Lies, damn lies and statistics

Apparently there's a high correlation between smokeless tobacco users and living in a mobile home.

Statemaster.com has statistics every which way.

What will kids eat?

My son is a picky eater. I asked him to come up with two weeks' worth of dinners that he'd like to eat. The only restrictions were that you couldn't eat out more than once per week, and every meal had to be different.

1 - Ramen
2 - Quesadillas
3 - Spanakopita & salad
4 - Burritos
5 - Tacos
6 - Eat out
7 - Beans & rice
8 - Baked potato (and pork chops)
9 - Homemade pizza
10- Tostadas
11- Waffles & sausage
12- Eat out
13- Macaroni and cheese
14- Falafel & pita

I notice a lack of veggies, but there are ways to spice it up.

• Ramen - add green onions and scrambled egg to the soup.


• Baked potato with a side of broccoli makes a quick and easy dinner. Put onions, beans, sour cream, salsa, cheese or butter on the potato. Or, if you have a meat eater (like my other son), add a small pork chop.


• Homemade pizza can have all sorts of veggies: bell peppers, artichoke hearts, spinach.


• Quesadillas, tostadas and burritos can be piled high with lettuce, avocados and fresh tomatoes.


• The compromise for macaroni and cheese was that on that night I made Indian food for the adults.


• Falafel and pita can have onions, pepperoncini, feta cheese and tahini. Serve with a bulgur salad and lots of baba ganoush.

I guess for the next weeks would could add:
15 - Hamburgers & fries
16 - Toasted cheese sandwiches with salad
17 - Bratwurst on a kaiser roll, applesauce, peas and (for the adults) sauerkraut
18 - Roast chicken and steamed broccoli
19 - Chicken soup
20 - Eat out
21 - Ok.... pizza again.

Postprandial stroll Thanksgiving 2007

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Amazing Guitarist - Andy Mckee

Bike Ride on 11/17/2007

I took a little bike ride around PDX last Saturday.


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I wanted to test out my Garmin GPS

James Beard's White Free-form Loaf

Here's another experiment taking some of my favorite bread recipes and baking them the NYT "No Knead" way. This involves baking them in a dutch oven that's been preheated to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.



Here's the recipe for White Free-form Loaf from James Beard’s Beard on Bread.
First, the sponge...

2 packages active dry yeast
½ cup warm water
2 cups flour
1 cup water

You can make this as a sponge and let sit for an hour, or a day.
The bread will have more lightness if it sits for a day.
Then…

3 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup buttermilk or yogurt
2 cups flour plus some for mixing in while kneading
1 tablespoon kosher salt
Cornmeal to cover the bottom of the dutch oven.

Normally the recipe is to bake this at 375 for about an hour. But, I did the No Knead method in a dutch oven. I baked at 450, 30 minutes covered, and about 25 minutes uncovered. Prior to baking I pre-heated the oven for 30 minutes with the dutch oven in it. That way the dutch oven was hot!

William Melville Child’s Health Bread

In a previous post I wrote about the New York Times "No-Knead" bread.
The bread had a marvelous crust, which seemed to be due to cooking it in a dutch oven.

As an experiment, I'm trying some other breads that I've made in the past and baking them according to the NYT No-Knead recipe.



Here's William Melville Child’s Health Bread from James Beard’s Beard on Bread.
The recipe calls for:

2 packages active dry yeast
¾ cup warm milk
1 tsp sugar
2 ¼ cups boiling water
2 cups quick oats
3 ½ cups whole-wheat four
¾ cup dark molasses
1 ½ tablespoons butter (melted)
1 tablespoon salt
3 ½ cups all purpose flour

In the recipe he says that William Melville Child recommends grinding your own whole wheat flour. I used Bob's Red Mill whole wheat.

Since I was short on molasses I filled out the cup with dark brown sugar, which offset the whole wheat very nicely.

Instead of baking at 350 for one hour, I did the NYT method:

At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- quart cast iron pot in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under bread and plop into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

The result? A nice, dense whole wheat bread that will last about a week without drying out. The crust, while crunchy, wasn't as exciting as the white No Knead bread. Whole-wheat sucks up a lot more liquid than white flour, so I think that there was less steam in the dutch oven to give it the pleasing crust. Also, the whole wheat is denser than white, so the difference between the crust and the crumb wasn't as distinctive.

Next time I try this bread maybe I'll reduce the amount of whole-wheat flour by 1 cup.