A most excellent lunch, reheated for breakfast

Quesadillas are one of those dishes that you probably don't want to admit you love.  Here's a dish with no foodie cred that Rick Bayless cringes when he sees on a menu, but come on now, who doesn't love flour tortillas, melted cheese and grilled chicken?  Seriously, come clean, you love them, you know you do.

So I went to lunch yesterday with three of my coworkers - a special treat because normally I lunch alone and we tried a Mexican/Salvadoran restaurant that I've seen many times but never went into.  The food on everyone else's tables looked great, fresh and tasty but everything looked so huge I thought I'd order something small like a quesadilla.  Ha!  When it came, the thing was the size of a hubcap!  I could hardly lift the box it came in.  To top it off I ordered a pupusa, a Salvadoran treat that looks like a pancake but is actually a masa cake filled with cheese cooked on a griddle.  Wow!  Supermegadelicious.

All that being said, I made my way through the pupusa and about a quarter of the quesadilla before I threw in the towel.  I brought the rest of it home and amazingly it survived the night and was still there this morning, begging for me to eat it for breakfast.  Twenty minutes in a 350 degree oven and I had a toasty little meal that left me full, well, for the whole day.  I haven't eaten lunch yet and its 3:00 pm.  I love it.  

Why I quit blogging and why I've decided to give it another shot

Pictures.

That's it in a word.  I don't have a good camera and I won't be buying one any time soon so I've allowed myself to be intimidated by the glorious photos I see on so many other food blogs.

Bread.

There's a second word.  I originally started this blog to talk about baking but I just haven't been doing too much of it lately.  I love bread but nobody else in my family does so I end up baking and eating too much then throwing out the rest.  Not a good thing in an economy where wasting food is really a crime.

So I've changed my mind about how I'm going to blog going forward.  I'm taking the pressure off myself and if I get a good picture, well, that's a bonus.  And I'm going to blog about cooking of all types, not just baking.

I'm free.

I think...

Today's word - speed

I'm really struggling with whether or not I can recommend this recipe but I will give it one thing - speed. Normally, I am a slow girl. Seriously, I like to plan ahead with my baking and give my doughs a lot of time to rise and develop flavor. This recipe is the opposite of slow. You mix and torture the dough then bake it within a few hours of when you start.

I'd say this bread is not bad when hot out of the oven but it doesn't keep. If you have unexpected guests and want to get bread done quickly to go with a meal, go for it. Otherwise, if your expectations are low, you won't be disappointed.

Two Hour French Bread

1/2 cup warm water
2 Tbsp yeast (2 packages)
3 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp salt
1/3 cup oil
2 cups very hot tap water
6 cups flour

Dissolve yeast and sugar in 1/2 cup water. In a large bowl, combine salt, oil, and 2 cups hot water. Mix in three cups flour. Add the yeast mixture. Mix in remaining 3 cups flour. Stir down every 10 minutes for 5 times (keep bowl covered with a towel in between so it doesn't dry out). Shape. Raise until double. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Makes 2 loaves french bread

In a Word - Comfort

I've decided to participate in National Blog Posting Month again and this time, I'm determined I will post every single day in March. This month's theme is "In a Word" in which you select a different word each day and blog about it. So for me, the word today is comfort.

Most people's comfort food reminds them of their childhood but my mother wasn't much of a cook when I was a kid so my only real food memories are of things I'd probably rather not think about (like ham, onion and sour cream casserole - dear god! what a disaster!) I'm not sure where I developed my love of Tex-Mex but for me, when I really crave something comforting, food-wise, this is where I go.

With all that's been happening professionally in the past few weeks, I've gone to the chili salad well more than once but this time I finally took a picture. Its a pretty simple thing - romaine, avocado, tomato, chili of some variety, cheddar, salsa and sour cream, plus a few tortilla chips for crunch. You can make it fancy if you want to but you really don't need to - this one has Tostitos and store bought chipotle salsa rather than homemade tortilla wedges and fresh pico de gallo. And it is still delicious.

Back so soon? My first post in a year...

I can't believe its been a whole year but what a year it has been! I won't offer any lame excuses except to say it has been a roller coaster ride that hopefully is drawing to a close.

In the spirit of getting back on the horse, I want to offer a recipe that we made the other night as a main course for Meatless Monday. The hubby and kids are NOT happy about my desire to be meatless, even for one meal, but they grudgingly ate this and three of us at least actually enjoyed it. It is based on a recipe from Real Simple but I made some tweaks, which I've indicated below. Next time I make it I'll use either sweet potato or pumpkin instead of the butternut squash, though, and if I make it for a non-vegetarian meal some chicken-apple sausage might be a nice addition as well.

Butternut Squash Bread Pudding

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for the baking dish
2 medium onions, chopped (I used one)
1-1/2 pounds butternut squash (about half a medium squash)—peeled, seeded, and cut into 1⁄2-inch pieces
kosher salt and black pepper (I added a lot more salt than the directions indicate below and it still needed salt when we ate it)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
6 large eggs
2 cups whole milk (I used 1%)
3/4 pound soft French or Italian bread, cut into 1-inch pieces (about 7 1⁄2 cups)(I actually just eyeballed the baking dish I was using and cut up enough bread to fill it)
1/2 pound Gruyère, grated (2 cups)(I didn’t want to use up all my good Gruyere so I used about ½ a cup of it and the rest was grated Swiss from the grocery store)

Heat oven to 375° F. Oil a 2 ½- to 3-quart baking dish.
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring frequently, until beginning to soften, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the squash, season with ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper, and cook, tossing frequently, until just tender, 8 to 10 minutes more. Stir in the sage. Let cool for 10 minutes.
In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper. Add the bread, cheese, and squash mixture and toss to coat. (I actually used less bread than they suggest so I poured the mixture into the baking dish and let the milk and egg mixture really sink it for about 15 minutes)
Transfer to the prepared baking dish and bake until golden brown and set, 55 to 60 minutes.

I wish I had taken a picture because it was gorgeous - golden brown and puffed. Oh well, maybe next time. Because there will be a next time and I will post about it, I promise.

My New Yahoogroup - Baking Savory and Sweet

I guess I just got sick of hearing my own voice complain about how there weren't any Yahoogroups for baking so I started one myself. Its called Baking Savory and Sweet and the address is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bakingsavoryandsweet. We have quite a few members already and have had a mini flame war so that makes it all official.

I have begun referring to myself as a "moderatrix," which sounds far more interesting and dangerous than moderator. One of my listies conjured up an image of a baker in black leather whipping her dough into submission which I really like.

So now I'm a list owner. Onward to complete world domination...

A new crop of bread books just in time for my birthday

I'll admit it readily - I am a cookbook junkie. I don't often cook things from the cookbooks I own (case in point - The French Laundry Cookbook - gastroporn at its finest but not something you'd actually want to cook from) but I read them like novels and drool over the pictures. I recently freecycled a couple of boxes of cookbooks I knew I'd never look at again and, even though I am not a packrat in the rest of my life, I will admit to a pang or two when this lot left my house. Thankfully, two long awaited bread books have come to take their place.

Anyone who knows me knows my complete obsession with no-knead bread, particularly the version introduced by Mark Bittman of the New York Times and Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery. Since I first discovered this bread four or so years ago I have baked hundreds of loaves and taught the technique to more people than I can even count. Imagine my excitement when I read that Jim Lahey had published a book called "My Bread." I decided to give myself a birthday present and buy the book (along with "Healthy Breads in Five Minutes a Day" - more about that later).

My friends, it is everything I hoped for and more. This is a guy who is serious about his bread and it shows in every aspect of this book, particularly the obsessively concise directions and the "food as still life" photography. Since I'm the obsessive type myself, this book spoke to me loud and clear.

Some of the recipes sound so fantastic I can hardly wait for the weekend to bake, particularly fennel-raisin bread (candied fennel stalks combined with fennel juice, Pernod and golden raisins - I'm in heaven), carrot bread (carrot juice instead of water) and the various pizzas. My hubs and kids are a little bit over the whole homemade pizza every Friday night thing but this week they have no choice. How could you not want to make (and eat!) cauliflower pizza or fennel pizza or Pizza Bianca?

Now, on to the other book. I really enjoyed "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day," the first book from the authors, Hertzberg and Francois. The brioche in particular was spectacularly good and I like the idea of making a large quantity of dough and baking it to order over the course of two weeks.

What they've done with this book is use the same technique with various whole grain and even gluten free breads. I didn't expect to get quite as jazzed as I was for Jim Lahey's (they are a wee bit less serious) but I found myself getting pretty excited. I'm thinking brown rice bread or oatmeal date bread sound good as my first breads from this book.

Its going to be a busy weekend.