chloe's "french" bread

Recently, I made a trip over to our friend Chloe's house in Jamaica Plain because she said we could bake bread. She bakes things at an inn, and as such is Very Good At It. Not only did she help me bake bread, she also made amazing lasagna and tiramisu. Sooooo yummy.

I only participated in the bread adventure, however, and Chloe was so kind as to mail me the recipe afterwards! The further cooking adventures of Sarah Elisabeth and Chloe will be the subject of a future post, but for now, here is the recipe:
What?! you can't read it? Don't be silly. My office PDF maker is the perfect way to show you the recipe!


OK. Fine. Here is my faithful rewriting:

To: Sarah E Morton

Smart Women squeeze lettuce {"French" Bread} from: Chloe

(1) 2T (=2 packets) dry yeast
1/2 c warm water
1 T sugar

soften yeast and set aside
~~~~~~~~~~~~
(2) 1 T sugar
1 T salt
2 T oil
3 c flour
2 c very warm water

Combine ingredient
"stir good"
2-3 min
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(3) 3 (more) c of flour - add yeast mixture to
flour mixture - add in these last 3 c. flour

(4) Stir until all ingredients are mixed
(5) Let rest for 10 min then punch or poke down
(6) REPEAT 5 TIMES
(7) Divide Dough in half
(8) Roll each part out + roll up like a jelly roll
*Preheat oven to 400 degrees
(9) let loaves rise for 30 min
(10) cut slashes on top (+ brush w/ melted butter --optional)
(11) BAKE 25 min
(12) Rub butter over tops of loaves
{ Enjoy for all
{ Hygge occasions!

Scandinavian languages are great. So is Chloe's "french" bread. She even let me take home a loaf.

get a farm share with stone soup farm!

OK y'all. our friend Jarrett Man has started a fabulous new farm called Stone Soup farm out in Belchertown, Mass. The farm will have a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) component where a weekly delivery of the harvest will be made in return for your financial support of the farm.

This is Jarrett:

I know Jarrett and his farming skills well, and I have nothing but the utmost faith in him and his farm. I'll definitely be signing up for a full share to share with my roommates (a full share easily feeds three and can really feed four with no problem). If you're at all interested, check out the sign-up sheet at: http://stonesoupfarm.googlepages.com/CSASignupform2008take5alllocations.pdf (it's a .pdf) or you can learn more about the farm in general at http://stonesoupfarm.googlepages.com

The food will be fresh, local, and grown without chemicals. If you've had a tomato from a local farm, you'll never be able to eat one from the supermarket again. it's the same with carrots. The vegetables just taste completely different.

Snazzy farm logo:

To top it all off, you'll try things you've never had before, and you'll eat things that you wouldn't think to buy.

Financially, it's a great deal, at least if you eat a lot of vegetables. I pretty much eliminated my food bills from June until November last year. and if you split your farm share three ways, even paying on the higher end ($500) of the sliding scale, it's still less then $200 for an entire season of vegetables - and it's enough vegetables that except for some rice and pasta, and maybe some protein, you don't have to really have anything else!

The pick-ups in Boston will be in Harvard Square and near South Station. There's also one out in Leominster or Lunenburg or somewhere like that, and plenty more opportunities out in W. Mass. If you have questions - email Jarrett at stonesoupfarm@gmail.com (tell him Sarah sent you) or you can get in touch with me - but I might not have an answer :)

I really can't recommend this enough. really!

butternut squash & sweet potato soup (vegan)

I have had a bowl full of butternut squashes on the counter for awhile now - ever since mi- december when the last farm share drop-off happened. They were starting to get moldy and rotten in some places, and I decided it was time to take action.

I took them all out of the bowl, tossed the rotten ones, and cut off the bad piece of the only partly gone ones. Then I seeded them and peeled what was left with our new peeler (hallelujah!!) and cubed it up. I ended up with probably about 3-4 cups of cubed butternut squash. I also have a lot of sweet potatoes left - although those are doing much better. I got out 4 of those, peeled them, and cubed them up too. Then I diced an onion (actually half an onion and two big farm share shallots) and about 4 cloves of farm-share garlic. I tossed all of that (squash, potatoes, onions, garlic) into a big soup pot.

Then I got out a box of Imagine No-Chicken broth and dumped that in there.

It didn't quite cover, so I filled the Imagine box with water, shook it up and poured in water until it covered everything in the pot. I turned on the burner, gave it a quick stir, and covered it.
Thinking better of it, I uncovered the pot about 5 minutes in and let it simmer on medium heat for about 40 minutes - stirring every once in awhile, but mostly watching TV.

When the veggies were nice and soft (poking with a fork yielded no resistance) I took out my hand blender and blended the soup nice and smooth. I added a little salt and some pepper during this process as well.

Overall, the soup came out pretty well. It tasted a little too "chicken-y" for my taste. I think next time I might add more water and less broth, maybe put some celery in with the veggies, and stir in some soy yogurt at the end to give it some creamy depth. I also wonder if I'd sauteed the onions and garlic in some oil first, if that would have made a difference.

On the plus side, this soup had a much more liquid feel to it than a lot of the blended soups I've made. I think it's because it has no beans - but it's a nice change! I'll post pictures of the finished product next time I heat some up!

superbowl dip

We had a superbowl party, and in its honor I made a big casserole dish full of many-layer dip. This is pretty infinitely modifiable.

Preheat the oven to about 350 degrees F.

in a casserole dish of some kind:

spread one can of vegetarian refried beans across the bottom

spread a jar of salsa over the beans

tear two corn tortillas into pieces and spread evenly over the salsa

spread a large container of premade guacamole over the salsa

sprinkle a bag of shredded cheese (sharp cheddar is good) over the guac

spread a can of black beans over the cheese

tear two more corn torillas and spread them over the beans

spread a container of sour cream over the tortillas

chop one large tomato and spread over the sour cream

spread another layer of refried beans over the tomatoes

sprinkle another bag of shredded cheese over the top

put it in the oven for about 45 minutes.

take it out and let it stand for about 5-10 minutes so that it solidifies either dip chips right into the dip or use a spatula/cake server to but hunks of dip on plates for mobile chip dipping


This recipe is infinitely modifiable. I think this version could use more cheese maybe more salsa, maybe less sour cream. more black beans and a layer of mango salsa would change it up completely.

Another option is to add the guacamole and sour cream after it has cooked or put them in separate containers. I like them in it though.