality oil

salt (a nice chunky salt is great here)

Make the bread according to directions, and leave to rise for at least 1 hour at room temperature, or until doubled in size.

Line a large baking tray with baking parchment, and set aside. (Tip: I often spray the baking tray to get the baking parchment to stick down and not slide around while I’m maneuvering the bread dough on it.)

Knock the air out of the risen bread dough. On a lightly floured surface, divide the dough into 2 equal pieces. Set one aside and roll the other out into a rectangle roughly the size of your baking tray. Lift from the counter and position on the prepared tray.

Spread the rolled-out dough with the pesto, followed by the cheese.

Roll out the second piece of dough to the same size as the first, and place on top. Press down lightly to help the two pieces adhere. Cover with another piece of baking parchment and leave to rise for another hour.

Preheat the oven to 225C/450F. Remove the baking parchment covering the risen dough. Poke your fingers into the dough all over the surface to make dimples, then spread liberally with olive oil. Scatter salt over the top.

Bake focaccia for 30-40 minutes, or until the top looks golden-brown and it smells done.

Enjoy alongside minestrone or other hearty soup of your choice. Makes 12-18 pieces, depending on how you cut them.

DIY January

Rather than doing a Detox January or a Deprivation January or whatever variation people do to rectify the excesses of the holiday season, this year I’ve decided to try an idea I’ve been kicking around for a long time: DIY January. The basic premise is that, within reason, I’m not going to eat any kind of processed food that I haven’t made myself. I figure this will be a good way to cut back on junk food and junk eating generally, and specifically to get back on the NoPepsi wagon (off which I fell rather spectacularly in the final quarter of 2013).

When I say “within reason”, I mean the following:

1. I’m not going to make my own cheese or churn my own butter or slaughter my own meat (although I may well make a batch of labneh and I’ve been kicking around the idea of making my own bacon; maybe this month will provide the motivation).

2. I’m not going to leave the food already in my fridge and pantry to molder and go to waste while I go into urban homesteader mode; instead, I’m going to use up what I’ve got and, when I run out, make its replacement - or do without until February rolls around. No stockpiling in the runup to January 1 was allowed, so regular consumption will take its course and then we shall see.

This seems like a doable, but somewhat challenging, undertaking. The only thing I dread running out of is tortilla chips, as I have been unable to find Mexican ingredients so far in Canberra. Since tortilla chips require corn tortillas, and corn tortillas require masa harina, unless someone can point me to a local supplier I may have to figure out a way to do without chips and salsa for 3 weeks. It's slightly embarrassing to admit that that is by far the most daunting prospect of contemplating this project.

In the meantime, I’ve already undertaken my first project: white sandwich bread. Even though I make all of our dinner bread (whether rolls or loaves), I always buy toast and sandwich bread at the supermarket. For all the bread I’ve made in the last 5+ years, I think this was only the second time I’ve made a loaf-pan loaf of bread.

And it was good! Although it reminded me anew of how hard it is to slice bread neatly without industrial machinery. In the near future, I anticipate making yogurt, whole-wheat sandwich bread, fresh pasta, and potato chips, so stay tuned.

White sandwich bread

Adapted from Julia Child, by way of Dinner with Julie

My main adaptation of this recipe was to halve it, since there isn’t room in my freezer for two loaves of white bread at a time. (Although I’m not sure how much of this is actually going to make it into the freezer – it seems to be disappearing rather quickly.)

1.25 cups/10 oz/300 ml warm water (divided)

1.5 tsp/7 g yeast

1.5 tsp/7g sugar

3.5 cups/14 oz/420 g all-purpose/plain flour

1 t/5 g salt

2 Tbsp/1 oz/30 g butter, softenened

In a large bowl, combine about half the water with the yeast and sugar. Leave for about 5 minutes until the yeast foams.

When you come back and see that the yeast has foamed and is indeed active, add about half the flour and mix in. Then mix in the rest of the flour, the salt, and the butter. (There are various ways you can do this: in a standing mixer with a dough hook; by hand; or what I always do – use my dough whisk, which makes mixing dough a snap.)

Once you have a consistently shaggy mixture, knead by hand, adding flour very sparingly to minimize the stickiness (although you want it to be a little bit sticky), until you have a smooth and springy ball of dough. When you have achieved this, put it back in the bowl, cover, and leave to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

When you come back to check whether the dough has doubled, first grease a loaf pan and set aside. Then knock down the risen dough, turn it out of the bowl, and on a clean surface, flatten out into a rectangle roughly the size of a piece of letter/A4 paper. (I used a rolling pin and some more very lightly scattered flour to assist this process.)

Once you have the dough flattened to your satisfaction, roll it up like a jelly roll. (You can do this on either the short side or the long side – you think will fit better into your loaf pan.) Place the roll of dough in your loaf pan, seam side down, tucking in ends underneath as necessary. Cover again and leave for second rise until it puffs over the top of the loaf pan, 45 minutes-1 hour.

When you come back to check the dough again, preheat the oven to 400F/200C. When ready, put the bread in and bake for 30-45 minutes, checking and rotating as necessary to get even rising and browning.

Makes 1 loaf.