Recipe of the month

No-knead Bread

I came across this recipe in a New York Times article: The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work.

Ingredients:
- 3 cups bread flour (but all-purpose flour is ok to use), plus extra for dusting
- ¼ teaspoon (instant) yeast
- 1 & ¼ teaspoons salt
- Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

- In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 & 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest about 18 hours at a warm (about 70 degrees) room temperature.

- Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface [I like wood, but granite or marble work well] and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minutes.

- Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth; a flour sack-type dish towel is perfect) with flour, wheat bran, or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran, or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about two hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

- At least a half-hour before the dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enameled, glassware, or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, remove pot from oven (don't forget it's hot!). Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake an additional 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is browned. Cool on a rack.

Yields one 1½-pound loaf.

The latest on farm subsidies

Personally, I'm outraged that my tax money goes towards farm subsidies. Now, don't get me wrong, I want to see the [legendary] "family farm" succeed, but farm subsidies tend to go to the larger, super-profitable, monoculture farms whose products don't benefit many Americans (unless you own stock in Monsanto, Cargill, et al.), and can in fact hurt consumers through their land-use policies and GM/GMO and E. coli-ridden products.

Here's some articles that should interest you:

Farm subsidies: Beyond Simplistic Outrage

Farm Lobby Beats Back Assault On Subsidies

Betting the Farm

If you, too, are pi**ed off, contact your agricultural committee state representatives.