Sunday, October 4, 2009

Bread, Beets and Fresh Butter


First off, I have been baking bread for years. It is something I can say that I am good at. There have been weeks when I did not make bread because I did not have the 12 to 18 hours to make the sponge. Today I was blown away by a recipe. Last week I made bread from Noshtalgia, No Knead to Thank Me
bread. I made the white bread and it was good. Today I made the No Knead French Bread. Delicious. Nice crust. The texture was amazing for the time it took to make from start to finish. I see no need to buy French bread. I got 2 loaves out of the recipe, froze one and we ate half of the other loaf before 4pm.

The only change I made was that instead of sugar I used honey.


No Knead French Bread
1 pkg. dry yeast
1 1/2 c. warm water
1 tbsp. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. soft shortening
4 c. sifted all purpose flour

Measure flour into bowl, add water, then yeast. Let yeast dissolve thoroughly. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Let set 10 minutes, then cut through dough with a wooden spoon. Do this 5 times at 10 minute intervals. Turn dough out on floured board and divide in half. Let rest for 10 minutes, then roll each ball into a loaf. Make several diagonal slashes across each loaf. Let rise double. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

So there was a football game on today and I made some stuff to eat while watching the game.

I had never made beets before. I have opened a can or two but never handled a fresh beet. I was at Stew Leonard's yesterday and picked up a couple. My friend Heidi told me how to prepare them and gave me an idea on how to serve them.

My hands turned red! I was peeling the beets and noticed this... Anyway I peeled the beets and sliced them about 1/8 inch thick. Tossed them in olive oil and placed them on a cookie sheet in a single layer, sprinkled them with salt and roasted them at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Next I toasted some of that French bread under the broiler. Spread some fresh butter that Heidi got me at the farmer's market she goes to and them topped that with some beet slices. I sprinkled the beet slices with some oregano (that addition was from my sister). My husband loved them!

Also used some of the bread for some Tomato and Fresh Mozzarella Brushetta.

Also put out some Vegetable chips and Sausage stuffed bread, both from Stew Leonard's.



2 comments:

Kim said...

Looks like a great bread recipe!!

BumbleVee said...

ohhhhhhh yummy breads... I just began baking with yeast in early '08.... try the Tuscan Bread on my site some day... easy peasy and very tasty....

my first loaves of basic white bread only took 3 hours total. I was blown away because I used to think it took so long to do breads.... silly me...