I seriously love to snack. Snacks that crunch are the most satisfying- and though I should, I don’t really opt for crunchy snacks straight from the ground. Thus the snack is usually what tempts me into the middle of the store where (as M. Pollan observed) the food is less food like and always lives in boxes and bags. Two counts against The Snack from my tally of what I feel I should buy and eat. Enter popcorn, popped on the stove! No clunky appliance that only does one thing (boo), nor “popcorn lung“, nor any magnetron radiation (what?!)

Heavy tallish pot with a lid, Canola Oil to pop, sprinkled with tamari, nutritional yeast, and salt. Done! Yum!

When I first started popping corn on the stove I measured the oil, put in a few kernels to test when the oil was hot then poured in a measured amount of corn. Now I just put it all in a once without measuring. I just leave it until it’s done, sometimes a shake or two if I’m feeling ansy.

Pretty much all foods are better homemade than from a package. There are some foods however whose packaged versions are almost unrecognizable to the home-cooked version. This is true for the tortilla. In this case, the corn tortilla.

Using just masa harina (versus fresh masa) and water makes a very forgiving dough that can be pressed and cooked in a few minutes.

I haven’t yet acquired a tortilla press, and honestly wouldn’t have room for one, so I just used parchment paper and a small cast iron skillet. This makes a thicker tortilla, but I enjoy their toothy-ness and it’s honestly easier to pile on toppings.

The only thing to keep in mind with the dough is to keep it covered with a damp cloth while working since you don’t want it drying out.

I grew up eating a lot of corn bread.* My mom has always made a hearty version in a ceramic baking pan. In my simple kitchen I use the cast iron skillet for as many things as possible, which works well for this, since corn bread seems to love a hot skillet in which to bake.

Corn bread is still something I am trying to get right. I’ve made corn bread a number of times and with butter and honey (or also molasses and peanut butter as some enjoy) it’s great, but on it’s own it is pretty dry. I used Alice Waters’ recipe for this one and added flax meal. Next I will try using sourdough starter and see if that improves things. I don’t think I want it cakier, but I know it would be better with more moisture.

*(Post Mother’s Day update: apparently we ate a lot of cornbread because we ate a lot of beans. My parents are vegetarians and my mother did her homework on how to feed a family without meat. This is done most successfully by understanding the concept of amino acids and the combination of low-quality or less complete proteins to create high quality, full, or complete proteins. Eating corn with beans was one way to do this. See this page, from Dimensions of Food, for the lowdown and note that two of the references for this page are the books my mom used to create her complete proteins meals, Diet for a Small Planet and Laurel’s Kitchen)

                          

So I went for other more affordable parts of the bulk section putting together dream cereal.

I used this recipe as a guide, but my ingredients are different, as it should be. I thought it might turn out too sticky or oily or clumpy- but it was just right- one more thing I normally buy packaged that I will now make myself.

First mixed the grains, nuts, seeds only:

This includes 3c oats, chopped almonds, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, sunflower seeds. These are mixed with 1/4 c of canola oil and a 1/2 c of honey. (The tip is to do the oil first, sloshing it around in the cup, coating the sides, before pouring into the mixture- then measure out the honey in the same cup and it all slides out easily, no sticking at all- genius.)

Then toasted brown and very fragrant (too fragrant to resist!)

this one shows the toasty-ness better:

Then mix in the fruit. This is a good process- some recipes cook the fruit, but it’s already dried and additional heat just makes it tougher, so I hear. I used raisins (cheap) and dried apples (a homemade gift- thanks Martha and David!)

Continue to mix gently as it cools so it doesn’t clump.

Enjoyed with some raw milk and fine reading material!

Mark Bittman with the NYT minimalist blog, which I do love, has a cute granola video- with a similar hippie identity dilemma- check it out, but note, he doesn’t use the genius oil then honey trick!

                          

I don’t have a good dedicated baking book (Baking Illustrated takes the cake (har har), and is on my list of cookbooks once I get an income again) so I started with Joy of Cooking, usually a pretty standard place to start. My jewel cookbook is The Art of Simple Cooking by the great Alice Waters. She has written an exceedingly helpful and comprehensive resource for just the type of cooking I want to be second nature; simple, fresh, versatile, and completely delicious. She limits her treatment of bread however. She explains that she is not a baker and has access to better baked good than she could produce- I can only imagine she means place like the Cheese Board, Acme, and Semi Freddy which, delightfully, I have access to a well (though only geographically anyway, not monetarily). She has a fine recipe for foccacia and pizza and other more quick breads and desserts.

So back to the Joy of Cooking it is. The most straightforward recipe is for “White Bread”, which doesn’t sound so appealing- but it’s what I had.

I have bulk yeast so I first had to figure out how much yeast is in a “packet”, since that’s so standard. 2- 1/4 teaspoons.

I also looked into flax meal, which I had on hand. I wanted to something to boost the texture, flavor, and all around wholesomeness, since I had only all purpose flour and some whole wheat pastry.

So I got to mixing the first ingredients, I added less sugar than called for (I added under 1 tbsp) and then stopped at salt- 1 tbsp!?!? That just seemed really excessive. I checked other bread recipes online with their ratio of salt to flour- and most used only 1-1/2 tsp, so I went with that.

I scalded 1c of milk. Here’s another place I stopped. We are lucky enough to be able to buy raw milk, and we love it. It’s the most expensive item in our grocery list, but so worth it. All that life helping my belly process stuff and the taste is unbeatable- we decided if we couldn’t afford to buy it raw, we won’t buy it at all. So, why use this special product in cooking- cooking it defeats the purpose of the extra expense. I did it anyway, but it’s something I need to think about. I’d like to just use buttermilk (keeps so well, and I love it) or water if possible.

With the wet yeast mixture I added about 5 cups of a all purpose/whole wheat pastry mixture and about 3/4 cup flax meal. Since it’s usually an egg or oil sub, I wasn’t really sure about the result of using it like another type of flour. I definitely added another cup or so of the WW pastry in the kneading process.

As I was mixing the dough I was worried it would end up too light, given the daintiness of my flours and the addition of the flax (homemade bread always seems like it should be dense and filling). But the dough took on a nice heaviness and elasticity in the kneading, so I decided not to worry.

(credit to mom on the handmade towel, and note the oven is off for the rising)

I misread the instructions a bit and let the whole thing rise to double twice and then put it into two loaves, at which point I wasn’t sure if I should let them double again or just bake them. So I left them in the slightly warmed oven (I had started to pre-heat and bake and then changed my mind) covered for about twenty minutes.

In skimming the different recipes out there, it seemed there was some debate about pre-heating. I decided I would take a chance, since I was now getting impatient, and just put the loaves in while the oven got hot and let them bake from there. I did follow the JoC instructions to cook at 450 for 10 mins, then lower to 350.

I put in a little pyrex dish of water to help the crust harden, but after more research, I think a bigger pan of hot water does a better job.

It seemed to work out okay and they were certainly dense. A little bland I guess but a nice, very homey texture.

(this is one of the two)

I’ll continue to try some different approaches, in fact I think next time I will try this one. I like the idea of having a ready to go starter to bake as needed, ensuring no waste and convenience for the next few batches (and apparently you can freeze yeast dough,which I have never been sure about). I used to listen to the Splendid Table program weekly before I moved (not sure when/if we get it here in Berkeley, and the recipes and discussion is worthwhile-though I am always a little put off by the sponsorship by Super-Target)

The bread joined this swordfish and chard/maitake dinner…and went on to many more.