grilled cheese sandwich heaven

y'alls, i love grilled cheese sandwiches. i would say they are probably my all time number one favorite food. number two i guess. i know when you were a kid is the cool thing to say was that your favorite food is pizza but i would always be like, well, my favorite food is french bread with gravy but my second favorite food is grilled cheese. recipe for poulet farci al' ail may be forthcoming at some point, the dish that creates the gravy that creates the french bread with gravy that owns my heart. but for now: the best grilled cheese.

usually i make toasted cheese, which is kind of cheating, but it makes me feel like it might be "healthy" or at least healthy enough to count as one of those quick lunches or late night dinners that you stand over the stove eating. my toaster oven, though, is back at the ranch so i have been forced to conquer my fears of pan-fried grilled cheese: these sandwiches usually end up burnt or flabby with butter or half cold.

no more. the answer is mayonnaise. do you know this trick? i don't know how it entered my brain but i am glad it did.

spread a thin layer of mayo on the outside of the bread so you don't need to put butter in the pan which can separate or burn or whatever. medium heat until the bread browns and the cheese melts. when the cheese melts, flip it. boom. perfect crispy crust, no burning, doesn't really taste like mayo (especially if you spread mustard or chutney on the inside of your sandwich. yummm.)

the past two sandwiches, mozzarella on potato bread, have been simply perfect. in a succulent garden in the shade with a cat making happy sounds: you better believe it.

tenacious bread

Lisssn: I have been rocking the grain salads: some kind of whole grain, olives, sundried tomatoes. Whole Foods bulk aisle and I are buddies. Even SPELT and I are buddies. Grain salads make me feel like some kind of Mediterranean goddess, all swarthy and feta cheese. From quinoa to spelt to wheat berries... to buckwheat groats. The other day I got up and put on a pot of grains and didn't measure, just threw in some kasha and spelt and, apparently, too much water. And it got crazy overcooked and sloppy gloppy. I made gruel. And my sanctimonious bulk-items-in-glass-containers grin fell. I tried to bake this glop into a kind of crisp bottom layer for crostini. I tried to fry it into fake arancini (but with neither breadcrumbs or egg: failure). And, finally, I baked it into bread. And it's delicious. So while this won't allow you to feel awesome about yourself for not eating refined carbohydrates, it is a great way to use up leftover grains. It still has that kasha funkiness, but this time in a good way.

MESSED-UP-GRAINS BREAD
(via James Beard's oatmeal bread)

2 cups or so of leftover grains
4 cups flour
2 1/2 t yeast (2 packets, if you aren't a baller who buys bulk yeast)
1 T salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup warm water
1 cup warm milk

Proof the yeast with the warm water (just hotter than body temp) and a tablespoon of sugar for about five minutes.

Add your grains, the milk, salt sugar, mix it up. Knead in the flour. The dough will be really sticky, add flour and knead for like 10 minutes until it is shiny and elastic. Then let it rise for about 2 hours, until doubled in size and not rising any more.

Punch it down, shape it into 2 loaves, plop into greased loaf pans, and let rise again until they fit in the bread pans, about an hour.

Bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes, until golden brown and hollow-sounding when you knock on it. Then take the loaves out of the pans and let the sides crisp up for another 5 or 10 minutes.

Right now I am totally obsessed with Marmite, so this bread basically exists as a plate for the mouth-stinging, umami goodness that is Marmite. Every 15 minutes or so I sneak into the kitchen and spread myself another slice. But the bread has a nice crumb and is suitable for all kinds of sandwiches: of the ludicrously British variety or no.

bread and butter

Thinking a lot about this time last year. Apparently, I was all about simple food combinations: strawberries and whipped cream, artichokes and mayo, pairs that are so good together that they just sing. And so while there are some Big Deals around these parts-- planning a move, convalescing from this viral weirdness, kicking this scifi design project into high gear, submitting a grant and all the other school work and life chores, the Biggest Deal around here is bread and butter.

A recipe for the first free Saturday in recent memory:

Slice a nice loaf of country bread (hello, Bread and Cie! are we going to be neighbors soon? only time will tell!)
Spread with salted butter, salted butter, salted butter. Thickly!

It is, as James Beard says, one of the perfect matches in gastronomy. I think that all the salted-sweets hype lately, with big chunks of sea salt on everything from brownies to bacon cookies, is kind of gilding the lily. Don't get me wrong-- I love a compost cookie more than the next girl. I am a cheerleader for team salty-sweet. But let's be real about origins here. Salted caramel, the French godfather of this whole craze is made with, not a crapload of table salt but-- what?-- SALTED BUTTER. Oh, it's so good.

happy new year, tomato bread

"Recipes!" Rachel said. "Recipes!"

My life the last few months has been all ideas, all the time. Not even concrete ideas, dreamer-schemer ideas ("a talking doormat", someone at Burning Man replied. I guess "what's your big idea?" is kind of a trick question, especially when someone is on drugs). Nebulous ideas. International Klein Blue ideas.



Yesterday I sat with an old woman in her study and she was burning cedar wood and it was hot and dark and fragrant and she said: "here is what I have noticed about your work. You have a brilliant mind but you need to focus." I was struck by two things: she has read fifteen pages of my writing. I have heard this before... always from people that don't know me that well. What is it about my carriage or gestures or hair or teeth that says "nutty professor"? I guess I have been playing this part, in which genuine excitement and curiosity get acted out as fake spaciness, for so long that I have become genuinely scattered. Enter: recipes. It is good to cling to something simple and real like food without thinking too hard about it.

Anyway, Rachel, here is a recipe that is unexpected, delicious, and impossible to overthink.

PA AMB TOMAQUET
(adios, Barcelona, it was great)

--Classy European bread, sliced (horizontally, if you have a baguette) and toasted almost to the point of charring
--A clove of garlic
--Olive oil
--A tomato

+ Rub the cut clove of garlic over the rough toasted bread (which is why you need a sturdy toast, and also a bread with a not-too-open crumb) until it gets worn down.

+ Cut the tomato in half and rub that over the bread too.

+ Drizzle some olive oil on top and salt, if you want.

+ Resolve to drink better coffee and eat better cheese (not really, but this bread + manchego cheese are the tapas of champions). Also to rewatch The Passenger.

bread pudding

did you know that in french they call bread pudding "unemployment pudding"?!

such is the spirit of a grad school dinner party. but it was great-- i feel really proud of myself for taking initiative. i spent a lot of last year just kind of waiting for the kind of community that i felt in new york to spring up around me.

HENCEFORTH I ASK NOT GOOD FORTUNE. I MYSELF AM GOOD FORTUNE
-uncle walt.



and there has been a lot of it: laughter, hilarious shortie overalls and the antics they lead to, books and ideas, researching south africa and armchair travel, meeting like minds at conferences, not getting a cold that i thought i was going to get. being both very busy and very quiet and still. om!



so pick up the phone and invite some people over! it's as easy as making this dessert.

BREAD PUDDING (via bittman)

+ 8 slices of whatever bread that you have lying around. I used whole wheat thus making this totally "breakfast food"-- basically the same as toast, eggs and milk AMIRITE?
+ 3 cups milk, skim is just fine if that's what you drink normally. Again-- breakfast!
+ 1/2 a stick of butter (4 T)
+ 3 eggs
+ 1/2 cup sugar
+ 1 1/2 t cinnamon
+ a pinch of salt

-- Oven to 350. Grease your baking pan (I used two loaf pans because I was ALSO making lasagne, so groove as your soul sings) and tear the bread into little bits in the pan.

-- Melt the butter with the sugar and cinnamon and salt and add the milk until it gets hottish.

-- Pour this mix over the bread and let it get soggy for a little bit. Push down the bread that doesn't cooperate. Discipline!

-- Beat the eggs and then stir them into this gloppy mess... you could ALSO break up a chocolate bar and add some chocolate chunks at this point. It would probably be a good idea. I would encourage that. You could also dust some cinnamon-sugar over the top. I didn't do this, actually, but it sounds really good right? I think so.

--Bake for 45 minutes or so. It can be kind of wobbly but should be mostly set. Bread pudding keeps for quite a while (if you aren't eating it for breakfast) too, which makes it even more clutch in the "use of leftovers" department. Which is key if you are basically kind of unemployed.

beer bread

I was going to make Irish Soda Bread to be all theme-party-like for you guys, but I used all my eggs making a savory bread pudding. That I have been eating for three straight days-- do you think bread pudding has protein? Just watched Jamie Oliver's TED talk speech and have so many emotions about nutrition and obesity and America.

Anyway this bread is amazing. I was always curious about non-sweet quick breads and this one is amazing. The texture isn't too biscuity at all, which was my number one fear. It's just delicious and it slices fairly well, too, for fake PBJs or even real sandwiches. AH!

Add beer bread to the long list of things to be thankful for this week. Including sunshine, E Street Cafe in Encinitas, cutoffs, new cheap headphones with way better sound than any other headphones I have ever owned (?), Peets' Assam tea, getting the last charger at said Peets, editors putting queer erotica in a very serious-looking queer theory reader. I got about halfway through before I realized the author wasn't going to start theorizing.



BEER BREAD (variations at A Year in Bread blog sound good, too)

3 cups flour
1 T baking powder
1 T sugar
1 t salt
a 12 oz beer (I used Simpler Times and it tasted banana-y! In a good way)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Put all the ingredients in a bowl, mix the beer in slowly until you have a thick dough. Plop it in a loaf pan and bake it in the oven for 45 minutes.

persimmon tea cake

Well, before making this cake the only thing I knew abut persimmons was from this video:



Suffice it to say that I was skeptical. As soon as I bought some at the market and did a little online research, I became even more skeptical. How to tell if my persimmon is Fuyu or Hachiya? Was I going to poop my pants if I did chose wrong? Is this like some kind of whack-ass farmer's market Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Holy Grail? Well, anyway, I think I screwed it up and used the squat kind you're supposed to use in salads (Fuyu), the good news is that it was delicious. I ate half the loaf in one day. Seriously.

The recipe comes from Beard on Bread, kind of, except I halved the recipe but forgot to halve the sugar. I then added more flour, but make no bones about it: this is a cake. A cake that you eat for breakfast. Because you are a grown-up.

Persimmon tea cake

2 1/2 cups flour (I started with 1 3/4 but the batter was too thin because I screwed up and added some whole wheat until it looked like zucchini bread batter. 2 1/2 cups seems right. Use some whole wheat flour at your discretion)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp nutmeg
shake of ginger and cloves, too.
3 persimmons, chopped up (I'm pretty sure that if you're cooking them, it doesn't matter if they are the crunchy Fuyu or mushy Hachiya kind)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup (one stick) melted butter
1/3 cup water (or bourbon or cognac-- I didn't have these)
Optional: some dried cranberries or raisins

Preheat the oven to 350 and butter a loaf pan

Dump all the dry ingredients in the bowl and mix in the wet ingredients.

Cook for an hour, mine took an extra 15 minutes or so.

Curl up some tea and a good book. Or a not so good book that's due tomorrow. Any book will do.

basic sandwich bread

Holy free time, batman! First the crackers, which only take a few minutes but seem like they are an afternoon project. Bread, though, is for the truly "carless in southern california". Instead of figuring out the bus system or exploring the joys of walking next to the freeway, I made some bread. And lo! It is cheaper (provided that you buy a bunch of yeast and flour, it comes out to like 1.50 a loaf) and better (but don't take my word for it!) than bread from the store.

I'll give bootleg instructions here... if you really want to become a weekend breadmaster, I suggest you find a copy of BEARD ON BREAD. This is the book that my friend who taught me to make bread used, and it really is great.



1 package active dry yeast
1 1/2 to 2 cups warm water
a spoonful of sugar or honey
3 3/4- 4 cups flour (baker's, all purpose, half whole wheat, some oats... you can go nuts)
1 t salt
some butter or oil

(for one loaf)

First, proof the yeast-- that is, rejuvenate the little guys by giving them a bath and a snack. Stir the yeast and sugar into 1/2 a cup of warm water. Too hot and they die, too cold and they can't relax. Let it sit around for a few minutes, should become kind of brown and frothy. Dr. Frankenstein, we have created life! Bwahaha. Making bread is great.

Add the salt to the 3 3/4 cup flour, then pour in 3/4 cup warm water. Stir it with a spoon. Now add the yeasties and stir until the dough comes together. If it is too stiff, you can add some more water, but try to knead it out first. Now knead! Punch and fold, turn and fold, turn and fold! The dough should become kind of elastic (hello, gluten!) and when you poke it, it should spring back.

Now rub the dough and your bowl with butter or oil and plop your ball of dough in there to rise. Cover it with a towel and keep it somewhere warmish-- an unheated oven is good for a drafty apartment.

2 hours or so later, it should have doubled in size and when you poke it it shouldn't spring back. Inexact science.

Now punch it down and knead it again for a few minutes. Prod it into a bread-like shape, then toss it in a greased loaf pan to rise again. Preheat the oven to 400.

When the bread has risen again (1 hr? do the poke thing) rub some cold water on top and cut some decorative slashes in the top. Bake for about 40 minutes. It should be brown and, when you take it out, sound hollow when you knock on it.

Let it cool before you slice it (I KNOW! but do it) then store it in the fridge.

no-knead bread

Long overdue!

Making your own bread is the big leagues. By which I mean it is one of those things that is easier than it seems, well worth the time spent, and just an awesome thing that will make you feel like you are the winner of Frontier House... despite the fact that there are no winners on PBS. Seriously, you will want to stalk down Laura Ingalls Wilder in her log cabin and flex your biceps, proudly displaying your perfect, golden loaf until she gives you maple candy or a yard of calico. Homemade bread is like that.

Seriously though, when I started making my own bread junior year of college it was a revelation. Oh, the toast! The sandwiches! The superiority to veggie corn dogs as a midnight snack! Now I am both more busy and more lazy, so I have fallen off the bandwagon.

I did start making the famous, super-hyped, MEGA-hyped no-knead bread earlier this spring. And it is awesome. And you can do it! Yes, you!

I mean, you can totally make your own sandwich bread no worries and it takes less time (white or wheat or HONEY OAT or wahhhh I want to make bread everyday) but this is the only way I have achieved "success" with a "European style loaf." So I guess it's as good a way to start as any.

What other sandwich breads have in "taking an afternoon" and "infinite customizability", this bread has in hands-off cool. This bread is like the James freakin' Dean of crusty boules. Two timings: takin' a day off or the workday warrior. Workday warrior timing is kinda intense, but do-able.

Weekend: late night
Weekday: when you get back from work

Throw 3 cups of flour, 1/4 tsp yeast (store the rest in the fridge) and 1 1/2 tsp salt in a bowl.
Mix with 1 1/2 cups water.
Mix, mix, mix, cover your bowl with saran wrap and go to bed.


12-18 hours later.....
Weekday: If you need to show up at work the next day, set your alarm for 2 hours before you normally get up. Sucks, right? But just think of the bread you'll have with dinner!
Weekend timing: Just get up.

Fold your puffy, bubbly dough over itself a couple times and gently roll it into a ball. Plop it onto a floured cloth or just a floured countertop or a floured bowl or whatever. Cover with a cloth and do something else for 2 hours. Like go back to sleep or watch cartoons.



Back? Good! Preheat the oven to 450 with an oven-proof pot or dutch oven or casserole dish in it. Ideally for half an hour, but it doesn't really matter. Gently maneuver the dough into the hot pot, put the lid on or fashion one out of tinfoil, let it bake for half an hour. Now take the lid off for another 15 minutes or so, until it's golden brown. Fly out the door while your bread cools, or just eat it while you continue to watch cartoons. Oh my god I can't wait to get home and eat this.

zucchini bread

I KNOW. Enough already. But zucchini bread is just so delicious, and the only zucchini at stop & shop was sold in sets of two in styrofoam. and it was organic. sweet, sweet irony.



Anyways, it also gives me an excuse to crack open my new copy of beard on bread. Everything I've baked from that book is awesome. If you don't have two loaf pans (and I don't blame you) you can pour the other half of the batter into muffin cups and make little individual tea cakes for your next tea party. Or snacking. Or when you are too lazy to find a knife to slice your zucchini bread.

zucchini tea bread

adapted from beard on bread

3 eggs
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups grated zucchini (about a zucchini and a half's worth. two zucchinis would be delicious. I used some summer squash too, no sweat)
3 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
3 tsp. cinnamon (or some nutmeg, allspice...)
some nuts, I guess, if you aren't me

Preheat the oven to 350.

This is really easy in a standing mixer, but I guess that's just the upshot of living in yer mamma's basement.

Grate the zucchini. Don't bother peeling it, those green flecks in the bread make you feel so healthy!



Beat the eggs until frothy. Add sugar, oil, zucchini, and vanilla. Mix it up.

Now add the dry stuff, trying not to end up with nasty baking powder clumps or anything like that.

Grease your pan(s). If you have ONE loaf pan and NO muffin tin and you forgot to halve the recipe or you really want to have mini zucchini tea cakes, you can get these metal cupcake wrappers that stand up on their own on a cookie sheet-- crisis averted.

Pour the batter into the greased pans and bake for an hour. The little muffin guys will be done after like half an hour or so. Just stick a fork in, you know the drill. Better yet, put them in the oven, remember that you have to pick your boyfriend up two towns over, make his parents drop him off, give them the wrong exit, end up driving around in circles for twenty minutes, make it home AS THE TIMER RINGS.

Have a cup of tea and watch the leaves turn. Ahhhh.