In which I buy bread
Feb. 20th, 2009 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceIs it feeble of me to duck it, or would it have been ridiculous to bake bread simply to make breadcrumbs...?
I have, as it were, an emergency dinner party tonight. Right now, mid-afternoon, bread is rising (for bread, you understand); stew is stewing (for stew); vegetables are roasting (for soup); potatoes are boiling (for mash). Apples are waiting to be peeled (for apple cake). The vacuum is waiting to be pushed around a bit (for cleanliness, showing willing, gestures towards). The table is waiting to be cleared (for eating thereoff).
But I wanted to make an olive crust for the stew (beef in sherry, since you ask: with carrots, onions, fennel, mushrooms, herbs & stock, but mostly beef in sherry), and I had no bread. So I was planning to bake a second loaf. Only it would actually have been a third loaf, as I was planning to bake ciabatta as well as granary, give the little darlings a choice; and - well, I ducked it. I bought a bread for the breadcrumbs for the crust.
And am quite remarkably discontented with myself. I shall be apologising for it all night now.
I have, as it were, an emergency dinner party tonight. Right now, mid-afternoon, bread is rising (for bread, you understand); stew is stewing (for stew); vegetables are roasting (for soup); potatoes are boiling (for mash). Apples are waiting to be peeled (for apple cake). The vacuum is waiting to be pushed around a bit (for cleanliness, showing willing, gestures towards). The table is waiting to be cleared (for eating thereoff).
But I wanted to make an olive crust for the stew (beef in sherry, since you ask: with carrots, onions, fennel, mushrooms, herbs & stock, but mostly beef in sherry), and I had no bread. So I was planning to bake a second loaf. Only it would actually have been a third loaf, as I was planning to bake ciabatta as well as granary, give the little darlings a choice; and - well, I ducked it. I bought a bread for the breadcrumbs for the crust.
And am quite remarkably discontented with myself. I shall be apologising for it all night now.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 03:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 04:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 04:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 05:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 05:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 05:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 07:10 pm (UTC)I revel in my utter laziness (except it's a 10 minute walk each way to the outlet, so maybe not so lazy...hrm.)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 07:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 03:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 04:06 pm (UTC)Make breadcrumbs. Fry same in olive oil, till crispy. Chop up pitted black olives (or probably green, but I've only ever used black: today they are marinated in their own oil and herbes de provence, which also goes into the crust) and mix into the breadcrumbs. Layer same over top of stew and slip back into the oven for half an hour, as though making cassoulet. Or crumble. That's it. And it's really, really nice...
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 04:10 pm (UTC)Do you think we could get away with a SFF writers' cookbook?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 04:14 pm (UTC)Hell, yes! Do it!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 04:43 pm (UTC)*goes away muttering and thinking*
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 04:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 05:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 05:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 05:41 pm (UTC)/me checks Abebooks: yes: "Serve It Forth".
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 05:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 04:13 pm (UTC)You don't think this might be construed as showing off?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 05:06 pm (UTC)bread crumbs
Date: 2009-02-20 04:23 pm (UTC)Re: cooking, though I enjoy it, I've always tended more to the "life is too short to stuff a mushroom" attitude. Viva shortcuts -- and short-crust pastry made by somebody else, I say.
Re: bread crumbs
Date: 2009-02-20 05:06 pm (UTC)And I seldom use shortcuts, and I am still working on my pastry. (It's my sore point, my weak point; I can do okay pastry in a machine, but that is blatantly cheating. Rubbing it in by hand? Not so much. Must practise more, but that's hard when you know you don't do it well...)
Re: bread crumbs
Date: 2009-02-20 05:24 pm (UTC)I'm sure the boys would be interested in grated fat.
Re: bread crumbs
Date: 2009-02-20 05:53 pm (UTC)(The little Barry-beast got both raw and sizzled bacon for lunch today: the raw because I dropped a bit - does everybody else drop stuff, all the time, for ever? or do I have a disease, is it dropsy? - and was just too slow to prevent him; the sizzled because I was too confident that he wouldn't really snatch it right off my plate, not my Bazza, no...)
However, if we could abide the boys' desires - yup, I think I might try this. Thank you!
Re: bread crumbs
Date: 2009-02-21 12:46 am (UTC)She always used a third each of butter, hard marge and lard. Angels aspire to her expertise with pastry.
Grated Cheddar included when making a end-of-the-month butter bean and root veg pie is another Good Thing. That was always a treat: I didn't realise it was extra-cheap food for years and years.
Re: bread crumbs
Date: 2009-02-21 09:13 am (UTC)My mother's also: but Mum always did it by hand, that clever rubbing-in thing, with a casual toss of the fingers and lo! 'Twas done; which is no doubt where I get my perverted sense of What Is Right in pastry-making.
She has handed the torch on to my sister, alas, but not to me...
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 04:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 05:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 05:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 05:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 06:04 pm (UTC)Olive crust? Is there no end to your sybaritic compulsions?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 06:59 pm (UTC)Dunno. I'm still lookin'.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-20 07:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-21 08:37 pm (UTC)Meanwhile, drool (I've mentally removed the meat from the stew to fit with my dietary requirements).
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-22 04:11 pm (UTC)Also - it all sounds delicious!