2 posts tagged “baking”
I started baking bread in college. I didn't really know what I was doing, and ten years later, I know a lot more. I know that the bread I made back then was bricklike because I didn't let it rise enough, and I probably over-kneaded it. You can make really great bread in under three hours. If you're REALLY lazy, you can also make dough, let it sit overnight, reshape then cook. I have an incredibly basic French baguette recipe that involves very little kneading, and I have ciabatta recipes that are a bit more complex. I've even tried to make boiled bagels.
This weekend, I think I'm going to create sourdough. This is complex because it requires, more or less, rotten starter. Well, not exactly. But it takes at least 2 days to get it blooming right, apparently. But once you got that, the loaf making is fairly standard.
I started cooking in 1997 or so, when I got an apartment in college on-campus housing. I learned to make very few things, but I got really into baking. I'm still most comfortable with baking, but I've started to break out of that a bit.
A few months ago I ordered an old-timey Dutch Oven off eBay. It's a Wagner Ware Magnalite 4qt, and I've mostly used it to make the most wonderful mouth-watering stews that simmer all day at low temperature. Beef falls apart without even turning brown.
This weekend I made my first ever omelette. I tend to suck at making scrambled eggs, which is all Reg ever eats, so while he slept I experimented. It wasn't so hard except that I couldn't really flip it properly, and by the time I realized this it got a little brown. Although I preferred that in my youth, I've become accustomed to wetter eggs. (My mother believed in well-done EVERYTHING.) Reg and I don't even like eggs that much but scrambled eggs fried in butter or bacon fat kind of do it for me.
