The Easy Way

Pot pie ingredients: 1/2 stick butter (or 4 tbs other fat),  4-6 tbs flour, 2 cups mushroom broth, up to 1/2 c milk, 1 small onion, 2 stalks celery, 1 large or 2 medium carrots, 1 container mushrooms, 2 medium summer squash, firm tofu or fake chicken (optional), 1 bay leaf, 2 pinches thyme, salt & pepper.

Prep: dice all vegetables to 1/4 in or 1/2 in thickness.

Biscuit topping; 2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp dry dill (or whatever herbs you want to use), 2 tsp baking powder, 8 tbs butter (1 stick), up to 3/4 c milk. You can sub out butter – I used 1/4 c light sour cream and 4 tbs butter.

1. Heat oil or butter in tall pot. Add onions and cook until almost translucent.

2. Sprinkle in flour 1 tbs at a time and stir quickly after each addition.  You’re looking for the flour to combine with the fat into relatively smooth paste (The longer you let this cook without it burning, the thicker your gravy will be, however, I can never wait that long.) When it turns a little bit yellow, add about 1/2 cup broth by the ladle-full and stir after each addition.

3. Add other vegetables and seasonings.  Keep in mind your vegetables will release liquid as they cook, so you might not need as much as 2 cups of broth. Let cook uncovered but monitor liquid level. You’re looking for them to be about 90% cooked.

4. While vegetables cook, make biscuit topping. In a food processor, combine all ingredients but milk. Pulse until butter is mixed in. Add milk slowly and stop if biscuit stats to look too wet to handle easily. You can also do this by hand in a bowl with a fork. This can be made ahead of time.

5. When vegetables are ready, remove bay leaf, add tofu and milk if desired. Stir to combine and pour into 9 x 13 bake pan or casserole. Heat oven to 400 F.

6. Drop small spoonfuls of biscuit topping on top of the vegetable mixture.  Remember to leave space for steam to escape. Spray with cooking oil or brush top with milk.

7. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until biscuits are slightly brown on top. Remove from oven and let sit 10 minutes before serving.

Ok and now the Super Easy Way, which I’m mostly leaving measurements out of, since it’s really up to you.

Pot pie ingredients: good quality condensed mushroom soup, 1 small onion, frozen vegetables, optional herbs – bay leaf, thyme.

Biscuit topping ingredients: good quality pre-made biscuits, phyllo dough sheets, or toast

Prep: Dice onion to 1/2 to 1/4 in thickness

1. Preheat oven to 350 F if using toast or according to directions on package. Heat a little bit of oil in pot. Add onions, cook until almost translucent.

2. Turn heat low, add frozen vegetables and soup.  Pour into baking pan.

3. Place biscuits or phyllo dough on top of the vegetable mixture.  If using toast, cut off crusts if desired and butter the top side, then place on top of vegetable mixture.

4. Bake until topping is cooked through.  Remove from oven, sprinkle 1/2 tsp dill on top. Let sit 10 minutes before serving.

I love this recipe since you can use lots of different ingredients to create different kinds of pot pie, but you know it’ll always be hearty and filling.  Plus, if you don’t love biscuits you are no friend of mine.

Some ideas: potato, kale and fake bacon; soy chorizo, tomato, corn, chilies, bell peppers and beans; stroganoff style cream sauce; winter root vegetables; sweet potatoes, corn and beans …

beer bread happiness!

So here are the measurements I used to get what  think is my best loaf yet. Cheapass and Georgie agree.

recipe adapted from Kneadlessly Simple.

15 oz AP flour

1/4 tsp yeast

1 tsp salt

1 generous tbs brown sugar

10 oz beer

2 tsp vinegar

mix all ingredients, spray with cooking oil (be sure to get both sides), cover loosely and let rise 10-12 hours.

using an oiled spatula, fold the dough in on itself until mostly punched down.  spray as needed and cover again. let rise another 8 to 10 hours.

generously coat pan or parchment paper with corn meal or flour. shape dough into ball (more or less). it’s ok if you lose some fluff at this point. sprinkle top with more corn meal or flour and cover with cotton dish cloth. let rise 2 more hours.

preheat oven and cast iron pot to 450F, about 15 to 30 minutes. when dough is ready, invert into pot, lower oven temp to 400F and bake 25-30 minutes. remove top and bake 10-15 minutes longer.

cool on rack.

notes: next loaf I’m using 18 oz flour, 12 oz beer. will continue to fiddle with the vinegar, maybe subbing out lemon juice instead.

Happy Friday!

Georgie is playing at the dog park in Playa Vista because there was no power at work! Construction crew accidentally cut the power for the whole block this morning at 9:45. Abt 10 minutes after they officially closed the office, the power came back on.

Woohoo!

Here’s last friday’s.

Since we moved out here, there have been lots if new animal friends to meet and sniff. Gs favorite friend is a outdoor cat who lives down the street. Every day, she pulls my arm off until she can go sit in the cats yard, and then she sniffs like crazy and doesn’t want to leave.

The cat has come up to us and sniffed Georgie, but mostly she sits just out of reach and grooms herself.

So here’s a picture of Georgie stalking her new best friend, Neighbor Cat.

Took a quick break from beer breads to try out Campobello Island’s Saint Patrick’s Day Green/Basil No-Knead Bread. What? It’s not St. Paddy’s day?

I’ve tried Campobello Island’s metric version of JL bread before and liked the results. Previously, I made two loaves of garlic bread over Memorial Day weekend. I thought it came out pretty well, but was better toasted before eating. Crust wasn’t as crusty, texture was very moist, but not chewy like the Kneadlessly Simple loaf. Overall, a decent version.

More importantly, no burnt crust! I used the frying pan part and pre-heated my pans this time, so perhaps that’s the difference. Also got some very gentle quiet singing after exiting the oven. I’ve been forgetting to listen for it, which leads me to think I haven’t gotten much singing recently.

Anyway, here’s what I used: 450 g AP flour, 375 g water (still too much for me), 1/4 tsp yeast, 1 tsp salt, about 1 to 1 1/2 c basil slivered.

Baked 20 min at 450F, then 5 min at 425F, then 5 min again. Next time will let bake longer.

Overall, I thought this loaf was good, but not as good as last time’s. This attempt smelled much more like beer, wasn’t overly sweet, and still had a decent crust.  Even though I watched this loaf like a hawk, I still got a burnt crust! In the shower (where all great thinking happens), I realized that there were a few things I changed that might explain the burnt crust, in order of likeliness.

1. I have a Lodge Cast Iron Combo Cooker. It creates a wonderful seal for the steam, and with very few exceptions until last week, I used the frying side (shallow) as the bottom for the bread. I didn’t think it would make a huge difference, but I did it anyway because Chad Robertson said to do it in Tartine (thanks again, Fritos, best present ever!). These last two loaves I used the pot side as the base and got burnt bottoms.

2. Most recipes I’ve read for no-knead bread suggest that you preheat your cast iron pot. I mostly followed this advice, but I got lazy and stopped. Lots of folks around the internet said preheating didn’t affect their loaves, but perhaps there is some kind of connection.

3. I have a gas oven that runs hot. I’ve been saying for month that I’ll invest in a oven thermometer, but I haven’t yet.

Next beer bread loaf I’m returning to vigorous stirring, but this week I might take a break from beer and make a lovely green basil loaf.

Flour, water, yeast, salt … and beer! it’s love. Last night I started a batch of beer bread.

Did about 2 seconds of online research. This is always my down fall. I used this recipe from Kohler Created, who in turn used a recipe from Nancy Bagget’s Kneadlessly Simple. The KS way is not one that I’ve ever used, because it’s never seemed that simple to me. So maybe I’m much more lazy than the average home baker, but I do not want to “vigorously stir” anything, nor do I want to wait for my water to be ice cold.

In any case, I was persuaded by Kohler Created’s great photos and the idea of spreading some fake butter on a slice of hoppy Blue Moon bread. I thought perhaps the sugars in the beer might also help create the perfect crust, which it did.

I used less water, maybe about 6 or 7 tablespoons, organic light brown sugar, and did not fuss too much with the second vigorous stirring. Instead, I slapped a lid loosely on my bowl, went to sleep and about 12 hours later, I deflated the dough with a spatula. During final rise, I heated my oven to 450 for 30 minutes with my pot inside, lowered heat to 425, bread went in for about 45 minutes, came out burnt.

Crumb structure is great, have some custardy air pocket things, the bread is fragrant, sweet, and just slightly hoppy. Where not burnt, crust is magnificent. Overall, I like the bread, but I won’t use this recipe again.  There are some hopeful beer bread adaptations of Jim Lahey’s No Knead bread that I hope to try out. In the mean time, maybe the pesky mockingbird outside my apartment would like some booze and carcinogens with his bread?

As I cut up half the avocado, I kept thinking the little seed looked like a tiny spaceship or an adventuring nut, maybe something James might have encountered in the giant peach. It looked so alive to me, unlike the silent stillbirth kind of seeds from avocados in grocery stores.

I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away, so I decided to plant it. And then I thought, well, I’ve basically eaten half it’s store of fuel, it’ll never grow up. I debated for a lot longer than I should have about planting the seed rocket with the remaining half of the avocado flesh before I decided I would do it in honor of new beginnings and the unofficial start of summer.

All I had was a used plastic spoon to dig a little hole. The spoon snapped at about 2 inches in, so I just dropped the little guy in and covered him up.

I felt like a little bit of poetry would be fitting, but then I started to feel self-conscious so I headed back inside.

(Compton.)