Hello, Zucchini Bread.

Like many of you, I subscribe to umpteen e-mails/newsletters.  It's a vicious cycle like my former magazine subscription addiction and I find it difficult to stop, but that's another psycho-babble post for another time.  

This past week I received a newsletter from The Gourmandise School of Sweets & Savories, where I took a macaron class earlier this year. In addition to promoting new classes they are offering, they always include a recipe to entice you. This week it worked and I made this lovely quick bread, Zucchini and Strawberry Jam Bread. Moist, delicately sweet and summery, it's a quick way to whip something up to bring to a winding-down summer cookout or any gathering of friends, family and food. And I think it's a flexible recipe, if you're not crazy about strawberry jam, why not use apricot jam? Also, I opted to not use the sliced strawberries.

Zucchini & Strawberry Jam Bread (courtesy of The Gourmandise School of Sweets & Savories)

This  recipe makes about 6 muffins or small loaves and one medium loaf, but can easily be doubled.

In a medium bowl, whisk together:

3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsps flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

In a larger bowl, whisk together:

1 egg

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup strawberry jam 

Set aside:

1 cup grated zucchini

1/2 cup sliced strawberries

1) Whisk together your flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon.

2) In another bowl, whisk together the egg, oil, sugar and jam.  Add the zucchini and mix until combined.

3) Fold in flour and mix until just combined.

4) Pour into muffin pans or molds and bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes for smaller and 25 minutes for larger loaves.  Before baking, arrange strawberry slices over the batter.

A Foodie in Paris.

Paris - it's been a dream destination for me (for quite some time) and how can it not be? It's a foodie mecca. What I loved about visiting many speciality food shops and open air markets is how much love, creativity and pride oozes out of each creation.  The storefronts alone are mini museums, displaying their crowned jewels of culinary perfection. 

Of course, Paris isn't exactly the new kid on the block, every major city in the world takes it cue from the French when it comes to food and drink.  For example, Patisserie Stroher is the oldest storefront patisserie in Paris (it's 281 years old and she looks good for her age). On one side of the store you can find every sweet delight and on the other, the savory treats beckon your taste buds.

Pierre Herme, macaron king, is a place not to be missed.  Extraordinary chocolates, speciality desserts, and above all else, the macarons. A small, sleek shop, it was packed with those suffering from a bout of sweet-tooth.  You know what I'm talking about.  The presentation is a work of art. Picasso eat your heart out.

La Maison du Chocolat (The House of Chocolate) is another worthwhile indulgence, chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. Studded in bronze, deep chocolate brown, and creams, this store looks good enough to eat.  I indulged in a box of their chocolate macarons and brought home several chocolate bars for those late-nights.

Poilane is one of Paris' finest boulangeries. In fact, Karen, from McCalls Meat & Fish Co. recently pointed out to me, that there are some photos of Poilane in the book My Life In France (a fabulous foodie read all about Julia Child's experience living in France and later intertwined into the film Julie & Julia). I bought a croissant here and a pain au chocolat for later. I am convinced that croissants are the epitome of happiness woven together with butter.

La Grande Epicerie is the specialty grocery store across from Le Bon Marche in St. Germain. It's the kind of experience that beckons you to deter yourself from ever shopping in a regular grocery store ever again. It's like Whole Foods on an Hermes level, but better. I was so overwhelmed with all the goodness here that I managed to forget the semi-snobbish attitudes of the cashiers (aside from the cashiers everyone else at the store was lovely).

E. Dehillerin was a lovely cookware store near O Chateau where I attended a wine and cheese tasting. Julia Childs used to shop at this tiny shop for all of her tools and other culinary accoutrements. And the guys who worked here were so friendly, helpful and overly excited about my tattoos. I went here with something very specific in mind to purchase, these top notch hermetically sealed food storage containers (will keep foods fresh for days longer).

P.S. - Many of these specialty shops were recommended in Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris, a must-have foodie destination guide should you find yourself hungry in Paris.

Getting in Touch with your Feminine Side.

Maybe you knew this already, but I'm a part of a book club here in L.A. Part of our ritual when we get together to discuss the book is to cook dishes inspired from the book that we recently read. Over the weekend, we met to discuss our most recent book, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. The story is a fictional story about Dinah, a character in the Bible. Very little is written about her in Genesis 34 and this author does a phenomenal job of weaving a story together about love, forgiveness, anger, feminine power, midwifery and so many more topics. I highly recommend the book and am willing to pass along my copy to the first person who makes a comment on this post!

The book was rich with descriptions of meals, snacks and other culinary treats that they ate during this time frame in history. My contribution to the meal was a honey cake (which I sadly did not get a photo of) and a loaf of olive bread. Once again, I turned to my trusty No Knead book for this recipe. It was dense, chewy and hearty. I made it with 2/3 whole wheat pastry flour and 1/3 unbleached all purpose flour. It was delicious with a slab of butter or some of the other dips and spreads that were featured at our meeting.

To Knead or Not to Knead....

...that is the question. LA Weekly's food blog, Squid Ink, featured a conversation piece with Jim Lahey, author who advocates a "no knead" approach to baking artisanal breads. The article offered his basic "No Knead" bread recipe, which I tried over the weekend. I was hesitant, I must admit. I mean, how many times, have you read a bread recipe and it instructed you to knead the bread for at least 10 minutes. I'm a fan of crusty, holey bread, that's the "crumb" I dig most and whenever I bake bread, I'm constantly trying to recreate it. I may have found my Picasso, my masterpiece in the recipe. The recipe calls for bread flour, but I used all purpose here. With the addition of some salt, cool water and yeast, I Incorporated these ingredients and covered with plastic wrap. For a minimum of 12 hours and Lahey encourages you to postpone step #2 for 18 hours, I left the dough alone to ferment slowly at room temperature.

This morning I awoke and continued with step #2, very gently removing the dough from the bowl, handling it at a minimum and allowing to rise yet again, covered, free form, in a flour-dusted cloth. About half an hour before it finished its second rise, I put my enameled cast iron Dutch oven in a 475 degree oven to heat up. Post the second rise, I transferred the dough carefully into the hot (and I mean STEAMING) Dutch oven and covered it. Baked it for 30 minutes, removed the top so it could develop a beautiful golden crust, for another 15 minutes and transferred to a cooling rack to cool, before slicing off a hunk and swirling honey on top.

The magic lies, yes, in not kneading, but also creating a natural steam environment, by baking it in a dutch oven or casserole. This basic recipe could lead to a cornucopia of additions, such as herbs, cheese, jalapenos, spices and what not. The possibilities are endless.

weekend baking.

A couple of weekends ago, I found myself in the mood to bake. I had tabbed a recipe in my recent issue of Gourmet magazine - a Raspberry Buttermilk Cake, and I was also in the mood for some homemade bread. So alas, I spend Saturday evening baking a rustic country bread (recipe from New School of Cooking) and on Sunday, I made this Raspberry Buttermilk Cake (which I brought to my small group on Monday night for devouring). The cake was moist and delicious, the raspberries enhanced this buttery cake with its sweet and tart qualities. A perfect afternoon dessert, goes especially well with coffee or tea. A light dessert, you could easily substitute the raspberries for a different berry or other fruit if you'd like. Nothing is like baking, especially bread. For me, it's always been a source of therapy. Using my hands, my energy to create a living organism (yeast that is). Yes it's timing consuming, but ever so worth it. The bread was dense, chewy and yielded a beautiful crumb. Just warm with butter, a sprinkly of kosher salt and jam made a fine late night snack. It's important to take time out and do something in life that brings you joy and pleasure, whether that takes place in the kitchen or elsewhere. Take time.

sourdough starter day #3

Two weekends ago, Paul's kids were over and we watched Baking with Julia on PBS - she's such a riot. Her guest (whose name escapes me) featured making decorative sourdough breads with braids, wheat designs and more. It was intricate, lovely and motivated my butt to finally start mkaing some sourdough bread! I don't think this time around I'll be creating "art" bread, but I definitely am going to make some sourdough boules. I've got a few decent bread resources in my "library" (though I consulted the world wide web also) and I decided to go with The Tassajara Bread Book. Brown's sourdough starter consists of 2 1/2 cups warm water, 1 tablespoon dry yeast, 2 teaspoons sugar or honey and 2 1/2 cups of flour (I use unbleached all-purpose in this first round). Mix them all together in an airtight container and allow the starter to ferment for 5 days. The photographs above shows my starter as of today, it's day 3. Brown advises bakers to stir the starter once a day and notes that the starter is often thick and muddy in appearance. Upon stirring the starter this morning, I inhaled the yeasty aroma of the starter, the tangy qualities that define sourdough bread so well. It made me smile. I've got 2 more days before I can actually begin making sourdough bread. Happy baking!

Live Without Bread...I Think Not!

You could think..gosh, why is Teryll teasing me? Or perhaps other thoughts of drowning yourself in a vat of real butter with showers of rustic country bread falling down all around you is racing through your mind? Alas, I digress......the truth is no matter what carbo-less diet you've forced upon yourself, we all can agree that there is utter perfection in a chunk of homemade bread slathered with real butter. Let us have a moment of silence in honor of bread.

This recipe for rustic country bread comes from my cooking school back in California.

I have really been in the bread making mood and thought I would revisit this yummy recipe. The crust turned out decent but the crumb (or "interior of the bread") didn't quite turn out how I would have liked. It turned out dense, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I was looking for groovey pockets of air and gas to invade the dough. After perusing some bread books at Barnes & Noble last night, I think I have narrowed down the "error of my ways" - I think I "handled it too much" prior to its second rise, thus getting rid of all the good air and gases. Never fear, I will not give up!