Hot off the Griddle: No-Knead Bread Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

One of our go-to weeknight dinners is grilled cheese sandwiches and a shared can of soup (usually chicken noodle). Bonus points if we have some sliced turkey and a tomato to put in the sandwich.

Last night, the Sergeant achieved extra-EXTRA bonus points by successfully tackling the no-knead bread recipe so I could use really, really fresh bread for our sandwiches.

When I make no-knead bread, I prefer to use the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day method (I find it more convenient), but the Sergeant is old school.

Either way, the bread is stellar, and the sandwiches were super-tasty.

Foodie day

Friday was Foodie Day for me. Started off with a class in the morning on a particular kind of breadmaking. The teacher is a Weston Price adherent who advocates grinding your own grain and soaking it. As she said in her introductory email: "This process ... neutralizes the phytic acid that is in the bran of the grain. Unneutralized phytic acid blocks the absorption of calcium, magnesium, copper, zinc and iron in the intestines and can lead to mineral deficiency over time."

Are your eyes glazing over? Yeah, me too.

The teacher explained her process as she prepped flour that she had already ground and soaked overnight. The kitchen was a bit chaotic, with two dogs making a din at the doorbell, a couple of chirping parakeets (and their talking mirror) and the phone ringing. She has six kids, ranging from 12 to 24, plus a couple more pseudo foster children. Which gives you an idea of her multi-tasking abilities.
The presentation was a little scattered, but resulted in the nice loaves ready for the oven that you see at the top of this post, plus these waffles. Which were really outstanding. Very light and fluffy. The batter is made in the blender. Definitely a technique I'll have to try.

We were all impressed by the sunflower-shaped loaf made by a friend of hers. I wish the friend could have been there to explain how she puts it together.
We also got a chance to see a couple of electric grain mills in action. The teacher has a very noisy K-Tec model, while one of the students brought along her Mil-Rite stone mill, shown here grinding brown rice. The former costs $200, the latter $400. That's some serious gadget commitment.
Now, I tend to shy away from evangelists, especially when there are contemporary messiahs involved. But there wasn't much hard-sell here and just a whiff of whackaloon ("All white salt is poison!").

In any case, reducing processed foods and eating more organic vegetables and whole grains is a sermon I can say "amen" to.

I'm still not sold on kombucha, though. It's sometimes called "miracle mushroom" but it's really a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts, or SCOBY, that can reproduce. You ferment it in tea and sugar. The result is a vinegary drink that is supposed to be healthful. Some of the claims: eases joint pain, increases sex drive, makes hair thicker, is a soothing foot soak, eases digestion, relieves congestion, reduces blood pressure, heals boils, improves circulation, prevents bladder infections, smooths out cellulite, repels mosquitoes and removes rust!

I'll stick with the proven blood-pressure-reducing therapy of dog petting. There were two sweeties there to keep me happy:
I had to bug out before the bread was done baking to meet up with two other (human) sweeties, namely Jen and Manisha. We did a whirlwind rampage through H-Mart, mainly for Jen to stock up on goodies for Chinese New Year (which is Monday).
That's Manisha with camera in hand, and Jen happy with her cabbage.

We didn't have a lot of time to dilly-dally with our cameras, though H-Mart is quite capable of providing hours of shopping pleasure. Given my recent produce spree at Berkeley Bowl, I was able to limit myself in that arena. But I couldn't resist a lovely bunch of yu choi, and some taro to try. And some frozen dumplings and rice noodles, which then got me caught up in H-Mart's weird sale pricing system. If you buy one sale item, it costs you, say, $6. If you buy two, it costs $3. I guess it's their way of getting rid of expiring stock really fast.

I also needed more brown rice vinegar, which I usually recognize by the label. It would appear there's a knock-off. Look at the differences in the labels. So close, but not quite. I'm sure it's fine, though.

So anyhoo, I guess I need to cook a bunch of interesting stuff this week!

Cooking in a hurry

I never thought I would be a person who made bread. Heck, I never thought I'd be someone who could even cook. I was a picky eater as a kid, much preferring to nibble on this or that and dash off again than to sit still and finish a whole meal. Drove my mom crazy. Hated peas, hated tomatoes, soup was yucky, pasta sauce gross. I couldn't let foods even touch on the plate and preferred to eat my sandwiches as separate components.

Mom was good cook and liked trying new things. Dad was a gourmand and loved to go out. So I wasn't a stranger to fine cooking, and when I liked it I ate a lot of it. But I never had a yen to make it myself.
That changed when I went off to China in my 20s. The teachers' fare in the dining halls was a cut above what the students ate (which was dreck; one reason you rarely see fat Chinese students), but still pretty eh. Boy, did I get tired of Chinese food. (I was very skinny then, and got even skinnier after three years of the Chinese diet. People were always trying to fatten me up. "Tian shengde; mei banfa!" I'd say. I can't help it; I was born this way!)

The best meals I had were cooked by my teaching partners or students and their families, and I started to realize that maybe I could eat better if I learned to make a few things myself.

Fast forward to many years later. I'm still learning how to cook, but I have a grasp of the basics and a willingness to experiment. And I can make bread! It's not fancy bread, but it still feels like alchemy to me. Such simple ingredients: flour, water, yeast and salt.That brings me to the parmesan sprinkling. Mix up some basic dough that lives in the fridge, and cut off a hunk when you want to bake. Every day, if you want. Spread the dough in a rectangle, cover it liberally with shredded parm (or cheddar, or jalapeño jack) and roll it up.

Here's a trick I finally figured out: If you're cooking no-knead bread in a pot and want the cheesy top nice and golden, don't wait until it achieves that color at 450 degrees with the lid off. The bottom will be burnt. Instead, when the top just starts to color, turn the broiler on and brown the top for a minute that way. Perfect!

This photo doesn't really do it justice. I was in a hurry, having miscalculated how long it would take me to throw lunch together. I was also prepping another batch of chard from the garden (yes, there's still some to be harvested).
I am really liking it creamed. You just sautée a bunch of onions in olive oil and butter, throw in the chard and toss it to coat, then cover and let it wilt down. Add a splash of heavy cream and cook it some more. I added some chopped tonsils to it, too, (that's oven-dried tomatoes) and a sprinkle (love sprinkles!) of parmesan. Very tasty.
I also had some very attentive supervision underfoot.
What really threw me off was Jen's apple-cranberry crisp. I was also trying to make that while baking bread and cooking chard. Supposedly to take to work for the cow-orkers. (Manisha made it, too, and it just sounded so good). But I was in such a hurry I didn't cream the butter and sugar properly, I ran out of brown sugar (used light brown demerrera instead), and frankly, the butter was a little off, I think. (It had been in the freezer maybe too long.)

But you know, it came out not half-bad:
I'm going to make it again this weekend, and maybe the cow-orkers will get that batch. I would like it with much more fruit and somewhat less topping, though, so I'll use more apples and a deeper dish next time, and reduce the topping.

But you can never go wrong with vanilla ice cream on it.

Pasted up

No worries on the paste cubes! They slid right out of the tray and into a bag. A much more efficient use of freezer space than lots of little containers.

I had a hankering last night for eggs on toast, but lacked the bread, so I cheated on my cold-oven experimenting and made a loaf I knew would turn out.

Voilà, cheesy swirl:
Nom nom nom.

Speedy no-knead bread: I begin to doubt

One nice thing about the "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" version of no-knead dough is the quantity. If you want to do some experimenting with your baking method, you don't have to make a fresh batch of dough every time.

After yesterday's oops, I'm trying again with parmesan bread. I folded shredded parmesan into the middle and mashed some onto the top (it doesn't like to stick). Today I'm letting it do a two-hour rise on the counter before baking. I'll try the cold-oven method again. It's in a smaller pot, too. (Hadn't run the dishwasher.)

If I wanted to be all scientific about it, I wouldn't change the variables by adding cheese and changing the pot, but I'm not America's Test Kitchen or Cooking for Engineers. I like to live on the edge.

Boy, doesn't this look yummy?
Except ...

Yes, it was burned to a black crisp on the bottom and stuck to the pot. I had to rip it out of there. The bread tasted fine, but this is not acceptable. I baked it for half an hour covered and 15 minutes uncovered.

More testing ahead. I really want to make the cold-oven method work, as it is much more energy-efficient than pre-heating.

I just caught up on responding to comments from the last few days. If you left one, and saw no answer, I wasn't ignoring you!

Back to no-knead bread, speedier version

It's bread-baking weather again, after a long hot summer of not wanting to turn the oven on. I mixed up a batch of no-knead dough last night.
To recap, it's 6.5 cups of flour, 1.5 Tbs yeast, 1.5 Tbs salt, and 3 cups of water. I dissolve the yeast and salt in the water before mixing it into the flour (picture at left). Let it sit on the counter for a couple of hours, then put it in the fridge at least overnight, where it will continue to rise. The right-hand photo is from this morning; you can see how it has expanded. The dough will keep in the fridge for a week and continue to develop character.
Now, the original recipes, both Lahey's and Hertzberg's, call for shaping the dough and letting it rest for a couple of hours, then baking it in a 450-degree preheated oven. But Bittman's column the other day had a letter from a reader who, pressed for time, didn't do a second rise and didn't preheat the oven. The dough was shaped and plopped into a cold pot in a cold oven. The reader turned the oven to 450, baked for half an hour covered and half an hour uncovered. So that's what I'm trying today. Let's see how it comes out.

OK, it's an hour later and here's lesson No. 1: Don't get busy with weeding and fail to check the bread. Half an hour with the lid off is way too long:
The crumb is also not so lofty, though it tastes all right.
I'm going to try this again tomorrow and keep a closer eye on it. But I suspect that the two-hour rise on the counter before baking is needed if you want an airier loaf. On the other hand, starting with a cold pot and oven does still yield a crispy crust, so that may be a good energy-saver.

Bittman's Minimalist column also links to a different speedy version and even a whole-grain version, using rye and cornmeal. If you like whole-grain breads, you might give that a try. I'm a philistine and prefer white.

For previous versions of no-knead bread (with Nutella! with cheese!) click on the "Bread" tag below.

Less muffin, more bread

Yesterday it was 80. Warm enough for one daring gal to go backless on her scooter.

Today? Snow. Yes, snow again. Though it didn't stick, and turned into rain by 9. Good for the garden, but too damn cold. I don't think we even got up to 40 today.

Good day to crank up the oven again for another loaf, this time parmesan. I rolled it up with shredded cheese inside, then put more on top. Shared some with the cow-orkers and ate the rest myself.

I'm still not tired of it

Dough ...

... Bread!
The spicy sesame sprinkle on top is awesome with some wheat bran and a little sea salt. Five minutes of work to make this bread, no lie. The recipe is here.

Transformation

It's been a weird two days. Yesterday, 80 degrees. Really nice out. Lots of stuff blooming. Like these white flowers:
I should know what these are. Do you?

Also, trees are blooming. Pink pink pink!
Again, what is it? No idea. But pretty.

So. 80 degrees yesterday. Today? This:
Yes, that would be snow on those grape hyacinths.

And snow on those tulips.
Seemed like a good morning to do something like turning this:
Into this:
And in other exciting news, a transformation that's happening more slowly:
Another amaryllis bud. This one from a bulb I neglected to force into dormancy last summer, and which I assumed would not flower this year. Lo and behold!

Tried and true

I'm in the posting doldrums right now. Got a bunch of stuff keeping me busy but it's not really stuff to share with the world at large. So you get pictures of the dog. And candy. And spring flowers. Which are nice in their own way.

This daffodil is blooming in my yard right now. I can enjoy it through the window today, as we've gone back to the 30s and it's all cloudy. I used to laugh at people here who would complain about one or two cloudy days. Now I'm one of them.

And then there's the bread. Always with the bread, no matter the weather. The Nutella and the bread. Which in this case came together very nicely. We've got swirl, people!

We may not have sunshine but at least there's chocolate.

What can't you put in this bread?

I had some thin-sliced Italian dry salami, so chopped some up and threw it in with grated cheddar to make a small round loaf just for me.

The cow-orkers want to know when I'll make it for them.

On a roll

I'm getting the hang of this Nutella loaf thing. Spreading the dough out into a bigger rectangle and using about half a small jar of Nutella gets it closer to what I envisioned.

Cow-orkers, of course, say Thumbs Up!

Nutella bites

I'm sure you've on pins and needles (ahem) since my mystery post. No, I'm not mainlining Nutella. It's a substance best administered orally, and I wanted to see if I could improve my delivery system by creating Nutella bites: little nuggets of dough filled with the stuff and baked like monkey bread.

Here's the result:
Looks pretty good, doesn't it? BUT.
When I cut it open (photo on the left), I found that I really wasn't able to get that much Nutella inside using a poultry injector. (Which I suspected; it was not easy squeezing the plunger!) For comparison, I also filled some dough balls by spreading them out, spooning a big dollop of Nutella on and wrapping the dough around it. (Photo on the right.)

That proved more successful:
Still, the Nutella ends up mostly near the edges rather than the center. I'm not sure how to remedy that. Maybe I can't. Do you have any ideas?

I ate the whole plate yesterday (in the interest of quality testing, of course), then lapsed into a carb- and chocolate-induced coma. Ah, the prices we pay in search of perfection.