I have a friend, a young woman who is a student where I work,
who was telling me she would like to learn to make bread.
So I invited her to come to my house for a bread-making
lesson and a simple dinner.
On Sat. I made the dinner. Cream of Pistachio Soup
and for dessert, Pomegranate Ice Cream.
Nichelle came out about 1pm on Sun. and we started on the
first batch of bread - One-Rise Tuscan Bread. It's one of
my favorite recipes but I haven't made it in a while. I
especially like it for breadsticks.
With half the dough we made a dozen breadsticks and
then divided the remainder for 2 small round loaves.
It turned out well, except that I screwed up. I'm not
used to having someone in the kitchen with me so I was
distracted and forgot to cut the slits in the tops of
the loaves and to spray the bread with water for a nice
crunchy crust. When I checked on them when they were
almost done I remembered and sprayed them at the last
minute. They were still good but would have looked
better if I had slit the tops and the crust would have
been a little better if I had sprayed at the beginning.
Oh, well. Still really good and much better that what
she is used to.
After we made the dough for the Tuscan bread we made a
batch of Irish Oatmeal Bread. My normal recipe just uses
white flour but I decided to add part whole wheat. These
loafs were baked in loaf pans. The top is brushed with
an egg yolk/water mixture before being put in the oven.
At least I remembered to do it this time.
Our dinner was very good. The Cream of Pistachio Soup
was a new recipe and turned out very good. The Pomegranate
Ice Cream was excellent also.
I had also tried a new Horchata recipe using mostly rice
with a few almonds in it. (Previously I have only made
the almond version.) I decided to make this because
Nichelle says she like rice milk, so I thought she would
love horchata. It turned out a little thick with the
pureed rice pulp. It needed to be strained better. But
the flavor was good. It had cinnamon and vanilla in it.
I don't think I'll do the rice version again. The almond
version is much better.
All-in-all we had a great time. While we waited for the
bread doughs to rise I showed her my pictures from my
vacation to Vermont last fall which I finally could afford
to have processed just recently.
I gave Nichelle half the bread to take home to share with
her family. I've been finishing off the soup and bread
sticks the last couple of days. I should have made a
double recipe of the soup as it will be all gone after
tonight and I really, really like it. Bummer.
Kate
--
Kate Connally
“If I were as old as I feel, I’d be dead already.”
Goldfish: “The wholesome snack that smiles back,
Until you bite their heads off.”
What if the hokey pokey really *is* what it's all about?
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