white apples . a blog

#BBA Bread No. 3: Bagels - Boil 'em, Bake 'em, and Love 'em

I love bagels.  I do.  But I never ever aspired to make them from scratch.  It's just so simple and convenient to pop down to the local bagel mart, where await a staggering variety of delicious little specimens.  Why make them?  And how on earth would you even go about making a bagel?  Well, thanks to the BBA Challenge, I now know exactly how on earth and exactly why.  The how involves a yeast starter with high gluten flour (for the dense chewiness, of course), a good half an hour of kneading, some proofing, an overnight rest in the refrigerator, a quick little bath in boiling water, and trip into a very, very hot oven.

snug as a bug

Juniper is a snuggler.  She likes to sleep squooshed up against a person.  She wriggles into me at every napping opportunity.  Otherwise, she will settle for a blanket.  You'll notice in this picture she is wrapped up in no less than three different suffocation hazards - playmat, large Winnie-the-Pooh blanket, and tiny much-loved blankie (from Ciuccio).  If she had her way, she would have a fourth blanket or stuffed animal (or person) pressed up against her face blocking any and all oxygen passages.  And because I was a good pregnant mama who went to all the classes and read all the books and talked to all the doctors, I have been inundated with information about SIDS and accidental suffocations and all of those too-terrible-to-think-about things that we like to tell paranoid new parents.  So Juni only gets to sleep like this while closely supervised.  Otherwise, she faces a barren, yet highly safe, crib environment completely lacking in any snuggle devices.  

green monster

Juniper was neither here nor there with sweet potatoes.  I don't know why.  I thought they were delicious.  In need of butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon (and, let's be honest, bourbon), but still delicious.  She must be a California girl, because she was over the moon with the avocado puree.  She couldn't get enough.  She stretched forward in her highchair, reaching for the bowl with grubby, guac-smeared hands.  Giggles of delight ensued.  I guess she's a West Coast kid.  Before you know it, she'll be putting pears and arugula on flatbread and calling it "pizza".

petite gourmet

Surely the transition from an all-liquid diet to "solid" foods is a momentous occasion, particularly in a household that revolves around the question, "What's for dinner?"  Juniper has been completely enthralled with watching us eat.  She sits in her highchair and studies each movement of fork and spoon and glass.  And she has a ravenous appetite - one that is putting a serious strain on the milk inventory.  Milk seems to be less of a supply-and-demand thing these days and more of a diminishing returns model.  We're working on it.  Meanwhile, we began the journey into solid foods a week and a half ago, just shy of her five-month mark.

#BBA Bread No. 2: Artos - It's a Celebration!

The second recipe in our Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge is Artos, or Greek Celebration bread.  This bread is one huge, poofy ball of fragrant deliciousness.  The irresistible aroma is due to a nice mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and citrus.  I made the Christmas or "Christopsomos" variation of the bread, which includes golden raisins, cranberries, and walnuts.  Traditionally, this variation has a cross pattern with swirly, decorative edges (as seen in this yummy photo from our Flickr group).  I skipped this fanciness because I thought, at the time, that the curlicues were a bit much and I was, admittedly, a bit intimidated at the thought of getting all decorative with my dough.  Fancy notwithstanding, this bread was large and lovely!

five months or time is a brisk wind...

...for each hour it brings something new.  On Thursday, Juniper turned five months old.  She has changed so much in the last month, it's hard to remember all of the new things that she's learning.  Here are some snippets from a five-month-old Juni:

• Every once in a while, she will emit a joyful, high-pitched screech for no other apparent reason than the fact that her happiness has overflowed.
• Her silly giggle fits are much longer and easier to provoke - with kisses, tickles, phantom-tickle-fingers.
• She is thoroughly capable of rolling over and will, on a rare occasion, actually accomplish the task completely on her own, albeit with the panicked expression of a person throwing themselves into the abyss.  Most of the time, she gets about 85% of the way through the roll maneuver and then chickens out. 
• She is requiring less and less support while sitting and can even sit up by herself for a few moments before slowly toppling over.
• She is much more grabby.  She will grab anything that enters her perimeter - faces, jewelry, hair, dirty public restroom surfaces (argh!).
• She is so incredibly in interested in the world.  There's nothing like a baby seeing things for the first time to remind us how completely lovely the world is.  

back to reality

Four and a half months flies when you're having fun.  Gone are those long, lazy days filled with tummy time and drool and Itsy Bitsy Spider.  No more morning naps with Juniper.  No afternoon outings or walks around the neighborhood.  This Momma is back at work. 

#BBA Bread No. 1: Anadama - a dama good bread

 

The first recipe in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge is Anadama Bread (yes, we will be bread-baking our way through the alphabet).  Honestly, I didn't have high hopes for this one.  As my first loaf bread in years, it had the potential for disaster.  And what on earth is Anadama Bread?  Some sort of spare, stodgy New England creation consisting of cornmeal mush and molasses, its name a corruption of one husband's exasperated curse, "Anna, damn her!"  Pilgrim resourcefulness with a hint of misogyny.  Yum.

a gluten for punishment

 

This is Peter Reinhart's chunky, beautiful bread-baking tome, The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  How cute is the girl on the cover?  I love that she is hugging a massive round of crusty bread.  I want to do that every time I smell freshly baked bread.  Everyone knows that I am a chocoholic, that I have an insatiable sweet tooth.  But what you may not know is that, at the end of the day, I would choose bread every time.  If I was stranded on a deserted island and had my choice of one type of food to eat for the rest of my life (what? that doesn't happen?), it would be a good crusty sourdough and a nice sharp cheese.  I adore bread.  I crave it.  I devour it.