Food, Wine and Preserves: BREAD - Everyday Blessings

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

BREAD - Everyday Blessings

I come from the place where friends and family are welcomed to a new place with bread and salt - an old Eastern European tradition. It just seems natural then to start this blog with a bread recipe. It’s very simple and delicious if you like the bread with rich texture and crust. It is definitely my favorite bread. I bake several loaves at once that last me a month or so. I keep them in the freezer and thaw one or half loaf at a time. It doesn’t take long to make it and the making is simple - no kneading required.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb - unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp - salt
1-1/2 tsp - dry active yeast
1-1/3 cup of water

Optional:

1/4 cup - flax seeds, or
1/4 cup - sunflower seeds

DIRECTIONS:

1. Mix flour, salt and dry yeast in a big bowl (note the yeast are not prepared separately). If you choose to add the seeds this is the time to do that too.

2. Add water and mix with a large spoon. As the dough becomes sticky and heavy you can place it on the board and kneed, but I just pick, fold and press with the large wooden spoon in the bowl for about 5 minutes or until the dough becomes smooth.

3. Preheat the oven to the lowest temperature (in my oven it is 175F) and turn it off. Leave the dough in the bowl, cover the bowl with a cotton cloth towel and place it in the oven to raise (make sure the oven is turned OFF… we want to raise the dough not to burn the house down). Leave the dough in the oven until it rises and doubles the size. It usually takes 1 to 1-½ hour.

4. Prepare the flat pan: grease with oil and sprinkle with flour. Shake the excess flour out. You can use a flat cookie sheet for the round or oval shape bread or a rectangular one to have slices more consistent in size.

5. Preheat the oven to 425F and bake for 40-45 min.

6. Let it cool for 2-3 hours, slice, eat fresh or freeze. I love it fresh, dipped in olive oil, but it also makes any sandwich a true delight.

From Josephine's Kitchen

I never really liked to cook. Meals that don’t require heat are ok, but as soon as the recipe calls for the heat… it is a prescription for a disaster in my kitchen. The burden of extensive watching of the pots on the stove seems just like too much. I look away and the next thing you know things are burned. So I thought, there must be an easier way. And there is; recipes have to be simple and quick to make. I only love it if it doesn’t take long time to make it, and the making is simple. That is my motto for the cooking. I like to cook with genuine, natural, preferable organic ingredients. Back to the basics can be healthy and delicious. I do believe that our health is a reflection of what we eat. Cooking healthy is quite simple: using genuine ingredients instead of processed food is the key. I have a simple formula when I read the ingredients on the box: if it doesn’t sound like food - it isn’t, so don’t eat it.
- Josephine