Slow Food

This is not about biodiversity and the philosophy of eco-gastronomy. Not that I don't support that, but I wanted to talk about what came out of my kitchen today.

Bread-that took 8 hours (that's not 8 monitored hours, that's mix the dough up and look at it an hour later to see what it's doing) and stew that cooked for 5 hours. That was stew I browned and chopped for an hour, and then put it to frolic in the oven for several hours.

Wow. You'd think I could cook or something. DH had to comment a little-"cut the meat up smaller" and "you need a chainsaw to cut that bread". I threatened him with "ding-ding" microwave food and he shut the hell up.

The stew process was a little different. Brown the meat, then cook the onions. THEN add flour, then your liquid, blah blah. I threw in beer. It was really good.

The bread was different too-crank up the oven as hot as you can get it, preheat a dutch oven, then throw the dough in the dutch oven, cover and bake. My bread came out very much like a German loaf, with rustic crust and chewy insides.

The how toos are in Cook's Illustrated Feb 2008 issue. Dang, dinner was good around here.