Well this week I have taken a turn back to the kitchen, and last weekend I baked bread and I made soup. Now, these my seem like minor things to you, but... yeast scares me and I don't like hot liquid, Weirdo... I know...let's start with yeast.
I have a fear of yeast. It seems funny, but I never made bread with my mother, I didn't do any cooking w
ith my mother, that I remember, so I lack a certain foundation. Also someone(K) scared the crap out of me talking about how she proofs her yeast, having to turn on the oven and get the water to a certain temperature, it's sounds very much like hard science. Other ...er.. less type A cooks, told me if it feels warm on your wrist that good enough. Even with this advice I was still too chicken(and a little too lazy) to try. The fact is the only way to conquer yeast fear is to work with yeast. And since I can't take a "cours de Boulangerie" like Clotilde from Chocolate and Zucchini( I Love you!), I had to settle for second best, BMP.
Last year Bread Master P(BMP as she will now be known) had agreed to show me how to bake bread. I was excited, but we didn't get around to it, I was working, other commitments blah, blah blah... Finally a fabulous new cookbook A passion for baking, spurred me to action. I must bake bread. And so we did... And it wasn't a brick and it was delicious and we worked with instant yeast. Yeah I know, I didn't exactly conquer the beast, but I baked bread, that's important!! Next and it will involve proofing yeast, pizza dough.
Vache Qui Rit Soup
On to soup. I don't like hot liquid. I think I taste like hot flavored water, and I don't like it. It's not the way water is suppose to taste. I like my water cold and tasting like water, but not swampy. I don't like coffee, tea, soup or even hot chocolate. Occassionally at Christmas I might indulge in a Hot Chocolate, but really just hot flavored water, I don't get it. Anyway... I hadn't planned on making soup, I was grocery shopping at ODB (old dirty Bramare the worst Superstore EVER) and was shocked SHOCKED to discover they had put in a cheese carousel. It's a big deal, ODB usually doesn't have vegatables after five, now they are selling Hallomi, you have no idea how big a deal that is. I saw the package of Laughing Cow's Vacke Qui Rit and decided I would try Laura Calder's recipe for
Vacke Qui Rit soup. I loved it. Look at me I'm evolving!!
proofing! I will admit I thought the first batch failed and threw it out to start again. It turns out my definition of bubbling yeast was different then what I read in my instructions. There really should be pictures of what yeast looks like when it's proofing. Thank god for the internet!!!
On a more comical note( really I should invest in video surveillance for the kitchen) getting the dough on the pizza stone. I do sometimes take things too literally and should have put the dough on the pizza stone before dressing it. Fortunately I didn't have everything on it before I realized what I had done!! But it was edible! Well except the one piece I flung on to the floor.
