Spiced Delicata Squash {Halloween}

Gosh I’m late getting on here this week. I was trying out new bread recipes and didn’t get to taste them until the day before yesterday. Then I was busy busy busy making bread for you and then the internet failed me and this post was never written. I blame the internet!!

So I had a pretty soggy bike ride on Wednesday to the People’s Co-op Farmer’s Market. How is it that the rain hold off all day and then the minute you want/need to get out it starts pouring on you? The same thing happened with my Monday bread delivery. I held off delivering because weather.com promised me fairer weather in “half an hour” and that half an hour kept getting pushed back and back every time I refreshed the page. Finally I decided to venture out and get some warm bread to you all and the weather was fairly kind, drizzling on me the majority of the time but nothing too major. Then, just 15-minutes from home the darkest clouds appeared in front of me and then suddenly it was just sheets of rain the rest of the ride home. I got home, hands numb up to my wrists from cold. I had to peel wet clothing layer off from me. I took a hot shower, got dressed, peeked out the window, and…..sunshine!!! Jeez…

Anyhow I digressed. So, I made it to a pretty soggy farmer’s market and bought about 18 pounds of delicata squash from Flying Onion Farm. I cut them in half, scooped out the seeds, and coated them with a combination of olive oil, fennel and crushed coriander. Then I roasted them until they were tender, and pureed them with some spicy chipotle peppers until I got this smooth orange spicy puree. That puree went into the dough mix and what resulted was a beautifully tender loaf spotted with red chipotle bits with a wonderful spiced aroma. Beware: the heat of the chipotle seems to increase a tad by day 2 or 3, but I wouldn’t go as far to say that the bread is spicy. Every chipotle is different though so it’s possible the heat of this batch might be different from the sample loaf I made.

I’ll be out in a few hours with warm bread for you….Happy Halloween!!

Rain Rain Rain + Spelt and Sunflower Seeds

Well, Fall must officially be here because last week was the first week delivering bread in the RAIN! It went smoothly, well, for me it did. Mike helped me on Friday morning with half of my deliveries and got caught in a downpour. He came home pretty soggy but happily all your bread stayed dry. I only had a light drizzle on me so it was comfortable enough. I’m starting to wonder what it will be like delivering in the dead of winter. I have truly been blessed with amazing weather all summer, delivering bread has been a breeze.

Here I am all geared up to deliver bread in the rain. I think I could win frumpiest pants award with these suckers on. Also, you like my shower cap? It also functions as a seat cover when I’m off my bike. Dang that’s clever! 😉

As of yesterday I have officially been living in Portland for exactly 5 months. What a beautiful place to be. Time has flown by! Fall is definitely my favorite time of year and I’ve been cooking up lots of pots of soups and stews and heartier fare than summer tomato salads and corn on the cob.  I’d like to start sharing more recipes that involve bread in them. I’ve had a few subscribers who are struggling to get through their bread each week so I thought it might be nice to share with you ideas to help you use some up. I’ll have a post up in a couple of days.

Speaking of Fall, Thanksgiving is going to be here before we know it! So I had an idea in mind I’d like to share with you all and get some feedback. Here’s what I’d like to do for deliveries for Thanksgiving week: I want to cancel the normal Friday/Monday deliveries on 11/19 and 11/23 and BAKE ALL YOUR BREAD PLUS SOME ON THURSDAY 11/22. Friday is so awkward being the day after Thanksgiving. Chances are you will all have a ton of leftovers and have no real need or want for a loaf of bread. Monday is so early to try and keep your bread fresh for Thursday’s Thanksgiving…

Soooo…..Having a party with family and friends and need more than one loaf? Let me know by Thursday  Nov 15th  (1 week before the big day) to get your order in for Thanksgiving. Going out of town and don’t want any bread that week? That’s fine too, your subscription will just get pushed a week forward. Don’t celebrate Thanksgiving and still want your normal loaf? That’s fine, you’ll just get it on Thursday instead. I just need to know one week before Thanksgiving Day so I can coordinate. I’ll be making a simple white sourdough (most of you have had this loaf already) because it’s just so darn perfect for mopping up all that gravy left on your plate. Also, by having just a simple not too full of flavor bread, it will compliment any meal and not overpower all your delicious fixing. I’ll remind you all again later.

Speaking of bread, this week’s flavor is spelt flour with toasted sunflower seeds. What is spelt? Learn more about it HERE. It has a slightly nutty and sweet flavor, and paired with toasted sunflower seeds it’s going to be AWESOME.

Hope you all have been enjoying the bread.

roasted garlic and rosemary

I’m going to keep this super short today. I had a great post planned about Paris but I will save it for another time. I’m having both computer and internet troubles at the moment and am writing this at the library. It’s been a terribly busy and stressful week. If you’ve had a similar week, hopefully this weeks bread will make your week that much less stressful. I don’t have any photos for you to ooohh and ahhh at, but this week’s bread is a roasted garlic and rosemary infused olive oil bread. See you all soon. -Laura

My Week of Rookie Mistakes

Do you ever have that week where you just seem to make one silly mistake after another for no real reason at all? It might be something totally routine that you do every gosh darn day and one day you wake up and you’re doing said routine and you just seem to mess it all up? I hate that. Well, last week was one of those weeks…

It started when I made too much sourdough starter. The night before I make bread I make up a huge amount of sourdough starter to leaven the bread. This week it was 1500g of sourdough starter that I accidentally made double of, resulting in me throwing out over 3lbs of gooey sourdough starter. 3 lbs people!! Suck. Total. Rookie. Mistake. (It’s not the first time either, *blushes*). You always catch yourself when it’s too late too…added all the water in, in goes some old sourdough starter, mix, mix, mix wait a second, this looks like far too much, why isn’t it fitting in the bowl like it usually does? ::Realization::….TOO LATE!

Fast forward two days. On Friday, I baked bread for all you lovely folks. Mike, my husband, kept going on about how excited he was for spent grain bread and which loaf could he cut into. I kept telling him he could eat the last loaf, just in case there were any bread accidents, I was reserving our loaf as a back-up in case something happened to one of yours. Well, I started going through my spreadsheet, jotting down who I was delivering to and where. I started counting heads. Then I started counting loaves. And well, they didn’t match up exactly. I checked, double checked, triple checked….I forgot to bake us a loaf of bread. The bread last week looked gorgeous in my opinion. The dough felt so perfect and the kitchen was warm, it was doing it’s thing, the loaves rose so nicely. I pulled them out of the oven one by one, admiring each one and it’s personality traits, giving them a little tap on the bottom, thump-thump, to make sure they were cooked. The kitchen smelled of baking bread for hours. Out I went, delivered, delivered, biked, biked, sweated a bit, and finally came rushing home starved for something to eat. I open the fridge. Almost empty. And no fresh bread in sight. So sad! My backup plan? Homemade Tortillas. Yeah, they were pretty awesome but I was so darn sad I didn’t get to cut into one of those spent grain loaves! Total. Rookie. Mistake.

In other news, I’m happy to report that my mother has mastered my bread techniques and is feeding everyone she knows with home-made bread. She’s actually baking more times per week than I am I think. Makes me feel like I’m slacking off or something. Time to get into the kitchen and BAKE!

So I tried out a few new recipes this week and currently have 3 loaves of bread sitting on the counter. 3!! There are just two of us here at home. 3 loaves of bread seems a tad excessive, don’t you think? I guess I’m making up for my bread deprivation last Friday. The 18 tortillas I made seemed to disappear in about two days. I’m not sure that happened exactly…

I was able to make myself a loaf of spent grain bread on Monday, however, and with a few tips from a gal I deliver bread to (tips can be found here), I made some amazing grilled cheese sandwiches which I ate accompanied by home-made tomato soup. I would never have thought to use mayonnaise on the outside of the bread! Who knew? I would definitely recommend this technique.

This week’s bread is a rye bread with caraway seeds. Rye flour is one of those flours that has always scared me. With the lack of gluten in the flour (gluten gives bread umph and body) I always envisioned making rye bread that came out flat like a pancake and totally inedible. Well, I’ve got a recipe here that is anything but that. It’s denser than the breads I have been making for sure, but that is to be expected. I used just enough rye flour to impart a distinct rye flavor and sweetness. With the added caraway seeds (my favorite!) this bread is delightful. The dough is so luxuriously smooth and silky, it’s proofing right now. I think I like this bread best slightly toasted. Now, if only there was some corned beef in the fridge….

No news on the commissary kitchen space yet for anyone still waiting on a wait list. I’m working on a few details and my energy has been put into searching for a job. I’ve been living in Portland for nearly 5 months and have yet to find a job. Bakester is a business of love but it certainly doesn’t pay the bills yet. I’m sending out good vibes into the universe while simultaneously sulking, sighing and rolling my eyes at job announcements. I’ll even go far as to tell you there has been lots of grumbling, stressing out and even a few evening of tears. I’ve been pondering whether to post this here, but if any of you know anywhere that’s hiring, please think of me!

Thanks everyone, you guys are awesome.

Laura