Breadventures with Peter Reinhart Episode #2

My sequential progression through the book has already been derailed by a combination of personal whims and hard-to-find ingredients. So, in this episode we're covering English Muffins, Casatiello (drool, drool, drool), Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread, and Challah. Surprisingly, zero of the breads this time required preferments, so these are all instant gratification breads. Or, as instant as you can get with yeast, I suppose.

Chocolate Ice Cream

Happy Labor Day! I wanted to make the most of the societal and hopefully climatic, if not calendar, last day of summer with some homemade ice cream.

Breadventures with Peter Reinhart Episode #1

I know practically everyone in the country is on a bread baking kick right now. Well, I'm not immune to trends because I recently decided I wanted to bake my way through a book I have owned for about a decade: The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. It has been an exciting adventure, or "breadventure"if you will. Peter Reinhart uses a lot of preferments, or hydrated flour and yeast that has been allowed to ferment in advance of making the full bread dough recipe in which the preferment is used. This means it requires a bit more planning to make his breads, but they are more flavorful as a result. It has been really fun to prepare for "bread day" every week and even more fun to eat the results.

Cheese Soufflé

I really like making soufflé, but I don’t do it very often because every time I start, an imaginary soufflé expert materializes in my kitchen to critique my every move and offer very little by way of helpful suggestions. The conversation usually goes something like this. But, if I can keep the illusory prima donna distracted long enough, I actually very much enjoy the process of making soufflé, and I always find the results tasty, however imperfect they may be. So here follows a non-expert’s guide to making soufflé. If it doesn’t turn out the way you expect, then just tell everyone that you created a new dish pronounced “SOO-full,” and pretend nothing is amiss.

Chocolate Olive Oil Cake

Em Hungry has been on a long hiatus. First, due to a tech job that sapped my enthusiasm for cooking. Next, due to a pregnancy that sapped my enthusiasm for any food besides crackers and lemonade. (And ice cream... it takes a truly catastrophic health condition to make me lose my taste for ice cream.) But now, I have a new baby and a newfound appetite for just about everything, especially chocolate cake, and this is one of my very favorite chocolate cakes. It takes pretty basic ingredients, so there's a good chance you already have everything you need to get started. Enjoy!

Brown Rice Salad with Dates & Cashews

One of my favorite food websites has a series of articles called Not Sad Desk Lunches. If I were ever asked to contribute to the column (which my own lazily assembled desk lunches would surely prevent from ever happening), this rice salad is definitely what I would share.