An Announcement and a Consolation Prize (Spoiler Alert: the Prize is Sourdough)

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Hi, friends! Yes, I'm still alive and no, I'm probably not going to start this blog back up – I just don't have time anymore, what with my full-time job, my budding freelance writing career, and the novel(s?) I'm trying to write while I continue to try to get my second memoir published. If you can believe it, that's only like 60% of what I have going on right now. 

But I'm not here to participate in the glorification of busy! To be honest, nobody should be as busy as I am. I wouldn't choose this life if there weren't so many things I can't resist getting involved in. What I am here to do is fill you in on a change in the FeedBurner tool that allowed some of you to get these new posts in your email inboxes. That feature is going away, so even if/when I do write the odd Linzers post you won't get an email about it after August 15th.

So what can you do about it? Well, you can check in here via the blog's homepage, but frankly I doubt I'll post again – maybe once a year or so, if at all. If you want to hear from me, and you weren't just in it for the recipes (which, fair enough if you were), you can subscribe to my newsletter: A Few Good Things. It's a lot about writing, a little about reading, and all about nontoxic positivity.

Battling My Sweet-Yeasted-Dough Demons: Paul Hollywood's Brioche

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For some reason, every time I decide to make something sweet that's yeast-based, whether it's challah or gooey butter cake, the elements contrive to work against me and the thing turns out to be a huge flop.  I end up nervously hovering over my dough, waiting for it to double while I curse the rain and wish I had ever seen what doubled dough should look like so I could be sure I'd recognize it when it happened.  And usually I give up and bung it in the oven after waiting an hour past the recommended time, and usually that ends up being a mistake and I can only guess that my dough was under-proved... I don't have this problem with savory breads (but maybe it's just that it's less noticeable when they're a bit under-proved, and they're just a bit denser which isn't such a big deal in my book), but the sweet doughs always seem to elude me.

So I'm not sure why, when Bloomsbury asked me to test a recipe from Paul Hollywood's new book, How to Bake, I chose brioche.  It's everything I'm crap at: a sweet dough, with more ingredients than your average bread, and a recipe that requires planning, patience, and 2 days to babysit your kitchen.  And yet, somehow, once I saw the photo of that fluffy, gorgeous, golden crown of deliciousness, I just couldn't get it out of my head.

On Compromise: Budgeting and Backup Banana Bread

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Life has been a wee bit stressful lately.  I picked up more work and was finally able to break away (hey, better late than never!) from the financial help my parents were giving me when I was in school, but it wasn't until I got my first amended paycheck, post-tax-gouge, that I realized just how much of a cut my monthly budget had taken.  I have to admit, it knocked the wind out of me, and it's taken me a good month or so to begin to think I'm capable of managing.

But I am capable, and I will manage, and it feels so good being completely responsible for my own finances, and completely independent, that I don't think I could go back, even if my parents had a windfall and suddenly wanted to throw money at me like there was no tomorrow.  I love the sense of pride I get from earning my own keep, and if the trade-off for that is a much tighter budget and a restricted social life, so be it.  Everybody makes sacrifices and compromises in this world, and as long as I can afford to stay in my lovely flat and spend time with my lovely boyfriend and bake delicious comfort foods, then I'm doing pretty well I think.

A First Time for Everything: 2-Hour Whole Wheat Bagels

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I've always wanted to make bagels, but every time I thought I was up for it I either balked at all the steps or had a yeasted-things-disaster just before I was planning to make them and got too intimidated.  It seems like such a process: all that kneading and rising, then more rising and resting, then the shaping, and to top it all off they have to be boiled before they're baked??  WTF.

 

But then, last weekend, I found myself with nothing interesting to do (the bf was off with his study buddy) and some extra whole wheat flour on my hands (not literally, that part comes later), and I came across this recipe for bagels in two hours.  Yes, two hours, start to finish!  It seemed too good to be true, but I was bored and I figured I'd give it a shot.

Simply delicious: grilled cheese and tomato soup

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I talk a lot about simplicity on this blog.  Simple cakes, simple candies that turn out not so simple, simple...cakes.  But there are deliciously simple savory ideas out there too, and when it comes time for me to make dinner, this is where I rock.  Pan-fried chicken breast in olive oil with asparagus or broccollini?  Yes, please, and don't skimp on the salt.

Last week I decided that I would make dinner, since the bf has been cooking a lot lately and I wanted to cut him a break.  Okay, maybe I just wanted to control the dish-making for once – don't judge me.  Either way, I was struck with a wonderful idea: we had fresh tomato soup in the fridge, and suddenly all I wanted to eat it with was a grilled cheese sandwich.

Falling Into Spring: Pumpkin Spice Bread

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It's definitely Spring here in London.  The trees are blooming, the sun is shining more often than not, and the birds on the canal are having adorable, fluffy babies:

And how am I celebrating this glorious breaking of Winter?  Well, I'm sneezing a lot... and numbing myself with bucketsful of Benadryl... and baking pumpkin bread.

Educating the Europeans: Buttermilk Cornbread

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Last weekend, I found myself with leftover buttermilk.  Again.  You see, it was Pancake Day a couple of weeks ago, and over here in the UK they take their food-related holidays extremely seriously.  I didn't even know what Pancake Day was until I moved here, but I kid you not, by Tuesday morning all the stores I checked (about 5) were out of maple syrup– that's how serious they are.  Anyway. any holiday about eating something delicious, especially if it involves breakfast for dinner, is a holiday I'm on board with, so we bought buttermilk and whipped up some tasty buttermilk pancakes.  But alas, we only used about 1/3 of the carton.  What to do?* 

 

Last-Minute Dessert, Anyone?

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What do you do when you've invited a friend over for lunch, but you forget to plan a menu?  Well, soup is always a good start... especially if it's this delicious pozole:

Other good things to have: an organic grocery store within ten minutes' walk of your flat, which, if you're lucky, will have fresh wheat bread on sale; a head of organic lettuce from your weekly veg box; the most amazing salad dressing in the world, imported from the good old US of A; and Greek yogurt.  For making a lemon yogurt cake!  Oh, and a nice servant boy is always good to have on hand as well.

A healthier comfort food: Whole Wheat Sunflower Seed Bread from Joy the Baker

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I can't even go there with you on how bad these pictures are.  All I can do is apologize for baking this bread at night, and then promptly consuming (with the bf's help, of course) the entire loaf before having a chance to photograph a slice in daylight.

 
 I'm so ashamed.

Resolution time.

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In December, I always think: I'll start off the new year with a bang!  I'll leap out of the gate and get myself organized, gym-going and writing and tidying up a storm.

And inevitably, in January, I'm in a panic, still trying to catch up with leftover work or errands from December, mired in frustration (and often self-pity), wishing I could throw it all away and start fresh again next year.

Can you guess what's coming?

The Idiot Baker (or maybe just a shlimazel)

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It started so innocently.  A naive shiksa baker with a lotta chutzpah, a missed slice of challah at a friend's recent wedding, a craving, a dream...

But then it that dream turned to drek.

First came a strange, knead-less recipe that, while it seemed to work well for Rebecca, and while it made a pretty braid on the cold cookie sheet:

nonetheless led to a dense, bloblike 'loaf.'  Not exactly a mitzvah.  Although we did eat it all.

Next, I decided to really roll up my sleeves and get to work.  So I went back to a long-ago bookmarked recipe for a gorgeous challah from Deb.  I figured it would be complicated, but I told myself it was worth the extra effort to get it right.  I didn't have to be such a schlemiel, I just needed to focus.

Homemade bread on an hour's notice? For serious!

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Do you ever just think: "I really feel like baking bread today," but feel like there's too much effort and time required?  That was me a couple weeks ago.  I didn't really have time to deal with a couple of long risings, and I didn't have an appropriate loaf pan for a quickbread.  So I set out on the hunt for a recipe that would allow me to have bread and butter in my mouth within the hour, and wouldn't require any equipment besides a baking sheet, a bowl, and these two lazy hands of mine.

Success IS possible!

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I just wanted to share that, despite my earlier failures, I'm not a total flop in the kitchen.  Yesterday, unable to look any longer at the bananas blackening rapidly on the kitchen dresser, I fell back on an old favorite.  And it did not disappoint! 

It’s Easter! Wait, It’s June Already? Crap.

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So, back in April, when Easter actually occurred, I was at home in San Francisco.  I had the baking bug real bad, and so I begged my mom to let me take care of the main dish for breakfast, as well provide the something sweet: a newfangled invention I’d just discovered called Monkey Bread, which basically means cinnamon-sugar-butter-biscuitiness.  Trust.  OMG.

How on earth could I miss such a sweet, little succulent recipe?!

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You have my sincerest apologies for the graininess of these pics...  vacay photography was sorely lacking.

It can't be true.  It simply cannot be that I have never shared my famous banana bread recipe with you!  How could I possibly have missed the opportunity to post the recipe that made me the baker I am today (on a good day)?!

My banana bread is what I was known for in high school.  It's better than anyone else's, including yours.  Sorry, but it's true.  And in high school, before my parents began the insane remodel that has consumed all our lives for the past 10 years (I kid you not), we had an amazing old gas stove/oven from the 50's, which used to make the tops of the loaves all chewy and sticky.  Heaven.  God, I miss that stove.

The antidote to a meltdown: pumpkin pie bread!

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Last week, I made up my very own recipe for the first time!  Oh, yeah, I've fiddled with recipes before, adding deliciousness or subbing when necessary, but I'd never just straight-up made up a recipe!  It was a very exciting moment for me.

How much more could I POSSIBLY love bread?!

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Tons more, as it turns out.  Who knew that making bread myself would make it taste that much sweeter?  Or, saltier, if we're talking about my sea-salt-crusted preference.  Anyway, I'm sure it has less to do with the hard work than with the delectable smell of baking bread, which makes my stomach growl and my boyfriend harass until the loaf comes out of the oven and we inevitably ignore the instruction to let it cool completely before slicing.  Whether we're missing out on something by slicing too early, I'll never know, because I doubt we'll ever be able to wait to break open a loaf like this:

Never let it be said I'm not a woman of her word: handmade wholemeal bread.

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My beautiful rosemary and sea salt topped loaf.

Well, I did it.  Last Sunday (as in, a week ago yesterday– yes, I know.  Sorry), with no big plans looming and the weather forecast to be a swath of grey with intermittent nubbins of snow, I rolled up my pj sleeves and got to work.  And, as promised, at no point did the beautiful KitchenAid mixer come into play; this was strictly a forearms and wrists kind of operation.