Passion for food while maintaining compassion for all living things.
Our last day! After seven days of constant, all-day bread baking marathon, my freezer is stocked for the rest of the summer and I feel like I have gotten my clogs wet with techniques. I’m so happy we were able to negotiate an independent study. I’ve always wanted to learn more about bread and doing […]
Good ole’ swirly bread. Apparently my desire to learn the breads of my childhood does NOT impress my classically trained chef-instructor who has a passion for the natural fermentation process. I am excited about cultivating yeast and making artisan bread, but a well-rounded bread intensive would not be complete without some marble rye and cinnamon […]
Quite the variety! Today we learned the ins and outs of sticky buns. Basically they are pretty easy but sticky and full of sugar. Lots of sugar. We used a yeasted dough which definitely put it ahead of Cinnabon refined processed crap. We made a schmear, which is basically melted butter, brown sugar and honey. […]
The spread. Since it was a Monday and there was no “day before” to do pre-ferments, today’s breads were active dry yeast days. Not so much artisan but tasty nonetheless. We had flatbreads on our bread wishlist (along with 39 other breads), so our Chef took liberties with our desire to do Naan and made […]
Today was the last day of the week. We perfected our brioche technique and made chasson with the remaining puff pastry dough. Chasson is basically a sweet turnover. We used round fluted cutters and then rolled them into oblong shapes, filled it with apricots and blueberries, egg-washed the edges of one side and folded over […]
Golden Raisin-walnut bread, whole wheat croissant, 5 grain levain, brioche loaf, puff with goat cheese and heirloom tomatoes. Today was amazingly productive. I think I now have some insight into the world of a baker. And I enjoy it, so it must be a good sign. Lots of multi-tasking. Yesterday, we made our pre-ferments for […]
This week I have started a special bread intensive class at school. I know, I know, I graduated Culinary School last month. But there is still more to learn! I am not interested in taking the desserts and breads program (please, baking with endless eggs and butter? not my style) but I get so excited […]
The tempeh story: Once upon a time there was a girl who thought tempeh came from a magical place and underwent a laborious process in which fairies danced and chanting was necessary for the tempeh to be produced and brought to market. This girl revered her tempeh for its nutritional content, tastiness and versatility. She […]
My first relationship with soy was the obvious soymilk on my cereal, then tofu. I don’t think I knew what tempeh was, even after my mom brought home some store tempeh called “fakin bakin” which was not like bacon, but fun. I didn’t understand it well enough to embrace it and bought it rarely because […]
I chilled a bottle of kombucha after 5 days in the bottle and it’s perfect! Crisp, full of bubbles and muy refrescante. Matt likes it so much that we’ve already drank the whole batch and another one is brewing. I can’t handle the carbonation in soda but this is a different sort of bubbles. Happy […]