Light rye bread

Last week's loaf was excellent but a bit too sweet for my everyday lunches, so I this week I picked up some assorted deli meats and decided to make a loaf of rye bread.

Get this one started by proofing 2 1/2 teaspoons of yeast in 1/4 of a cup of warm water and 1 3/4 tablespoons of honey. After a few minutes, add 1 tablespoon of melted butter, 3/4 of a tablespoon of caraway seeds, and 1 scant tablespoon of salt. Slowly stir in 1 1/2 cups of dark rye flour, 1 3/4 cups of bread flour, and about 1/3 of a cup of all-purpose flour (this last only because I used up the last of the bread flour and the dough was still a bit too sticky).

Anyway, this dough was surprisingly easy to knead...or at least, it certainly feels like it would have been if my arm and shoulder hadn't felt bruised, sore, and just generally shredded from what was truly an epic, Roland-vs-Oliver-scale [Aside: I've always been a bit tickled by that phrase, despite first seeing it in a Bartlett's in junior high and never having actually read any of the Roland legends] arm wrestling match (albeit one that, while it sure felt like five days was probably less than two minutes, and one that in fact did not end in a draw). Anyway, once the bread is thoroughly kneaded, attaining that usual smooth-yet-elastic texture, put the dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let sit for the

First rising (2 hours and 10 minutes)
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Well, I'll hardly be alerting anyone to a new phenomenon with this comment, but let me add my voice to the many who are tired of just how early the whole "winter-seasonal" music/decorations/promotions/etc. start each year. Usually I have a fairly high tolerance for that sort of thing, but this year has seemed worse than usual. First, on Halloween itself some of my friends went to try to pick up a pumpkin for carving. Now, admittedly, it was after dinner time, so any family would have already pick up their Halloween supplies, but by 8:00 p.m. the supermarket had already gotten rid of any trace of Halloween (well, except for vast quantities of now-on-sale candy) and were already setting up Christmas displays. I mean, really? It wasn't even November! There was still a sixth of Halloween -- not to mention all of Thanksgiving! -- before Christmas would start. There's got to be a line drawn somewhere, and that just seems to have crossed it.

Anyway, just to rub it in (and what reminded me of this in the first place), last week my piano teacher announced that once I finished the two pieces I'm currently working on we could start working on a "seasonal assortment of songs." Not exactly the best inducement for me to work too hard.
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Punch the dough down, then roll it up, put in a greased 8x4 inch bread tin, cover, and set aside for the

Second rising(1 hour)
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Mild Spoiler Alert: The following contains a tiny bit of plot about the newest Bond film, so if you're interested in seeing that film without knowing anything about it before hand, skip this section. But if you don't mind knowing one really minor plot point, I'll try to be suitably vague about everything else.

Anyway, as you could tell from the above, this weekend some of my friends and I went to see "Quantum of Solace," the newest James Bond film. Now, of course, you don't go to a Bond film expecting any sort of deep cinematic experience, and indeed I think this one performed as usual in the standard chase/fight/etc. Bond film elements.

What really struck me as odd, though, was the great villainous scheme of this installment. Of course, you have to separate out the ends from the means in the villain's plan, and the means are suitably dastardly in the film. But the ends...well, somehow plotting to double utility rates just doesn't pass the evil-super-villain test. The evil-pretty-mean-guy test? Sure. The not-a-very-nice-thing-to-do test? Absolutely. But when you finally find out that this is what Bond has been striving to stop, it makes the extra psychological-drama this movie cooks up seem a little hollow. Well, maybe making the bad guys a sort of monopolizing corporate entity out to make money at the expense of the little guys is just a reflection of the times, but I didn't think it made for as compelling cinema. Still fun, mind you, but just a little strange.
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Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Just before putting the bread in the oven, brush the top with a mix of 1 egg white and 2 tablespoons of cold water. Bake for 45 minutes.

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Tasting verdict: Very nice. Rather lighter (both in density and flavor) than your usual rye bread, but still with a very nice texture. Providing it doesn't change too much over the next few days, just about perfect for deli sandwiches.

Verterkake

Quite randomly, yet another Scandinavian loaf this week…

Start off by proofing 2 3/4 teaspoons of yeast in 2/3 of a cup of warm milk. After a few minutes, stir this into 1 cup of dark rye flour. In a separate bowl, combine 7/8 of a cup of Guinness (standing in for verterol, the apparently non-alcoholic dark Norwegian beer that I’d never heard of but that gives this bread its name), 2 teaspoons of salt, 1/4 of a cup of sugar, 3/4 of a teaspoon of black pepper, and 3/4 of a teaspoon of mace. Let both sit for about 20 minutes (until the yeast/flour mixture looks like it’s starting to rise).

Then, pour the Guinness mixture into the yeast mixture, and also add 1/3 of a cup of light corn syrup. Stir in another cup of rye flour followed by 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, and get to kneading. Now, I’ll be honest: normally I quite like the challenge of doughs that are difficult to knead, but this week I was feeling pretty lazy. So I was rather delighted to find this an extremely pliant, workable dough to handle (and one that, thanks to the Guinness that hadn't quite come up to room temperature, was pleasantly cool as well). Anyway, knead a little bit less flour than usual into this one; we’ll want it to remain a little moist and sticky. After kneading put in a greased bowl, cover, and set aside for the

First rising (1 hour and 45 minutes)
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Exciting election, no? I have to admit, I can't believe that it's been less than a week...it somehow feels like ages ago. Anyway, I went to vote early in the morning before heading in for work, and was almost disappointed that I didn't have to wait in line at all (not that Illinois was even remotely close enough for there to be extra voter enthusiasm, I suppose). Also, as much fun as it was to get to vote in person, I rather wish I hadn't had to change my registration away from Maine, though...it's hard to get too worked up about, say, who the next county coroner is going to be when you've never heard of any of the people running.

Also, more selfishly, now that the election is over, I think I just lost 90% of the sites I would visit to waste time on the Internet. I mean, I guess for the next little bit there's still this and that, but then what?
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Punch the dough down, and then shape into a ball. Flatten slightly and put on a greased cookie sheet, then cover and set aside for the

Second rising (1 hour and 15 minutes)
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So, this weekend I went to another concert at the Krannert: a performance of the Brandenburg concertos.

The good: Well, I'm pretty sure just about everybody reading this blog already knows how much I like Bach...at his worst I think he's rather mechanical but still good to listen to, but at his best he's transcendent, in a Clockwork Universe sort of way. And while the Brandenburg concertos aren't my favorite Bach pieces, they're pretty high up on the list. Also, I continue to be floored by the acoustics in the Krannert Center's main performance space. Notes just ring out so well...even though I had less-than-ideal seats (below and to the back of the solo violin), so that some instruments sounded much softer than they should have, the clarity was astounding. Which would have been particularly awesome in the second concerto if not for

The bad: I'm afraid the piccolo trumpet player wasn't really up to the part in that second concerto (no real intended slight there...I mean, the piece was specifically written for a true virtuoso of the time and is (apparently) considered to be one of the hardest trumpet parts written). Or else he was just having an off night. Which is too bad; he played most of the piece magnificently, but missed and squeaked on enough notes that I spend most of the first and third movements thinking more about whether he was about to miss a note than about the notes he was actually playing. So that was a bit distracting...but not nearly as distracting as the middle-aged German couple, sitting immediately behind me, who felt the need to comment on every little aspect of the performance. And while I appreciated the opportunity to check just how much of German 101 I did and did not remember, I think the concert might have been more enjoyable without the constant chatter.
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Brush the dough with warm water, and use an especially sharp knife to cut a cross into the top of the dough. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

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Tasting Verdict: Delicious (if, as in the above photo, not quite as symmetrical as I might like!) Fresh out of the oven this was one of the better breads I've made in a little while (the smell was strikingly similar to that of rice pudding, actually), and for lunch today was still quite good spread with just a bit of butter. Other than with butter, or perhaps some jam, though, I can't really imagine this would go well with too many other things lunch-wise. We'll see how it holds up over the rest of the week.

Dark herb bread

Time for another sandwich loaf after last week's flatbread, and since I had less work than usual this weekend I thought I would make a marginally fancier-than-usual bread.

So, start out by proofing 5 1/2 teaspoons of yeast in 1/2 a cup of warm water and 1 tablespoon of sugar. In a large mixing bowl, mix together 3 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 cup of dark rye flour, 1 cup of bread flour, 1 tablespoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Add to this 2 generous tablespoons of olive oil, the yeast mixture, and another 1 1/4 cups of warm water.

Now, for the final addition to this mix, chop up three cloves of garlic, and grind it with a mortar and pestle, along with 1 teaspoon of rosemary and 2 tablespoons of parsley, into a paste. Or, if like me your kitchen has a semi-temporary (okay, okay...permanent) shortage of mortars and pestles, substitute instead a cereal bowl and soup spoon.

Anyway, it turns out cereal bowls and soup spoons aren't good at getting things to a paste-like consistency. Well, dump everything into the mixing bowl, stir, and then knead for a good 12 minutes, making a slightly moist but quite elastic dough. Put in an olive-oiled bowl, cover, and set aside for the

First rising (1 hour and 30 minutes)
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This Week in Breakfast: the "Lemons-to-Lemonade" edition:

This week I was faced with what seemed at first to be quite the crisis (on the scale of breakfasts, anyway). I had apparently badly miscalculated how much milk I had left when I had gone grocery shopping last weekend, and so I woke up this Wednesday to discover that at just less than half a cup, I didn't even have enough milk for a bowl of cereal. What was I to do?

Confession time (link - page 4): despite having been in the Midwest for almost a year and a half now [update: I'm not trying to call pancakes particularly midwestern...just that I've only been really cooking for myself since moving here], when I woke up on Tuesday I had yet to actually make myself pancakes. (I'm going to be honest: I really like pancakes) So, faced with the possibility of not having a decent breakfast and thus getting the day off on totally the wrong foot, I decided there was only one thing to do. So, overcoming all obstacles -- for instance the fact that, upon closer inspection of the recipe, I didn't actually have enough milk to make a batch of pancakes [um...I tried using an extra egg and adding a little water...not the best result, but still pretty tasty], or the fact that the size of my frying pan, combined with my relative ineptitude when it comes to flipping things, forced me to make one pancake, turn everything off, eat the pancake while still warm, turn the stove back on, make one more pancake, and so on -- I went and made some of the best pancakes I've had since the last time I was home.

So, it turns out that pancake batter keeps in the fridge fairly well, at least for a day or two. So, since I couldn't really finish off a batch of pancakes all by myself, I ended up saving a bunch of the batter and having delicious, delicious pancake breakfasts for the next two days. And then, when Friday morning rolled around (still a day away from my usual Saturday grocery run) and I was out of batter....well, I just had no choice but to make myself an extra-large omelet to use up the last of the Cheddar cheese I got last week.

Anyway, on the whole I had probably the best consecutive series of breakfasts since I moved out here. I might have to forget to buy milk more often.
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Punch the dough down, and knead for another minute or so. Then, shape into a loaf and put in a greased 9x5 bread tin, re-cover, and let stand for the

Second rising (1 hour)
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Currently reading (with commentary):

Late last weekend I finished that David Foster Wallace essay collection (on the whole, I quite liked it... a fun read), so now it's on to the other book I picked up when I bought that one, which happened to be a paperback copy of four of Milton's poems (but mostly, just Paradise Lost for my current purposes). Now, I didn't think about it when I was buying it, but in retrospect I think that just pushed Paradise Lost, with three copies I can think of, into the lead in the "most copies of a given text appearing in books I own" competition (out of multi-way tie with "The Master and Margarita" and a handful of Shakespeare plays that I happen to have two copies of for whatever reasons). Which made me start to wonder why I would like Milton enough to have three copies of one of his works scattered across my collection (please, no comments on my general apparent prediliction for old-dead-white-guy literature :) Or, if you must, at least join me in wondering why this particular old dead white guy as opposed to others.)

So anyway, I think my tentative explanation (I haven't thought about this too too hard so far) is that sometimes I feel like reading Milton is a breath of fresh air (albeit, admittedly, a breath of very dense, literate, and occasionally overly stuffy fresh air). Which I think I mean in two senses. First, I feel like there's less of the "cleverness-for-cleverness' sake" in his works. Objectively, this may or may not be true, and I have no doubt that he enjoyed turning an especially fine phrase as much as his contemporaries, but at the very least I'm less conscious of it in his writing than in some others. So, when I get tired of writers whose very writing screams "oh, look at how awesome I am" I think I enjoy going back to something whose art is more in service of its theme.

Second, and perhaps more relevant in my current state of mind, I've always thought Paradise Lost possessed of a certain intellectual honesty in the way Milton sets up the argument he's about to expound. From the very beginning he declares the purpose of the poem (that whole "justifie the wayes of God to men" thing), and he then proceeds to set up a poetic universe where God very much needs that justification. Or rather, where (even though we all know where he is going to come down on the issues) he gives the side he is opposed to one of the strongest versions of its position he can, instead of just setting up blatant straw men to knock down. After listening to perhaps a few too many of the political "arguments" that have been swirling around as we approach this election, where I think at least 90% of the debates I've had the pleasure to be in the same room as have quickly devolved into ad hominem shouting matches largely divorced from any point anybody had been trying to make...I think having a touch of that sort of intellectual, argumentative honesty -- even just reading a literary version of it -- helps calm my nerves. Or something like that.
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Slash the top of the loaf three times with the sharpest knife you own. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees, then turn the oven down to 350 and bake for another 25 minutes. Cool before slicing...this loaf seems a little less stable to fresh slicing than some of my other breads.


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Tasting verdict: Actually, I think this one turned out rather well! The taste is not really what I was expecting...after baking the parsley flavor came out a little bit more than I expected it to, so in the future I might want to add some extra rosemary. But the really pleasant surprise was the garlic: after baking the bread still has some of the heat left over from the garlic, but largely without the taste of it. An intriguing result, I'd say! Anyway, I'm a little concerned with how well this loaf will hold up over the course of the week (my past experience with whole wheat based breads has been that they lose a lot of texture and get overly crumbly about 4 days after they come out of the oven), but for the time being really quite a tasty little loaf.

Moral victory of the week: I hadn't really planned either of my little random digressions for this week's post (as I'm sure you've already guessed by now!) So, in retrospect, I'm immensely pleased that I managed to get both Milton and pancakes into a single blog post.