five minute bread
from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
(makes four 1-pound loaves)

3 cups lukewarm water (110 degrees)
1 1/2 tbsp granulated yeast (2 packets) (instant yeast preferred)
1 1/2 tbsp kosher or other coarse salt
6 1/2 cups (27.6 oz) unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour, measured with the scoop and sweep method (see below)
cornmeal for pizza peel or rimless baking tray

I prefer to mix the bread in my KitchenAid stand mixer and then put the finished dough in a lidded dough container.

Add yeast and salt to the water in a 5 quart bowl, or preferably, in a resealable, lidded (not airtight) plastic container or food grade bucket. Don’t worry about getting all the yeast to dissolve.

When measuring out your flour, scoop out a cup and use a knife to scrape the excess off the top. Because you’re using so many cups of flour, a little error on each cup adds up to big difference in the end, so do take care in this. If you have a kitchen scale, you can just measure out 27.6 ounces of flour.

Mix in the flour all at once with a wooden spoon, a high capacity food processor with dough hook, or a heavy duty stand mixer fitted with the dough hook until the mixture is uniform. Do not knead the bread. You’re finished when everything is uniformly moist without dry patches.

Cover with a lid (not airtight and allow to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse or at least flattens on top, approximately 2 hours, depending on the room’s temperature and the initial temperature of the water. You can let it rise up to 5 hours without ruining the dough.

You can use the dough at this point, although it’s far easier to work with the dough after it has been refrigerated for a couple of hours. The first time you try making this bread, let it sit in the fridge for at least 3 hours so it can firm up a bit.

On baking day:

Sprinkle a pizza peel or unrimmed baking sheet with cornmeal. Cover the dough with a thin layer of flour and pull and cut off a grapefruit-sized piece of dough using a serrated knife. Hold the mass of dough in your hands and add a little more flour as needed so that it won’t stick to your hands. Shape the dough into a ball as quickly as possible and rest on the cornmeal covered peel. This process should not take more than 30 seconds.

Let the loaf rest on the peel for about 40 minutes.

Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450 degrees with a baking stone placed on the middle rack. Place an empty broiler tray for holding water on any other shelf that won’t interfere with the rising bread.

Dust the bread with flour and cut several 1/4-inch-deep slashes on the top with a serrated knife.

After a 20 minute preheat, you’re ready to bake, even though your oven won’t be up to temperature. Run the tap water so that it gets hot. Slide the loaf onto the preheated baking stone. Quickly add 1 cup of hot tap water to the broiler tray and close the oven door to trap the steam.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until the crust is nicely browned and firm to the touch. The inside will stay moist even though the outside is browning. Allow to cool completely, preferably on a wire cooling rack. The crust may soften, but it will firm up again when cooled.

Store the remaining dough in the fridge in your lidded (not airtight) container and use over the next 14 days, repeating the “On baking day” steps from above.

Have you read this yet? If you haven’t, you’ll wonder where in the world I come up with recipes like this!

Moving to California, I had no idea the culinary changes in store for me. Pot stickers? Artichokes? Chow mien? Beef BBQ  with a sweet red sauce??? Pot stickers and artichokes are fine, but the beef BBQ was downright disappointing. Southern pork BBQ is spicy and tangy and usually served with coleslaw and, if done right, it makes you melt a bit inside. When we lived in Raleigh, my parents would often drive 40 miles to this hole-in-the-wall BBQ restaurant to buy loads of southern pork BBQ and we would eat it for weeks.

I’ve been living in California for 14 years now and I still refuse to eat California BBQ. When we bought our pig this past spring, I set aside a shoulder roast just so I could make some REAL BBQ sandwiches for my family. I tweaked the recipe I was working from and the end result was everything BBQ should be.

Note: many people find the smell of this cooking a bit overwhelming, so you may want to put your crock-pot outside. I called around while it was cooking asking, “How do I know when it’s done?” because the internal temperature suggested it was fully cooked but the meat was still tough. Both mom and my hubby suggested to just keep cooking it, so I did, and I see now that when it’s done, you’ll know for sure that it’s done because that meat will be tender and flaky and you should be able to pull it apart with two forks. If you have to ask, it’s not done.

southern pulled pork
www.allrecipes.com

1 (5 pound) bone-in pork shoulder roast
1 tbsp salt
ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp hot pepper sauce
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

Place the pork shoulder into a slow cooker and season with salt and pepper. Pour the vinegar around the pork. Cover and cook on low for 12 hours or on high for 4-6 hours. Pork should easily pull apart into strands when done.

Remove the pork from the slow cooker and discard any bones. Strain out the liquid and save 2 cups. Discard any extra. Shred the pork using tongs or two forks and return to the slow cooker. Stir the brown sugar, hot pepper sauce, cayenne pepper, and red pepper flakes into the reserved sauce.

Mix into the shredded meat in the slow cooker. Cover and keep on warm until serving.

Serve on a bun. If you’re a coleslaw fan, add coleslaw to the bun as well!

holy guacamole
www.lesliesarna.com

3 ripe avocados
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tomatoes, chopped
a handful of cilantro, chopped (about 1/4 cup chopped)
1 tbsp lime juice
1/4 tsp salt (if you’re eating these with chips, check to see how salty the chips are before adding more salt)

Mash the avocado in a medium sized bowl with a fork. Add in the rest of the ingredients, stir, and then season to taste with additional salsa, cilantro, lime, or salt. Serve this with the avocado pits to keep your guacamole from browning.