Bread

I borrowed a book about bread making from the library last week & have been busy trying some of the recipes.  The family is just about full up now!  Some of the recipes contain more salt than I would have expected so will alter them for next time, & yes there will be lots more next times.  You can make the dough & leave it overnight in the fridge to rise as long as you allow it to fully reach room temperature before using it.  I did, & it was a tasty loaf.  In fact I can see that it is fully possible to make bread by hand during a busy week, just needs a bit of forethought, ie planning!  The Anorak is a committed supermarket white sliced type but even he conceded that tonights baguette was quite good!  Not as "heavy" as previous attempts but he still likes the one I make the dough for in the bread maker.  Oh dear.  That baguette is good but not as light as tonights offering.  Partly because it contains porridge oats & partly because a breadmaker can only mix ,not knead, the dough!!
We used tonights bread to mop up the gravy from a chicken cassoulet based on a good old M & S recipe from the 1980's not in any particular order: Chicken breasts, chopped sausage, tin of baked beans, onion, garlic, dry white wine, chicken stock.  The sausage happened to be an Asda special from last summer found in the freezer, pork & sweet chilli, I thought I'd get it by the Anorak in a casserole but he decided it was too spicy for him.  Yet he'll eat prawns dipped in  sweet chilli sauce?
I made another pair of baguettes tonight from half wholemeal, half white bread flour & they too have risen nicely, having used the remainder of the starter dough from earlier.  Tomorrows lunch.   I also dug out the yoghurt maker yesterday & made some using semi skimmed long life milk.  I've never had much success using anything less than full fat before & this didn't look like it was going to be any better but I decided to strain it & make cream cheese.  8 hours later & the cat is demanding the cheese (no chance) it is gorgeous on this fresh bread, & I just used some of the whey to make up fruit scones & they are nice & light.  Morning break me thinks tomorrow!  Soon I'll be back to overweight if I'm not careful!!