I think I’ve mentioned a time or ten that bread is a big hit in our household… pretty much any kind of bread. I came across this recipe a while back… and tried to make it a couple of weekends ago but ran short on time. Friday afternoon I came home and started it before anything else. From thought to table in under 2 hrs? This is my kind of bread!

You mix just five ingredients in a bowl for 60 seconds and turn it out into a prepared baking pan. Let it rise for about an hour then dimple it with your knuckles, drizzle on some olive oil, sprinkle on the seasonings and bake it.

After about 30-40 minutes you’ve got a nicely baked pan of focaccia… and a fantastic smelling house :) Let it cool for a few minutes in the baking pan then turn out onto a wire rack. Either serve warm or cool to room temperature…. it’ll taste delicious either way.

For the full recipe so that you can see for yourself just how easy this bread is, click here. It’s m’mmm sooooo good!!

Have a delicious day :)

Another day… another bread-product. Are ya gettin tired of the bread items here lately? Are ya havin withdrawls and missing the sugar stuff? Hmmmm…. well, I’m not! I’m having loads of fun making breads right now. And if you’re one who’s sitting there saying “wow, gorgeous loaf of bread but I could *never* make it” trust me when I say you are sooooooo wrong. This is pretty much fool-proof. It is by far, without a doubt, most definitely, 100% completely and honestly the most simple bread recipe I’ve ever come across… and it produces beautiful results.

If you’re not familiar with Mark Bittman, I encourage you to check him out. He adapted the recipe from Jim Lahey at the Sullivan Street Bakery. There’s only four ingredients… flour, yeast, salt and water… and honestly, the ingredients do all the work. Okay, yeah, I know, my picture only shows three… it’ll be hard, I realize it, but try… try and fight the urge to sue me ;-)

Combine, stir, cover and let it rest for 12-18 hours (mine rested for 21 cuz low-and-behold life keeps happening even when the dough is just, yanno, like kickin’ back, resting). At that point mine looked like this

Turn it out, shape it and let that poor exhausted dough rest a few minutes more

Shape it into a ball, let it rise for 2 more hours and get ready to bake it. I used a 6qt enamel-on-cast-iron dutch oven which was pretty much the perfect size.

And when it’s all done you’ve got some amazingly tasty bread for pretty much doin no work at all =)

I’ve shown you how easy this is… now your homework assignment is to make your own and leave a comment about the experience. Or leave me a comment about something else… but really, you gotta make this bread especially if you think you can’t make bread. Trust me, you can.

Click HERE for the full recipe for No-Knead Bread.

Have a delicious day!

Hmmm… two bread-product entries in a row. Wonder if I’m trying to detox a bit from all the sugar-based items I made In July ;-) Don’t get me wrong… my love of the sugar food group is unwavering. In fact, just yesterday I was at a fabulous little restaurant for a meeting and enjoyed the most decadently delicious slice of lemon cake. When I got home I told DH that we *must* go there together since it’s hard to savor food when it’s being consumed in a business meeting. Okay, at least for me it is – I mean having to think and talk and be witty, charming, professional, engaging… AND enjoy my food? Way too much going on – almost like brain overload! hahahaha. So for the moment I’m making breads… and these garlic knots are so good they need to land squarely at the top of your MUST MAKE THESE list.

These Garlic Knots may look really impressive… but they’re not hard at all. In fact, most of the breads I make aren’t hard since I don’t have a whole lot of patience for all the resting and proofing and waiting that some breads call for. Always keep in mind that I’m definitely a lazy baker so very few things I blog about are uber-labor-intensive (Daring Baker recipes excluded of course! LOL).

I found this recipe on the King Arthur Flour site and made some changes because, well, to be honest, I just didn’t have all the ingredients. But they still came out incredibly good and my family devoured them in record time. It’s Friday… time for the weekend… make these… and since there are no official holidays in August pour yourself a glass of bubbly… and make up your own reason to celebrate ;-)

Garlic Knots
Adapted from King Arthur Flour’s Soft Garlic Knots

Ingredients

{yawn} I am so tired. Burning the candle at both ends… operating on less than 4hrs sleep/night for far too long… mega-pressure at work… Daring Bakers challenges… Tuesdays With Dorie recipes… Weight Watcher Wednesday recipes… husband… stepkids… family… earthquakes… yup, my life is downright stressful right now. I enjoy most of the things that keep me so busy I don’t have time to sleep (emphasis on the word “most”) but last night I came home and just felt like comfort food. Being burned out and too lazy to really make much of anything, I decided on buttermilk biscuits. These are quick, easy, go from thought-to-table in about 30 minutes and best of all they taste incredible (like ya spent all day on em! LOL)

The earthquake we had here in Southern California earlier this week was rather interesting. It’s the first sizeable one we’ve had since I moved back to this area 5 years ago. I’m grateful for the moderate-quakes… the ones around 4.5-5.5… yes grateful because I believe it alleviates tension/pressure/stress along the fault lines and perhaps keeps us from having “The Big One” (like > 7.2) anytime soon. I wish something would alleviate my tension/pressure/stress ;-) haha! Not likely, I know. When the earthquake hit, DH tells me he was backing out of the garage and thought he had a flat tire… so he pulled back into the garage but the motion didn’t stop. That’s when he realized “earthquake!”. Me? I was in the dentist’s chair – nice… not! At least I was just sitting there, relaxed, watching TV, all bibb’d-up and waiting for him to come in but you know those chairs… just breathing makes them rock and roll. When the earthquake hit, I watched the street lamps, traffic signals and telephone poles outside just swaying like big ol palm trees… except trees they are not… they’re made of metal and wood and not meant to sway! LOL. I could hear people gasping and ducking for cover… while I just sat there, riding it out. Pretty darn proud of myself for keeping my cool… but really, where was I gonna go and what was the point of going anywhere if nothing was falling, breaking, shattering around me. Eh, such is life in Southern California :) Like I said, I believe these moderate quakes relieve tension/stres/pressure… kinda like how these buttermilk biscuits relieved some of mine :)

One of the things I like best about this recipe is it involves no yeast… meaning there’s no waiting for the dough to rise. Makes it rather quick, that’s for sure! I also like that they’re baked in a cast iron skillet. I love my cast iron cookware. I’ve previously showed off one of my pans in this post and probably waxed poetic about them in other entries, too. Growing up, my mom had two very very old cast-iron skillets… I hated them with a passion because, well, first off they were old… and second off they were ridiculously heavy (hey, I was like 10 and how many 10 year olds have an appreciation for anything old! LOL… and I was like 10 so of course those things felt heavy as can be! LOL… did I mention I was like 10? hehehe). Mom got them from her mom… guess it was a nice family thing… and I was kinda expecting to get them from my mom one day since my sister isn’t into cooking. Last Christmas mom surprised me with a set of my own… square skillet, round skillet, mini skillet… and then I added a scone/cornbread pan and some other enamel-on-cast iron pieces too. I can’t really explain it but cooking with cast iron that just makes me feel good :)

The recipe for these biscuits can be found here on AllRecipes.com and I’ve made them more times than I can count. The ingredient list is pretty short… flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, shortening, butter and buttermilk. I’ve made them by hand… but last night I took advantage of my new food processor and used it. Easy breezy, lemme tell ya. Though I have decided that the preparation time-savings realized with my food processor is pretty much in direct proportion to the extra amount of time required to clean that bad boy after using it. Holy crap does it take some time for me to clean it. But hey, I’m not complaining because I do love it beyond words :) :)

Mix the ingredients, drop by spoonful or scoopful into a skillet and let em bake for about 15-20 minutes… your whole house smells wonderful in the process… and slather ‘em in a bit of butter or honey or honey butter or jelly or whatever floats your boat. But these are good… and very easy. Make some… your tummy (and your family!) will thank you

Have a delicious day!