Our First Blog-O-Versary

Lis and Amy zest lemons. Why yes, I did put a texture on this snapshot.
It's my trick of the moment, why do you ask? (The texture in question is
by Kim Klassen, from the Past Favs collection.)

Happy blog-o-versary to us! Well, the actual day was this past Wednesday--our little blog turned one year old. I meant to write something on Wednesday, after Lis reminded me what day it was. But that didn't quite work out as planned.

(You do remember which blog you're reading, right?)

I believe the traditional celebratory gesture would be for us to host a giveaway, yes? And I'm totally game for that, because I really quite like sending people gifties in the mail, whenever I get my act together to do it.

So with that in mind, I'm officially offering a small blog-oversary care package to one lovely reader, who will be chosen at random. I have no idea what it will contain! It'll be a surprise even to me! I'll drag my co-blogger into the project too! (Did you hear that, Lis?) You see how easily I spin this half-assed thing into a fun feature? We're not pathetic, we're spontaneous, and whimsical.

So if you're reading, leave us a comment if you'd like me to count you in, okay? Just tell us a little about who you are, or anything else that strikes your fancy--or just say hi. A comment is the perfect birthday gift for the blog that has everything.

(Actually, a comment is the perfect way to build community and make new friends! Can I encourage all of you to talk to us more often? No worries if commenting isn't your speed--the half-assed aren't into pressuring people about things like that--but really, it's so great to get to know who you are out there. It's one of the nicest things about this blogging business.)

I'll find one of those random number generator thingies online to choose the comment number of the winner--I'm not making those up in my head, right? They do exist? Well, if they don't, I'll just stick scraps of paper with your names on them into a hat and ask Penn to choose. In fact...that actually seems more appropriate. I'm going with that method.

Let's say you should feel free to comment on this post...well, whenever you like, really, but let's say I'll count all the folks who comment from now through Monday evening, and then I'll announce the winner...as soon after that as I can pin down Lis's lovely child and ask him to choose a paper scrap. I'm thinking maybe...Wednesday? Yes, let's say Wednesday. 'Kay?

Gluten-Free Challah

L'shanah tovah! I really should have posted this earlier, but whatever--challah is necessary year-round, right? I also wish I had a picture of this bread for you. Perhaps I'll bake some again soon and take a pretty picture to place riiiiiiiight...

here.

While I don't usually blog about food, it's a pretty big part of my life. I teach cooking classes and have been creating recipes for those classes for over a decade. And this recipe is certainly seasonally appropriate.

I created this challah for one of my gluten-free bread classes. If you're a regular baker of gluten-free bread, do try this trick of adding protein powder to your recipes--about the ratio I use here should do the trick. I happen to use rice protein of this brand, and they happen not to be paying me to say so. You want the plain stuff--not chocolate or vanilla or whatever. You will not believe the difference it makes in your bread recipes. All the structural benefit of the bean flours, without the awful taste! Yay! Softer, lighter, moister, breadier bread.

This particular recipe does rely heavily on starches, and I get questions about that all the time. But my general theory on gluten-free baking is this: Baked goods are a treat. They are not meant to be all-the-time food--not even if you can eat glutenous baked goods. Is it possible to make healthier versions of baked goods? Absolutely, and I do have a lovely seeded teff-buckwheat bread that contains less starch and more whole grain goodness. I'll post that at some point.

But while I don't follow a gluten-free diet myself, I believe it's sometimes important to have a slice of bread/a cookie/a cake that tastes precisely like what you remember from before you went gluten free (and I think that's especially important with a food such as challah, which is so rich in ritual, spiritual, and cultural associations). And so that's what I aim for in my recipes--I want people who don't follow a gluten-free diet to want to eat my food. And they do! But often, in the baking style I generally use, that means adding some starches to get the right texture. This challah is very close to my favorite all-purpose (wheat) flour based challah recipe in both flavor and texture.

You could definitely modify this recipe to include more whole grain flours, or some flax meal, or almond meal, etc. Please feel free to do so! Just understand that your results will be quite different from what this recipe will yield as written.

(And incidentally, if you'd like to be able to take challah and make the blessing when making this bread, or to say hamotzi over it before a meal, technically you'll need to incorporate [certified gluten-free] oat flour into the recipe. My advice would be to substitute the oat flour for both the millet and sorghum, though you'll need to decide for yourself/with your rabbi if that's enough quantity for this recipe to meet the requirement. That one substitution shouldn't change the bread drastically. Again, you can increase the amount of oat flour, but that will change the bread drastically. It's a trade-off. And not to get too halachically specific, but because the texture of this bread "dough" is really much more like a cake or quick bread batter, that may affect your decision on whether or not challah should even be taken. And if I'm forgetting any other critical information people might want to know, do feel free to chime in in the comments.)

Now, if you'd like a great source for entirely wholesome, entirely starch and grain free, and very well-done gluten-free recipes--baked goods and much more--check out Elana's Pantry. Elana's recipes are fantastic, and she has several delicious looking cookbooks out now. (And if you're in need of more holiday recipes, Elana also happens to be Jewish, and she often puts together mouthwatering recipe lists for the holidays. I love to look at her blog for festive inspiration.)

I generally bake this recipe in circular cake pans, though you can, of course, use a loaf pan. Better still, check out this braided loaf pan! And this circular braided pan, perfect for Rosh Hashanah! (Once again, these people don't know me from Eve, and they couldn't care less that I think their loaf pans are adorable.) I haven't got one, but it really is the perfect solution, since it's absolutely impossible to braid this bread for real.

(That, by the way, makes me sad. I get a tremendous amount of pleasure and spiritual sustenance from the kneading and forming of regular challah, and I wish that were an option in the gluten-free world. Alas, it's either edible gluten-free challah, or braidable gluten-free challah, but I'm afraid the two seem to be mutually exclusive.)

If you have questions, do feel free to ask them in the comments. You can certainly also use the blog email there off to the left-hand side, but you're much more likely to get a timely response from the comment section, as I don't check that email every day.

Gluten-Free Challah

1 cup water

a pinch of sugar

2 1/4 teaspoons yeast

1/4 cup sorghum flour

1/4 cup millet flour

1/2 cup plain, unflavored rice (or other) protein powder

2 cups cornstarch

1 cup tapioca starch

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

4 teaspoons xanthan gum

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 cup brown sugar

4 eggs (plus an extra to be used as an egg wash)

2 egg yolks

1/4 cup melted butter or Earth Balance Buttery Sticks (for a meat meal, or in case of dairy sensitivity)

5 tablespoons honey

3 tablespoons vinegar

Optional: 2 teaspoons lecithin granules

Optional: a healthy pinch of saffron, crumbled in with wet ingredients

Optional: Raisins, chocolate chips, etc. as you prefer.

Grease and flour two medium-small loaf or cake pans.You can also line the pans with parchment paper cut to fit them--this will guarantee that the bread won't stick, though it's not generally a problem if you've greased and floured them thoroughly.

Stir the pinch of sugar into the water and sprinkle the yeast on top. Set aside to proof for about five to ten minutes. Proofing--or giving the yeast a chance to prove that it's still alive--is important! Make certain that your yeast is bubbly/foamy and alive, or your bread will not rise. I'd encourage you to incorporate this step into all your yeast recipes--some recipes will tell you to stir the dry yeast granules directly into the dry ingredients, but I don't recommend that, since you won't be able to tell if your yeast is dead.

Meanwhile, mix all the dry ingredients together in a small bowl.

Mix the wet ingredients in the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer (including lecithin and saffron if using). Add the yeast water, and stir everything together.

Using the paddle attachment, and with the mixer on a LOW speed, begin to add the dry ingredients a little at a time. When you’ve added all the dry ingredients, mix at high speed for two to three minutes. (Add a little more water or flour at this point if you think the bread needs it.) If you’d like to add raisins or other add-ins, now is the time to stir them in.

Spoon the batter into the greased pans and gently smooth the top of the loaf with wet fingers. Brush the top of the loaf with an egg wash—one egg beaten together with a few teaspoons water. (You can also sprinkle the top with sesame seeds if you like.) Cover the bread with well oiled plastic wrap, and allow it to rise until it has almost doubled in bulk—about an hour, but if your house is on the cooler side, it may take longer.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees about five minutes before the bread is ready to go in. Bake the loaf for about 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 375 degrees. Bake the loaf until the crust is nicely browned and the loaf sounds kind of hollow when you tap it on the bottom. If the loaf seems to be browning too much, you can cover it with a piece of aluminum foil. (This loaf may fall slightly in the middle as it cools, but it will still be delicious.)

•if it's from the curb, is it ok?•

It's true, I loathe dyed confections. But sometimes things come into my life, and I have a hard time batting them away. (Penn loves the word "dumpster," and I am sort of proud.) Plus. A little neon dino-sprinkle goes a loooooong way.

Happy Friday, everyone! Share a link to your moment in the comments? And pour a little out for Amanda Blake Soule, who came up with the share-a-photo-every-friday idea. xox

Open the Door

You want to know a fantastic antidote to oncoming depression, whatever its source?

Reach out and tell someone how much you love them, the work they do, who they are, what you see in them. Do it because it's true. Do it because they should know. Do it because the moment you do, a door will open up, and you'll see outside of yourself--that place that seems so dark right now. There's incredible beauty and light out there, and when you open that door, the light will never fail to lift your heart and spill in through the opening to get all over you.

Playing with Texture

Layering photos on photos (Swan Dive assignment of the week):

Spiderweb texture (old, dusty spiderweb that was
filled with cool bits of dried flowers and dead things)

This texture is a small bit of a beautiful painting my
friend Kathryn made for my birthday one year. This
doesn't show off the painting in any way, of course--
it's a gorgeous fall tree in many shades of orange--
but it sure did provide good color and texture
to layer on a photo.

A section of wrinkled bed sheet

Another self portrait

My fave: This texture is actually a photograph of rust.

Night Lights

Part of the point of Vivienne's latest class is for us to play with post-processing options. Part of the point for me personally is 1) to try actually using the manual settings on my camera (revolutionary, no?), and 2) to push myself to do some things that go beyond...realistic self portraits? Maybe that's a good way to describe what I'm after? Something that tells more of a composed story? I'm not sure--maybe I should just call them photographic lyrical fragments. In any case, there's nothing like killing multiple birds with one stone. So to speak. (Really, what a horrible expression--isn't there a less vile way to say that?)

Also, I now have a whole lot of Mason jar lanterns in my possession, which can only be to the good.

(As always, you can click on these to enlarge them.)

•birthday photo essay•

colour

salt

god

neighbor

flavor

blue

•rise•

[This post is part of a tag-you're-it game, designed by Amanda Blake Soule. Check her out! And leave a link to your own moment in the comments, if you wish!]






xox

•kissing onions•

Just a photo-toast, to better days. Get well soon, everyone! (Myself, included.) xox

•a very merry HA birthday•

Turns out the age for which you must get the birthday cake right is 4. Any variation on the theme, no matter how delicious, will be rejected--nay, rewarded!--with apocalypse now, toddler edition. Complete with hyperventilation, and outbursts so simultaneously piteous and hilarious you will be unable to stop laughing. Which won't help matters.
But there are no strawberries!!!! < sob sob sob >
Where is the....fraaaaaawwwww-ssssssting!!!!?
The earnestness. The confusion. The terrifying (if it weren't so adorable) rage. To be fair, it was his last night of toddlerdom. Perhaps he realized he ought to go out in style.

What I did next was, perhaps, not my finest flourish. But it had been a week of napless, back-to-school madness. And we were celebrating with an all-adult birthday dinner (save the guest of honor, of course) in our friend's extremely echo-y, amplifying living room. Oh, honey, you thought cake and candles were tonight? Actually, that's tomorrow. We'll have cake with frosting and strawberries and candles on your real birthday (thankgoditsnottoday). Tonight's cake is just a nice dessert for after dinner... That's right. I groveled.

And then I regrouped.


The next morning, I gathered my triage materials. Frozen cake, leftover frosting a friend made, strawberries, jam, old cereal bag for piping on accents. Things were looking good. And then I started to go a little nuts. Turns out, there are a great many images on the Interwebs of various "bus cakes." Inspiring. Could I free-style a bus that would meet with the child's approval? Could I, in fact, half-ass it?


Fortunately, my ambition knows no bounds. And I had a few hours o' free time.



I started to lose it a little with these strawberry "bushes." Not an essential feature, but...



It worked in my favor. My son appreciated the sugary offering, and accepted the whole monstrosity as a "fire bus." He even forgave its chocolate exterior. (Note to parents: white frosting is like gold. If you attempt a four-year-old's birthday cake without enough of this stuff, tread lightly and prepare for war.)

Turns out, if it's worth doing, it's worth over-doing. Within half-assed reason, of course. xox


©2011 Lis Harvey