Lilith Saintcrow

I spent some time this weekend working on the wiki. I got the glossary from the Danny Valentine series input and will start working on the Kismet glossary next. I really want to have the terms from Steelflower put in so I can refer to them while writing the second one, but such is life. Got to work with what I have in front of me and prioritize and all that jazz.

So a lot of you ask me for recipes. Lots of the recipes I use (for I am a junior cook) come from books I feel a little uncomfortable quoting from, even with attribution. I will get over this as I get more comfortable with cooking. Since you guys have been asking I will try to get over that discomfort sooner rather than later. It shouldn’t be a problem with proper attribution, right?

Anyway, I did three spectacular French bread mini-baguettes this last week and thought I would share that recipe with you, since it’s simple and easy, if time-intensive.

INGREDIENTS

2c. tepid water
1 Tb yeast (or slightly less, I fudge sometimes on the yeast)
6c. flour
1 Tb kosher salt

Please, for the love of God, use King Arthur or Bob’s Red Mill or quality bread flour. Do not use Gold Medal. Please. Gold Medal and other cheap flours do not have the protein content necessary to make good bread. You can fudge by adding gluten, about 1 Tb. per 2c of crappy flour, but seriously, the investment in good bread flour is well worth it and I think it ends up being cheaper in the long run.

WHAT YOU DO

Okay. French bread is super-simple but it’s time-intensive. Dump the water and the yeast into the mixer bowl and let them stand for ten minutes. (If you don’t have a mixer that can handle bread dough, get ready to knead.[1]) After about ten minutes the yeast should be dissolved and “creamy”. Turn your mixer on low (with the dough hook in) and add the 6c of flour (see below), a cup at a time, just until the dough comes together in a shaggy mass. Then turn the mixer off and let the mess sit for 15 minutes.

This is important. It’s called the autolyse and it allows for development of gluten as well as making it easier to knead by hand (should you wish to do so). It makes a lighter bread with a better crumb, and it’s well worth the fifteen minutes. This is another reason why kitchen timers are my best friend.

After the autolyse, come back to the dough and turn your mixer on low. Let it mix for a couple minutes. This is when you add the salt. Two things here: I use kosher salt for baking; it really does make a difference and it’s cheap, too. Also, you do not add the salt until this stage because it makes the gluten fibers shorten and contract.

Here’s where a certain amount of trial and error comes in. I like my French bread dough to be just this side of tough. It’s a very dry dough that cleans the sides and bottom of the mixer bowl and, if you turn the mixer up, wraps around and slaps the side of the bowl. It’s a distinctive sound, that slapping, and one every baker lives for.

About five minutes of my KitchenAid mixing does the trick. Your mixer may vary, and if you’re kneading by hand you’re looking for a dough that doesn’t stick to your hands and cleans off your work surface. Two cups of water to six cups of flour is a good rule of thumb for me, mostly because I (big baking secret here) spoon the flour into a measuring cup and then level it off with a knife. This is something you should do every time you measure out flour, because of the tendency of flour to compact and give you much more than you bargained for.)

Now that you’ve got your nice smooth dough (it feels a little bit like Play-Doh but without the graininess) comes the most difficult part of French bread–letting it rise enough.

You probably can’t just let it rise for an hour, punch down, let it rise for 45 minutes and stick it in the oven. The flavor of French bread depends largely on the rising, which gives the flour time to break down completely and make that good, good gluten. This is also part of the reason why I plead with you not to use cheap flour. Also, there is no sugar to give the yeast a swift kick–it has to break down the flour, which as a process takes longer than the sugar rush.

I usually have to let my French bread initially rise for two hours. I put it in a greased (olive-oil cooking spray) medium-sized mixing bowl and put that in a 2.5 gallon Ziploc, which not only seals out perniciousness but gives the dough plenty of room. My kitchen is usually pretty warm, so I’ll pick an out-of-the-way spot, set my trusty kitchen timer, and bebop away. Check on it an hour later, marvel at how it hasn’t risen, kick myself for being a bad baker, set timer again and bebop away. Come back an hour later and congratulate myself for not being such a bad baker after all.

Cheap thrills, I know.

You want the dough to double at least, and it probably won’t do that in just an hour. Give it plenty of time and don’t rush this part of the process.

Now comes the shaping!

Chop the dough with your trusty dough scraper[2] into three pretty-equal portions. Take one portion and smush it out into a rough rectangle–but gently, because you want to keep some of the air bubbles in it intact. Now, roll it up the long way–that is, start at a long edge of the rectangle and roll it up like a cinnamon roll. Pinch it closed and tuck the ends under, and you’ve got a tolerable baguette-shape.

I like to bake my baguettes in this trusty little pan I picked up at Bob’s Red Mill out in McMinnville (damn but that store is dangerous to my bank account). Please, for the love of God, REMEMBER TO HOLD IT OVER YOUR SINK AND SPRAY IT WITH COOKING SPRAY/OLIVE OIL SPRAY. I prefer the olive oil spray, but either will do. You want to make sure you can get the baguettes OUT of the pan after baking (trust me on this) and spraying it over linoleum flooring is a Bad Idea. (Don’t ask. Just…don’t ask.) You could also hold them during the second rise with a heavy floured cloth, but if you’re advanced enough to do that I don’t need to tell you, right?

Shape and plop in the other baguettes. You can stretch them out a little if you want, and they do not have to be perfect. This is home baking, after all.

Now they rise again. I like to put them in that old trusty 2.5 gallon Ziploc and cover the open end with a kitchen towel. This rise can be as short as 45 minutes or as long as an hour, because the yeast has a fresh crop of food and is working overtime. When the baguettes have doubled in size, that’s about when you should bake them.

Twenty minutes before you’re going to bake them, turn your oven on 450. Put a cast-iron skillet on the bottom rack, you’re going to be baking on the middle rack. If you have a baking stone, it can stay on the bottom rack. I suppose you could take the baguettes out of the pan and cook them on a stone, but I don’t. I cook ‘em in the pan, because I like the convenience and the little bubble-shapes on the bottom of the loaf. You can also shape them and let them rise on a big ol’ (greased or parchement-lined) baking sheet if you want. Remember, reasonable convenience is the name of this game.

When your baguettes are finished rising and your oven is preheated, get a small coffee mug[3] and put three or four ice cubes in it. Splash a little water in there too. Then, slash the tops of your baguettes (I do three slashes with a sharp knife, but a serrated knife or a baking razor will do the trick too.) and slide the pan into the oven.

Now, very quickly, toss the ice cubes and water in the skillet on the bottom rack and close the oven, and turn it down to 400. The burst of steam will give you a nice crust, and the overheating to begin with means your oven is at a good steady temperature all the way through the baking cycle. You can also spray the oven walls with water before you close the door, but I don’t like that–too much chance of spraying the bread, which will give your crust spots, and it doesn’t provide steady enough steam. The skillet method works wonders, is relatively cheap (because you can use a cast-iron skillet for ALL SORTS OF THINGS, from bonking home invaders on the head to cooking flapjacks) and is easy-peasy, all things I applaud.

Each oven is different, so here is another place where trial and error comes in. I bake my baguettes for 22 to 24 minutes. I know they’re done when they:

* smell right, something that is difficult to explain
* make a hollow sound when I tap their tops
* look right, another hard-to-explain thing.

Your oven may take 20-28 minutes to bake, depending. YMMV. The best indicator is that lovely hollow sound when you thump the middle of the loaf.

Now, once the timer rings and your loaves are golden-brown and hollow when you thump ‘em, turn off your oven and prop the door open just a little, and leave the baguettes in there for 2-4 minutes. This last step makes sure they bake for the maximum amount of time without burning, which gives you lovely caramelized crusts and long shiny strands of gluten. Take ‘em out and immediately pop them on a wire rack to cool.

I like to use these with soup, and when they are two-three days old (which rarely happens) I slice them up and drizzle them with olive oil, sprinkle with garlic, and broil them for crostinis. Mmmmmmhhhhh.

French bread is simple because it’s just flour, salt, yeast, and water. It looks hard only because it’s time-intensive–that simplicity means you have to allow the yeast enough time to do its thing. The variables–quality of flour, time spent rising, the temperature of the oven, etc., etc., are all easy to control with a little thought on the part of the home baker.

So, enjoy! I’ve got a couple of short stories to polish today, so I bid you a civil adieu and much luck with the baking.

[1] The best thing for my baking has been my handy-dandy KitchenAid Professional 600. And when I get the pasta attachment…look out, world!
[2] I know cash is tight these days. I do advocate the proper tools because I’m a baking fiend, but there is almost always a way around the tool if you really can’t afford it. That is the spirit of home baking, I think, because this should be fun. There’s precious little reason to do it otherwise. I’ve had enough of cooking being a chore and an almighty-nasty-time. I want it to be fun.
[3] I don’t like doing this with a glass because they can slip and then there’s all sorts of nastiness ensuing. Coffee mugs are tough, they hold enough, and they have the nice handle so you don’t lose your grip and toss them into the oven. Again, just…don’t ask. Trust me.

The turkey was fabulous. Everything else was done at the right time–stuffing, relish, mashed creamer potatoes, steamed broccoli, sliced challah. The FIL is heading back north on the train, stuffed full and with a bag full of cranberry nut loaf (Fresh cranberries, ZOMG) and challah and turkey.

Everything went like clockwork. There was only one minor disaster–my empty kettle on a burner that got turned on by mistake. So, possibly-ruined kettle. But otherwise, it all went well. Especially the caramel sticky buns. The kitchen is cleaned up (bless the UnSullen One for unloading the dishwasher numerous times today) and the last load of dishes is in the washer, the turkey bones are simmering in the crock pot preparatory to the last picking off of meat and the making of stock. I sense soup in our future.

There have been numerous requests for my Dream Pie recipe. My mother used to make something very much like this, only her recipe involved baker’s chocolate and some sort of cream cheese thing, and I firmly believe that when I buy baking chocolate a candy thermometer is not far behind, and that is ALL KINDS OF TROUBLE. Not too long ago I put together a simple recipe that fits the bill and tastes like what I had in childhood. I found variants of this recipe all over the Net, but the packets of whip mix seem to give the pie a gritty mouthfeel I don’t like at all. YMMV.

So here it is. It’s super-quick and has no nutritive value whatsoever. (The best kind of dessert!)

Dream Pie

1 graham-cracker pie crust
1 8 oz. tub of Cool Whip or other whipped topping (I like the Extra Creamy kind)
1 packet of instant chocolate pudding mix
1 1/2-2c cold milk

Dump the pudding mix in the mixer bowl. Add 1c. cold milk, beat just until mixed. Glorp the Cool Whip in and work mixer up to medium speed until well mixed. Stop the mixer, scrape the sides of the bowl down, and add the extra 1/2-1 c. of milk depending on the consistency. (You can also add a half-teaspoon of amaretto flavor; I’ve sometimes put a splash of Bailey’s in the mix if I’m making it for adults only. Since the kids love the pie so much, though, I rarely do that.)

This–getting the consistency right–is the only “hard” part of the recipe, and it only takes once or twice to get down. You want it stiffer than pudding, about as stiff as a very thick cake batter. I’ve learned that the consistency depends on room temperature and humidity to an astonishing degree (whodathunkit?). Start with a half-cup of milk and only dribble in the other half if absolutely necessary. Turn the mixer up and whip the hell out of it–you want it nice and fluffy, and if you add too much milk it might not stand up.

Fear not, though. If you accidentally add too much milk, you can dump the whole runny mess in the pie shell and freeze it uncovered overnight. Then you’ll want to stick it in the fridge at lunchtime the next day in order to have it nice and thawed for dinner’s dessert. And voila, it’ll be perfect.

If it turns out exactly the right consistency, you can cover it loosely with foil and stick it in the fridge. It should be good to go after 4hrs or so, or until the next evening.

This pie doesn’t usually stick around long enough to stay more than one night in the fridge. If you’re planning on keeping it after it’s been cut, make sure you cover it a bit tighter with the foil, and stick it in the fridge. (For some reason, Saran Wrap doesn’t seem to work to keep it from drying out too much, but foil does the trick. Again, YMMV.) Some people like this pie frozen, but I like it nice and refrigerator-soft. You can spread more Cool Whip on it, too, making it even less nutritious and more delicious.

Just so we’re clear, there is absolutely no nutritive value to this dessert. It’s pure unadulterated junk food, but that’s how I like it. And there it is–Dream Pie.

Hope your Thanksgiving was as low-stress as mine. I had a blast cooking–brushed the turkey with olive oil and sprinkled with poultry seasoning, then cooked it under a loose tent of foil until the last hour or so, when I whisked the foil off and it browned up beautifully. I was told it was the nicest, moistest turkey the boys could remember. Which was awesome. The relish was even better after soaking all night, and I finally have cherry pie down.

I’m tired but very happy. This is probably the least stressful Thanksgiving I can remember, and I’m very happy for it. And dammit, I think I can cook. Which is a completely awesome thing.

Happy Thanksgiving!

There’s nothing really wrong, just a sense of concrete-heavy ennui that’s making it hard for me to get out of bed in the morning, hard for me to do anything other than cook–anything else just takes EVERYTHING out of me, and I mean EVERY scrap of physical and mental energy–and hard for me to care about much more than just keeping my head above water. It’s been like that for the past few days, despite me getting an incredible amount of work done over the weekend.

Weasel Boy wasn’t that difficult a book. I shouldn’t be having this sort of draining rubber-band snapback after finishing just a sodding draft, for heaven’s sake. But I am. Go figure.

Yesterday was chili. I was agreeably surprised both by the beans (soaked the day before, cooked all night in molasses and garlic beef stock) and by the leftover barbecue ribs giving it a nice smoky flavor. Everyone ate except Sir Pewksalot, but that’s to be expected. I also experimented by not putting salt in with the beans, and they softened up much quicker and thickened the chili better. (So, thanks to whoever it was who told me about that.)

Today it’s pork tenderloin, and since I’m seriously dragging and have no braincycles for anything else, I’ll give the recipe. The kids really love this and it’s sooper-easy to prepare.

Pork In Yogurt Sauce

You’ll need:

• pork tenderloin
• half a large onion
• plain yogurt
• crushed garlic
• chicken stock/buoillon/base

Get out your crock pot. Put a tablespoon of water in (or enough to just lightly coat the bottom of the crock.) Dab a little buoillon or base in it and smear it around. OR, put enough chicken stock in to lightly coat the bottom of the crock. Turn the crock pot on low.

While it’s warming, saute the onion and crushed garlic in butter. I like crushed garlic in a jar, because it’s easy to work with, fresher, and packs more punch. Garlic powder lacks a certain something, but if you need to use it, dab a little of the chicken base etc. in the pan.

Dump half the garlic/onion saute into the crock to provide a nice little bed for the tenderloin. Nestle said tenderloin, ahem, tenderly on top. Spoon a light covering of yogurt over the meat and dump the rest of the saute over it.

Cut the potatoes into quarters (I usually do this while everything’s sauteeing). You can put them in a big bowl with the saute drippings, a little butter, and your favorite seasoning blend (I use Trader Joe’s 20 blend) and clap a plate over it, shake the little buggers. (I like disco music on while I do this.) Spoon the potatoes around the tenderloin. I like to use a wide long crock pot–the narrow ones do better for soups, in my humble opinion. But whatever you have will work.

Then leave it on low for ZOMG a long time. If I’m pressed for time, I usually turn the crock on high for a couple hours, then finish up with low heat. I like this dinner because I can walk away and forget it, and just start some steamed veggies twenty minutes before we eat. Easy-peasy.

The potatoes can be served as-is, or thrown in a mixer and mashed with a little milk. The yogurt and chicken stock will do wonders for them, and you get a very nice homestyle-potato mash if you leave the skins on, which I prefer. Sometimes there is a request for smoked Gouda in the potatoes, if I have done chili in the recent past and have some Gouda left over. Note: if you use bigger potatoes, cut them into smaller chunks so they cook thoroughly.

I’ve got some French bread rising on the stove too, which makes me feel good. No day is so bad that baking can’t make it better. Tomorrow I’ll probably go on about bread, if I’m still in this mood.

And now, dear Reader, adieu. The roast is starting to smell good and it will only get better all afternoon. Mmmmmmh.

Finishing a massive pile of revisions is like answering a knock at the door and having an underwear gnome hand you your own brain, wrapped in SaranWrap and pulsing slightly. You stand there, staring gape-jawed at the gnome. Who turns a backflip, winks, and scurries away, vanishing into the dawn mist. You’re left holding your own brain in both hands, cold because you answered the door in your sleeping-skivvies, and then the age-old thought occurs to you:

If this is my brain, what am I thinking with?

Yeah. It’s kind of like that.

So I finished the revisions on Redemption Alley and I’m in that strange in-between phase–where I’m gearing up for another Kismet book and the deep submerging in a world not my own it will entail. But it’s a nice sunny day and somehow I know I’m not ready to go down yet. I’ve got a chicken in the crock pot and two loaves of bread dough rising in the oven–more on that in a second–and I’m really not finding that internal tickle that tells me now’s the time to get a character in some more trouble.

So I suppose I’ll work on something else–Weasel Boy, perhaps, or tinker with something solely for my own pleasure today. Part of being a responsible creative is knowing when to break a rule or two. *grin*

About the bread: I like coffeemakers. No, these ARE statements that go together, I promise.

The best way I’ve ever found to proof bread is to run water through the drip-coffeemaker half of my espresso machine while I shape the loaves. I put the loaves in the oven and put an empty pan right below them. When the coffeemaker finishes burbling I pour a goodly amount of that water into the empty pan, close up the oven, and forget it for about an hour, at which time I usually have lovely proofed loaves.

Now, this doesn’t work so well with a banneton, since the wicker/basket material tends to soak up the steam and getting the loaf out, no matter how well you’ve dusted the whole thing with flour, gets problematic. But for loaves shaped in pans, it’s AWESOME. Perfect proofing, every time.

I also did a bigger, better ciabatta that actually turned out, with shiny strands of chewy goodness inside and a nutty, caramelized crust to die for. (The problem was, I didn’t keep the dough wet enough.) I tell you, Peter Reinhart is a GENIUS. His bread books–especially Crust & Crumb–are so, so easy to understand, with the reasons for why the dough behaves the way it does clearly set out and tons of tips and tricks. My baking, she has never been so happy.

I’m currently working on mastering a buttermilk-started sourdough. I’ll have results by the end of the day.

And that’s all. Enjoy your Thursday, everyone.

Last night’s dinner was a HUGE success. I slow-cooked some boneless pork ribs, baked and mashed some potatoes, and put together a Caprese salad. Everything came off more-or-less perfectly, and it was really, really easy to do. The trick is to put the potatoes in the oven (on metal shishkabob skewers, then wrapped in foil) two hours before you want to eat. Then, an hour before, put your Caprese together and cover it with plastic wrap, throw it on the table. You should end up with about half an hour to blaze through a bit of kitchen cleanup before you yank the spuds out, chop them up, throw them in a mixer with some butter, milk, salt, and garlic, and voila! Dinner, she is served.

I’m a big fan both of easy recipes and of cleaning while I cook. Since I end up doing most of the cleanup unless I twist someone’s arm, I tend to clean at the same time I cook, just to keep the kitchen from exploding under the weight of sheer chaos. YMMV.

All right, let’s get on to the salad–link salad, that is.

* From the Vintage Crime LJ community, here’s some rules about detective fiction: one set from S. S. Van Dine, the creator of Philo Vance; and one set from Msgr. Ronald Knox.

I find these interesting for two reasons. One, I like seeing genre rules laid out, and I like to see how successful authors talk about their audience. Two, I like seeing these sorts of rules because they are a direct invitation to understand them so one can effectively play with them and break them.

Breaking the rules being, you know, three-quarters of the fun.

* Speaking of breaking the rules, I noticed a theme between these two sets of rules–the absolute set-in-stone denial of any paranormal or supernatural event. Being who I am, I suppose that’s why I’m not writing crime fiction. Well, I am writing a SORT of crime fiction, but it is kind of like the redheaded stepchild of crime fiction.

* OH JOHN RINGO NO T-shirts! They’re for a good cause. Proceeds are donated to the Helen Bamber Foundation.

* And if you’re wondering what the cry “OH JOHN RINGO NO!” means, this blog entry might help. I will warn you, it is Not Safe For Work. It contains words and themes you might find objectionable. If you have problems with pulpy men’s adventure fiction or analysis of pulpy men’s adventure fiction, DO NOT CLICK. And don’t go over there, read half the entry, and fire off some halfass comment about how you’re offended. Just don’t, okay?

There’s a line between exploitative fiction and what I call “purple fiction”–that guilty pleasure reading we all indulge in. While purple fiction probably deals with morally reprehensible subject matter, I feel it is ethically sound in intent. Exploitative fiction is like a snuff film–you know it when you see it, and you’re sickened by the very idea, and it’s pretty obvious that the creator isn’t having tongue-in-cheek fun with themes or cultural notions of sexuality. Exploitative fic is just a joyless, offensive grind, on more than one level.

As with any definition I give here, YMMV. This subject really deserves its own blog post, but I am so not in the mood for that kind of critical analysis right now. I leave it to wiser heads than the one mine is turning out to be this morning.

* I am, instead, in the mood for Cheezburger.

more cat pictures

I should probably watch Labyrinth again. Sometimes a girl just needs a “David Bowie in tight pants” fix.

* Last but not least, I was laying in bed last night reading, and it struck me…goddamn, I’m weird. Because this is my bedtime reading, and I was enjoying the hell out of it. When did literary criticism become ENJOYABLE? How the hell did that happen?

I’m mystified, and I’m even more mystified by my urge, when reading these sorts of things, to get little plastic dinosaurs and act out the book’s assertions with them.

Yes, utterly mystified. But hey, if you can’t have fun with dinosaurs while reading theses, what would be the point of existence?

Over and out.