Work Day!

I had a bee in my bonnet that I needed to do some "work" around my house, so I attacked my kitchen with a vengeance.






I wanted to make triple batches of Mommy Bread and Stromboli so I won't have to cook as much later in the week when it's hot and I'm tired.




I started out ok. Working on two doughs at once can be a little overwhelming at times, but I have done it before and didn't think I had anything to worry about.







Mommy Bread is a quick(ish) no-knead bread with an airy, chewy texture and stromboli is stuffed pizza dough. Pizza dough is a kneaded , elastic dough with a thick, crusty texture. They take entirely different methods of rising and so I tried to keep them moving along well.







Starting with Mommy Bread- the regular 1 batch recipe calls for



2.5-3 cups flour



1.25 cups water



1 package quick rise yeast



1 tablespoon sugar



.75 teaspoon salt







Start with 1 cup of flour and the yeast mixed together in a large mixing bowl. (Wisk them together for best result).







Then you use what I call a "heat & feed" method. In a sauce pan on the stove, bring your water, sugar and salt to a strong simmer until the solids are dissolved.







You're SUPPOSED to let the water cool before adding it to the flour mixture. You're SUPPOSED to add it in a steady stream while combining the liquid and dry stuff with a mixer. (To all you KitchenAid owners out there, I am officially jealous. I have a dependable but small hand mixer.) You're supposed to beat it for 30 seconds on low and then 3 minutes on high, getting nice and airy with tons of bubbles in the "batter". It's SUPPOSED to look like this:















Then mix in the rest of the flour by hand, making a soft sticky dough. Put it in a lightly greased bowl, cover and let rise for at least an hour. It should look roughly like this:











Punch it down. It will fall- a LOT. Don't worry. You're letting air in. MMM.



Let it rest about 10 minutes before the next step- which is pretty much the end of the bread making.

Spray the bottom of a 1 quart baking dish, cover with corn meal or breadcrumbs, and spread the dough into the dish. Cover it and let it rise for about 30-40 minutes (until double). [You'll see I do this kind of bread a lot. I love a double or even a triple rise dough. It just tastes better to me.]







Once it has risen again, bake in a 400 degree oven for 30-40 minutes. It should look like this:











Notice all of this said it SHOULD look like that? Yeah, well I found out that it could end up looking much differently.







I had an "oops" moment and added WAY too hot water WAY too fast and wound up with this:







It became dumplings later.

My cheddar lasagne stromboli turned out just right- look:












They are HUGE! I made 5, thinking "one per person" (my family plus Squirl, who I feed every now and then). When they came out, I thought "maybe I made too much".

I will not have to cook much this week, though! Woohoo.

That means I can watch more Olympics. I am an Olympics NUT! I cry, yell, cheer, etc. Now I have more time to watch at crazy hours of the day. Yay!