No kneading bread

I stumble across this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html) taking about how Jim Lahey baking his no kneading bread. His no kneading method is incredibly easy to follow and the results are to some extend rather satisfying. I normally use 6 cups of strong white flour, mix with 1 teaspoon dry yeast, 1 teaspoon salt and enough luke warm water, using a pair of chopsticks to make a rather wettish dough (see picture). Then all I have to do is to do nothing for about 5 hours (the longer the better but I have so far had not tried to let the dough develop for more than 12 hours). After the dough is shaped I will leave it for another hour until the dough is doubled the volumn.

Meanwhile I put my secret weapon (a glass dish with lid) into the oven and heat it at 200 degree C for about 20 minutes. The dish is scotchingly hot by now so when I put the dough into the dish, it won't stick to the surface of the dish. The bread is then baked in the dish with the lid coveredd for 30 minutes and then bake a furthe 20 minutes without the lid. The bread is very crusty when it is still hot, so far so good. My problem is that as soon as the bread gets cooler the crustiness of the bread goes. I am going to try to leave the lid on a bit longer to see if that helps to keep the crustiness a bit longer.

Bread, cookies and biscotti

My mill is broken. Well, strickly speaking, that is not my mill but my husband's. He had it for years (maybe decades) but for the last few years, I have been the one using it. Hubbie is sort of semi-retired from the kitchen. We buy organic grains (wheat, spelt and rye) from an organic grain grower in Germany and mill our own wholemeal flour whenever we make bread. I normally bake about two loaves a week. The bread goes wonderfully with cheese, sausages, salad and Italian style anti-pasti.

I am waiting for the mill to be repaired by the hubbie. Ideally it can be brought back to life again. Should the mill have passed its best before date, I have already set my eye on a KoMo Magic grain mill. It looks gorgeous and should do a good job too.

Meanwhile I have been using commercial flour making white bread. Today I have made a rosemary bread (in the middle of the photo above). It tastes fantastic. Besides baking a bread, I managed to bake some biscotti and cookies. A colleague of mine accidentally bought some muessli with dried fruit in it, which she did not like. Instead of throwing them away, I suggested collect them and said I would find a way to use up those unwanted raisins, dried dates, apricots etc. They have been soaked in amaretto for weeks now and I finally got the time to make something out of it today. When I opened the lid the almondy aroma rushing out the container. I could not help but tasting a fewof the raisins. OMG they tasted unbelivable. I used half to make some walnuts cookies and the remainders were turned into almond biscotti. Both taste delicous. I am really really pleased that something would otherwise have ended into the bin have been given a chance to shine. I have packed them (see photo above with the cookies lying neatly in the round storage box and biscotti packed in the freeze bag) a will bring them to work. I am sure my colleagues would love them.

Swapshop

As trained PAT testers my husband and I volunteered to help testing the portable appliances at a local swapshop. The swapshop was surprisingly well attended. We did about 15 PAT tests, ranging from an almost new bread maker, crepes maker, a couple of kettles, a wall light to a greenhouse heater. It took us about an hour to get all the appliances tested, sadly there were two items did not pass the test, which means they would have to be ended up at the recycling centre.

Swapshop is such a wonderful mechanism to help ourselves and the environment. One has old things that he/she no longer needs, e.g. CDs, books, magazines, clothes, but is too good to throw away; others may find those things are exactly what they would like to have. Swapshop provides a venue to satisfy both the 'bringing' and the 'taking' parties; and save the stuff that would otherwise be sent to landfill sites. I was thrilled to see those coasters, CDs, National Geography magazines and some nice clothes that I had brought in went to a good home... It is really comforting to know that those stuff will be given another lease of life.