Environment

Environment

Sunday, March 29, 2020

Bread again again: fish pan

The "dutch oven" method for baking bread (use a hot cast iron pan, pre-heated 10 minutes in the oven @ 210ΒΊ) is nice, but the round loaves are awkward. How about a once used fish pan?

Bread again: no no knead dough

Bread again. This time no-no knead dough. The no-knead method is nice, great crusts, but the inside of the bread is a bit.. pancake-ey. Not the fluffy crumb we like.

Here the dough is proved twice (45 minutes), and an after-prove of 70 minutes. It does work, and it even fills the pan. This is the best bread I've made so far.





Thursday, March 19, 2020

🍊🌳🍊🌳🍊🌳🍊🌳🍊🌳🍊🌳

6 Sevilla bitter πŸŠπŸŒ³πŸŠπŸŒ³πŸŠπŸŒ³πŸŠπŸŒ³πŸŠπŸŒ³πŸŠπŸŒ³ for shade and marmalade
Naranjas amarga sevilla para sombra y mermelada.

Bought 2 bitter-orange trees (@ 15€), in the first place for marmalade, then noticed these are very tall trees. Why not plant these along the terrace and the pool for shade, as they do in Vera, and, Sevilla? So went back to Alonso Vera and bought 4 more, even taller ones, @ 20€.

They don't have tall branches, nor a decent root ball, despite their containers being big, but I'm assured these grow very vigorously. And we'll have a nice shaded area in no time.

These knobbly oranges are inedible, they are very bitter. But, these are the ones to make marmalade, and the true Canard Γ  l'Orange, where regular oranges are far too sweet. We'll see. In Dutch these are called: "pomerans".







Hamstering

You are not allowed to shop with more than one, but we took the liberty to stock up at Mercadona each with our own shopping trolley, each doing half of the store.

Mercadona actually had nearly everything still in stock. Meat: completely stocked up. Only dishwasher tablets were nearly gone, all dried chick peas, and all crisps (chips), apart from one flavor.



Bought extra supplies to not have to visit for a while: 2 x 5 kg flour (bread!), 1 kg couscous, 4 kg rice, 1 kg spaghetti, 2 packets with 8 small tins of tuna, 16 big tins of dog food (4 flavors), 8 tins canned tomato, 1 bottle washing liquid, etc.

Spain in lockdown

Spain is in lockdown, which for us is not totally horrible, as we’re always sort of in lockdown ourselves, being more or less asocial to start with. Only allowed to go out to the shops for basic supplies. Took advantage yesterday to get a fresh supply of dog food. We are flexible, we can eat almost anything, but dogs are a bit less flexitarian, so I relieved Ramblizo of 4 big bags of Royal Canine. Regular for Zoomba and Papaya, Adult7+ for Coco, antiallergenic for Alma, and mini for Lucero. That should last us up to 2 months.

We still had 3 kg flour, if we cannot reach a baker, ca 5 kg of various dry pasta, 2 kg couscous, 1 kg migas, etc. And some pots of pesto, quite a few liters of olive oil, 5 kg sugar, 2 kg salt, 10 bottles of Guv’nor, 4 liters Campari, 1 bottle Grand Marnier, etc. We’ll survive. I hope.

No Kneading Crusty Bread

Yes baking bread, no kneading, perfect crust. And it works. Just mix flour, water, salt, sugar, dried yeast, the night before. In the morning dump the risen dough on a work surface, fold it a few times. Have a cast iron pan and lid ready in the oven at 200°, dump the dough in, lid on, 30 minutes. Lid off, a further 15 minutes. And: crusty bread!
Instructions: Yannick Lescurehttps://youtu.be/kB19bv_tHI4 or: Jenny Can Cookhttps://youtu.be/I0t8ZAhb8lQ

Basically: by volume (original recipe uses cups), 3 flour (500-800 grams), 1.5 quite hot water, teaspoon sugar, teaspoon salt, teaspoon dried yeast, mix up with a fork in bowl. Cover with plastic, towel, leave overnight. Cast iron pan and lid, preheat in oven at 200ΒΊ. When 200ΒΊ dump dough from bowl onto worktop, fold three times, put in pan. Lid on, in oven, 30 minutes. Lid off, 15 more minutes.