Recipe/Remedy

I'm fighting off the tail end of a cold, that stage where you're all congested and just can't seem to clear your lungs. So I figured I'd whip up a home remedy that is also dinner. Simple, easy, and effective. Black beans and corn.

Parmesan oregano bread

This is a very tasty bread that's rich enough to eat by itself, rather than as a substrate for some more flavourful substance. It also smells wonderful:

• 300 mL water
• 50 mL sugar
• 15 mL oregano
• 250 mL grated parmesan (or romano)
• 5 mL salt
• 750 mL white flour
• 20 mL olive oil
• 10 mL yeast

I brought this to our neutron star discussion group and it was a hit. 

Honey oatmeal bread

I think this is my favourite bread machine recipe so far; light and fluffy, a little sweet, and very tasty.

Multigrain bread

My second attempt at a multigrain bread in my newly-borrowed bread machine.

Ingredients:

• 250 mL water
• 15 mL olive oil
• 15 mL sunflower seeds
• 15 mL flax seeds
• 15 mL pumpkin seeds
• 15 mL quinoa
• 15 mL millet
• 5 mL salt
• 325 mL bread flour
• 250 mL whole wheat flour
• 30 mL honey
• 10 mL yeast

Incidentally I need to get more containers for all this flour. It used to be something I bought the smallest possible bags of because I never finished it, but with this bread machine I go through a lot.

(That odd-looking lump on the loaf above is a piece of dough that didn't get properly mixed in. This happens from time to time with this bread machine; it actually pauses during the mixing and beeps at you to give you a chance to push any such lumps back into the mix, but I wasn't paying attention to this loaf. Most loaves don't need this extra attention.)

Bread machine

I'm not a great cook; I usually don't have the energy to cook anything interesting, so I tend to fall back to the very simple. (Plus Montreal has zillions of great restaurants, so it doesn't take much excuse to make me go out to eat.) But fresh bread is delicious, so when I visited my parents and they had a bread machine scavenged from the kerb, I was happy to give it a try. I was impressed, but felt like I would probably use it for a little while and then it would sit cluttering up my kitchen. So when some friends mentioned that they had a bread machine they weren't using, I asked if I could borrow it.

I figure, they used it a lot for a month, then got bored of the bread and put it in storage. If I use it for a month and then get bored, well, maybe they'll find someone else to lend it to afterwards. And maybe after a while they'll have a craving for bread again; seems like a fine solution. (Of course, bakeries are a perfectly fine solution too, and indeed I do like to buy a nice Première Moisson baguette from time to time.)

What sold me on a bread machine was not the fine bread it could make — though I did have some nice loaves — but how easy it was to make bread. Now I can have put off going to the grocery store for far too long, so there's no longer anything perishable in the house, but toss five ingredients in the machine, hit a button, and lo and behold, fresh bread:

• 250 mL water
• 60 mL olive oil
• 15 mL sugar
• 5 mL salt
• 750 mL flour
• 8 mL yeast

This uses the "basic" program and produces a medium-size loaf.

There's even a "French" bread recipe that works if I'm out of oil:

• 250 mL water
• 60 mL sugar
• 8 mL salt
• 750 mL flour
• 8 mL yeast

This uses the "French" program, which kneads more and lets it rise longer, and produces a chewier bread with larger bubbles. Since all bread machine loaves are approximately cubical, this doesn't much resemble a baguette (not that that's the only kind of French bread), but it's still pretty good bread.

The biggest problem with the machine is that it takes three hours to make the bread, and about half an hour before the bread is ready it starts smelling delicious.

Ghetto apple crumble

I made a surprisingly successful apple crumble today. Apple crumble, as you may know, is basically apples with sugar and cinnamon, with a topping of butter, flour, oatmeal, and sugar, all in about equal quantities. Almost idiot-proof. So why "surprisingly successful"? Well, my oven died halfway through (in fact after preheating but before the crumble went in). It turns out you can microwave an apple crumble and it's fine. Who knew?

Recipe below.

Filling:

• Five apples, peeled and diced. Granny Smith are good for a bit of tartness to balance the sweet crumble. (Peeling is technically optional but the peel makes for an awkward texture.)
• 5 mL cinnamon.
• 100 mL sugar.
• a little butter.

Crumble:

• 125 mL brown sugar (white will do fine).
• 125 mL rolled oats.
• 125 mL flour.
• 100 mL butter.
• a mL or two of vanilla.
  

Put the apples in a deep baking dish, sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon on top and shake a bit; scrape a little butter on top.

In a bowl, add the crumble ingredients. In the likely case that the butter is hard, microwave it for a few seconds to soften it up. Mix the ingredients together; you should get a crumbly mass. Pack it in on top of the filling.

Microwave on 50% for fifteen to twenty minutes; when it's ready the top layer will have sunk somewhat because the apples will have softened. As it cools the crumble on top will harden somewhat.

Serve hot or cold. Particularly good with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.