Cookbook Review: The Tassajara Bread Book, by Edward Espe Brown

21 Tuesday May 2013

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Oatmeal Rye, from the Tassajara Bread Book

I’ve posted things several times from the Tassajara Bread Book, which I bought with some Christmas money early this year.

I bought it because of the focus on whole grain baking, and because it had a lot of good reviews that emphasized the relaxed attitude.  Plus, it has a small sourdough section.

I have really enjoyed baking from this book.  There are yeast breads, sourdough breads, quick breads, pancakes, and desserts.  There’s also a section of “unyeasted breads” but since bread like a brick isn’t something I aim for, I do not intend to ever actually use that section.

The author worked/lived at the Tassajara Zen Retreat Center in California.  Zen philosophies influence a lot of the introductory matter and make it more touchy-feely than I like.  Sentences like “What to do, how to tend, how to pass on the message: star food, angel food, transfixed body, body of light…”[and etc., it goes on for a bit more] just make me roll my eyes.  The title of one of the recipes, “Wheat Veneration” seems borderline blasphemous.

But there is a bit about pre-heating your bread bowl with warm water to allow the “baby bread dough to feel at home and warmly held”, and I actually liked that and thought it was a cute mental image.

The recipes are what is really important here, though, and besides the recipes, the teaching philosophy.  The author presents bread making as easy and natural, not some Byzantine process that only the chosen few can really perfect.  I like that.

I like that he admits that all ingredients may not be available at all times in your kitchen, and suggests substitutions.  In the muffin section, there is even a recipe called “Something Missing Muffins” which gives variations of the basic recipe with different ingredients missing (egg, milk, baking powder, oil, etc.) and what to expect of each in terms of texture.

Every recipe I’ve tried has turned out well.  I do usually use part whole-wheat and part white flour, instead of 100% whole wheat (or other grains), as the recipes usually call for.

It is important to take time to do the master recipe using the detailed instructions a few times, because the procedures are a little different from what most recipes call for.

Almost all of the recipes require a sponge, and the method of stirring/kneading is a little different.  He doesn’t go into the WHY of these things much, but I think they make the final bread softer and less dense than a whole-wheat bread made the “normal” way.

It’s also important to make the master recipe because all of the following recipes use a shorthand – they usually give a list of ingredients and then say something like “Proceed as for Tassajara Yeasted Bread, page 34.”

This saves space and paper, and I do like that it is a small book and doesn’t take up a lot of counter space, but it leads to a lot of flipping back and forth, which is annoying.

Overall I consider my money well-spent for this book.  I do wish it had more sourdough recipes.

“You can enjoy the aroma of freshly baked bread in your kitchen.  Nothing is difficult about this recipe, as there is a wide margin for error, adaptation, and experimentation.” —-Edward Espe Brown

Linked to: Raising Homemakers, Wholehearted Home

Meditation #18 – As Far As It Depends On Me

11 Saturday May 2013

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dove01“Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
—Ephesians 4:1-3, NASB

If I had a dollar for all the times I’ve been told some variation of “church is full of hypocrites”, I’d have a neat little stack of money.  Maybe I could buy a sweet imitation leather Bible with it.

If I had a dollar for every time I didn’t feel like going to church because I didn’t want to deal with one of my sisters in Christ, or at least hoped to avoid a particular person, I’d be able to buy a really nice calfskin-bound Bible.  Maybe even two.

So why do I keep trying to convince people to become Christians?

The ultimate reason is God, His righteousness and perfection.  He deserves our worship and our obedience, in a way no human ever can.

It certainly isn’t because the people who make up the church are perfect. Although, if I had a dollar for every time a member of the church has said the “just right” encouraging word, offered support in a time of trial, gone out of their way to make my life easier, or just laughed with me, I’d have a stack of bills big enough to buy…I don’t know what.  A Camaro, probably.

Those who follow God are always going to struggle with sin from time to time.  Wait, except me.  I have that problem licked, right?

Oh, how I wish I could tell myself that.  Life is so much easier when all of my problems are someone else’s fault.  It makes listening to the sermon a lot less uncomfortable, too, when I can think of all the ways that Sister So-and-so needs to take it to heart, instead of examining my own life.

I’m not denying that some of my Christian sisters have attitude problems.  But as a follower of Jesus, my first duty is to look to myself.  “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3, NASB)

It’s so easy  to perceive that a log is in someone else’s eye, and so hard to believe that I have even a speck in my own eye.

We live in a world tainted by sin.  How many times have you cried out to God, wishing for the rest that will be ours in heaven?

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3,4 NASB)

When I think of heaven and the new body I’ll be given (Phil. 3:21), unmarred by the effects of sin, I don’t imagine that I’ll be using my tongue to talk down to the sisters I spend eternity with.

I don’t imagine that I’ll see them coming toward me down the street of gold and quickly find an excuse to go in another direction so I won’t have to greet them.

It isn’t a new thing that women have trouble getting along sometimes.  Paul wrote in Philippians 4:2, “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord.” (NASB)

Even women who had “shared [Paul's] struggle in the cause of the gospel” were struggling to tolerate each other.  It’s easy to imagine that their discord was a hindrance to the cause of the gospel.

As an ambassador for Christ (II Cor. 5:20) my behavior reflects on the church, and affects how other people feel about Christ.  It influences them, positively or negatively.  I truly pray it will not be negatively.

To that end, I need to live my life with a vision of heaven, my eternal destination, firmly in mind.  Am I, now, the sort of person that God or anyone else would want to spend eternity with?  If not, what do I need to change?

If my attitude towards my fellow Christians is wrong, how can I change it?  If I  reach out in friendship to a sister I feel has wronged me and I forgive her, is it possible that her attitude towards me will change as well?

It may be true that a sister needs to hear the truth spoken in love to help her correct her behavior, but first I need to remove the log from my eye to see her clearly and with love.

Some people are unwilling to change.  I can only change myself, and only to the extent and in the ways God demands.  But I can always look on others in the church and remember that they are fellow saints as well as fellow sinners, because we do all still sin, and have compassion in my dealings with them.

Strawberry Muffins (with Recipe)

09 Thursday May 2013

Posted by in Other People's Recipes, Recipes

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DSCF3839Daniel decided he would like to try some strawberry muffins.  I’d never made any, but figured someone, somewhere had a recipe.  I found this one on Allrecipes.com, but after reading the comments, made several changes to the recipe, which I’ve incorporated into the recipe below.

These were really good, not too sweet, and the strawberries weren’t too mushy, which was my major reservation about strawberry muffins.

Strawberry Muffins

  • 1 cup chopped strawberries
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/4 cup canola oil
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/2 cup sugar

Sprinkled chopped strawberries with 2 tbsp. sugar and let sit for 1/2 hour or so.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Grease 10 muffin cups.

Mix milk, oil, egg, and vanilla together in a small mixing bowl.

Put flour, baking powder, salt, and  nutmeg in a large mixing bowl.  Mix well.  Spoon strawberries out of their bowl, draining off the juice.  Reserve juice.  Put berries into the bowl with dry ingredients and toss to coat with flour.

Add reserved juice to wet ingredients and stir to combine.  Pour wet ingredients into flour mixture and mix just until combined.  Batter is very thick.  If you want, add a splash more milk to thin it.  Fill muffin cups 3/4 full and bake 20-25 minutes.  Let cool in pan 10 minutes and then remove to a rack to finish cooling.

Random Link Day (Bible Study Stuff)

07 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by in Links and Re-Posts

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I’ve run across a few articles online lately that I’d like to share.

BIBLE4First, In Remembrance of Me: A Bible Marking Topic at Come Fill Your Cup.  This article lists several scripture chain studies that you can mark in your Bible and read during the time devoted to the Lord’s Supper during worship to help focus your mind.  I love the idea of chain studies, but in moderation, because if you have too many they start to overlap and get confused.

And having said that, here’s another set of chain studies that I found recently (and then lost, and spent a long time yesterday trying to find again because I thought I’d bookmarked it and I hadn’t): Marking Your Bible at Bible Songs and More.  These are more basic studies that could help in studying with someone who isn’t a Christian yet.

Last, Our Culture is Losing its Biblical Heritage, at To Love, Honor, and Vacuum.  Considering the topic of my recent meditation, Which Book are You?, I found the story at the end of the POW’s who reconstructed Matthew from memory very interesting.

And I’ll throw in a quote I came across last night in A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, edited by David W. Bercot, which is an actual physical book.

Christ is our Bread, because Christ is Life, and bread is life.  He says, “I am the Bread of life.” . . . Then, too, we find that His body is reckoned in bread: “This is my body.” (Tertullian, c. 198)

Here is a scripture that I am going to add to the first topic chain in my Bible from the In Remembrance of Me article.  It wasn’t in the article, but I feel like it belongs.  I’ll either put it at the end of that chain, or do a little fix up with Wite-Out tape in the margin scripture references and insert it into the middle.

51 I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”

52 Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. (John 6:51-55, NASB)

And now, I am off to make some literal bread, since we’re out.

Do you have any Bible-related links you would like to share with me?  Comment and tell me about them.

Seven Tips for Better Bread

03 Friday May 2013

Posted by in Tools and Techniques

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DSCF3722Most of the time, homemade bread is good, but even good bread can usually be improved.  Here are some things I’ve learned that might help improve your bread if it just isn’t quite what you’d like.

1. Switch to bread flour if you’ve been using all-purpose flour.  It has a higher gluten content, and stretchy strands of gluten are what keep the air bubbles created by the yeast action trapped, so your bread rises higher.

2. Knead the dough sufficiently.  If you’re kneading by hand, it’s easy to get tired of kneading after 5 or 6 minutes and quit because the dough looks “okay”, even if the recipe calls for 10 minutes of kneading.  Kneading develops gluten, though, so a dough that hasn’t been kneaded as long won’t rise as well.

3. Do the “poke test” to figure out if your shaped loaf has risen enough, instead of relying on the time estimates given in the recipe.  Your house temperature, the temperature of the liquid you used in the recipe, and the type of yeast you use all affect rise time.  The poke test is simple: poke a finger about 1/2″ into the dough.  If it springs back immediately, it needs to rise a little longer.  If it springs back more slowly, leaving just a little indentation, it is ready to bake.  If you poke it and it doesn’t spring back at all, or worse yet, deflates, you’ve let it go too long and it is overproofed.  Overproofed dough won’t rise further in the oven, and will even shrink down a little.

4. Use the type of yeast the recipe calls for, or make appropriate adjustments to yeast amount and rise times.  There is active dry yeast, and instant yeast, also called bread machine yeast, or quick rising yeast.  Instant yeast needs less rising time, making it easy to overproof if you don’t adjust rise times accordingly.  I wrote a post on substituting instant yeast for active dry.

5. Check your oven temperature.  Ovens often run hotter or colder than the temperature on the dial.  Mine runs consistently 25 degrees hotter.  Burning the top of some loaves of bread was what finally made me go out and spend the $5 or so an oven thermometer costs.

6. Double-check your recipe.  It could be that the recipe you’re using has an error.  If it came off the Internet, was it a recipe with reviews?  If it came out of a cookbook, are other people having problems with that recipe/cookbook?  Sometimes if you do a Google search of the cookbook and recipe title together, you’ll find bloggers who have made the same bread.  Comparing the recipe with other recipes for the same type of bread can help you figure out if the general proportions are right.

7. Keep trying!  There are a lot of factors in making bread, one of which is personal taste.  Try to figure out what you’re not happy about, for one.  Letting bread rise for a longer time at a lower temperature (say, room temperature instead of a warm oven) will give the dough time to develop more flavor.  Some people like bread made with only flour, salt, yeast, and water, and some people like bread that has oil, eggs, sugar, or other ingredients.  Try different recipes, and tweak one thing at a time when making changes, to see what really makes a difference.

Stuffed Sausage and Spinach Loaf

30 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Bread I've Made

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DSCF3823I like the Penzey’s Spices catalog because there are always recipes in it.  I always end up tearing several out that I want to try, but I actually end up trying very few of them, it seems.

This stuffed sausage and spinach loaf came out of the latest Penzey’s catalog (but is also on their website).  I used a different bread recipe for the dough, Old Order Amish Bread from Bernard Clayton’s Complete Book of Breads.  I also added an 8 oz. package of mushrooms, sliced, to the sausage a bit before it was completely browned.

Totally by accident, I forgot to do the egg wash and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, garlic powder, and oregano before putting in the oven.  I’m sure that would have been good.  It was, however, very good even without it.

I’m not sure a whole pound of sausage was really necessary.  3/4 or 1/2 pound would work, too, and be easier to roll up.  The mushrooms were a really good addition.  I definitely plan to make this again.

Just a word to the wise: don’t buy the cheapest Italian sausage you can find (or any sausage).  There is a definite taste difference between the generic brands and the name brands.

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Recipe – Sourdough Oatmeal Bread

27 Saturday Apr 2013

Posted by in My Recipes, Recipes

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DSCF3811When we ran out of bread this week, I thought I’d like to make some more oatmeal bread, seeing as Maryetta’s Oatmeal Bread was so popular in this house.  But I also needed to use my sourdough starter, so I made a few changes to my Light Wheat Sourdough bread recipe instead of making Maryetta’s Oatmeal Bread again.

I made the bread on Friday, when we had a lot of shopping and running around to do.  I used to think I needed at least 3 hours of uninterrupted time to make bread, for all the rising time, and 5 to 6 hours for sourdough, since the rises are longer, but I’ve definitely advanced in my understanding of how to make the dough fit into my schedule.

I set out the sponge for this bread the night before (Thursday) and mixed and kneaded it with my Bosch mixer on Friday morning.  Then I put the mixing bowl and dough, covered with plastic wrap, into the refrigerator and left to do my morning errands.

We got back around 1:00 p.m., and I took the dough out and let it sit at room temperature for about an hour and a half.  Then I shaped it into a loaf and covered it with oiled plastic wrap right before we left the house again.

It set out at room temperature for around two and a half hours before we came back, and had crested the rim of the pan.  I turned the oven on and let it preheat for 10 minutes, then baked the bread.

It still got a bit of oven spring, and turned out just about right, in my opinion.  The sour flavor was definitely developed by the time in the fridge.  Plus, we had fresh bread ready just in time for supper.

Sourdough Oatmeal Bread

Sponge:

  • 1/2 cup sourdough starter (100% hydration)
  • 1 cup lukewarm water
  • 1 cup oatmeal (I used old-fashioned, but I suppose quick-cooking would work)
  • 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
  • 1/2 c. all-purpose or bread flour

Mix up the sponge ingredients the night before baking, cover, and set out at room temperature all night.

The day of baking, add to the sponge mixture:

  • 2 tablespoons butter, softened
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons molasses
  • 1/2 cup milk

Mix well.  Stir in 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, and add gradually 1 1/2 to 2 cups all-purpose or bread flour, enough to give you a moderately stiff dough that is tacky but not sticky.  Knead for 8-10 minutes by hand or mixer with dough hook, adding additional flour as necessary if the dough is too sticky.

Spray the mixing bowl with non-stick spray and coat the dough with a light mist of spray.  Cover and let rise until doubled, which may take from 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or longer depending on your starter.

Shape dough into a loaf and put in a greased loaf pan (4 1/2″ x 8 1/2″).    Let rise until the dough has crested the rim of the pan by about an inch.  During the last 10-20 minutes of rising, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Bake for 30-45 minutes, until the internal temperature of the loaf reads at least 190 degrees Fahrenheit, and/or the bottom of the loaf makes a hollow sound when thumped.

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Meditation # 17 – Which Book Are You?

22 Monday Apr 2013

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“What have you to offer?”
    “Nothing.  I thought I had part of the Book of Ecclesiastes and maybe a little of Revelation, but I haven’t even that now.”
    “The Book of Ecclesiastes would be fine.  Where was it?”
    “Here,” Montag touched his head.
    “Ah,” Granger smiled and nodded.
    “What’s wrong?  Isn’t that all right?” said Montag.
    “Better than all right; perfect!” Granger turned to the Reverend.  “Do we have a Book of Ecclesiastes?”
    “One.  A man named Harris in Youngtown.”
—–from Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian science fiction classic.  This is from the scene in which Montag, a man on the run for the possession of banned books (that is any book; they are all banned), finds and joins a loose organization of book people, who live on the fringes of society and keep the flame of literature alive in their minds, waiting for the political climate to change so that they can print the books they have memorized (which include Gulliver’s Travels, Plato’s Republic, Darwin, and many more).

This particular scene came to my mind Saturday during the second half of our ladies day at church.  The speaker, Monalea Micham, was talking about the importance of Bible study and Bible memorization.

Farenheit 451 is science fiction, but there are plenty of real-life examples of times and places where the Bible was illegal, and difficult or impossible to obtain acess to.  The example Monalee brought up was the Nazi concentration camps, but there are countries today where the Bible is still illegal.

It’s easy for me to be physically well-fed.  I hardly ever skip a meal, much less a whole day of meals.

It should be equally easy to be spiritually well-fed and yet how many times has the whole week slipped by without me picking up a Bible?.  Bibles abound around me, in print and online, as well as sermon podcasts and Christian blogs and websites.

Establishing a daily study routine has been a challenge, though I’ve done well lately.  Yet there is a clear hierarchy in the Bible of the spiritual versus the physical, and it isn’t the physical that gets top billing.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”  But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”  So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work”
—John 4:31-34

If all my Bibles were gone, tomorrow, and I couldn’t get another one, would I have enough Scripture available in my memory to keep me from starving?  It’s an interesting question, but I think there are less-theoretical reasons to study and internalize a knowledge of the Bible.

There usually isn’t time to whip out a pocket Bible and start flipping pages in moments of crisis and decision.  The more Scripture you have committed to memory, the more it will be available in times of temptation and trouble, so that the Holy Spirit can bring it to mind and use it to help strengthen you from within

The more you have read and studied your Bible, the more you see the  connections between the Old Testament and the New, and the different books within each, and the more sense the whole makes.  I think there’s value in having your own personal cross-references to connect the dots.  I try to note such cross-references in my Bible when I can.

Most simply and importantly, the more time you spend reading your Bible, the better you will come to know God and His will, to really know what it says, and not just what someone has told you it says.  Nearly every time I read the Bible I come across things I didn’t remember, or hadn’t thought about a certain way before.

Shared at: R16:16 Blog Hop

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Maryetta’s Oatmeal Bread, from Beard on Bread

19 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by in Bread I've Made

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DSCF3801I like oatmeal bread, but I must confess that the reason I tried this recipe was because it makes three loaves.  The recipe for Maryetta’s Oatmeal Bread can be found online here.  I volunteered to bring bread for the Ladies Day we are having at church tomorrow, and I needed a recipe that was pretty big, but hopefully would still fit in the bowl of my electric mixer.  It’s a Bosch compact, and the most I’d ever made was two loaves at a time.

So at the beginning of the week I made a test batch, since I’d never used the recipe before, and we were out of bread here at home.  I froze two of the loaves, one for us for later, one for the ladies day.

I chickened out on using the mixer – it just looked like it would be too much for it.  By hand I just wasn’t able to get as much of the flour worked in as the recipe called for.  The dough was pretty sticky, though it turned out fine when baked.  The only change I made was to use only 1 tablespoon of salt instead of two.

DSCF3800But I could see that I needed to work on getting the right amount of dough into different sized pans.  I have a motley collection of bread pans acquired from Goodwill, as gifts, and at garage sales, and each is slightly different in size.  I don’t like it when there isn’t enough dough in the pan and the loaf is flat.  It doesn’t affect the taste, but it doesn’t work as well for sandwiches.

Today I made the second batch of Maryetta’s Oatmeal Bread, and I used the mixer.  It worked, but I wouldn’t try a recipe that was any larger in it.  I did manage to get all the flour worked in, and it was still sticky.  When I put it into pans, I measured the dough.  I used 1 lb 2 oz. for the smallest pan, 1 lb, 12 oz. for the largest pan, and 1 lb, 8 oz. for the medium-size pan.

They are the ones at the top of the page.  As you can see, they turned out more regularly-shaped than the first batch.  I also may have let them rise a little longer.

This is a very good bread.  The oatmeal keeps it moist, and the molasses gives it a good flavor, without it being too sweet.  Makes a great PB&J, and a pretty good ham sandwich, too.

Pizzapalooza

16 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Bread I've Made

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pizza blankThis past weekend my husband had a lot of family in town.  We invited his aunt and uncle and cousins over for lunch and I made pizza.  Lots of pizza.  But I didn’t think of taking any pictures until it was all gone.

There were five pizzas, in the end.  I thought at first that only four adults and one child would be coming, plus our family, so I planned to make three pizzas.  I made a double batch of dough the night before, four pizza crusts.  I used one to make pigs in a blanket for supper, and refrigerated the rest.

Then it turned out that six adults and two kids were coming, plus I would be watching our neighbor’s daughter for the day, and so I decided to make another pizza.  I mixed the dough up Saturday morning, enough for two pizza crusts, thinking I would freeze one of them for later.

Then my sister-in-law showed up, and I started looking at the pizzas, thinking, “These aren’t very big,” and so since I had enough cheese and toppings, I went ahead and made all of the new dough into pizzas, for a total of five.

Good thing, too.  There was only one tiny sliver of pizza left when it was all said and done.

Making at least part of the dough ahead of time helped.  I’d never refrigerated dough like that before.  After some quick internet research, I put each ball of dough into a plastic bag sprayed with cooking spray, and put it in the fridge until time to roll out the crusts.  I thought they might have overproofed in the fridge, but they turned out fine.  It didn’t seem to hurt anything that I didn’t let them come to room temperature before rolling them out and baking them.

The other thing that  helped was chopping all of my toppings and cooking the sausage ahead of time, and having each topping in its own bowl, all ready to go, before I rolled out the dough.  I did all the chopping and cooking while the dough (that wasn’t in the fridge) was rising.

I usually do that, but for a large number of pizzas it really helped.

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