Saturday Morning at the Bakery

This is me, trying out the new Hipstamatic Foodie Pack, taking pictures of what's going on in the world of small scale cookie manufacture.

Bread for Thanksgiving

You know I work at a bakery, and yet I didn't get any bread to serve to my guests for the Big Thursday meal. A little shortsighted, right? Things get away from me, work is often just work and not as special to me as it is to someone coming into the shop to get a nice handmade loaf of awesome bread. So this morning when I realized that we were quite breadless, I looked about for a recipe I could make for dinner. After toying with the idea of making brioche rolls, and then moving away from that due to time constraints, I stumbled onto this one from the King Arthur Flour website. I like for my dinner rolls to be made with eggs and milk and butter, not the lean kind we have at the Bakery. I also had a beautiful butternut squash sitting around wanting me to use it for something. When I got up at 8, the kitchen was cold and the oven wanted me to turn it on. So I roasted that squash, and used it to make the dinner rolls. It was a big squash, and there are a lot of people coming over for dinner, so I doubled the recipe. And then I messed around with it some more.

Start with a big roasted squash, mine was about 3 cups worth. Puree. Or not, I don't really think it maters much, especially if you roasted it really well.

Dissolve 4 packets of instant yeast in a cup of warm water. Not hot water. There are instructions about this sort of thing on the yeast packet. I actually used one pack of quick rising, 2 packets of active dry, and one chunk of fresh yeast. So I don't think it makes a whole lot of difference what kind you use. Just know that if you have fresh yeast you will have to use more of it by volume than you would the granulated stuff. Also, King Arthur has a good article on yeast, worth reading if you do this sort of thing a lot.

Ok, in a big ol' mixing bowl I combined the squash, a cup of milk, about 1/3 cup of apple cider, 4 beaten eggs, about half a cup of honey, 2 tablespoons of butter cut up into little pieces, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 4 teaspoons of salt (if you use kosher salt like I did, use more, maybe twice as much. I wish I had) and oh yeah, I put in a little bit of levain from the bakery, which I just happened to have hanging out. I wouldn't go to the trouble of making a whole sourdough starter just for this dough, but I love my levain - you could call it my secret ingredient. Then mix in the yeast & water.

In another bowl measure out 6 cups of flour. I almost always go by weight when I am making bread, but I was in a rush on the fly and so I didn't. Beat this into the wet mixture with a spoon (or paddle attachment), it will be soupy, for about 2 minutes. I also added about a cup of our West Virginia Wheat flour for texture, and next time I will add more because I really like how those whole wheat berries look and taste.

Measure out 6 more cups of flour, I used a combination of white and whole wheat. Add that to the dough and change to a dough hook if you are using a mixer. If you are making this "unplugged" be prepared to stir and knead and then keep on doing that for half an hour or so. I took this down to the bakery and did it in the Hobart stand mixer and it only took about 4 minutes. This much dough wouldn't fit in a Kitchen-Aid mixer anyway.

Mix it till it is smooth and elastic, adding more flour if necessary as you go along. When it passes the windowpane test, turn it into a greased bowl and let it rise till doubled.

I weighed this out into 2 oz portions and baked the rolls in a well greased muffin tin. Baked it in with the TURKEY at about 375 for about 10 minutes. When the internal temperature reaches 190, they're done. Brush the tops of the hot rolls with melted butter, or do like I did and just use the stick of butter to swipe the tops. It made 24 rolls and I still have more than half of the dough in the fridge. Might make it into sweet rolls for breakfast tomorrow.

Beets are the new Breakfast

Morgantown celebrated summertime with our fifth Farmers Market of the season yesterday. Since I have to work, Keith and Delia went down and brought home some deliciousness. One bunch of chard, two green and two red tomatoes, some local honey, and my first bunch of beets of the season. They also got a cat grass plant, for Naomi's birthday as a gift for her cat Sharkey.

Since Delia was away this morning at the sleepover, I had the chance to make VEGETABLES FOR BREAKFAST, which is like a dream come true. I started out searching Swiss Chard recipes on Epicurious, and ended up intrigued by this one. But the beets were calling to me, and the chard will keep for supper. I made these little guys with the beet greens. I think I will call them...

BEETCAKES

If you think of beets as little slices that come in a can or a jar, you are missing out on over half the plant's bounty. Beet greens can be cooked just like any other greens, and they are an excellent source of carotenoids, flavonoid anti-oxidants and vitamin A. To prepare, chop the actual beet root off, leaving an inch of stem attached - this cuts down on bleeding. Then rinse the whole mess of greens in some cold water, I just put them in my biggest Fiesta bowl and swish them around, but cold running water works fine too. Then I shake them out a little and cut the leaves from the stems.

roots, stems and leaves

I like to cook the stems a bit more than the leaves, because they are kind of tough and stringy sometimes, and if you put everything in to cook together the leaves get all mushy by the time the stems are tender. So for this recipe, I chopped up the following:

One Bunch of Beet Stems
Half a Huge Onion
Two Cloves of Garlic

These were sauteed in a dollop of bacon grease plus a generous glug of olive oil in my trusty cast iron skillet. If that grosses you out of course you can use one of those heinous nonstick jobs coated with a light mist of canola oil or whatever babies cook with...

Once the onions start to turn translucent (and also the edges will turn all pink from the beets, it is super cute), add

A Splash of Red Wine Vinegar
A Tentative Pinch Of Ground Coriander
A Vigorous Shake of Dry Mustard
Tiny Pinch of Salt

Mix that up to distribute the spices and inhale deeply. Then toss in your chopped leaves and mix it up again, finally covering the whole mess for 2 minutes or so to let the greens wilt a bit.

MMMM GREENS!

Take the lid off and turn the fire up and evaporate out as much of the liquid as you can in the next sixty seconds. If it looks really wet, go ahead and strain out the juice. I put it in a strainer over a bowl in the fridge for a little while to cool. You don't want to add hot veggies to your eggs or it will end up all kinds of ugly. While that cools, make some breadcrumbs.

I made this loaf, and I get paid to do that so you don't have to!

You need about a cup of breadcrumbs, more or less, for this mess of pancakes. My current favorite is the West Virginia Wheat from the Bakery. I like to give a couple of slices a pulse in the food processor, but you could toast it and pulverize it a plastic bag with a rolling pin, or tear it apart meticulously with your fingers.

Once your veggie mixture is sufficiently cool (and not before!), into a large mixing bowl crack about 4 eggs. Add salt and pepper here if you like, beat them severely, then stir in the breadcrumbs. Stir in the beet mixture. Pretty cool looking, eh? All kinds of PINK.

Drop a heaping spoonful of this onto a medium hot skillet well lubed with bacon grease and olive oil, and fry!

It took about 3 minutes a side. Then you can keep them warm in a 300 degree oven till you finish frying up the rest, or just eat them at room temperature. I ate mine with a dollop of sour cream, Keith ate his with some awesome horseradish mustard, and I think the ultimate sauce would be the stuff Maxwells serves with their Spinach Balls - because that's what my taste testers said these beetcakes were evocative of.

A Week of Thanksgiving : Tuesday

Today I am thankful for my job. And Keith's job. Without our fine employers, we wouldn't have the material goods that we enjoy, like this house and our car and our computers. We wouldn't have health insurance, and Keith wouldn't have his life saving medicine.
I love that we work for small businesses, that we have schedules flexible enough to do the things we want to do. And that we work for and with good people. My world wouldn't be what it is today if not for The Bakery, and I am ever so thankful that it is still a part of my life.

PS sorry no pictures today, it is past my bedtime and I couldn't find the one I wanted! But there is a pic of me and Zoey at the Bakery on my Mom's Blog, if you wanna go look - it is in the sidebar a ways down the page. This is my first "Try to make a post every day this week" week, and it is a bigger challenge than I thought, and it is only day 2! chee.

Work, Work, Work!

The Holidays are always busy at the Bakery, and this year is no exception. My contributions to the Thanksgiving Sweets menu are quite manageable, Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake and Cookie Box, but since I don't have time to make them during the week I am going on my day off - today.

I love and hate cheesecake time. It makes me happy that people like them! But I always suffer from nerves while they're in the oven. Will they crack? Will they come out of the pan in one piece and look pretty? When I make food at home it doesn't have to look good, but retail customers appreciate it when things appear appealing as well as taste good.

I am planing on turning out at least 50 lbs of cookie dough today too, 6-10 pounds at a time in the little Hobart Mixer. YAY for butter and sugar! Snickerdoodles, Gingersnaps, Pumpkin Oatmeal, Double Chocolate Oatmeal, Peanut Butter, and good ole' Chocolate Chip. Am I forgetting anything?

And sometime today I have to buy a turkey, and make room in the fridge to thaw it out! YIKES! Wish me luck!

Farmers Market Time Again

I view the Farmers Market season with a mix of dread and joy. Dread, because it means I have to give up my Friday nights and get up at 3:30 or thereabouts on Saturday, and joy, because it financially supports my place of employ through the summer in a town where a huge chunk of the population leaves around the first of May and doesn't come back till August.

The Bakery has been in attendance at this market for several years, but if you go tomorrow morning, you won't find us there. Seems we are caught in a political argument of sorts, and the directors/organizers of the shindig still haven't given my boss the green light to come on out and set up the tent. Some people want the Farmers Market to make a statement I guess, that's why they have set up guidelines they can use to exclude vendors who aren't Local enough.

Some of the vendors do not like the fact that we don't grow our own wheat. I guess that's the biggest issue, and it kinda makes me mad. We do have a bread featuring wheat grown in WV. The Local Wheat Growers aren't growing hard red wheat, or anything really that is high enough in gluten to make decent bread, so I have to add bread flour (not Local) to the dough to get it to be bread and not dense cracker-like pancakes. The bylaws of the market, last time I checked, stated that 25% of the products you sell have to be local. Our WV Wheat has about 40% local flour. Can I count the water I use, cause it comes from the Mon River? We have local eggs in our scones & cookies, local honey, and local fruits and veggies when they're in season... And the biggest thing for me is that we're a community business. Everything we make is produced In Morgantown. How much more local can you get?

If you go to the Market, and you miss New Day Bakery products, please let someone there know. Maybe if the Local Community wants us there, it will help the board make up it's mind. And remember, we're only a few blocks away from the Market, so if you have a hankering for a good cup of coffee and a scone we can hook you up, whether we have a stall at the Market or not.




Disclaimer : The views expressed in this personal essay are mine and mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of New Day Bakery LLC or it's owners.

Southern Living

If you happen to be somewhere near a magazine stand, pick up the March issue of Southern Living and flip to page 31. You see those chocolate chip cookies there in the picture? I MADE THEM! Yeah, that's right. My cookies are in a national magazine. Not the recipe, cause then I'd probably get in trouble for using the one off the bag of Toll House Morsels. :) Before you buy the magazine though, you should read the article they printed about Morgantown. Apparently here in WV we are "on the cusp of cool" or something like that. Like, all it will take for MoTown to become cool is if a bunch of swankers (that's a new word I just made up today, it means smarmy wankers) from the Southern Living readership come up here and grace us with their presence. Whatevs, I hope they do come to visit, and spend their money in Morgantown, and feel superior to the "granola crunchers" mentioned in the article. >grumble<

Our little bakery got national press! That's so freaking awesome.