Crispiest Crunchiest no-knead Bread

Okay – I love bread,  I am a bit of a bread-nerd actually. I make it every day – it has become a routine for me to whip it up before I go to bed, plunk it in the fridge overnight or tuck it in on the kitchen counter with a wet cloth on top and kiss it goodnight. Go to sleep, wake up, turn the oven on, make my tea, put the bread in the hot oven, have my shower and ………. voila freshly made warm and delicious bread!!!

But before I share the bread recipe,  I have something really exciting to share!

The 1st of November I will be participating in an awesome event – The Virtual Vegan Potluck!! I participated in one in May this year and it was so much fun! More than 100 wonderful bloggers from all over the world will bring their amazing food creations to the Virtual Potluck table! So stay tuned in – come and visit and join the fun.

I am not vegan, but I enjoy to nourish my body by feeding it lots of plant-based foods, and more plant-based foods than other types of food. The Virtual Vegan Potluck is a great way to get inspired – I promise you – there will be lots of scrumptious recipes.

I will be creating a new dessert. I can reveal that I am making a raw food healthy version of an old (fat) favorite. It will be soft, wild, intense and super delicious. And at the time, I will be in Copenhagen, so it will be created directly from my Danish kitchen in the heart of the old city.

So stay tuned – 1st of November 2012 – and now to the bread!

It is becoming popular to bake bread in an extremely hot oven in a cast iron pot with a lid!  I have been watching these developments for a while, but had never tried it. One small thing was that I didn’t have the pot! Then one day I saw a post from In Pursuit of more – one of my favorite blogs! Shira had made bread so delicious, in a cast iron pot – it was so gorgeously beautiful that bread, that I had to make it. I went straight out, bought a pot and went in the kitchen to make bread. Gosh I could hardly sleep that night – excited to get that bread in the oven!

Let just say it – it became the crispiest, crunchiest bread I have ever tried – it was sooooo good!

Here is my recipe:

2 cups of water

1 teaspoon dried yeast

3 tbs olive oil

2 teaspoon salt

4 cups wheat flour

1 cup rye flour

1/2 cup wheat to work the dough on the counter

In a big bowl – add the water, dissolve the yeast in the water add the olive oil and start adding the flour a little at the time, while constantly stirring,  until you have a  dough.

Cover with a wet cloth and leave it to rest

The longer you raise it the better the bread – so preferably overnight!

For this bread I left it for 4 hours in the bowl, on the kitchen counter. I will show you the difference – later. They both turned out really nice but, the one bread that was left overnight was crispier and had more air holes in the structure.

After the 4 hours – I carefully scooped it out on to a clean counter with 1/2 cup of flour – there I carefully folded it and dusted it with extra flour like this

No kneading needed – cover with a wet cloth and leave to raise for another 2 hours like this

After about an hour and a 1/2, turn the oven on to 450F. Once it has reached the temperature – put the cast iron pot and the lid into the oven. Let them heat up for a 1/2 hr – no need to grease it or oil it, just heat it.

After heating it – carefully – and equipped with what you need so as not to burn yourself, take out the pot – and carefully, carefully place the dough in this extremely hot pot

Put the lid on and put it back in the oven to bake for 35 min. After 35 min. remove the lid and continue baking for another 10 min.

Viola the bread is ready to enjoy!

And, for the more patient cooks:

Here is the bread that I made which had been raising overnight. It was made with just organic wheat flour.

“The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight” – M.F.K. Fischer

Virtual Vegan Potluck – It’s Party Time

This is it – the day I have been looking forward to for weeks have finally arrived! The Virtual Vegan Potluck

– The Virtual Vegan Potluck was initiated and arranged by one of my favorite virtual friends and bloggers, Annie at anunrefinedvegan!

She birthed this idea and made it possible – thank you Annie!! I brought you some flowers from my garden

How it works: 

The virtual vegan potluck is a gathering of enthused foodies, lovely people who have created amazing dishes that they have “virtually brought” to this party. Please come and mingle, enjoy and visit with all the amazing bloggers and indulge with your eyes and soul in these fantastic creations. I feel like I am in heaven – this is a vegan gourmet feast! And a perfect way to be inspired!

I hope you enjoy it and visit all the bloggers and see their delicious creations.

There are two buttons below – a beautiful forward and backward button created by Annie. Click one of them & you are on your way!

For this amazing feast I have created a grilled pepper and zucchini salad with pine nuts – it is served on a piece of homemade roll with a deliciously tangy humus that I have specially created for today.

The Grilled Pepper and Zucchini salad with roasted pine nuts:

4 peppers

4 small zucchini

pine nuts

Fresh big leaved parsley

Split in half and grill the peppers on the BBQ on the skin side till they are literally black on the skin. I added some fresh oregano and rosemary inside while they were grilling. Leave them to cool in a closed container to help loosen the skin. Peel off the skin.

Slice the zucchini and toss them in a bowl with a dash of olive oil. Put them individually on a baking try and bake them at 360F till they are lovely and golden. Check them and remove from the tray as they are ready. They will not all be ready at the same time so keep an eye on them – have patience. Season with sea salt and freshly ground pepper when they are done.

Dry roast the pine nuts on a frying pan – just slightly gently browned.

Cut the red peppers into smaller bite sized bits. Mix with the golden baked zucchini slices. Pick the leaves of the parsley, rinse well and add to the salad. Serve with roasted pine nuts.

Deliciously tangy and homemade humus

1 1/2 cup of chick peas – garbanzo beans

3 bay leaves

3 springs of fresh thyme

3 table spoons of organic Tahini

juice of 1 lemon

small bunch of big leafed parsley, rinsed

5 small cloves of garlic

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1 1/2 cup of olive oil

small teaspoon of ground cumin

Soak the chick peas for 24 hrs. Cook in plenty of water with bay leaves, thyme sprigs and sea salt – for about an hour but check along the way – they need to be soft, not crunchy.

Strain them and leave them to cool. When they are cool put them in the blender, add 1 & 1/2 cups of olive oil, squeeze in the juice of one lemon, add 3 tablespoons of organic tahini, the garlic and a small teaspoon of ground cumin, chopped parsley. Blend it all together, add some filtered water if it is too thick. Taste with sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

Homemade humus is easy to make and it tastes so good – you can really taste the difference!

This is it – ready to serve and enjoy!

This salad taste so good! And being a true Dane I like to serve it as an open-faced sandwich on a freshly made bread rolls with the humus and the salad on top, just like this

Oh by the way – those little flowers are edible sweet little rosemary flowers.

This is my contribution. Thank you for coming to the Virtual Potluck – I am thrilled you came – and so the party continues the show goes on and on and on – click forward or backward as you please.                                                                                                                                                                     Enjoy and have fun