Tag Archives: baking

Color and Design

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Well, I officially hate our living room rug. I don’t know when it happened, but now I hate it. I bought it cheap on Overstock.com last year when we moved into our current place. Our last apartment had carpeting so we didn’t need a rug, but our current place has mostly wood floors. I left the dining room bare but got a Kilim style rug in blue for the living room. And while it did the job of inserting some color into the room, it’s not comfy (very low pile) and shows tons of dog hair. Also the style is just not…whimsical enough…it’s kind of Southwestern-looking.

So cue to me last night at 11pm, frantically searching for more contemporary, higher pile alternatives online. I was watching My Favorite Place on the DVR, the one where Jonathan Adler and his husband show their (10-room!) Manhattan apartment. I loved when Simon (JA’s hubby) goes, “Well, no one really uses their living room, and we thought, instead of furnishing a room that we don’t really use why not turn it into a ping pong room?” And then, “And who wants a normal, boring ping pong table? Wouldn’t you rather have a giant sexy, goth, magenta one instead?” It is literally covered in a magenta and black damask fabric. They have lots of other games in the room too, plus a giant (think the size of a gamer chair) black rubber foot, just chillin in the corner. Uhhh, what!

So anyway that’s a long aside to say I was really feeling the JA vibe when I start searching for pillows, which turned into rug shopping, and all of a sudden I’m designing a new living room. Briefly considered some bold brown and cream rug options, but then with the more transitional furniture it just wasn’t capturing FUN! So I ended up with this (click to see all the items I used):

What do you think? I’m still not loving the gray background color of the rug…would prefer something in the brown family…but I think we’re getting there! Also, I just posted a listing on Craigslist last night to commission a pop art-style portrait of Goliath to hang over the fireplace. How badass is that! I’m thinking something in bright orange.

Also dreaming of being Gloria’s sidekick baker and baking bread all day. Have come up with some pretty good ideas to grow the customer base (Glo I have written them down! Let’s discuss on wine night!). Hmm. Drew thinks maybe I should go into wedding planning because it is happy and works with people but still detail-oriented. Go figure–the one activity that I don’t obsess about becoming my career (I feel like every girl fantasizes about being a wedding planner while she’s planning her own, but that doesn’t mean she’d be good at it) Drew thinks is a legitimate prospect. *Sigh*

p.s. Very upset that I missed the Missoni for Target stuff yesterday. I literally had the day marked in my calendar and got up at 5am to look at everything on the website. I had it narrowed down to a rainbow zigzag pillow and a coordinating light blue one (similar to the one I used above) and a fun throw, and figured I’d give myself a couple hours to think about it, but by 11am Target.com had crashed and everything appeared to be sold out online. Had a doctor’s appointment yesterday so swung by the Target store and all of the Missoni racks were completely empty!!! Only a couple of sad-looking green corduroy jackets left. So distraught. TONS of Ebay vultures selling $15 pillows for like $150. Umm, no, sorry. Maybe the stores will restock? I dunno but I couldn’t believe the madness. If you see the rainbow and light blue pillows, PLEASE BUY THEM FOR ME! I will pay you back and bake you a nice loaf of bread. :)

BBA #19 Marbled Rye Bread

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The next bread I did was marbled rye. I love marbled rye, so I was very excited to make my own and see if it measured up. I went to the store to get the white rye flour…except they didn’t have any. The only thing they had was a stone milled dark rye flour, so that would have to work. I brought it home and took out the first scoop–wow, they weren’t kidding when they said stone milled! I found it to be quite chunky…thought briefly of sifting it but then realized I don’t have a sifter and really, it would be fine. So I proceeded according to the directions (kneading in the stand mixer…my hands needed a break since last time) and made the light and dark rye doughs. Incidentally, the only difference between the two is the addition of cocoa powder or coffee grounds. Naturally I added both. Once they set to proof, I realized the chunkiness of the flour really added a lot of weight, which I’m guessing(?) is why they didn’t rise very much in 90 minutes. I let them go a little longer, and then rolled them into a spiral. Man, I really need to work on my spirals; I just am not happy with them. I’m thinking that if I staggered the pieces of dough as I rolled them, there would be less of the last one getting globbed into a big ball (the part under the upside down U), but we’ll see. Into the oven it went and here’s the result! It is pretty hearty, but I love the flavor, and Drew says it tastes like the bread at Outback, which I’ll take as a compliment because I like their bread. Since he likes it I’ll try and do a little force feeding, with butter or whatever at dinner, etc. We’ll see. ANYway, I think next I have a multigrain bread, so I better finish up these two before I move on to another sandwich bread. Feels good to be back in the challenge again, so hopefully it won’t be a month until I bake the next one. We’ll shoot for a week. :)

BBA #18 Light Wheat Bread

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After a long hiatus, I baked two recipes in one day! The first is this light wheat bread, which turned out quite well. It is only 1/3 whole wheat flour, so it is still very light, and tastes only slightly more hearty than white sandwich bread. It uses the direct method, so I was able to complete this bread in just one day (I have to say–I am very excited when these recipes only take one day…2 days just seems like such a long time to wait!). Actually a very easy bread to make, and I cheated and kneaded it in the KitchenAid, so I practically did no work. So far I’ve had toast with it, but I’m planning to make a sandwich with it a little later, and since Drew is opposed to eating bread, probably some french toast later on. Yum!

For more info on the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge, see Nicole’s blog.

BBA #17 Lavash Crackers

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Here it is–the latest installment of the BBA Challenge! This week we had Lavash Crackers, which initially I wasn’t looking forward to that much. After planning to make them weeks ago, I finally made them this week to bring to a potluck for my new book club (our first book is the Unbearable Lightness of Being, and if you’d like to follow along, I think I will blog after each meeting to sum up the most interesting points! Our first meeting is on November 22. SUPER excited about reading this one especially–I’ve heard such good things!).

But back to baking. Anyway, like the past couple of recipes, I kneaded this one by hand, and wow, it really took a lot out of me given that the dough was so stiff! When Reinhart mentioned that the dough should be firmer than french bread, but less so than bagel dough, I admit to feeling a bit squeamish about returning to that one sans mixer. The ten minutes of kneading felt like an eternity as my hands turned arthritic and my shoulders and triceps burned faint flames, but it is quite satisfying. I really do enjoy the sound of the gas bubbles getting squashed up as you sink your hands into the dough. Luckily this was a one-day bread, so after one rise it was ready to be rolled out and put on the cookie sheet.

After lamenting the fact that we don’t have poppy seeds or sesame seeds to use as spices, I stuck with my grindable sea salt to season the top of the crackers before putting them into the oven. Well, about 10 minutes later when they should have been done, I realized my crackers were probably (a lot) thicker than they should have been, because they were nowhere near done! So they stayed in for about 20 more minutes and then I took them out to cool, then broke them apart into “artful” triangles. Then I packed them up along with the chicken corn chowder I was making concurrently, and set out towards Petworth! Just got around to taking pictures of the remains from the party–I think they were a success and a friend took most of the bag home to munch on..hooray! Looking forward to the light wheat bread…perhaps tonight…

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BBA #16 Kaiser Rolls

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Hey hey!

Did these before the marathon but just got a chance to load the pictures onto my computer. I apologize for the terrible quality but I had to take them at night because I was leaving at 6am the next day and wanted to bring them with me (they were all eaten!). I really enjoyed this recipe–I used the knot technique for shaping, and now that I’ve gotten the hang of it, I think my next batch will be even better looking. Didn’t realize that kaiser rolls are part of the rustic family, but I have to say, I’m really enjoying my ghetto method of hearth baking!!! (If you haven’t been reading my posts, I use a turkey baster for the water sprays) Anyway, really liked the flavor…crispy crust, and I liked the texture on the inside because of the roping. It almost felt like eating a croissant at certain points, because chunks would tear away like they do from the folds of croissants. Very fun! I think I will do more experimenting with fun shapes in the future…up to know I have been pretty conservative in my boules because I just like the look so much! Sometimes the braids on top of braids on top of braids just looks kind of chunky, you know?

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Looking forward to the crackers! Should be able to whip those out tomorrow. Then onto light wheat bread—hooray a sandwich bread!!!! I can’t wait. Oh, and stop ogling and start baking!

BBA #15 Italian Bread

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I was a bit disappointed with my french bread last week (should have made one larger baguette instead of two small ones–the crust just overpowered everything), so I was quite pleased that the italian bread was a complete success! I’m now convinced that my french loaves were much too small, and I think I will redo it to see if I can get it right sometime soon. A few things I did differently this time around:

-I kneaded this one by hand! I usually use my KitchenAid mixer instead of kneading it myself, but the bowl was dirty yesterday from making the biga, so I went for it solo…and it was actually fun! Of course I picked the recipe that calls for 10 minutes of kneading as opposed to 6 or so, but it was great! I think I will try to do more hand kneading in the future…it seems to do a better job when I only do a half batch.

-I think I’m getting the hang of scorching…I didn’t realize that they have to look wide before it goes in the oven otherwise they’ll look more like slits. Next time I think I’ll try one scorch that runs the length of the loaf; I really like that look!

-Finally getting the hang of hearth baking in the new stove. The last couple of times I don’t think I’ve gotten the door shut fast enough and by then most of the steam has escaped. I tried to be quick this time and I think it worked!

Overall, this bread is quite tasty. So far I’ve only had it alone, but I’ve read that it’s good as toast and I’m also thinking of french toast or garlic bread! It would have gone great with last night’s steak and veggies, but it wasn’t ready yet and I had already made au gratin potatoes…but maybe tonight!

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BBA #14 French Bread

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I mean, they look good, right? This one was not my favorite. I made a half recipe, but looking back on it, I should have made one large loaf instead of two smaller ones. The size of them ended up making the insides to crust ratio way too small. I think I followed all the directions at the end for how long to keep them in there until the internal temp was high enough… I did have to use my turkey baster again for the steaming, but it worked alright for the ciabatta so that shouldn’t have been the problem. I dunno! It just wasn’t as good as I had hoped. I ended up freezing one of the loaves because we just couldn’t eat it fast enough, and I may end up taking it out and making some bruschetta or something… Hopefully the Italian bread will be a bit better; this one was just too crusty.

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Anyone know where I went wrong? I’m at a bit of a loss…but excited for the next installment of the BBA Challenge!

BBA #13 Focaccia

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This was fun! Different than a lot of the other breads because of all the oil and dimpling and more oil and more dimpling, but in the end it was quite tasty. Still turned out a bit more “bready” than I had hoped, but did get some smaller holes still. Must resist the urge to pop those little gas bubbles! I’m always super concerned that there’s going to be a weird blob on the finished loaf and forget that it all seems to even out in the oven. Still tasty…if I made it again I would use more oil on the top (skimped a bit this time because it just seemed like so much!).

The end of Day 1…putting it into the pan with the oil mixed with an herb sauce I had made for something else a few days ago. Ended up quite nice even though the herbs were pretty much pureed at this point ;)

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Here’s it after the first dimpling…

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And voila!

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STILL not too late to join us in the BBA Challenge!

BBA #12 English Muffins

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These were fun! I really enjoy english muffins but to my tiny little budget they seem like a bit of an extravagance, so it was cool to have an excuse to make them! Found out later that this dough is the same as white bread dough, so I’ll have to make a loaf and see how it tastes. Instead of baking these in the oven, I made them in two batches on my panini grill, and I agree with Nicole that it was neat to watch them puff out and cook! I thought mine would get a bit flatter like commercial english muffins, but they ended up quite tall! Used the fork splitting technique so I got all the nooks and crannies when I toasted them with butter and jam…and all in all a success. Next up in the BBA Challenge: foccacia and french bread.

A Few Footnotes

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Well after all my BBA updates, I thought I’d share a few pics that didn’t quite fit.

Here’s my kitchen after the baking craziness:

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Drew took this one of me!

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Dinner last night! I made some yummy pork chops (based on a recipe in Drew’s new favorite cookbook, Serious Barbeque…did I mention that we don’t have a grill? haha) and some risotto with peas. Rounded off everything with some fresh strawberries, yum! Oh, and Scrubs Season Three. :)

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Drew and I out last week for DC Restaurant Week. Here we’re at Charlie Palmer Steakhouse…check out my dessert plate over there scraped CLEAN. I told Drew I would lick it clean if it was acceptable, and he looked pretty glad that it was NOT. Dang! Please ignore my freakish double jointed arms hahaha :)

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