JJB’s Ramblings

It dawned on me that I never brought you the final results of the Bacon expedition. In summary: It was friggin’ awesome. Seriously. It was so good in fact that I went out and bought a 2^nd belly and made another round. I’ve had nothing but positive results from those that tasted it and not a peep about any violent outbreak of botulism. All in all a good weeks work, I’d say.

Since the POTD is over with and my bacon cravings have subsided, my energies seem to be lingering in the realm of cookery. Never one to pass a chance to whip up a meal for no reason whatsoever, I welcome these urgings with open, albeit knife wielding, arms.

I came across a bread recipe over at The Wednesday Chef that seemed simple enough for a bread novice like myself and decided to give it a try. For the record, this bread is as easy as it gets. Making hot tea requires more concentration than this, and that’s the part that I was amenable too.

After insisting to eRock that we needed Bread flour (in spite of the 10lb bag of AP flour in the kitchen, and the directions calling for either) and yeast, I was off. A mere 5 minutes passed before I had completed the first step and was ready to put it all aside for 18 hours. It seemed too simple. Surely I missed something. Maybe I should have weighed the flour instead of measuring it out. Perhaps I should have used tepid water. Curses, would a wooden spoon make a difference? Truth be told, I was a little dismayed when I realized that I wouldn’t even need to use the Kitchen Aid. To quote E, “Just use a spoon.” FINE. I will labor with a spoon…. Oh. Looks like it’s already mixed. Ok, well I suppose it’s just as well that I didn’t bust out the mixer.

So an agonizing 18 hours passed (1 hour for dinner, 5 hours of TV, 8 hours of sleep, 1 hour of butchering, 1 hour on errands and 2 hours climbing) and I was ready for the next step, which happened to involved moving the dough and waiting another 2 hours (spent cleaning) before the final phase – Bakin’ (not Bacon). The hardest part here was actually getting my oven to keep the right temp. Is it too much to expect that it maintain 450 degrees for an hour? I mean, it’s not exactly a multi-purpose appliance. It can’t keep my frozen goods in a solid state or do my taxes. It is built to maintain heat. Or not. Either way, the baking process was quick and pain-less (that’s a French bread joke. Get it? Pain? No? Remedial French? Nevermind.)

This bread came out so good that I immediately whipped up another batch (using the AP flour for a comparative taste test). The results are still inconclusive and I will have to bake many more “samples” before I can provide you, dear reader, with an accurate assessment. Until then, Would ya please pass the jelly?

Now, here is the recipe:

Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread
Yields one 1 1/2 pound loaf

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Meghan thought it would be a good idea to take me to a rock gym and show me a thing or two and far be it for me to turn down a chance to try something new.  We started with some basic knot lessons at her house followed by a brief introduction to the art of using the belay. According to Meghan this would keep her from falling from 30 or 40 feet which she said may put some strain on our friendship if it were to happen, so I paid close attention.   

When we got to the gym I was sized up for some shoes and harness and got my registration card (above).  I like how they have the emergency contact right on it, good to know.  After a brief test where they made sure I could tie a knot and keep Meghan from falling to her demise we were off.  I was pretty sure that my incredible tree climbing skills would come in handy and I was right, they did.  I managed to make two climbs without any trouble but on my third I ran into a little difficulty.  After slipping once Meghan pushed me to go the last 15 feet (maybe she yelled something about pushing it to the limit, or to the extreme or something. Or maybe not) and I hit the top.  Meghan was kickin’ some serious ass herself and all in all we were there for about an hour.  On my last climb I went back to the set that I got stuck on earlier with the determination to give it a good run.  I got to the same spot again and got stuck.  After resting for a few moments I gave it one more push but realized that my arms were just done.  I mean I couldn’t have crushed a grape if you asked me to.  So we decided to call it a day after that run, grab some coffee and make our way home. 

All in all, I really enjoyed the climbing and the atmosphere.  I am pretty positive that this is something that I could get into (recreationally).  Everyone at the gym seemed really nice.  In fact they had a boulder climbing competition going on (some of those dudes are really frickin’ good) so they had a radio station there broadcasting live, people taking photos, etc.  Actually, on the way out this guy stopped me and asked for my email because he had taken some shots of me when I was up on the wall.  So I gave it to him and we left.  I was pretty excited when I got an email about an hour ago with the photo, so I thought it would be nice to post with the story.