Lunaya Pravda

Life is calming down a bit.  I find myself more interested in DOING and less interested in TALKING ABOUT IT.  I’m making an effort to learn how to bake bread, I’ve taken up knitting again, and in general I find myself imbued with a desire to get my life in order.

On the bread making front, I had the pleasure of taking a class on no-knead bread and pizza dough from the Seattle Free School last week.  For the uninitiated, the Seattle Free School has no defined location or membership; it is simply a forum for matching those who wish to teach a class for those who wish to learn.  Generally it involves a demonstration, unless the course specifically says to bring certain materials.  Last year I signed up for their basic automotive repair and maintenance course (which was so popular the class had a waiting list), but suffered a disappointment and had to back out when I remembered I was going to be out of town that particular weekend.

Anyway, this particular course involved a demonstration of the NY Times‘ food writer Mark Bittman’s article on a no-knead bread recipe, which can also be used for homemade pizza dough.  (Follow the link - there’s even a video of the process.)  Surprisingly, the recipe is VERY simple and relies heavily on time instead of muscle.

The course instructor made the dough for us, gave us his tips for things he’s found that work well or not so well in making this bread.  It was a fairly enjoyable experience, and I’m on the lookout for more courses of interest in the future (cheese making and a repeat automotive course are high on my list).

This weekend I attempted the recipe at home for my first homemade pizza (1/2 a recipe will yield about the right amount of dough for a ten-inch pizza).  I used two cups unbleached white flour and one cup wheat, but I think 1 5/8 cups of water is too much for the recipe to be used as pizza dough.  No matter how much flour I used to keep the dough from sticking to both me and the cutting board, it made a glue-like sticky mess.  As I didn’t plan on making my own sauce, I used canned tomato sauce and sprinkled it with fresh crushed garlic and a little dried oregano and basil, which yielded a tasty base for my pizza.  Fresh spinach leaves, diced onion and mozzarella were my toppings.

Despite the initial troubles with the dough, the end result was a lovely-looking pizza that tasted as good as any pizza I’ve paid for, and the beauty is that the dough can be stored up to a week in the fridge for later use.

The no-knead result for bread produces a lovely artisan-looking loaf, and for those not inclined to put in the effort of making kneaded bread dough, this would suffice for having fresh or day-old bread with pretty much any meal.  But I still want to learn both methods, and I’ll be attempting the Tassajara Bread Book’s basic bread recipe this weekend if I have enough time for it.