dabrownman's blog

After Evon’s post of her bread with Japanese Black Rice in it, we knew it had to get to the top pf the bake list like Hanseata’s Wild Rice bread did when it appeared.  We had run across some of this rice a couple of months ago at Sprouts and had cooked it for dinner.  We knew it would end up in bread eventually and Evon’s post was the impetus.

I found a WW levain lurking in the back of the fridge.  It had been there for at least a week and maybe two.  It was a 100% hydration one since the hooch had separated out and was lying on top.  We poured off the liquid and fed it twice with multigrain flour and water on 4 hour intervals and it doubled in 2 hours after the last feeding.  So what to do with it?

With our daughter coming home tonight we thought home made pizza was in order since she loves it more than taking final exams at college.  We had built a YW levain for it on Monday and stuck it in the fridge to chill till this morning. To give it a boost we also made a 120 g, 100% hydration poolish this morning.  Both were ready to go to work in 4 hours of warm up and ferment

We were out of white bread again and with Lucy in the middle of her rye bread experiments, it didn’t look like we would get a chance to make one either.  But we built the rye levain for her and at the same time a whole wheat one for this bread and a YW one for some possible pizza - possibly tomorrow or Sunday.  Saturday is out since we are off to Tucson to finish moving my daughter back home.

My apprentice, Lucy, has been on a quest to make some rye breads that really pack the flavor of what she thinks a rye should taste like.  Her last bake really came out well with a 40% rye and I thought for sure she wouldn’t try to improve on it any time soon but, she fooled me again.

Lucy has wanted to work on a Jewish Deli Rye for some time.   She has really - ever since Varda was trying to come up with the Tzitzel that Pratzels used to make in St. Louis, a bread we too like very much.  My wife and Varda share the same home town and Jewish bakery!

Then with Eric Hanner’s passing we made his Eric’s Favorite Rye several times.  No wonder it was his favorite and we like it too.  So my apprentice starts her JDR quest with good underpinnings.

Dabrownman's;  green Mexican rice, a  chorizo burrito, grilled peppers, onion and squash, Black re-fried beans, grilled . salsa, pico de gillo and  Mexican Creama.

A fine breakfast made from two of our recent breads,  with back yard Minneolas, applewood smoked bacon, strawberries, an egg, caramelized Minneola marmalade and a basil blossom stalk.

Willie Mae’Big Mama’ Thornton is a Blues Legend.  She didn’t write but had her biggest hit with Hound Dog which was written for her.Elvis had a big hit with it later.  She was a 6’tall, large in; voice, frame and width being well over 200 pounds.  She drank hard too and never turned down a drink from a listener.  She taught herself to play harmonica and drums as well as anyone could and often played both while on stage as she sang. 

Mellow Yellow - by Donovan

I'm just mad about Saffron
Saffron's mad about me
I'm just mad about Saffron
She's just mad about me

{Refrain}
They call me mellow yellow

With the 3 GMA’s baking their fine cornbread I was all set to make one of my favorite ones with jalapeños, creamed corn, homemade apple and maple smoked bacon and who knows what kind of cheese but Donovan’s song kept spinning around in my apprentices tiny head.

We use a lot of cranberries around here mainly as part of our snockered fruit bled we put in so many baked good.  Evon published her beautiful cranberry bread she made her Mom and we have been making a bunch of different breads with dried fruits and nuts of late.  The only ones we missed were cranberries and pecans.  Then we saw a beautiful cranberry and pecan batard at Whole Foods when we were there stocking upon whole grain berries.