Wordless Wednesday - Thyme to make tart crust

Playing catch-up

How much menu planning do you do?  We shop once a week--okay, technically twice, since we shop at both HEB and Central Market each weekend--so I plan meals a week at a time.  I try to plan a mix of things, since I know there will be nights when I get home late and won't want to cook anything complicated or time-consuming.  Some meals will be eaten as a family, and some will be done in two seatings (feed the girls to get them to bed, then J & I eat later).  The nights we shop (generally Friday and Saturday) are a free-for-all.  We all eat different things, depending on what jumps into the cart.  Jamie often eats sushi, since he's the only one who likes it.  Salads are popular as well.  One night during the week, we often eat homemade pizza.  And I try to plan something for Sunday or Monday that will have lots of leftovers so that I have something to eat for lunch for the week.  Sunday is also my day for making those more complicated or time-consuming things. =)  

That would include some of the French Fridays with Dorie recipes.  One of the recipes for November is Roast Chicken for Les Paresseux, aka Lazy People. =)  I managed to make this one last Sunday.  When I was growing up, we almost always had Sunday dinner, and we'd often have a roast of some sort.  We don't do that very often these days, but it's nice when I have the time and energy to make something more involved.  We had the chicken with mashed potatoes and roasted green beans.  I actually stole the potatoes from the Hachis Parmentier recipe.  I did make that one a couple weeks ago, and while I didn't like it that much with the sausage, the potatoes on top were fantastic.  (Jamie really liked it, though, and happily ate the leftovers.)   

This particular recipe didn't provide me with much in the way of lunch (I tend to go with things like casseroles, spaghetti, soup, etc. for that), but the leftovers did come in handy.  I had leftover potatoes and most of a bunch of rosemary, and I saved the half of the garlic head that was roasted outside the chicken.  So I was all set for my next bread recipe in the BBA Challenge, Potato Rosemary Bread!

The last bread I posted for the BBA Challenge was the Pane Siciliano back in July.  I skipped over the Panettone for now, but plan to make that in December.  I made the Pizza Napoletana for Daring Bakers a couple years ago.  I did make the Poolish Baguettes and Portuguese Sweet Bread back in August, but didn't get as far as posting about them.  I liked the Poolish Baguettes better than the French Bread baguettes that I made, mainly because I think the addition of whole wheat flour added flavor to the bread.  The Portuguese Sweet Bread made excellent french toast, but was a bit light in texture for regular toast.  Both were good, and I'm glad that I tried them.  But I was quite excited that the next bread was a decidedly savory one.  

The Potato Rosemary Bread starts with some biga for a preferment.  The full biga recipe in the book makes 18 ounces, but I only needed 7 ounces.  Fortunately the math gets a lot easier when you convert to metric, since 7 ounces is 200 grams.  So I ended up using 120 grams of bread flour, 80 grams of water, and about 1/8 teaspoon of instant yeast.  The biga needed to ferment at room temperature for a few hours, then went into the fridge for the night. 

You're supposed to take the biga out of the fridge about an hour before you want to make the final dough, but that timing didn't work for me on Thursday.  Since I was working with a cold preferment, I compensated by using warm water instead of room temperature.  I also warmed up the mashed potatoes (in the microwave) so they wouldn't make the dough too cold.  I mixed the biga with the water, then added the potatoes and some olive oil.  Next in were the flavorings of chopped rosemary and black pepper.  Finally, I mixed in the bread flour, salt and instant yeast.  I mixed the dough by hand initially, using my dough whisk.  Then I used my stand mixer with the dough hook to develop the dough.  Once the dough was close to ready, I took it out of the mixer, added the roasted garlic, and finished kneading by hand.  Then it went into my 2-quart dough bucket to rise.  Once the dough was doubled, I portioned it into 60 gram pieces and formed them into round rolls.  (I ended up with 17.)  I baked them for a total of 20 minutes, and the house smelled fantastic by the time they were done.

The verdict?  This bread is fantastic!  Everyone here loved the rolls.  I will definitely be making this recipe again--maybe even this weekend, since I still have some leftover mashed potatoes.  The rolls are great, but I'd like to try a larger loaf as well.  

If you'd like to try the chicken recipe, I highly recommend that you get your hands on a copy of Around My French Table.  For tips from some of the other members of the group, read the P&Q as well.  For the bread, check out Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  There are many, many wonderful breads in this book.  Next up, Pugliese.

I'm submitting these rolls to Yeastspotting.

My weekend project

This is a significant post for several reasons.  For one, this makes the 12th post I've done this month, which is a new record.  I've done 11 several times, but never more than that.  And I'm not done for the month, what with at least two more holiday cookies, not to mention some TWD recipes and some more bread.  This also marks my return to posting about the BBA Challenge.  Hard to believe it's been over two months since I posted my variation on the Cranberry Walnut Celebration Bread.  I did make the next recipe, English Muffins, in mid-October.  I wasn't that happy with how they turned out, though, and don't feel like remaking them right now, so I'm just going to skip posting about them.

I've been procrastinating on the Focaccia for quite some time, and it took a couple of different things to finally get me back on track with BBA.  One was that our annual Christmas potluck with the Italian genealogy group coincided with a full weekend off from work (both Saturday and Sunday!).  I knew that the focaccia recipe made a large quantity (a half-sheet pan, 13"x18") and that it would be perfect for a crowd (so we wouldn't eat it all ourselves).  The second was that I signed up for an evening class with Peter Reinhart here at Central Market in January!  I'm very excited about going, and the anticipation has me re-energized about bread baking.  The class is mainly about his new book, but I'm hoping that if I take my copy of BBA maybe he'll sign it for me. =)

Anyway, on to my recipe notes.  The main thing that had me putting off this bread was the fact that it takes two days.  Since I finally had a Saturday off, though, I figure it was time to tackle it.  It turned out that the whole process wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  I used my mixer for the dough, first with the paddle for the initial mixing, then with the dough hook for kneading.  I did have to add a bit of additional flour to get the dough to clear the sides of the bowl.  After the mixing, it was mostly waiting.  You stretch and fold the dough, then wait a while before doing it again, several times.  Then the dough is gently spread in the pan by using fingertips to dimple the dough, with the help of lots of herbed olive oil.  I went with a simple rosemary and garlic oil, since rosemary was the only fresh herb I had on hand.  Here's what I used:

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil (nothing fancy)
1/4 cup chopped fresh rosemary
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 teaspoon granulated garlic

Once the dough was in the pan, it was covered with plastic and placed in the fridge to develop flavor overnight.  That was Saturday night.  On Sunday morning, I took the dough out of the fridge early, since the recipe says that it needs about 3 hours to proof.  It got some more herbed oil and more dimpling.  At about 2 1/2 hours, I realized that the dough was starting to try to escape from the pan.  So I quickly turned the oven on to preheat, and dimpled the dough  one more time to deflate it just a little.  Once the oven was ready (500 degrees F), I put the pan in, turned down the temp to 450 degrees F as directed, and baked it for 10 minutes.  Then I rotated the pan and baked it for 10 minutes longer, at which point it was starting to brown nicely.  I took it out of the oven and immediately took the focaccia out of the pan and carefully transferred it to a rack to cool.

The verdict?  This stuff is good.  Really good.  But it would be hard for it to be bad, with all that oil adding flavor.  =)  I assume everyone at the potluck liked it--it disappeared very quickly.  The girls and Jamie all liked the focaccia a lot, so I have a feeling I'll be making it again soon.  I'd like to experiment with some different herbs as well as other toppings.  If you'd like to try this one for yourself, get your hands on a copy of the book.  You won't regret it.  And don't forget to check out some of the other bakers who have taken on the BBA Challenge.