domestic goddess: country harvest bread

 

 

 

 

 

I’d been wanting to tackle homemade bread for the longest time. The smell, the taste, the texture—there’s nothing like it, is there? But it always seemed like too much work. Luckily, I eventually stumbled on Chef Michael Smith‘s recipe for “no  knead bread.” It takes a little longer than your average recipe but, luckily, most of that time involves the dough sitting in a bowl, slowly rising, while you sit back with a glass of wine.

This recipe is packed with healthy, delicious ingredients and really is so simple to make. Here’s what you need:

• 3 cups of whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup of oats
• 1/4 teaspoon of active dry yeast
•  1 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1 5/8 cups of warm water
• Add orange zest and honey as desired to sweeten

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Whisk your dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Slowly add the water until a wet dough forms. Continue stirring until the dough has incorporated all of the loose flour in the bowl. Stir in your orange zest and honey if desired at the end.

2. Cover your bowl with plastic wrap and a towel. Let it rest in a warm place for 18 hours.

3. After 18 hours, the dough will have doubled in size.

4. Remove your dough from the bowl and form it into a greased baking dish. Let it rest a second time for another 2-3 hours (it will almost double in size again).

5. Coat the top of the dough with olive oil or sunflower oil; this will help create a nice crust as the bread bakes.

6. Bake for 45 minutes at 425°C.

Your house will smell delicious and the bread will taste amazing—promise!

domestic goddess: bacon & egg stuffed avocados

I have really been neglecting my inner domestic goddess! To be fair, I’ve been doing a lot of cooking and baking lately (I even made a delicious country bread from scratch last weekend—recipe to come!) but I’m horrible about taking pictures and recording the recipes for my blog. I’ll get better!

But, I was over at a friend’s place the other night and we decided to make a little snack and try out a recipe we’d found on Pinterest (where else?): bacon and egg stuffed avocados. The “stuffed avocados” craze is in full swing right now and I couldn’t be more on board. Everything tastes better with avocado! Definitely not just for guacamole.

These were really simple to make. Here’s what you need:

• 1 ripe avocado (cut in half, pitted)
• 2 eggs (one for each avocado half)
• 2 or 3 strips of bacon
• seasoning of choice (I used a little salt and pepper and red chili flakes)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Cut the avocado in half and remove the pit.

2. Spoon out more of the avocado flesh around the pit hole, but make sure you leave enough of the flesh so there is still plenty of avocado to eat once it’s stuffed. (A helpful tip: use the egg to measure the size of the hole. If the egg fits perfectly into the hole you’ve made, there’s a really good chance it won’t overflow once you crack the egg into the avocado, and you will still have enough flesh left to eat.)

3. Crack the egg into the hole you’ve carved out in your avocado.

4. While you’re scooping out the avocado, you should also be cooking up a few strips of bacon. Fry or bake until almost crispy, but be careful not to overcook upfront, otherwise the bacon will burn when you bake the avocados.

5. When your bacon is ready, cut it into small pieces and scatter them over the egg.

6. Season with a little salt and pepper and some red chili flakes if desired.

7. Bake the stuffed avocados at 425°C for about 20 minutes. (Another helpful tip: to prevent the avocados from falling over while cooking, prop them up on a muffin tin rather than a flat baking sheet. This will keep the avocados in place while they’re baking, and the muffin tin will also capture any egg that might overflow.)

This is a really fun thing to serve for brunch, or just a great high-protein snack—and it’s super quick. Enjoy!

j.

getting organized.

A large part of starting this blog has to do with a promise I made to myself that I would make more time for writing this year; I care less about the type of writing it is and the topic I am writing about and more about the fact that I am making it a priority. And as much as I’d love to approach the blog with reckless abandon, posting every fun thing I come across or any random idea that pops into my head (a la Tumblr, Pinterest, StumbleUpon …you get the idea), the planner in me just couldn’t get away with it. So, I wanted to commit to a few key topics that seem most relevant to my life and that I knew I would be excited to write about. I figured if I could organize a handful of feature posts, it would be easier to commit to writing about the things I enjoy most, and commit to doing it often.

So, here they are. Some fun things to look forward to:

turntable: New musical discoveries and old favourites.

bookshelf: Books I’ve read. Books I want to read. Books worth reading. (Another promise I made to myself for 2013 is that I would read more, so hopefully this will help me stay on track!)

beauty all around: It could be a really beautiful photo I saw, or a touching story I read somewhere, or a really great vintage shop I tracked down on a random Saturday afternoon. I think it’s important to remind yourself that amazing things and amazing people are everywhere if you look for them.

glam squad: I enjoy yoga pants and a hoodie as much as the next girl, but I can also appreciate the creative genius that goes into a truly stellar runway show. I think breaking the bank in the name of fashion is completely ridiculous (sorry, die-hards!) but my heart still goes pitter-patter over all of the pretty things that compose a really killer look.

domestic goddess: Recipes either created or conquered. (Or that end up looking like this.)

musings: Let’s be honest—I basically needed a category for the things that don’t fit into any other category. Just some thoughts on some things.

on a serious note: For the days when musings don’t seem to be enough.

I like where this is going. This feels good.

j.