Save some Green--Make some Dough!

Save some green--Make some dough!  You can not only save money, by baking fresh bread with real, organic ingredients you can cut down the use of pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides not to mention the fuel it takes to deliver commerially made bread to the store.  Think of how honey melts on warm, homemade bread and the fact that you won't have a ton of plastic bread bags (which can't be recycled in most areas)hanging around.

People tend to think that baking bread is time consuming, difficult. and messy.  Well if you can do more than one thing in 12-18 hours then this bread is the bread for you.  No Knead Bread is sooooo easy.  Mix it up at night before you go to bed and let it rise through to morning.  ( I like to bake bread on Saturdays).  While I'm having my cup of coffee and breakfast the bread rises for a couple more hours.....then I toss it in the dutch oven and WHALLA!  BREAD!  Here is a great recipe......or check out the books above (click to find them on Amazon).  Here's to eating healthy organic homemade food this year! 


No-Knead Bread
14-20 hours rising + 2 hour

3 cups all purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
1/4 teaspoon yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 Cup Water

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast, and salt. Add 1 and 1/2 cups water, and stir until blended.  Dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap.  Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18 hours, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees (F).

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles.  Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice.  Cover loosely (with flour sac fabric or plastic wrap).  Let rest for about 15 minutes.

3.  Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to the work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape the dough into a ball.  Coat a cotten towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran, or cornmeal.  Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours.  When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4.  At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees.  Put a 6-9 quart heavy covered pot  (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex, or ceramic) in oven as it heats.  When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven.  Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is ok.  Shake pan once or twice if dough is uneven.  It will straighten out as it bakes.  Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 minutes until loaf is brown on top.  Cool on rack.

Yield :  One 1 1/2 lb loaf 

Recipe by Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery