Ann_T

Moe and I have been together for 51 years. Yesterday we celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary, with a lovely bottle of Italian wine and Bistecca Alla Fiorentina. The Porterhouse was cooked on the grill, and served with roasted potatoes, zucchini and fried mushrooms. Not bad for a worknight dinner.

Baked this morning. All Moe wanted for breakfast was toasted baguette.

I saved a 500g piece of todays dough for Matt to make himself a pizza. Today's masterpiece was a deconstructed vegetarian pierogi pizza. Topped with sauce, mozzarella, potatoes, caramelized onions, bacon (veg), and cheddar then finished with chives and a drizzle of sour cream.

Sliced one of the baguettes baked this morning and made toasted peameal bacon and tomatoes sandwiches for breakfast.

Steak and Frites for dinner last night. With a wine sauce.

Today's bake Fed both starters Friday morning. Started two bigas, each with 60g of discard. Left on the counter until I got home from work. Made two doughs, each with a biga and another 1000g of flour, and both went into the fridge Friday night. Took one of the doughs out last night and left it on the counter until 3:30 this morning. Baked four baguettes. T wo were started together in the steam oven and two of the baguettes were longer so they were baked in the regular oven under a large roasting pan lid for the first 15 minutes and then the lid was removed. I also transferred the two smaller from the CSO to the regular oven after 15 minutes, to finish baking. Sliced one this morning for breakfast.

I've never felt the need to place the dough in a warmer place. I usually put the dough immediately into the fridge after the last stretch and fold and even in the cold fridge the dough will rise and double. I take it out six to 8 hours before I want to use and leave it on the counter to warm up before shaping and leaving to proof.

What do you mean my "oven light". I've never found the need to add a heat source, not even in the winter when our house is 68 to 70°F. I prefer a slow rise and a slow proof.

I've been using the stretch and fold method now for 10 years. Edited to add: You can get that same big hole texture by kneading or using a machine to do the kneading. It is all about developing the gluten. Also hydration and quality of flour contributes. This bread was made back in 2007, and the kneading was done in my Electrolux Magic Mill machine and given a cold fermentation.

Cobble Hill is in British Columbia Canada, so Canadian currency.

I didn't have any doughs in the fridge and I wanted to bake so, I made my regular yeast baguette dough and instead of just a gram or two of yeast and a long cold fermentation, I increased the yeast. Reminded me of the Julia Child's baguette recipe I use to make years ago. Dough was started at 3:00 AM and the last baguette came out of the oven just after 8:00 AM. Four baguettes at 215g each. 500g flour at 70% hydration. Even some shine on the crumb. Not bad for a 5 hour dough.

@Maison Rustique, life is too short to eat something that you don't like. Last night's dinner. Penne with a tomato basil sauce and sausage and Kalamata olives.

Put a pot of one of my favourite soups on to simmer this morning. Made a pot of chicken broth Wednesday night. Chicken Tomato Rice soup. Moe had toasted crusty English Bloomer bread with a bowl of soup for breakfast.

I love my freezer. I replaced a small chest style freezer that didn't get used much with a LG freezer with shelves and drawers during Covid when was buying and freezing more than in the past. I recently bought the matching LG all fridge that Moe calls my bread /baking fridge. Our favourite way to use leftover roast chicken breast. Hot chicken sandwiches on homemade bread, twice fried fries, peas and gravy.

Got a great deal on chicken this week. Thrifty's, where I buy most of my meats had big roasting chickens on for buy one get one free. So I bought four. All weighing over four pounds, between $22 and $24 each. So it ended up costing less than $48 for about $100 worth of chicken. I left one whole and broke the remaining chickens down into legs, left one breast whole with the wings attached and cut the other two whole breasts in half, with wings and vacuum sealed and froze all but the whole chicken. Last night's dinner was a roast chicken dinner, with dressing, mashed potatoes, rutabaga, green beans and lots of gravy.

Baked a blueberry pie. Local blueberries. Ready for the oven. Baked Moe had a piece yesterday and another one today with his early morning cappuccino.

This dough surpassed my expectations. It has been too hot to bake so I was afraid that the 9 day long cold fermentation might have been stretching its limits. This dough was started with a sourdough biga. I took it out of the fridge last night and left if on the counter until 3:30 this morning. Baked six various size baguettes.

Moe's breakfast. Fresh local blueberries and raspberries in cream with sourdough toast.

Burgers and roasted potato cubes on the grill last night. Too hot to cook fries in the house.

Thanks Deb.

@Maison Rustique, Deb, can you please tell me how you dried your starter. And do you store it in the freezer? Last night's pizza and this morning's baguette bake. Dough had been in the fridge since July 9th. Started with a sourdough Levain. Took 400g of dough out yesterday afternoon to make the pizza for dinner. Pizza was baked in the OONI. The remaining dough came out of the fridge last night at 8:PM and left on the counter until 3:30 this morning. Baked five baguettes.

Another night where I didn't make the planned dinner so we had it this morning for breakfast.

We hadn't had halibut recently so picked up fresh halibut filets yesterday for last night's dinner. Pan roasted and served with roasted potatoes and steamed asparagus with butter and parmesan. And a lovely Italian Chardonnay.

Tuesday night's dinner. Everything done on the grill so I didn't have to turn on the oven or the stove. Filet Mignon cooked on the grill along with the zucchini. The potatoes were roasted in a cast iron skillet on the grill and the mushrooms were also cooked in a cast iron skillet.

@NadyaDuke thank you so much for sharing your mix. Will definitely make a batch next time I'm baking bagels.