Stollen

     Not only had I never made stollen before, I've never eaten stollen.  Let me begin with a confession, I like fruitcake.  Not the kind you can use as a hammer, but the kind that is moist and chocked full of fruit and pecans.  When I saw the stollen recipe in The Bread Baker's Apprentice, I knew I would make this during the Christmas holiday.  My heritage is far from German - I'm Irish, Cuban, Sottish, French, and who knows what else; despite my heritage the recipe was simply irresistible.  I soaked my candied fruit in rum since that's what I had on hand.  Another option was to put a rope of marzipan in the fold.  I'm glad I did; it gave the bread that extra yum factor.  I was glad I waited until after Christmas because I was able to use my new microplane from Santa to zest my lemon and orange peels for the stollen. 
     If you are like me and are wondering about stollen this is what I have learned about it:  Stollen is a rich fruit bread from Germany, The characteristic shape of Stollen is oblong, tapered at each end with a ridge down the center, and the ends are turned to form a crescent shape.  It is said to represent the Christ Child in swaddling clothes.   Stollen, now known internationally as a Christmas specialty, is made from a rich, sweet yeast dough, mixed with milk, eggs, sugar, and butter,  flavored with lemon. Raisins, rum or brandy, candied fruit, and almonds are worked into the dough. After baking, the Stollen is painted with melted butter and dusted with sugar.
     Stollen is a very dense flavorful bread.  Next year, yes it is going to become a tradition in our home, I will soak my raisins and candied fruit in the rum a couple of days before making it.  I will also make two smaller stollen, and gift someone with one of them.  I will definitely use the marzipan again.  Between the marzipan and the slivered almonds, it had just the right amount of almond flavor without overpowering the flavors of the fruit and bread.
      This is my final bread for 2011.  Sometime in the coming year I will try my hand at sour dough and whatever else strikes my fancy.  I want to thank my assistant, my husband, for helping me with turning breads,  setting timers, taking bread from the oven, and fixing my mixer.  He is truly my partner in all of life's adventures.

Cinnamon Swirl Raisin Pecan Bread

     Okay, so I'm behind.  I made this bread the week before Christmas before going to visit Ms. Carol and Harry so I could bring them a loaf.  The aroma of this bread wafted through the house making the house smell like Christmas.  The recipe came from The Bread Baker's Apprentice.   The side notes said making it as a swirled bread would add the the look and taste of the bread; the notes were right.  I prefer the look of golden raisins.  To me, they just look more appetizing.  The cinnamon sugar on the crust also added a great flavor.
     Raisin bread always takes me back to my childhood.  I remember my mother buying raisin bread with a white icing on top.  I remember peeling the icing off of the top of the bread and eating it first. This is a memory shared by Wayne.  We talked about our childhood raisin bread memories while eating a warm slice with butter.   I loved raisin bread toasted for breakfast or just for a snack when I was a child.  It was comfort food.  I recall my mother buying it as Schwegmann's, but I loved it when she would bring a loaf home from "Woolsworth" on Canal Street.  (Yes, as any good southerner will tell you it was Woolsworth not Woolworth.  Just watch Oh, Brother Where Art Thou if you don't believe me.)   It was a larger, fresher, more-raisin filled loaf. 
     I remember going to Woolsworth on Canal Street as a child.  You would wear your Sunday best because going to town was something special. I can still see my brother with his little bow tie and my patent leather shoes.  My mother was never much of a driver, and she would not drive downtown.  The bus on Hayne Blvd. ran once an hour, on the hour.  My mother came up with her own compromise; she would drive to Franklin Ave., and take the bus into town from there.  I can still see the Public Service bus.  They were a light yellow and red.  On the bus there were brochure holders containing "The Rider's Digest"  which always included a recipe.  (Eventually these recipes made there way into a cookbook titled From Woodstoves to Microwaves Cooking with Entergy.  You may still be able to buy it, but this is a link to a pdf version of it entergycookbook.pdf)  If my brother and I were lucky, the bus driver would have a book of stubs from transfers that he would give us so we could play bus later.  When we would arrive on Canal Street, and we would go to wonderful places like Maison Blanche, D. H. Homes, Krauss, Woolsworth, and other wonderful places that "ain't dere no more."
      The things that stick in my mind about Woolsworth were the wonderful bakery items, the never-ending 10 mile long candy counter that sold any type of candy you desired by the pound, and the lunch counter with stools that spun. There was something extra wonderful about a BLT, chips, and a Coke at the lunch counter that just made it the best to be found.  I can still see the balloons that contained a small piece of paper with a price for an ice cream sundae.  You would choose a balloon, pop it, and the cost would be anywhere from free to 25 cents.
     It's funny how something as simple as a slice of raisin bread can spill forth a lifetime of memories.

Casatiello

     This week's bread came from my favorite bread book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  The bread was described as an Italian savory brioche.  I guess the only word to describe it is "squisto."  The dough began with a soaker of bread flour, instant yeast, and butter milk.  The soaker was mixed butter, eggs, additional bread flour, diced and sauteed Genoa salami, and coarsely grated provolone to make the Casatiello dough.  The 2 boules went into eight inch cake pans for the final rise (the bread can be baked in panettone papers, but the cake pans worked great).  I can not begin to describe the maddening aromas coming from the oven.  I had no idea how long 40 minutes of baking and 1 hour of cooling really is.  I seemed like days.  Wayne and I were hanging around the kitchen like kids waiting for Santa Claus to come down the chimney.  Once we cut into the Casatiello, the delicate crust of the bread encased a light, airy bread with little nuggets of wonderfulness.
     When I baked the bread yesterday it was one of those dreary wintry days that begged for soup and sandwich.  We opened a can of soup to go with this amazing bread that substituted for the sandwich.  I think we both could have supped on the bread alone.  Hallelujah, the sun came out today, but it was cold.  Since I was not baking today, we had homemade cream of asparagus soup with casatiello for lunch.  The soup was good, but the bread was fantastic once again.
    I don't know where I got my love of baking.  My mimi was a true believer that, "Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee."  Since my mother was a working mother, her friends were Mrs. Smith, Duncan Hines, the Pillsbury Dough Boy, and Jack (he made good cookies).  One of my aunts used to bake with Occident Cake Mix.  My mimi apparently was not a fan of these cakes, she would always say, "Oh, here comes ______ with another accident cake."  (The name has been omitted to maintain family peace.)
     As a teenager I came across a recipe for shortbread cookies.  This is one of my Christmas baking staples, and my brother's favorite cookie.  From that recipe the baking of cakes, cookies, and easy pies became something I loved to do.  As I have said before, bread was something I always wanted to bake, and now I have the time to do it.  Eventually I want to learn to bake really good fruit pies and savory pies.  The past couple of Christmases I have developed a pretty good recipe for ham and cheese pot pie to use leftover ham.
     Christmas is rapidly approaching, and I need to start thinking about Christmas baking.  I am planning on making my first Stollen, shortbread cookies, a McKenzie-ish turtles, and a childhood favorite, Chinese chews.  So enough of this rambling - I need to start making my baking needs list.

Pane Siciliano

    Once again I have turned to The Bread Baker's Apprentice  ( Link to Bread Baker's Apprentice at Amazon) for this week's bread.  The loaves are very pretty, but even better they have a wonderful flavor due to the sesame seeds.  The bread also has a great chew and crumb to it.  We had it with dinner yesterday; I made a quick dipping oil to go with it.   All I can say is yum.
     I have been having some back issues, so poor Wayne became the apprentice's apprentice.  This is the type of bread a professional baker would use a steam oven to bake.  Since I am far from professional and don't have a steam oven,  I followed the directions in the book.  The process includes setting up a steam pan and using a plant mister to create the steam.  Wayne had to do the steaming, the rotating of the bread in the oven, as well as removing it when done.  But he got a great pay-off for all his help; he was able to enjoy this wonderful bread.  This is one of my favorite breads so far.  When I was shaping the loaves, I realized my dough probably needed to be a little stiffer, next time I'll add a little flour while kneading.   This was a 3 day bread, but it was worth the wait.
     The taste of the bread reminded me of the wonderful Italian bread I could get back in New Orleans.  I'm not talking about the big loaves of bread in plastic bags; I'm talking about the small loaves you would get wrapped in white paper wrappers on the counter of local bakeries.  The crust on that Italian bread was remarkable - super thick and crunchy. The inside of the bread  below the delectable crust was moist and chewy.  That's probably the bread that made me want to learn to bake bread.  I can remember eating my mother's meat balls and spaghetti.  My mother made a rich dark "tomato gravy" with lots of onions and garlic.  I can remember sitting at the table with a dish towel bib in front of a plate of meat balls and spaghetti and a big chunk of Italian bread.  That wonderful bread would be used to get every drop of that luscious sauce off the plate.  (I have to admit it, I am a mess.  If I am having spaghetti at home and it's just me and Wayne, I still use a "bib."  I know my limitations.)   There is a recipe for Italian bread in The Bread Baker's Apprentice, but I'm afraid it won't live up to my expectations.  Fear aside, I know I will be making it in the future.
    We used to have a little dog name Curley.  That little dog LOVED meatballs and spaghetti.  She would pace around the kitchen the whole time the sauce was cooking.  When the meal was finally ready to be served, the first one served was Curley.  I can still see my mother chopping up half a meatball and some spaghetti, topping it with sauce and putting it down for Curley.  My mother took excellent care of my brother and me, but she always treated her dogs as if they were her favorite children.  When my mother was a child she would always get in trouble with my mimi for sneaking the family dogs in her bed.  I know I learned my love of animals from my mother.  She taught me that a dog or cat is just a different looking member of the family, but they are a member of the family.  By the way - this is a picture of Tabu and Curley. 

Pecan Cranberry Pull-apart Dinner Rolls

     I found a wonderful recipe in The Bread Baker's Apprentice for Walnut Cranberry Celebration Bread, luckily it also makes rolls.  Being a southerner my nut of choice is pecans rather than walnuts.  The recipe also called for either lemon or orange extract, and since I made homemade cranberry sauce with orange zest and juice I opted for the orange extract.  I made the rolls on Wednesday, and put them in the fridge to stop the fermentation so I could bake the rolls fresh on Thanksgiving Day.   I accidentally left two rolls off the pan before refrigerating them.  The rolls also accidentally completed the second rise and were baked just in time for Wayne and I to sample them at lunch.  I think they will make a nice addition to the Thanksgiving table.
     Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday.  It's about all the right things.  It's about reflecting on all the things I have to be grateful for.  It's about sharing a special meal with family and friends.  It's about spending time with those I care about.  As I have gotten older, my family had gotten smaller.  Family is now living in many different places; grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles are no longer with us.  This year we will have a group of 5, but we will still have turkey with all the trimmings.  We usually have some type of pecan pie and pumpkin pie for dessert, but this year we are going to have Apple Upside-down Cake.  The recipe looked yummy, and the cake turned out just like the photo.  If you are interested check it out at  http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/apple-upside-down-cake-recipe     This is the second year I have made my own cranberry sauce, and I am a convert.  I was raised on the jellied in the can stuff.  When whole berry sauce became available we used that.  Well once I learned how easy it is to make homemade - wow so easy and so good.  If you have never made your own, check out the web.  There are many, many recipes, and I'm sure you'll find one to suit your taste.  The one I made called for a bag of fresh cranberries, the zest and juice from an orange, one cinnamon stick, and a cup of sugar. That seemed a little sweet for my taste, so I used a half cup.  You just cook it all until the berries open.  How much easier can it be?
     Thanksgiving is now behind me, and it was a success.  We had a really pleasant surprise for Thanksgiving. Ms. Carol, my sister-in-law, called to wish us a happy Thanksgiving, and she asked what were we doing.  I told her Wayne had just taken the turkey out the oven.  I looked up and there she and Harry were at the door.  Can I say shocked loud enough.  I told Wayne that his sister was at the door, and I think he thought I had lost my mind.  They now live 4 hours from us, and they decided to surprise us.  Carol brought one of Wayne's favorite things - deviled eggs.  Naturally we had plenty to eat, and two more people were no problem.  I told Wayne I could hear Harry saying to Carol on the way here, "Are you sure they are going to be home," numerous times.
     I was right, the rolls were the perfect compliment to the meal.  There were 18 rolls for 7 people, and I had 2 left.  The rolls had the flavors of fall and Thanksgiving.  They had just the right aroma of orange, and the ideal blend of flavor blend of cranberry and pecan.  The rolls themselves were tender and moist.  The apple upside cake was wonderful.  I used honey crisp apples which had just the right amount of sweetness and wonderful apple flavor.  I served this wonderfully moist cake warm with a dollop of whipped cream and a little ice-cream on the side.  It was the ideal dessert to end a day of family, friendship and food.  I don't think a better day was possible.

Orange Pecan Cinnamon Rolls

      If you are a native Louisianan this time of year brings thoughts of Plaquemines Parish navel oranges and Louisiana pecans. I remember going to the Orange Festival as a teenager, and my mother buying a bottle of orange wine from one of the many vendors along the road to Buras.  You can buy all things orange at the festival as well as along the road - wonderful marmalades, baked goods, cook books, shirts, posters and so much more. The main thing though is the Louisiana citrus.  Many people are satsuma fans; they're very good.  My brother is a big fan of the Louisiana sweets; he says they make the best fresh squeezed orange juice in the world.  Me, I'm a lover of Louisiana navel oranges.  You'll never find anything better.  If you've never been to the festival her's a link http://www.orangefestival.com 
     The other crop this time of year is pecans. pronounced peh-kahn not pee-can.  I know I've already written about the pecan trees in the back yard of my childhood home, but I've always loved that there is a pecan grove on the neutral ground by the University of New Orleans (UNO).  Once the pecans begin to fall you will see people walking along the neutral ground with their bags picking them up.  Who can resist free Louisiana pecans.  There are sooooo many things you can make with pecans.  You can make orange pecan cinnamon rolls; you make pecan pie (or chocolate bourbon pecan pie, or pumpkin pecan pie, or sweet potato pecan pie - is this beginning to sound like a bad remake of Forrest Gump); you can make pecan pralines; you can make pecan fudge; or you can check out the recipes at  http://lapga.com/  which is the Louisiana Pecan Growers web site.
     The rolls are started at the Cinnamon Roll recipe in the Bread Baker's Apprentice book, but I modified it to meet my idea.  I used orange extract in place on the lemon extract - and here I digress.  Many years ago when I was teaching 8th grade all boy English class at St. Bernard High.  It was the end of the school year, and I had a final vocabulary/spelling test for the year.  The students had 100 words to spell, and then they had to use 50 of those words of their choice in sentences.  My favorite sentence was, "My mother uses vanilla abstract when she bakes."  Back to the recipe, when it came time to roll out the dough I generously sprinkled the dough with chopped Louisiana pecans and the zest from a Louisiana navel orange.  I used the juice from the orange in the glaze in place of some of the milk, and I used orange extract in place of the lemon extract.
    This recipe made a dozen large rolls.  While the rolls were still warm, we shared them with some of our across the street neighbors.  When Wayne came home from delivering rolls, there was a pot of coffee waiting for him to go with our rolls. We buy our coffee from a small coffee roaster in Louisiana.  Their blends are wonderful.  You can order on line at  http://www.orleanscoffee.com/   I guess by now you've figured out that I am big on buying Louisiana products, but why shouldn't I, after all Louisiana products are the best.  Oh - the rolls are wonderful.  Slight hint of orange, tender moist rolls, filled with cinnamon sugar, and lots of pecans.  YUM!
    By the way - if you don't know what a neutral ground is check out this link, it's a New Orleans Lexicon (or How Ta Tawk Rite)  http://www.gumbopages.com/yatspeak.html

Flours

     We have six cats, and I love flowers, but the cats just think they are something to eat.  These aren't my favorites, but I finally found some "flowers" that I can have that the cats won't eat.

Sweet Potato Rolls

    Whenever I type the word potato I think about Dan Quayle, and it makes me smile.  He was not the best speaker or speller.  You can check out the link for "Quaylisms"  http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Dan_Quayle  it should make you smile too.  Enough of this mind roaming; this week I made sweet potato rolls.  I was looking for an easy seasonable recipe to make for a friend.  I found a recipe at The Fresh Loaf website. I did not use it because the amount of sweet potato was unclear. I will say the website has lots of valuable information for the beginning bread baker - lots of good forums, hints, and recipes.  My next place to look was at the King Arthur site.  The recipe I used was pretty much like the other one, but it gave specifics on the amount of sweet potato.  This is the link http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/sweet-potato-cloverleaf-buns-recipe
     Wayne and I do not live within the city limits of Pineville even though we our address is Pineville.  We are in an unincorporated area named Libuse (pronounced Liboose - you know like goose).  Since we've been here we've found there is an annual event of epic proportions, and it was this past weekend.  It was sweet potato weekend.  The cars line up down the highway by the old Libuse post office to purchase a 40 pound case of sweet potatoes for as little as $15.  It is absolute chaos!  There are people like me who will buy a single case to share with family and friends.  And then there are the others - the people who buy 5 - 10 cases.  What does one do with 400 pounds of sweet potatoes.  I'd let my imagination go wild with this, but I'm afraid where it would take me.  Would you take a sweet potato bath (you know like a mud bath)?  Do you make the world's largest sweet potato casserole, and if so how many pounds of marshmallows would you need?  Okay - back on track.  When we first moved here our neighbor across the street asked us if we were going to go get our sweet potatoes.  We had no idea what she was talking about; she explained, and since then we have become willing members of the sweet potato fray and frenzy.  The sweet potatoes are actually locally grown, so it is nice to support local farmers.  We'll have none of those inferior sweet potatoes imported all the way from Avoyelles or Opelousas.  Okay, to be fair, all Louisiana sweet potatoes or yams are wonderful, delicious, and nutritious.  Last year I made a killer sweet potato, spinach and andouille soup.  For lots of wonderful recipes for sweet potatoes go to  http://www.sweetpotato.org/
     Back to the rolls.  They have a nice slightly chewy texture while being light and airy.  There is no real sweet potato flavor, but the sweet potatoes give it a beautiful color.  It's a good thing they have been promised to a friend, otherwise we would be likely to eat them all.

Multigrain Bread

     I baked the Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire from The Bread Baker's Apprentice Friday evening; it was wonderful warm from the oven, and it made even better toast this morning.  It is a dense loaf with a lot of texture, and it is super flavorful.  When I used to buy bread, I always bought a whole-grain bread, and that is exactly what this bread is.  This will absolutely become a staple.   The recipe affords some options for ingredients.  One of the things I was able to use in it was quinoa.  I only became familiar with quinoa this year, and discovered I like it.  If you don't know about it, look it up on the web and find the wide variety of recipes for it.  The recipe also called for wheat bran, which of course I could not locate around here, but after doing a little research I found I could substitute wheat germ.  In his book, Chef Reinhart said he likes to top this bread with poppy seeds, but I used some oats on the top.  I thought the oats would look better with this bread.  I also took a small piece of the bread after the first rise, braided it, allowed it to rise, and after the second rise I slit the loaf and placed the braid in the slit.  I wanted to see how it would turn out.
     This was not the type of bread I was raised on.  I was raised on typical soft white bread.  You know - the kind that sticks to the back of your teeth or the roof of your mouth.  I still love this type of bread with extra crunchy peanut butter on it.  It's a guilty pleasure.  The white bread of my youth was Sunbeam Bread which brings back many blissful memories.  I remember when Sunbeam Bread bought a baby elephant for the Audubon Zoo, Little Miss Sunbeam.  I could hardly wait to go to the zoo to see her.  She was adorable.
     My favorite memory of Sunbeam Bread was free rides at Pontchartrain Beach.  At the end of the school year, you would bring your report card to Pontchartrain Beach and based on  good grades you would get tickets for free rides.  It just didn't get any better than that.  My poor mother, she would load her car down with kids from the neighborhood and my cousin Linda and take us to the "beach."  She would give us a time to meet her by the stage.  Naturally, we would not be there at the appointed time.  She  would then start rounding us up.  She would find some of us, instruct us to stay put, while she looked for the rest of us.  Naturally, when she would find the rest of us and go to the spot the first group was told not to leave, they were gone.  This would go on until closing time.  Finally all of us gathered up and put in the car, we headed home.  By this time we were all hyped up from fast rides and cotton candy.  We kids would start arguing. I can still hear my mother, "Stop it!  If you don't stop, I'm going to drive us into the lake and kill us all."  This kept us quiet for all of 5 minutes, and we were at it again.  My mother was one helluva great and patient woman.  She worked all day, and still would do things with us once she got home.  She always had time for us. I can't begin to count the times she took us to the "Old Beach" to go swimming.  Once when my mother took my brother, my cousin Linda, and me swimming, there was a police check point  on the way home where the police were checking for driver's license, brake tags, and license plates; needless to say,  my mother did not have her license on her.  (For those of you who are not from New Orleans a brake tag is a vehicle inspection sticker.)  She also found out that it was unlawful to drive without shoes on (which she used to do all the time).  There we were all of us in damp bathing suits, and my cousin Linda starts crying, "We're going to jail.  I don't want to go to jail. I don't want to be a jailbird."  She is bawling out loud and repeating her jail statements.  My brother and I were frightened by this point.  I think the poor cop was overwhelmed.  He got more than he bargained for when he stopped us.  He didn't know what to do.  He followed us home to verify that my mother did indeed have a license.  He let her off with a warning.  Personally I think he did it more for himself than for her.  Ah - childhood memories.

Blue Cheese Bacon Bread

     I know that my plan was to bake just one bread a week, and I've already made the rye bread, but I found a recipe for a quick bread that I just had to try. Think of it as a lagniappe loaf.   Both Wayne and I love blue cheese, and who doesn't love bacon.  This recipe for a blue cheese bacon bread is a super rich and savory bread.  It is delicious!
     I ordered some back issues of The Baking Sheet from King Arthur.  The recipe is in the Autumn 2009 issue.  The recipe has bacon, blue cheese, Parmesan, yogurt, green onions, and Dijon mustard.  I used thick sliced peppered bacon, creole mustard, and Greek yogurt.  We rarely eat bacon, and I abhor frying it.  Even when I use a screen, it just seems to go all over the place, and I always end up with at least one burn from the bacon grease.  So I did some research.  I thought about cooking it on my electric griddle, but thought that would be just as messy.  I read numerous reviews of cooking it in the oven.  I've got to say, I'm a believer.  I will never "fry" bacon any other way.  350 degree oven, foil lined pan, lay bacon flat, turn over after 10 minutes, cook 10 minutes more - perfect, flat, crisp bacon.  And the best part - super easy clean-up and no grease splatters all over the place.
     Of course, cooking bacon brought back what is sure to be a shared memory by just about everyone.  Breakfast for dinner!  Breakfast is good in the morning, but it just tastes better at dinner.  My mother was a working, single parent and there were times when due to being in a hurry, being dead tired or running low on money, breakfast was what we ate in the evening.  I can still hear the pop of the biscuit can, as well as the sound and aroma of the bacon sizzling in the cast iron frying pan.  I can see the Correlle plates bordered with little gold flowers.  Scrambled eggs, creamy buttered grits, crispy bacon, and perfectly browned biscuits filled the plate, and nourished our bodies and souls.  I still enjoy breakfast at dinner time, and I hope I always will.

Swirled Rye Bread

     Living in Central Louisiana is like being a participant in a culinary scavenger hunt.  I could not find rye flour or caraway seeds in Pineville.  You kinda need them if you want to make rye bread.  I was  able to find them over the river in Alexandria.  This made me think about the husband on the game show.  He was asked by the host, "What is your wife's favorite flower?"  The husband quite pleased with himself because he knew the answer said, "Gold Medal."  Sorry - sometimes I just can't help myself.
     Before I started my rye bread today, Wayne and I went in search of the ever elusive and exotic pastrami and corned beef.  We knew not to even try in Pineville, so across the river we went.  When we arrived at a large chain store we will call store "A" we were confident they would have at least one these delicious deli meats for my rye bread.  Alas, poor Teresa and Wayne, they left dejected and were off to large chain store "K."  We were delighted that they did indeed have both.  MMMM - we could envision sandwiches with warm from the oven rye bread, hot pastrami, hot corned beef, melted Swiss cheese, and creole mustard (none of that high brow Poupon for us).
     Once I started making my dough, I heeded the warning in the notes about not over kneading rye bread.  The doughs came out just as they should;  they were nice and elastic and not at all gummy.  (The recipe was in The Bread Baker's Apprentice.) Making the swirled dough was fun and truly easy.  I could hardly wait for the bread to come out the oven to see the swirls.  If you check out the picture you will see that the swirls are just as they should be.
     For our first Easter in Pineville I barbecued for family, and I wanted to make a nice dessert.  I don't remember what kind of cake it was, but I do know that I needed blackberry brandy.  I went to the grocery closest to our home and couldn't find the liquor aisle.  I asked the store manager where was the liquor, and he looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language.  It was then that I found out Pineville is dry, and I would have to go to "Alec" if I needed any kind of alcohol.   Since then I've learned I need to go to Alec or go on-line and find a place to "send it to me" for many things.
     Enough whining.  We live outside of the Pineville city limits, and there are many wonderful things about where we live.  We can see thousands of stars and the milky way.  It is a great place to view meteor showers.  Wayne and I can go for our walk in the pre-dawn when the earth is still and all is quiet.  We can see the sun rise above the trees.  We can see the fog linger and soften all it surrounds.  We have seen deer in the road on the way to the store.  We have had bunnies in the backyard.  Our patio is a dangerous place.  If we go on the patio with our coffee, we enter a time warp.  We sit and listen to the birds and the stillness.  By the time we go back in the house 3 or 4 hours will have passed.  How can that be, we are sure we were only outside for a half hour or so.  The peacefulness of Pineville makes having to do the culinary hunt very worth while.

New Orleans French Bread

     My name is Teresa, and I am a cookbook-aholic.  I have never met a cookbook I didn't like.  This week's bread recipe came from The Encyclopedia of Cajun and Creole Cuisine by John Folse.  I've already mentioned that it is impossible to find New Orleans French bread in Pineville, LA.  It is insane that you can get it in Bossier City, LA, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, and a myriad other places, but you cannot get it in central Louisiana.
     There are several cookbooks that are a must for me.  My two favorite cookbooks that I like to give as gifts are Talk About Good from Lafayette's Junior League, and the late Leon Soniat's La Bouche Creole.  My latest favorite is Cooking Up a Storm: Recipes Lost and Found from the Times-Picayune of New Orleans (the best Mexican lasagna recipe in the world).  When I was a teenager I discovered the Thursday Times-Picayune's food section.  It was filled with lots mouth-watering recipes, but to me the best part was Leon Soniat's weekly column.  Even as an adult, I loved the Thursday paper.  My mother-in-law was not much of a cook.  Like many, she felt cooking was a chore and not one of life's joys.  My sister-in-law, whom I call Ms. Carol (I don't why I call her that, I just do), learned to cook from the Thursday Times-Picayune.  Today, Ms Carol is a wonderful cook.  She makes one hellava good chicken andouille gumbo.  After Katrina, I just had to get her the Cooking Up a Storm cookbook (as I inscribed, "Just in case you ever forget how to cook.")  There's a recipe in there for McKenzie's turtles and sugar cookies.  I haven't tried them yet.  To be honest, I'm afraid to - if they really do taste like McKenzie's I'd be making them all the time.  That would not be good.
     As I was making French bread, I thought about my great-grandmother, Grandma.  Not long after Pawpaw died, Mimi fell and broke her leg; she did a good job of it, she had pins and screws in it and had to use a wheel chair.  Since Mimi normally took care of Grandma, but she couldn't  because of her broken leg, they came to stay with us for a while.  Grandma was in her nineties and very set in her ways.  There was only one kind of coffee and only one way to prepare it; it had to be coffee and chicory, and it had to be French dripped.   Grandma loved toasted stale French bread cut in wedges and buttered for breakfast.  Grandma had to be given her coffee in a cup with a saucer, and the coffee better be steaming hot.  I can still see Grandma sitting at the kitchen table with her French bread wedges, sipping coffee out of the saucer.  She always had some coffee in the saucer while the cup cooled to a drinkable temperature.
     Today was a definitely a learning experience.  The recipe did not have the clearest instructions, and the recipe did not say to oil the dough.  The plastic wrap stuck to the bread (and it was looking really good) and deflated the bread.  I did let it rise again, but it didn't get where it needed to be (it was not as high as it should be).  The recipe also called for a little cane syrup.  This gave the inside of the bread a tan color, not white like real New Orleans French bread.  The bread did have a good flavor and made a really good roast beef po-boy.  Wayne and I put on our bibs, loaded the sandwiches with roast beef and drowned them with gravy.  We wore our po-boys with pride.

Potato Rosemary Bread

     Almost all bread delights your sense of smell when it is baking.  I say almost all because Subway's breads not so much, they make a good sandwich though.  I can still remember when Bunny Bread opened in New Orleans east.  The wonderful aroma from the bakery wafted through the air for miles, and if Luzianne was roasting coffee at the same time it was olfactory heaven.
     Sunday's bread was Rosemary Potato Bread.   When fresh rosemary and roasted garlic are added to bread it makes you want to speed up time so it will be done so you can eat it (nothing like a good run-on sentence).  You keep checking the timer to see when the bread will be done.  You try leaving the kitchen, but the fragrance keeps calling you back.  It smelled so good, it made me write about myself in the second person.  Good Lord, it smelled fantastic, and better than the aroma was the flavor.  The recipe made two boules.  One for us and one for our neighbors across the street (a really sweet couple who have been married over 60 years).  This was my first time shaping a boule, and I think I need to make it a little tighter next time to get a better height.
     When it came time to take the photo I wanted to do it quick so we could eat the bread.  I looked around to see what I had to take the photo with, aha I spotted the tea set my brother brought back for our mother from Hong Kong.  The tea set is blue and white rice porcelain with red designs, a dragon motif, and gold trim.  To see the real beauty of it, it needs to be held up to the light .   The light shines through where the "rice" is cut out.  It's funny, but my mother never used it.  She displayed it in her china cabinet, but never used it.  Come to think of it, I've never really used it either, but this Thanksgiving it will be used.  My mother always felt it was too pretty to use; I'm thinking it's too pretty not to use.

Herb Rolls

     I was in the grocery and like most people I can't pass up a bargain.  In a cart there were bread mixes for a dollar.  For only one single dollar I could buy a mix that would fill my home with the wonderful aroma of bread baking. How could I possibly resist.  But is the really baking bread?  Is it cheating?  I still need yeast.  It still has to rise.  it still must be shaped.  Yes, it is indeed it is real bread.
     The mix was a herb bread mix that had directions for both bread machine and traditional methods.  There was one big change that I made in the recipe.  I did not use the yeast that came with the mix.  I have become a huge fan of Saf-Yeast Instant Yeast.  I can't find it locally, but King Arthur sells it on the web.  Not having to bloom the yeast is a real benefit.  It is great to be able to just add the yeast to the flour and not have to worry about blooming the yeast - instant yeast just makes bread easier.
     There were no directions for rolls, but in my past life I would use my bread machine to make dough for rolls.  I remember making clover leaf rolls.  Instead of putting the dough in a loaf pan, I rolled three little balls of equal weight (a total of two ounces per roll) and placed them in a cup cake tin.  Twenty minutes later we were eating wonderfully herb scented rolls, hot from the oven.
     Each week when I bake, I take a photo of the finished product.  (When I say I take a picture I actually mean Wayne takes a picture.)  When I made the herb rolls, I decided to use my mimi's china.  I don't know how old her china is, but my mother remembered eating from it when she was a young adult in the 1940's.  After Katrina when we went to out home in Meraux, it was utter devastation, a story well-known by thousands.  One of the things we were able to find and recover was my grandmother's china.  We were able to salvage our china as well (which is now our everyday dishes), but there is something about our heritage china that speaks directly to the southern woman's soul.  The dishes brought back childhood memories of Sunday dinner at Mimi's house.  I can still see Grandma (my great-grandmother), Aunt Louiska, Mimi and my mother at the table.  All of these women are now gone, but they have all shaped me into the woman I am today.  At times I see so much of my mother in me it's almost scary.   I can see my brother arguing with Grandma over who would get the chicken wings off the tender baked chicken warm from the oven.  My brother really was not a wing fan, he just wanted to give Grandma a little competition.  There would be Dubon Petite Pois Peas, my Aunt Louiska's macaroni and cheese (made with long macaroni, of course), and sliced white bread.  Not long after dinner would come the enchanting chimes from, "THE ICE CREAM  MAN."  Grandma would call my brother and I to her.  She would pull out her coin purse and give us each a quarter.  With that quarter we could get a giant ice cream sandwich or an enormous ice cream drum stick.  After Ed Sullivan, Mama would load us into the car and take us home.
     China is one of those things that somehow always seems to reassure you that everything will be okay.  Finding that china after Katrina was like hearing Mimi say, "This china survived Betsy and Katrina.  You will get through this too.  Everything will be okay.  This is just one of life's little challenges.  You are strong, be a woman and deal with it."  China is a magical thing.

Baguettes

     My plan is not to post every day, but weekly when I bake a new bread.  Since I started this blog several weeks after I started baking bread, I am playing catch-up in the order of the breads I have baked.
     Being a good New Orleanian and living in a place where you can only get super market "French bread" I had to try my hand at baguettes.  I pulled out my bread book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart, and found a recipe.  The recipe was fairly easy, but there was a lot of references to other pages in the book for procedures.  At one point I came to a term that confused me.  I didn't know what it meant.  So here is where I digress.
     I did say I was a good New Orleanian.  One thing about us native New Orleanians - we are passionate about our love for our city.  Although I am no longer living there, it will always be home - a place of history, of wonder, of amazing places to visit and things to do, a place of childhood memories, a place where I found love, a place where my family is buried, and a place my heart will always yearn for.  Whenever I go "home" it is so good to hear people who sound like me.  I didn't realize that my "yat" accent is as bad as it is.  Anyway - New Orleans has always been a place of art.  One of the many famous artists that live there for a while was Edgar Degas (pronounced duh-Gah).  I spelled the word d-e-g-a-s, and I asked my husband to pronounce it.  I asked several friends for New Orleans to pronounce it as well.  They all pronounced it duh-Gah.
      So as I was reading the recipe for the baguettes, I came across the term "degas," and thought, "What the hell does that mean."  When I turned to the page it referenced I realized it was not duh-Gah but de-gas.  As in rhymes with ass, which is exactly what I called myself.
     Of course, being me, I started laughing at myself.  When I told Wayne, he got a good chuckle as well.  One of the abilities I have always had is the ability to laugh at myself and find humor in just about all situations life throws at you.  I think too many people today have lost that ability.  People get upset when they think others are laughing at them, but if they would stand back and look at the situation they just might make themselves smile as well.
     The baguettes turned out really good, not great, but really good.  Wayne and I enjoyed the crusty baguettes for days.  We had warm baguette in the morning with a earthy cup of coffee and chicory. They certainly tasted like they should, but they were not the New Orleans style French bread of po-boy dreams.  I have found a recipe for New Orleans French bread in a John Folse cookbook.  That will be this weeks bread adventure.  I sure hope it turns out good because visions of sloppy roast beef po-boys are dancing in my head.

Pumpkin Pecan Bread

     Fall is without a doubt my favorite season.  I love the cool weather and the warm colors.  I could stay outside all day.  And I love pumpkins.  Every autumn I think about my buddy Keri and pumpkin spice coffee.  Keri is a pumpkin spice coffee fan, fiend, and freak!  Several years ago we went to the Texas Renaissance Festival (really fun festival if you can ever get there), and that's when I learned about Keri's pumpkin spice coffee addiction.  When we stopped to fill up the rental car before returning it, Keri had to go in to see if they had pumpkin spice coffee.  While she was in the service station's snatch and grabbit store, we decided to move the car and hide it on her.  (Okay - it was my idea but everyone went along with it, including her hubby.)  Every time Keri would come out of one door, we would move the car to the other side.  The people in the store thought she was psycho running back and forth through the store from one door to the other.  Some how we all found this a lot funnier than she did.
      But this is supposed to be about bread.  I refer to my life before Hurricane Katrina as my past life.  In my past life I had a bread machine and several bread machine cookbooks.  One of the books had a recipe for Pumpkin Pecan Bread.  The recipe is for a hearty loaf with minimum spice and sugar.  The flavor really comes from the pumpkin and the pecans.  Here I go again - off on a tangent.  I grew up in New Orleans East when it was called Little Woods.  I lived on Hayne Blvd before there was a levee or a four lane paved road.  Lake Pontchatrain was across the street where I spent many a summer time swimming, fishing, and crabbing.  We had two pecan trees in the back yard that were planted by my pawpaw when I was very young.  It was not until I was teenager that we actually started getting pecans.  We would gather up the pecans, and my mother would sell what we would not use.  One year she had a Schwegmann's bag full of pecans on the carport.  A couple of days later the bag was half full.  I am sure the squirrels thought they had found nirvana.  They had been stealing her pecans.  Back to bread. My husband scanned the Pumpkin Pecan Bread recipe for me, so it survived Katrina, but the bread machine did not. I did not replace my bread machine after the hurricane and will not.  My quandary was how do I convert the recipe from bread machine to traditional oven baked.  All I can say is the internet is a wonderful thing.  I searched around and found what I needed.  The bread was just as I remembered it - flavorful, moist, fragrant, and delicious.  We enjoyed it fresh from the oven and toasted for breakfast, however, sliced about an inch thick it made killer French toast.  I had my  French toast with powdered sugar, but Wayne assured me it was equally good with warm maple syrup.  Even if you don't bake your own bread, buy a loaf of store bought seasonal bread, slice it up nice and thick, and turn it into your own special weekend French toast.

Why bread?

I retired in June after 30 years in public education in Louisiana.  My husband thought I would be bored after a couple of months.  Surprise, I'm not bored yet.  I've always liked to bake and cook.  My baking had been limited to sweets, but I have always wanted to learn to bake bread. I love everything about baking bread.  I love the feel of the dough. I love the aroma of baking bread.  I love warm bread out the oven.   I started by searching for a good bread cookbook, and I found one, The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  The book is more than just here's a recipe, good luck.  The book addresses the principles and processes behind bread making.  My goal is to make a different bread each week.  I started 4 weeks ago with focaccia.  It was a two day process, but the end result was definitely worth it.  I made a focaccia with black olives, feta, caramelized onions, and dried oregano.  The bread was light and airy.  We ate it plain, but we also used it for sandwiches on our panini press.  Adventures in bread baking had begun.