Ratatouille and Pan-Seared, Oven Roasted Pork Tenderloin with a Rosemary Vermouth Pan Sauce

I love ratatouille. I was making it even before that cute movie with the rat waltzed this dish into the spotlight. Did you know that Thomas Keller consulted on that movie, and he came up with the recipe on which the rat's ratatouille was based? That's why it looked so awesome. After seeing that movie, I wanted to make some of this Frenchy stew immediately. And I would have, except that it was January and this, to me, is summer food.

I therefore usually make ratatouille at least once every summer, and I had been meaning to make it for a few weeks now. I even bought a cute little eggplant at the farm stand thinking that it might end up in some ratatouille. Instead, it lingered on the counter and turned to mush. I suck.

Then I came across this article in the Guardian's blog. In it, Felicity Cloake eloquently and amusingly expounds on ratatouille in all its various permutations. And I was inspired...So here you go:

Ratatouille

• 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• Salt
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 2 medium eggplant, cut into 1/2 inch dice
• 3-4 zucchini
• 28 ounce can whole tomatoes*
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
• 1/4 thinly sliced fresh basil
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large dutch oven, and sauté the onion, peppers, garlic, and 1/4 teaspoon salt until the vegetables are soft (about 10 minutes). Add white wine, and increase heat to high. Simmer until the white wine is almost completely evaporated, about 4 minutes, and stir in the red pepper flakes. Turn heat off.

Meanwhile, heat another 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet, add the eggplant, sprinkle with salt, and sauté until the eggplant is tender and a little bit seared. You only want to cook it about half way, which will take about 7 minutes. When the eggplant is sufficiently softened, add it to the onion pepper mixture in the dutch oven.

While the eggplant is cooking, cut the zucchini in half lengthwise. Cut each half in half lengthwise again, so that you have 4 long pieces. Cut these pieces across in 1/4 inch segments so that you are left with little quarter-moon pieces. Open the can of tomatoes and leave them in the can. Using kitchen shears, cut the tomatoes into smaller pieces.

Heat the remaining olive oil in a large skillet and sauté the zucchini until the pieces are a little bit brown, and the soft centers are just becoming a bit translucent. Again, you only want them about half-way cooked.

Add the tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Add this mixture to the dutch oven and add the bay leaf and thyme.

Gently simmer the contents of the dutch oven until the flavors are melded and the vegetables are tender but not mushy, about 40 minutes to an hour. Stir in the basil and parsley, and season to taste with pepper, and more salt if necessary.

*I know that it probably seems wacky to use canned tomatoes in the height of summer, but I find that fresh tomatoes tend to have a flavor that is too lacking in assertiveness for this dish. Plus, canned tomatoes are more economical for me right now, as my tomato plants turned out to be super sad specimens this year.
If I did make this with fresh tomatoes, however, I would consider roasting them first.

**************************

I love ratatouille with pork, and there just happened to be a lovely pork tenderloin in the freezer. Rather than simply brushing it with salt, pepper, and oil and grilling this tenderloin (which is yummy), we decided to go oldschool.

The rosemary in the pork's sauce was a perfect counterpoint to the basil and thyme in the ratatouille. We had some pork tenderloin, some ratatouille, and some garlic mashed potatoes, and we were in Happy Fat Land.

We used to make this recipe all the time, and we sort of OD'd on it. It seemed, though, that it was time to brush the dust off of its sheltering folder. And wow. This tenderloin is easy, delicious, and healthy. Why had we neglected it for so long?

Pan-Seared, Oven Roasted Pork Tenderloin with a Rosemary Vermouth Pan Sauce

• 1 pork tenderloin
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced shallots
• 1/4 cup vermouth
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1-2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Coat the tenderloin with salt and pepper, and in a large skillet, heat 1-2 tablespoons canola oil over high heat. When the oil is shimmering, sear the tenderloin on all sides until it is golden brown (about 4 minutes per side).

Place the tenderloin on a foil-lined baking sheet and cook in the center of the oven until the internal temperature reads 135 degrees. Remove the tenderloin and allow it to rest.

In the meantime, melt the butter in the same skillet that was used to sear the tenderloin. Add the brown sugar, 2 tablespoons of water, and the shallots. Over medium heat, cook the shallots until soft, about 15 minutes.

Increase the heat to high and add the vermouth. If there are any brown bits remaining on the bottom of the pan, scrape them up with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula. When the vermouth has almost completely evaporated, add the chicken stock and a teaspoon of the rosemary.

Over high heat, simmer the stock until it has been reduced to a thick sauce. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper, and the rest of the rosemary if desired. (In the winter, we like to use all of the rosemary, but in the summer we prefer a more mild rosemary flavor.)

Pollo all'Americano--Chicken Stew with Polenta, Celery Root, and Sage, and a Brownie Redemption

I will not be defeated by brownies. I've tried Alton Brown's recipe, Cook's Illustrated's recipe, a Saveur recipe, and Thomas Keller's recipe for brownies, and every one of them has resulted in a fail. After this last spectacular failure, I was determined to once and for all conquer this unassuming dessert.

I had enough ingredients available to once again attempt Thomas Keller's recipe, and because the problem seemed to be with me as opposed to the recipe, I decided to go Ad Hoc.

This time, I decided that I would let the batter rest for a while, as is all the rage with chocolate chip cookie dough these days. This, I hoped, would help with the seeming lack of cohesiveness of ingredients that I experienced last time. Not wanting to poison my friends and family, I figured I had better let it rest in the fridge.

This, of course, meant that when I took it back out, it was rock solid and was therefore not about to be poured into a baking pan. Genius.

So I put the bowl of batter on top of the oven while it was preheating, but I kept envisioning melted and ruined batter. So I took it off. It was taking too long. I put it back on. I took it off.

Eventually, it was somewhat spreadable, but still had a fudgy texture. Good enough; it had to go in the oven. "Wow," Hunter said, "How did you manage to get brownie batter to be like fudge?"

"Shut up."

So far, brownies seem to exist just to torment me. But you know what? After only a short time in the oven, it became obvious that the brownies were going to develop that crackly, crispy crust that I so love and desire in my brownies. That flaky exterior is one of my favorite brownie attributes, and I have never yet been able to achieve it. Every time I've slid a pan or brownies in the oven, whether they be homemade or (gasp!) boxed, I say to them, "You better get crusty this time, damnit."

And they never listen. At best, I get maybe a square inch of cooperation, so I could have wept for joy when I saw this:

Nonetheless, Nick continued to say, "They're burning. They're going to burn. But they'll still be raw in the middle."

"Shut UP."

So it's true that they were a tiny bit chewy/overcooked around the edges, and while the middle was cooked just right, for whatever reason, the bottoms were a bit chewy, as well.

These brownies have chunks of chocolate in them, which, in the first batch, became little pockets of molten chocolate. That didn't consistently happen this time, perhaps because the batter was cold, but it didn't really bother me. Plus, perhaps I got my long sought-after crust because of the temperature of the batter. If anyone ever reads this and knows the answer, feel free to let me know.

So, overall, they were not the perfect brownies, but they were pretty good. My Dad argued that they're not cost effective and perhaps not worthwhile on that basis, but I argued that while a box of brownies may have been a quarter of the price, and it may have tasted almost as good, these brownies are less likely to give you cancer. He conceded the point, and he did admit that these were worthy of a Brownie Redemption.

Before all this brownie madness, however, we had some dinner. I had worked the night before and was therefore feeling relatively unmotivated, so I sought out a relatively simple recipe. Mario Batali's Chicken Stew with Polenta, Celery Root and Sage fit the criteria, so I went to the store.

What's that? I was just whining about how I didn't want to eat a wintery, chickeny, stew thing? True. In my defense, it was a really cold day, and I do admit that I can be rather contrary.

Nick won't go to Whole Foods with me because the crowded isles filled with non-paying-attention people make him want to punch someone. I can usually handle it, but I knew it was a bad sign when I walked up to the front door and noted that there were no carts. 'Okay. Deep breath. You can do this.'

Well, there was no celery root to be found, but I thought that it was rather brilliant of me to get some parsnips and fennel instead. Close-ish, right?

And then there were no whole chickens. Because I'm lazy, I had ideally hoped to get one of those packs of chicken that have been cut up into 'serving pieces' the way I was supposed to have done to a whole chicken, but that was not going to happen. So I had to get all mad scientist and buy the separate chicken pieces in order to make a whole chicken. Somehow, this way, it didn't seem like much chicken, so I figured I'd get a couple bone-in thighs. Well, they only had huge 'family packs' so I guess we'll just have to do our chicken and chorizo thingy later this week.

They also didn't have fine cornmeal or quick cooking polenta, and I've heard that the pre-made tube-packaged polenta is not really worth bothering with. I had some cornmeal at home, but it didn't say whether it was fine or not fine, and I couldn't really tell. I thought about sending it for a spin in the food processor the way some recipes will instruct you to make superfine sugar out of regular sugar if you're unable to find the superfine stuff, but that was just getting too complicated, and I was feeling way too lazy.

My solution was to attempt the polenta with the cornmeal I had on hand, but bring some couscous in case I achieved a Polenta Fail. The problem, though, was that I've never made polenta, so wasn't really able to judge what constitutes a Fail. Polenta can be a rather scary and fabled culinary objective, although less so than souffles, which are on the List of Things Leah Can't Make. Molly of Orangette writes amusingly and eloquently of the Polenta Dilemma.

It's true--it does require a lot of stirring, to which Nick and his sore arm can attest. Mario says that you can bring some water to a boil, dump in the cornmeal, and stir until it reaches the consistency of "molten lava," whatever that is. Well, it was soon obvious that it was not as magically simple as he makes it out to be, so back on the heat it went.

The description 'molten lava,' while poetic, is not very helpful, so when I got tired of dealing with the stuff, the polenta went into a pan to cool, as instructed. In retrospect, the consistency was correct for normal polenta, but not for polenta that was to be cut into squares. Or maybe it just didn't get cool enough. I don't know.

The solution was to leave it as un-cubed polenta and use it as a bed onto which we would nestle the braised bits. Those braised bits started off as chicken pieces dredged in flour, which were seared until golden.

The veggies were then cooked until golden, and 2 cups of red wine, a cup of Mario's standard tomato sauce, and 8 sage leaves were added to the pot.

Okay, I confess--I used a jarred sauce rather than Mario's sauce. My Dad was rather scandalized, and my Italian grandmother would have been ashamed of me, but in my defense, this is some of the best pasta sauce I've ever tasted. Numerous times, I've attempted to make my own tomato sauces, and while they've been pretty good, none of them have been as good as Classico's Fire Roasted Tomato and Garlic. I swear they're not paying me to say that.

This all simmered for a while and was then plated on top of the polenta and garnished with some parsley and lemon zest. While the meal was very good, it could have been tastier had I salted it better. As I've mentioned, I've been rather scared of salt lately and have yet to achieve the happy medium between tastelessness and mouth-puckering saltiness. Mario didn't even mention adding salt to the polenta, but I added a bit anyway. I'm glad I did, but it wasn't nearly enough.

So while the lack of salt lent the dish a rather bland taste, Nick and I were also a little bit bored with it because it tasted like just about every other braised dish with meat, wine, and vegetables. We therefore concluded that there's something to be said for the 'deconstructed' approach. For example, Hunter was impressed by the fragrance of the raw parsnips, but in the finished dish, there really could have been any root vegetable in there. If we make this again, perhaps we'll take a Keller-esque approach and cook the parsnips separately.

So overall, we had fun making this meal, it was delicious, and, best of all, I almost conquered those pesky little brownies.

This is how we'll make this stew if we ever make it again:

Polenta with Chicken Stew with Root Vegetables and Sage

(Adapted from Mario Batali's Pollo all'Americano)

• 5 cups water
• 1 cup quick-cooking polenta or fine cornmeal
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• one 3 1/2 to 4 pound organic chicken, cut into serving pieces and skinned, rinsed and patted dry
• 4 bone-in skinless chicken thighs, rinsed and patted dry
• 6 TBSP olive oil
• 1 large sweet yellow onion, diced
• 4 large parsnips, peeled and diced
• half of one small fennel bulb, diced
• 2 cups red wine
• 1 cup jarred, good quality tomato sauce
• 8 fresh sage leaves
• 3 tablespoons minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest

In a large sauce pan, bring the water to a boil. Add the polenta or cornmeal and reduce heat to low. Stir almost constantly (as you would a risotto) until the polenta achieves a pudding-like consistency; salt to taste while cooking. It will probably take an hour to an hour and a half to cook the polenta.

Season the flour with salt and pepper and place in a large bag or Tupperware container. One at a time, add the chicken pieces and shake to coat evenly with the flour. Pat off excess and set aside.

In a large Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat until almost smoking. In batches, without crowding the pan, brown the chicken pieces. If necessary, wipe out any burnt bits from the bottom of the pot.

Add more oil if necessary, and sauté the parsnips and fennel until golden.

Add the wine, tomato sauce, and sage leaves, and return the chicken to the pot. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the thighs are cooked through, about 35 minutes.

Remove chicken pieces to a plate and briskly simmer sauce until it is reduced to a thick sauce; season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Return chicken to the pot to re-warm if it has cooled.

Spoon 1/4 of the polenta onto each plate, and top with a thin sliver of butter. Place a piece of chicken on the bed of polenta, and spoon sauce over. Sprinkle with parsley and lemon zest, serve immediately.

Possible alternative: First, preheat oven to 425 degrees. Peel and dice parsnips into 3/4 inch chunks, and toss with olive oil and salt on a baking sheet. Roast until parsnips are tender and browned, about 20-40 minutes, depending on the parsnips. Add to the stew 10 minutes before the end of cooking time.

Brownies

(adapted from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home)

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup unsweetened alkalized cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 3 sticks butter (3/4 lb), cut into tablespoon-sized pieces
• 3 large eggs
• 1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 6 ounces Ghiardelli (or a similar brand) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Stir together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt.

Melt half the butter in a small sauce pan over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Put the remaining butter in a medium bowl. Pour the melted butter over the butter in the bowl, and stir to melt. The butter should look creamy, with small bits of unmelted butter, and be at room temperature.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together the eggs and sugar on medium speed for about 3 minutes, or until thick and very pale. Mix in the vanilla. On low speed, add about one-third of the dry ingredients, then add one-third of the butter. Continue alternating butter and dry ingredients until they are incorporated into the batter. Add the chocolate chips and mix to combine.

Put the batter in the refrigerator for at least a few hours, and up to a week. When ready to cook the brownies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and allow the brownies to sit at room temperature until they are spreadable. Butter and flour a glass or metal 9x13 inch baking pan.

Spread the batter evenly in the pan and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until a toothpick poled into the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached to it. If the pick comes out wet, test a second time, as you may have hit a chocolate chip, which will be molten.

Cool brownies in the pan, on a rack, until they are a bit warmer than room temperature. Cut into squares and serve.

Daring Cooks' Brunswick Stew

Nick gave me a flower:


Blog checking lines--The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf's Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from the Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

I have to confess that when I read this month's Daring Cooks Challenge, my initial reaction was not one of overwhelming excitement. First of all, I thought, "Aaaahhh! That uses rabbit!" I should probably explain that while I'll eat just about anything in the whole wide world, rabbit is on the tiny Do Not Eat List, as we own a pair of the fuzzy little critters.

On the other hand, one of them is a bad, bad bunny, so I found myself threatening her when she was being evil, "Would you like to be in some Brunswick Stew? Yes you would, you bad bad rabbit." Don't worry--she's alive and well and continues to wreak havoc and destruction.

As I read the challenge instructions, I was relieved to find that the Daring Cooks stipulated that rabbit is not required. The more I thought about it, though, all I could think about was how much I really didn't feel like eating a hearty stew in the beginning of spring.

"Stop your whining," I finally said to myself, "and find a way to make it yummy." So after some brainstorming, my initial impulse was to once again make a deconstructed sort of thing. I swear that I don't always do this to recipes, but I was inspired by Thomas Keller's recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon. In this recipe, Keller basically makes a stew, and then strains out all of the vegetables. For the final product, vegetables are separately cooked and then recombined with the flavorful meat and liquid. In this way, each vegetable is cooked in an herb and spice-infused cooking medium until it reaches the perfect doneness, and when it is added to the final product, the stew acquires a new level of perfection and sophistication.

When I mentioned this month's challenge to Nick, he immediately hit upon the same idea, without me even mentioning it. We talked some more about what kinds of meats to use, how to cook the vegetables, etc. I mentioned that I thought it would be delicious to use pork shoulder, but keep it separated in a cheese cloth, a la Keller. That way, when it came time to shred the various kinds of meat, this portion of pork shoulder could be shredded and then tossed in a hot pan with some barbecue sauce. That, I figured, would make this dish way more interesting. Funnily enough, when researching Brunswick Stew, I learned that it frequently includes barbecue sauce. What can I say? I'm a genius.

The best part is that for all my whining about not wanting to eat something so wintery--"I would like this in the fall, but it's not the fall, it's spring, and I want to eat something springy...," we ended up having one last icky, cold, blustery day. So we built a fire, made some stew, and had a little send-off to winter dinner, and it was quite nice.

The final product was a thick, thick stew made of duck, pork shoulder, lima beans, and chicken stock. Rather than adding the carrots to the stew near the end of its cooking time, we made Alton Brown's Glazed Carrot recipe, and put those on top of the stew. We would highly recommend this recipe, by the way.

The corn was likewise not added to the stew--we sauteed it with some onion (which is a delicious way to cook corn, especially with fresh corn cut off the cob). On top of the carrots and corn went the barbecued pork, which was topped with some diced roasted poblanos. In the beginning of the stew recipe, you're instructed to saute some bacon and discard it. Discard bacon? No way. That went on top.

At one point, our 'deconstructed' approach meant that there we had a lot of different things going on. Nick said, "This is where it gets fun." Breaking down a whole duck, by the way, was not fun. They're some tough little buggers.

The stew was delicious, and we loved our choice of modifications. In fact, this was so delicious that we might even make it again. The recipe says that at one point, "It should taste like the most flavorful chicken soup you've ever had." And it did! In the future, I might even start off my chicken soup with the methods suggested in this recipe.

This recipe is a good example of why we're liking the Daring Cooks' challenges--you're given a set of rules that you have to work with, but at the same time, you can think outside of the box a bit and get creative. Ultimately, you make the best of what you're given, and I think that's a good way to go about life in general.

Beef Stew, Rosemary Ciabatta

So I mentioned last time that I was feeling quite fortunate to not be working during the upcoming snow storm.

Did you know that in a state of emergency, healthcare workers are not allowed to go home? I've been a nurse for a few years, and I somehow didn't know that.

Luckily, I was not held captive on Friday morning, because the state of emergency was not called until the afternoon. Even though it wasn't snowing at that point, either.

I had initially planned to go to the store when I woke up on Friday afternoon, but luckily I realized that that was a stupid idea for several reasons.

(It was like a black and white world out there.)

Instead, I joined the masses standing outside the doors of Whole Foods at 8 a.m. on Friday morning. I have got to tell you that I have never seen anything like Whole Foods was that morning. I'm glad I had decided to go with simple, old school favorites, because searching out obscure ingredients would have been a bad idea. A Braise recipe will just have to happen another time.

So on Friday night, was had shrimp fajitas, and on Saturday night, we had our neighbor friends over and had old-school beef stew. It's been a while since I've made a beef stew-like dish that didn't include red wine, bacon, or other Frenchy accouterments, so it was kind of nice to have what Nick called good old American beef stew.

Not that there's anything wrong with Frenchy beef stews. I made Thomas Keller's Boeuf Bourguignon this past winter, and it was one of the most amazing things I've ever eaten. That recipe is hard core. It's expensive, time-consuming, and all-around intense, but it's worth it.

Sometimes simplicity is a beautiful thing, though, and this beef stew is child's play in comparison to the French Laundry recipe. I'll include the recipe, as it's one I made up myself many years ago. Not that that's an impressive feat, as it's a very simple recipe, but it's pretty darn good.

Leah's Beef Stew

-About 2 pounds of beef stew chunks
-1 large onion, diced
-3 celery stalks, diced
-About 6 medium carrots, preferably organic, diced
-Fresh rosemary
-Fresh parsley
-About 6 peppercorns
-1 can tomato paste, preferable Miur Glenn
-About 8 cups organic beef stock
-2 largish red potatoes, cubed
-One largish white potato, peeled if it's a Russet, left unpeeled if it has soft skin, cubed

Optional but yummy: Rosemary bread for serving

If the beef pieces are on the large side, trim them so that they're about 1 inch square, and thoroughly dry them, as the beef will not brown well if it is wet.

Salt and pepper the beef, and over medium-high heat, heat about a tablespoon of oil in a dutch oven until it shimmers. Working in batches, brown the beef cubes. If they are overcrowded, they will steam rather than brown. You might even need to do 3 batches, so just add more oil as needed.

Remove the beef cubes to a paper towel-lined plate or baking sheet.

Add the onion, carrots, and celery to the dutch oven, as well as more oil if necessary. The quantities above are approximate, as vegetables vary greatly in size. Basically, though, you should have 2 parts onion, one part celery, and one part carrot, which makes a miropoix. I like to go a little heavy on the carrots, actually, but that's just me.

Make a bouquet garni by tying up about 3 sprigs of rosemary with about 3 sprigs of parsley and a few peppercorns in a piece of cheesecloth. Add salt, and saute the vegetables and the bouquet garni until the vegetables are soft; they do not need to take on color, so medium heat should work.

When the vegetables are soft, add the can of tomato paste and cook for another minute or two. I suggest using Muir Glenn, because Cook's Illustrated did a taste test, and Muir Glenn was the winner.

Remove the veggies to a bowl. Add the beef back to the pot, add the beef stock and the bouquet garni, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, partially cover and reduce to a fast simmer and simmer for about an hour.

At this point, add the vegetables and simmer for at least 2 more hours, still partially covered. Add more finely chopped rosemary if necessary.

This might seem like way too long to cook a beef stew, and it probably is, but Nick and I like it when the stew has been cooked for so long its components are just demolished and the broth is very thick. We like it when the potatoes are disintegrating, and the beef cubes are falling apart into little stringy bits, and that takes at least 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

You pretty much can't overcook this stew. Adjust to taste with salt and lots of pepper. We like our stew to be very peppery, and very heavy on the rosemary.

Speaking of rosemary, I noted above that this stew is delicious when served with rosemary bread. We used to buy the rosemary sourdough bread from Whole Foods, but I didn't think that bread bought on Friday was going to be much good on Saturday, and I certainly wasn't going to be making a trip to the store on Saturday.

In case you don't live in the Baltimore/DC area, this is why I wasn't going anywhere on Saturday:


So I decided to make Jim Lahey's ciabatta bread with some added rosemary. If you haven't heard of Jim Lahey's no knead bread technique, you should definitely check out his cookbook. A few years ago, he created a sensation with this breadmaking technique, and it was profiled by the New York Times.

If you don't feel like checking out the book, the Times printed a version of his basic recipe here. Cook's Illustrated also came up with a bread that uses this technique, so you might be able to find that version.

(Finally, the sun came out, and there was color!)

Basically, you create a very wet bread dough with a very small amount of yeast. Jim Lahey explains the science behind this dough in his book:

"The long, slow rise brings the gluten molecules into side-by-side alignment, to maximize their opportunity to bind to each other and produce a strong, elastic network. The wetness of the dough is an important piece of this because the gluten molecules are more mobile when there is a sufficient quantity of water, and so can move into alignment easier and faster than if the dough was stiff."

If you ever make this dough, it will seem totally wrong at first, but don't add more flour, just go with it.



This bread is insanely easy to make; it just requires that you plan ahead in order to accommodate the 18-24 hour rise. I've made his standard recipe, as well as the wheat recipe, so I wanted to try the ciabatta.

Speaking of ciabatta, if you ever find yourself at Pazo in Batimore, you should get their ciabatta.

So I made the dough by just dumping the ingredients together, including about 2 teaspoons of rosemary, and let the dough rise for about 22 hours.

Speaking of chopping rosemary, I got bored with using the chef's knife, so I decided to try the coffee grinder. It worked beautifully, and I felt like a genius. It wasn't so easy to clean, though, so we'll see how I feel later when I'm drinking rosemary-scented coffee. Gross.
The dough then got pushed around a little bit and underwent a secondary rise for about an hour.

Jim Lahey then directs you to put half of the dough on a preheated pizza stone and cover it with a preheated clay baker. Well, I don't have a clay baker, and because they sound highly breakable, I don't intend to get one.
Instead, I inverted the dutch oven to cover the bread on the pizza stone. This was potentially a very bad idea, as dutch ovens are quite heavy. The clay bakers are heavy too, though, and I figured that the dutch oven at least has big handles.

Well, I managed to cook two separate loaves of bread without inflicting a serious injury upon myself. And the bread was awesome.

Jim Lahey sounds a little cocky when he claims that his bread is better than what you'll find in most stores, but it's true. I could have eaten all of that bread myself, especially with some cheese and Prosecco.

Did you know that sparkling wine is really good with beef stew? I wouldn't have guessed, but it was great. We've all been drinking Prosecco and Cava before meals for a while now, and it's recently gotten trendy. I swear we were doing it first, though.


What a lovely snow day.