{Adventures in Yeast} #4 - Mark Bittman's No Knead Bread

This bread was amazing with dinner, dipped into olive oil, and for breakfast, spread with salted butter.

In November 2006 Mark Bittman published the recipe for his No-Knead Bread, which immediately took the food blogging world by storm. I was blissfully unaware, however, since at the time I was neither a food blogger nor a yeast baker. But now I dabble in both, so although I've arrived late to the party, I'm still excited to be in on the hoopla.

In the intervening two+ years since the recipe's publication, it's been baked, varied, analyzed and perfected by many experienced bakers. Even Mark Bittman has revisited his recipe, making it quicker, and devising a whole-grain version. For my first attempt at this bread, I used a blog with step by step pictures and tips - so easy even the blogger's four year-old can make it (and he shows us how).

n.o.e.'s notes:

- I followed the recipe to the letter.

Here's the dough after about 8 hours. See all those bubbles? They are going to be holes in the bread when they grow up!!

- I need some practice in the turning out and shaping arena. The four year old can shape a better loaf than I can! The surface of mine was not taut. And even though I thought I'd dusted the tea towel generously enough, the loaf oozed in to the towel. Or maybe the dough was too wet??

- I put a circle of parchment in the bottom of my pot so that the loaf would come out (rather than stick on the bottom) at the end of its cooking time.

- My bread was lopsided and flat, which I will try to improve on future loafs.

- My pot tolerated the high heat in the oven this time, but it did not seem happy. I don't think the handles will hold up to that heat on a regular basis. So the next time I make this bread it will need to be in a different pot.

The recipe specifies a 6-8 quart heavy pot. I'd really like to have a new 6 quart enameled cast iron pot but (1) I don't want to pay for one, and (2) I'm having a bout of cooking-induced elbow tendinitis (from wrestling with 25 lb turkey in January), and those pots are heavy! I've read that this bread can be baked in a crock pot insert, but mine's not big enough.

There is no question that a pan will be found/bought. Because I need to be able to make this bread; it's just that great.

the verdict:

This was the kind of bread that dreams are made of: crusty on the outside, substantial and chewy on the inside, with just the right kind of holes to soak up olive oil or butter or just be their splendid holey selves.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll have to say that my husband did not rave about this bread. Instead, as I gushed on and on about my own baking, there was a restrained subtly approving murmur from his quarter. Under brutal cross-examination, he admitted that he thought it was lacking a little complexity of flavor. Hmm, we'll have to see what he thinks of it next time ;)

{TWD} Devil's Food "Wite-Out" Cake

Back in the day, when you were typing a letter, or a paper, or a document (yes, typing with an honest-to-goodness typewriter) and you made a mistake, you had two choices: retype the page or employ the magic of Wite-Out correction fluid. Slap that stuff across your mistake and voila! Good as new and none the wiser (unless you looked really really hard).

And there you have the true beauty of this cake.

I need practice with layer cakes. And with cooked icings. After making this cake I can honestly say... that I still need practice with layer cakes. And especially with cooked icings! This week's cake was fraught with pitfalls for me. So it may come as a surprise to hear me say that this is my new favorite cake. Not because of the taste - which is amazing, or the appearance - which is dramatic. Nope, it's because of the magic powers of the devil's food crumbs covering the outside. Like Wite-Out, these little babies cover a multitude (yes a multitude, you can take it from me) of sins.

Lumpy overcooked marshmallow frosting? You'll never taste it because of the clumps of crumbs. Finger in the side of the cake? No problem, the crumbs will cover it. Vanilla paste instead of vanilla extract in the icing? The black specks in that billowy whiteness will blend right into the crumbs. Lopsided crumbly layers? You won't notice under all those crumbs.

Dorie calls it "Devil's Food White Out Cake", but in my book it's Devil's Food Wite-Out Cake.

mother and baby: 6" and 3" cakes

n.o.e.'s notes:

- After a lot of internal debate about cake pan sizes, I finally decided to make a 6" cake rather than the specified 8". This should technically only have required around 1/2 recipe. Eschewing the math this week, I made a full recipe of both the cake and the frosting, figuring I'd find a way to use the extra half.

- The batter came together easily and tasted great. It was nice and chocolaty, and not too sweet.

- When it came time to fill the pans, I used 2/3 of the full recipe of batter rather than 1/2, to make sure I got nice thick layers that I could split for a really tall little cake. This week's P&Q had plenty of reports of cake layers that hadn't risen very much.

- Each of my 6" layers (baked for 29 minutes) domed a good bit, but otherwise didn't really rise much.

- With the leftover batter, I baked five 3" tartlettes using a silicone pan.

- I split the layers the next morning, and I can't say that they cut evenly or cleanly. I first cut off the domed part of each layer, leaving a fairly thin layer to try to split.

- My gut told me to start beating the egg whites for the icing when the syrup was 220 degrees, but I didn't listen to it, since I've never made cooked icing. I dutifully waited until the syrup was 235 degrees. It shot right past 235 to 242 before I could even get the mixer turned on. I spent the next several minutes frantically moving the syrup around on the stove trying to keep it at 242, while exhorting my whites to "form firm peaks already." I have no idea if I ever got the whites to the proper stage - or if I passed it in the flurry of activity.

- When I poured in the syrup instead of being rewarded with a lovely fluffy icing I saw a hot and scrambled icing. Last week it was scrambled yolks; this week the egg whites wanted a turn. I kept beating until the icing cooled and the big lumps broke up into small lumps. (Sorry for the lack of pictures; some things are just too discouraging to document visually.) Except for the scrambled bits (which tasted exactly like hardened egg whites) the icing tasted like fluffy marshmallows.

you can see the little lumps in the white icing, and the black vanilla specks - thank goodness for the crumbs!

- I pressed on and spread the icing and stacked the layers. I crumbled the dome trimmings for the outside, leaving me with one extra cake layer. The thought briefly crossed my mind to make this a 4 layer cake, but instead I just loaded the 3 layers with lots of icing.

- I also frosted two of the little tartlettes together to make a tiny cake.

the verdict:

I loved the taste of this cake - the layers were nice and moist and fudgy and the icing fluffy but not too sweet.

- I took one of the extra tiny tartlette cakes and sat it in a pool of creme anglaise that I just happened to have in the fridge (This was the scrambled batch from last week's TWD. I ran through the curdled creme with the immersion blender and it was perfectly smooth and delicious). I'll have to say this tasted fantastic!

Between last week and this week, I've had my fill of measuring the temperatures of pots on the stove top - and of the resulting scrambled eggs! I'm not sure how fast I'll want to make the marshmallow icing again - the cake would be (nearly as) delicious with any thick fluffy frosting. But this will be my new Devil's Food cake recipe (sorry, Duncan Hines!). And I will remember the magic powers of the "Wite-Out" crumbs to solve all those pesky layer cake setbacks.

p.s.- The icing reminded me of the marshmallow fluff I had on fluffernutter sandwiches every day when I was 10, so I had a spoonful of peanut butter + icing for a little snack.

Thanks to Stephanie of Confessions of a City Eater for picking this cake for us to bake! You can find the recipe on her post, or on page 247-249 of Dorie's book Baking From My Home to Yours, where this cake is featured on THE COVER!

Oops, I forgot about taking this picture while it was still daylight!

Provencal Beef Daube

I have been making recipes from Cooking Light for more than 20 years. In fact before Cooking Light was a magazine it was a featured section of Southern Living Magazine, and I have some "Cooking Light" recipes that I tore out of Southern Living's pages. I don't subscribe to the magazine but I pick up an occasional issue in the grocery store. In the Fall of 2007 I came home with the 20th Anniversary issue of the magazine, which has turned out to be a veritable treasure-trove and has earned a permanent place on my cookbook shelves. (I've previously posted the Creamed Corn with Bacon and Leeks and the Penne with Vodka Cream Sauce, both from this issue. Edit: also Pasta with Prosciutto and Parmesan and Halibut with Bacon and Mushrooms) Another recipe in the issue that caught my eye was for Provencal Beef Daube, which was tagged as the "Best Beef Dish" in the magazine's history:

"It stands above all our other beef recipes because it offers the homey comfort and convenience of pot roast yet is versatile and sophisticated enough for entertaining."

Given this endorsement, I just had to try the dish for dinner guests. n.o.e.'s notes: I cut my own cubes from a wonderful beef chuck roast that I ordered through my farm box people. The roast was a tiny bit short of the specified 2 pounds, so I increased the carrots a little. As it turned out, the proportion was off - it really needed the full quantity of the meat and fewer carrots than I used. I browned the beef in two batches (in a 3 qt dutch oven, so the meat would brown rather than steam. This was the first time I used my new Lodge enameled cast iron - love the way it cooks. After starting the stew on the stove top, it finishes with 2 1/2 hours in the oven.

Ready to do time in the oven.

the verdict: I ladled the daube over buttered plain and spinach noodles. Although the recipe claims to yield 6 servings, we had just enough for 4 people. We really enjoyed this recipe (aside from wishing that I'd make it with the proper proportions of beef and carrots). All the flavors has mellowed richly during their long slow time in the over. It's as good as my go-to beef stew recipe, and more company-ready. Because it bakes in the oven rather than simmers on the stovetop, it needs less attention, leaving me do other things to prepare for company. Although it is a Cooking Light recipe, it is substantial and hearty - perfect for warming up on a gray, chilly day.

Date Night at America's Drive-In

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm sure there are some wonderful gourmet meals going on in your homes this evening, or maybe fantastic dining-out experiences. For us, a perfect Valentine's meal came in the form of extra long chili-cheese coneys, jalapeno cheeseburgers, onion rings and shakes at the Sonic (America's Drive In) while listening to Grown Folks Radio (old school R&B), Brown Eyed Girl, and Roxanne on the radio. We had to drive a bit to the closest Sonic, but since we hadn't eaten at Sonic for a year and a half, boy, were we excited to blow out the week's calorie allotment on tonight's feast! It doesn't get any better.

Penne with Vodka Cream Sauce

This recipe for Penne with Vodka Cream Sauce, sporting just 1/4 cup of cream, stopped me in my in my tracks when I came across it in Cooking Light's 20th Anniversary Issue. Cooking Light featured this recipe to illustrate two basic healthy eating principles:

"All foods have a place in a healthful diet" (ie, cream doesn't need to be a pariah), and

"Embellish convenience products with fresh ones" (fresh basil livens up the canned tomatoes that form the base of this sauce.)

n.o.e.'s notes:

This recipe was straightforward and fairly quick.

The only problem I have with Cooking Light recipes is that the stated portion sizes are pretty small (1 cup of the finished pasta/serving in this case). Depending on whether this will be a main course or a side dish, keep in mind that the recipe calls for just 1/2 pound of pasta, and yields 4 cups.

the verdict:

The recipe is quick and easy, and oh, so delicious! I can't believe I've never tasted this sauce before, but from now on it will have a firm place in the pasta recipe rotation at our house.


I'm submitting this post to the Preso Pasta Night's gala 100th roundup. That's a lot of fantastic pasta, folks. Stop by and browse the roundups - you're guaranteed to find a recipe you just can't live without. Congratulations, Ruth and all of the PPN regulars, for a consistently bringing us all of that delectable pasta week after week!

Cranberry Coffeecake

I've had a bunch of cranberries in my fridge for the longest time. Last week I finally had a moment when I could bake something with them. I wanted to make a quick bread or muffins, and I was looking for something out of the usual cranberry + orange rut. I turned to my overflowing cookbook shelf and found a promising recipe for Cranberry Coffee Cake in the big yellow Gourmet Cookbook. The recipe can be found online also, but I was in a huge hurry so I baked this old school (without first checking my computer or reading any of the reviews.)

noe's notes:

I made a few changes to improve the health quotient a bit.

- I used a mix of flours - nearly half AP flour, nearly half white whole wheat, and a couple generous spoonfuls of oat flour.

- Instead of eggs I used 1/2 cup of egg substitute.

- I cut the sugar by 1/4 cup.

- Skim milk instead of whole milk

- I used my wonderful long slim loaf pan, and lined it with parchment so that I could just pull out the loaf when it was finished cooking. It was a tiny bit tricky to cover the cranberry layers with the cake batter. I tried hard to leave a sufficient margin of cake around each of the cranberry layers so that the cake would not separate when sliced.

- Baked it at 325 convect for around 40 minutes. Luckily it's supposed to cool in the pan, so I just threw it in the car and raced to book group.

- I saved the liquid from draining the cranberries and sugar, and simmered it to make a cranberry syrup. This was good on the floating islands and great stirred into yogurt.

the verdict:

We ate this while it was still a bit warm, and although the slicing was tricky the cake was delicious. There's always great coffee at book group, so we had a perfect accompaniment. The cake was very enthusiastically received, with everyone trying to guess the ingredients.

The cake is really pretty, with its cranberry veins alternating with layers of plain cake. It's a whole lot more dramatic in appearance than if the cranberries were distributed evenly throughout. The flavor is improved by the layers too, imo. I love how the pure shot of cranberry plays off against the soft buttery cake flavors.

It's very easy to cut off just another taste of this cake! In comparing notes with a fellow book group-mate, AT, we determined that neither of us is an orange-flavored baked goods kind of person. If you are, you could easily add some zest or juice. The comments to the online recipe are filled with folks who added orange flavors (and also nuts). Personally I love the simplicity and the plain cranberry goodness of the original cake.

After baking this I decided to experiment with making it even more low in fat - substituting some of the butter with Greek yogurt and light flavor olive oil. (I used half the butter and the other 4 T was an even mix of nonfat Greek yogurt and olive oil. I again used egg substitute and skim milk, but this time replaced the vanilla with almond extract. I baked it in a standard shaped loaf pan. We liked this version too, although it was the tiniest bit dryer and not as complex a flavor. It was still good, especially for an everyday breakfast, where it was special enough to encourage a cheerful attitude to start the day, but healthy enough not to lead to guilt!

I happened on the page of one blogger who is cooking her way through the Gourmet book (she's actually not the only one) and chronicling her experience at The Gourmet Project. Her blog makes for an interesting read; you can see her experience with this cake here.

If you have some cranberries in your fridge or freezer, this would make a great cake for a Valentine's Day breakfast, or really any time you want a showy, delicious quick bread.

{TWD} Floating Desert Islands

I've just got to say right at the outset : this has got to be the oddest dessert I've ever made. In the intro to the recipe, Dorie says that this classic French dish is the one dessert that "remains a mainstay in the make-at-home repertoire, in some part because it is so easy and in some part because it's a naturally showy dessert."

Well.

Not only does it look odd (really, don't you think a lump of meringue in a puddle of creamy stuff appears a bit unusual? or am I just being provincial?) but this two page recipe isn't what I'd term "easy." Easy is stirring together an ingredient or two and popping it in the oven. This recipe, on the other hand, has a meringue element and a custard element, and if you're being traditional, a caramel element. Each of these contain a few potential pitfalls for a home baker like me. But assuming you are French or can otherwise effortlessly breeze through these components without mishap, there's always the mountain of bowls and pans this recipe produces...

So the whole time I was cooking this, I thought of people in their kitchens in France, blithely manicuring and poaching meringues and coating spoon backs with perfectly tempered custard.


n.o.e.'s notes:

I made half recipe for my husband and me - it stretched for two desserts for two of us, mostly because I had tasted so much of it during preparation that I didn't need a very big serving. After reading the Floating Islands P&Q, I decided to follow steph (whisk/spoon)'s lead by making and poaching the meringues first and then use the leftover poaching milk to make the creme anglaise.

whipping:

Some people can whip up a meringue like it's a walk in the park, but not me. For me whipping egg whites is a Big Deal, especially when the meringue is going to be formed into an island that then must poach in simmering milk.

To successfully whip egg whites, the mixing bowl and implements must be spotlessly clean. The day I made this recipe I was more scrupulous about cleanliness than I've been since I brought my firstborn home from the hospital, and even then I realized that a little dirt was probably good for her. But not with egg whites. Even a speck of wayward grease or foreign matter is liable to lead to certain meringue demise.

The next hurdle is to beat the whites long enough that they are fluffy and full of air, but not so long that they become dry, which is a sign of over-mixing and spells bad news for meringues. I was so worried about this that I may have under-beat my whites just a bit.

shaping:

Forming the islands is where the rubber hits the road. According to Dorie, there are two options: the rough volcanic island and the manicured oval island. I'll leave it to you to guess the classification of my islands.

When I think of "manicured" real estate I think of precisely-maintained lawns or shrubs. I think of golf courses. Turns out I'm not so much the manicured type. Here's my front yard:


And the ornamental shrub by my front door:

...and this is what it looked like after a trim.

With this track record, I wasn't about to try for manicured meringue islands. No matter what I used to scoop the meringue, that implement became the meringue's best buddy, and the two had to be forcibly separated. There was absolutely no way that the meringue was going to go back and forth between two spoons. I ended up using an old-school oval ice cream scoop (not a disher) and pried the meringue out and into the hot milk.

poaching:

I poached my islands for about 2-3 minutes per side.

At this stage, dessert did not look promising - the bottom of the milk kept trying to scorch and the top kept skinning over. I was busy skimming milk skin and peeling it off of the meringues. Meanwhile the poaching liquid was fast disappearing (even though I added extra). After straining the poaching milk, I had just under half of what I needed for making the creme anglaise.

Dorie says to lay out a clean towel next to the stove, but then never reveals the purpose of the towel. I figured I'd park my poached islands there after they cooked. What's better than a nice clean towel after a dip in a warm milk bath?

creme anglaise

I wonder if the French ever have to make their creme anglaise twice because the first time it scrambled? Hmm? Well, I did. Dorie says the eggs may take 10 minutes to cook. I was pulling up a stool to the counter to get comfy while I stirred, when my custard reached the proper consistency - after about 2 minutes, or even less. I was so surprised that I just stood and looked for a second, and in that time the eggs scrambled ever so slightly. It absolutely would not strain through the fine mesh strainer.

Luckily I was making a half batch, so I only wasted 3 egg yolks on the first attempt. (And the custard still tastes great, but just has a crazy texture.)

creme anglaise, take 2:

I had used up all of my large-graded eggs, so I turned to the eggs from the farm box. These are ungraded and tend to be smaller than large eggs from the store. I think this worked in my favor, to slow the thickening process, as the proportion of egg to milk was smaller. It still went pretty quickly - maybe 6 minutes, and I got it into the strainer not a minute too soon. In fact, the custard in the bottom of the pan was just starting to scramble. My creme stayed pretty much in liquid form even after it cooled.

topping:

There was absolutely no way I was going to tackle the (thankfully) optional homemade caramel for this recipe. Meringue and custard were enough for one afternoon, without having to deal with molten sugar also. So it was bare desert islands for us.

I drizzled one serving of the islands with some cranberry syrup that I made by simmering some cranberry liquid that I'd reserved from another recipe. I knew that we would prefer the flavor of the unadorned vanilla version, but couldn't resist making one in Valentine colors.

the verdict:

I had sampled the various components as I cooked them. The meringue was good - light and not too sweet. The custard was also good - rich but not decadently so. But this was not enough to write home about. I could only hope that when tasted together the meringue and the custard would combine for a total experience beyond the sum of the individual parts. And they did. This is a delicate yet delicious dessert.

My husband loved it, giving it a rating of 9 out of 10. I liked it too, and will freely admit to licking the empty creme anglaise bowl before sticking it in the dishwasher. I told my husband that I wouldn't be making it again, unless he were to specifically request the island dessert. Just too odd. And time consuming.

I have no doubt that many of my fellow bakers found this one to be easy, and produced precisely manicured islands swimming in a perfect anglaise sea, topped with gossamer caramel strands. You can find out by visiting the TWD blogroll and clicking on each baker's blog. You can find the recipe on page 401-402 of Dorie's book Baking From My Home to Yours, or on Shari's post.

{Adventures in Yeast} #3 - KA Blitz Bread

In my recent quest to bake with yeast, I've been buoyed up by my experience with King Arthur's English Muffin bread, which I've made at least a dozen times. All of my loaves have risen nicely - except the batch where I actually forgot to add the yeast. Yeah.

I've been having a great time reading bread books and yeast recipes. It's a very deep rabbit hole indeed! I'm trying to start with baby steps (the Stollen was a pretty big - and not totally successful - stride).

For my third yeast experiment, I went with another King Arthur bread variety - no knead, start to finish in under 2 hours! It's a focaccia-mimic and it is as tasty as it is easy. King Arthur calls it "Blitz Bread" (recipe here, blog post with step-by-step photos here). The nice thing about this recipe is that you can season it to suit your mood, or your menu.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- As advertised, this is bread comes together very easily.

- I did not use (do not own) the optional pizza dough flavor or the optional cheese powder.

- I wanted to get a good first taste of the base bread, so I sprinkled a few basic herbs very sparingly. I was not particularly sparing with the olive oil, which pretty much coats the dough as the bread cooks.

the verdict:

This bread was fragrant and tasty. We ate it warm from the oven as an accompaniment to dinner. The best part was the olive oil- soaked bottom crust.

Herb Salt Roasted Potatoes

Last week I found a bag of fingerling potatoes in my cupboard that just begged to be cooked in a really special way. These potatoes were a mix of colors: white, red and purple (and the purple ones were purple all the way through!) Roasting them seemed the way to go, and I looked to Tyler Florence for help preparing these little babies.

Tyler Florence's recipe for herb salt roasted potatoes gave a slightly different riff on the usual olive oil/rosemary roast potatoes that I make.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- I had all the ingredients on hand - boy do I love it when I don't have to make a special grocery run.

- I used fingerling potatoes. I cut some of them so that the pieces would all be roughly equivalent in size. That way they'd cook evenly.

- Tyler's technique of making a herb salt worked great. I used 1/2 T sage for 1/2 T of the rosemary. My husband seems to developing a 'thing' about rosemary, so I'm trying to camouflage it. Besides, isn't every savory dish improved by adding sage? (hmm, or bacon?)

the verdict:

These are very good roast potatoes. I'll be using this recipe as my stand-by from now on, improvising if necessary to reflect the herbs I have on hand.

I'm submitting this recipe to Tyler Florence Fridays. The cooks in this group prepare a mouthwatering variety of Tyler's recipes each week, so click on over to this week's roundup to see what everyone's cooked up this time!

Country Captain

There is a chicken thigh under all that wonderful sauce and garnish!

Over breakfast on Sunday, my husband reads the newspaper. Last week he paused in his perusal of the Times Magazine to share with me the featured recipe for Country Captain, a chicken dish. (The whole article accompanying the recipe is well written and well worth a read.) "Why don't we make this tonight?" Jim asked. And so we did.

I have heard of Country Captain, and frequently paged past recipes for the dish in many of my (regional) cookbooks. But it took the New York Times to make me pay attention to this quintessential Southern dish.

Cooking this recipe on a Sunday afternoon was a return to a practice we'd let fall by the wayside. About 15 years ago, my husband and I had a habit of cooking Sunday dinners together. Those afternoons of chopping and sauteing, along with weekly breakfasts at our local coffee shop, were valuable opportunities to stay in touch with each other amid the whirl of carpool, scouting, dance classes, work, and the million other distractions of a busy household. As a bonus, we developed a small but mighty arsenal of delicious recipes (with the Times frequently playing a contributing role).

Last week I realized anew what a wonderful job Jim does of chopping vegetables (and he remembered how relaxing he finds that to be). The recipe, while not a difficult one, takes some time to prepare. Working together didn't cut the prep time in half, really, but it more than doubled the fun of cooking. One of the perks of cooking with this man is that he cleans as he goes (whereas I, ahem, do not) and we end up with a cooked dinner and a clean kitchen to boot!

Check out those beautifully chopped veggies!

n.o.e.'s notes:

- I used around 3.5 lb chicken thighs with bone in and skin on, although I couldn't help myself from trimming some overhanging skin/fat from the thighs.

- When I ran out of dried thyme (seriously, how does one even do that?) I rounded out the teaspoon with Italian seasoning.

- Instead of cooking the bacon and then crumbling it, we cut 4 slices of bacon (Benton's) into lardons before cooking it to crispness. We poured off half the bacon grease (although the recipe contemplates using it all) before adding the vegetables.

- We used curry paste (Patak's hot curry paste which I have ordered online if I can't find it in the store) instead of curry powder. I love this stuff!

- The medium onion weighed around 200 grams (for future reference).

- We used diced san marzano tomatoes (rather than the chopped tomatoes the recipe specifies).

The chicken, just out of the oven and ready to be scarfed, er, served

the verdict

In the words of my husband:

"This recipe caught my eye in NYT mag over bagel and coffee this a.m. because it listed diced onions, celery and bell peppers - the Holy Trinity where I come from (land of Galatoires) - and minced garlic - the Pope. Also chicken thighs and bacon (which for us means only one thing, Benton's from Tennessee). Served over rice. First taste: The name 'Country Captain' is a shameful travesty. Instant field commission to 'InterGalactic Field Marshal'."

From what I can tell, this is probably my husband's new favorite chicken recipe. As for me: I'd put it on the top rung, at least. It's really delicious. The rice really worked to complement the flavors in this dish. The currants, bacon, and almonds were great additions, although we didn't need all of the bacon. Benton's is a very intense smoky bacon, and we only needed to sprinkle on a little bit or we'd have run the risk of the bacon overpowering the chicken and sauce. In the future, 3 slices would be fine.

{TWD} Let there be Peace on Earth ...and let it begin with cookies!

We sang two songs at my eighth grade graduation: "Let There Be Peace On Earth" (and let it begin with me) and "I Believe" (for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows...) From that day I've always had a soft spot in my heart for both, but I must say that my husband does not. As a plebe at the Naval Academy, each time he started a sentence with the words "I believe," an upperclass midshipman would make him sing the song! Come to think of it I wonder if we may have been singing the song at the exact same time, since he was a plebe the same year I was in eighth grade.

I have to say that when I saw the recipe for World Peace Cookies was the chosen TWD recipe for this week, I was thrilled. Not the "Oh, boy I've been waiting to bake these and now they've been chosen" thrilled, but the "Oh, my, I'm busier than I've been in a long while, and I've already baked these, and I already have a draft post in the works" thrilled! And when I say "I've already baked these," I mean that these cookies have been baked in my kitchen - several times - mostly by my daughters, but that I had the presence of mind to photograph them with my camera. In fact, it was daughter J.D.E. who found the recipe for us; you can see her cooking World Peace cookies in the picture over there in the right sidebar.

There's a reason that we've baked these so many times, and once you try this recipe (which you can find on page 138-139 of Dorie's book Baking From My Home to Yours. or on Jessica of cookbookhabit's blog post) you too will no doubt add these cookies to your repeat list.

cook's notes:

This will likely go on record as my shortest TWD post. We've followed the recipe precisely to the letter each time. One time the cookies spread, and I think it's because the girls were horsing around while they were slicing cookies from the logs and putting them on the cookie sheets, and the cookies sat around for a few extra minutes and got a bit warm. If you have similar goings-on in your kitchen, I'd recommend that you re-chill the cut cookies before baking them. They really are nifty when they retain that fat sliced-slab-of-cookie shape.

the verdict:

These are the best chocolate cookie I've ever eaten (much less baked). I usually like my cookies soft and chewy, but these are more sandy in texture. But still chewy! The salt is a great addition to the recipe. Luckily they are easy to whip up, and you could even keep a log of cookie dough in the freezer for later baking.

We've brought these cookies to several parties and gatherings, and they have always been a huge hit with everyone. One group calls them "the salty cookies" and another calls them "those peace cookies." No matter which other cookies I show up with now, I know that secretly (or not-so-secretly) people really are wishing I'd brought World Peace cookies.

And now that I'm writing this post and looking at my pictures of World Peace Cookies, I'm really wishing I had one to eat right about now. That would be the beginning of Peace. Right here with Me.

I Believe...