How I Know I Now Live in California

Would you like some milk with that?

Waffle Love

To the tune of the Blue Danube. Dah dah dah dah dah:

Dah dah...

Dah dah...

I'm Bacon for Coffee

Since seeing this picture from the SF Weekly, I can't get it out of my head. This bacon coffee cup is simultaneously hilarious, repugnant, and delicious-looking.

What say you?

Hello Gorgeous

Banana muffin. With oatmeal, honey, and muscovado sugar on top for a little razzle dazzle.

Clay Pigeon Focaccia

J and I sold our breadmaker before moving. My sister (hello!) has asked me why we sold it, and I think it's worth discussion.

We had a Zojirushi breadmaker that came with a video and a cookbook and a million settings. As with most breadmakers, the bread that was baked in its own oven was a strange vertical doorstop, so from the beginning we were only using the machine to knead the bread using recipes it came with (I have never figured out whether you can put an ordinary, non-bread maker recipe into a bread maker). It was our fanciest kitchen appliance...until we acquired our Kitchenaid with handy-dandy dough hook.

Has anyone had success actually making the bread in the breadmaker?I know people swear by them for the kneading, or for making non-bread items like jams, but when is a breadmaker actually used as a breadmaker?

Now that our empire red mixer took the place of the kneading machine, we found ourselves with an enormous appliance gathering dust at the top of the fridge.

Making bread by hand, with a bit of kneading assistance from said mixer with dough hook, was easy and satisfying and wonderful. After all, humans have been making bread for millenia with flour, sugar, water, and yeast. Who needs anything else?

In fact, I was feeling so confident about how easy it is to whip up some wonderful bread without the breadmaker that I came home and decided to whip up some focaccia. As you do.

I found a recipe that was biblically simple - with only the ingredients listed above, in Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Book - and off I went.

The yeast had been in the fridge, and I didn't wait for it to warm up because I wanted bread for dinner.

When it didn't froth after a few minutes in warm water, I thought, never mind, it will wake up a bit when I've mixed it in with the flour.

When the dough didn't double, I thought, that's alright, when it goes in the oven, it will surely wake up and be bubbly and fluffy and light.

Well. Guess what. There are some things you can't rush.

Bread, no matter how ancient, simple, timeless, is simply not one of them.

These were like doorstops. The bread doesn't look half bad, though, does it? But you did need a good set of chompers.

No Vampires Coming Over Anytime Soon

Folks, the CSA delivered an unholy amount of garlic cloves last week. No fewer than 12.

I have always been incredibly stingy with garlic. You should see the amount of olive oil we go through in our house (gallon/month), but garlic? I have no idea how this habit began. Do you have something that you're completely stingy with that has no rational or memorable basis?

But here was an opportunity. An opportunity to break through my aversion to cooking entire bulbs at a time. And an opportunity to repel every vampire within a twenty-mile radius with the scent of roasting garlic.

I turned to trusty old Martha. I bring you Oven-Poached Garlic. And by poached, she means, IN OLIVE OIL. No troubles there.

This method renders the garlic caramelized and gooey, spreadable on the nearest piece of crusty bread.

Chop off top 1/2 inch of the bulbs.

Put in an ovenproof dish with herbs.

Almost cover with olive oil.

Roast for almost two hours at 350°. Devour.

Bliss (Still Life with Tea and Parasol)