Mmmmm, bread

Ok, so maybe you don't necessarily want to hear about baking bread in the middle of summer, but this is how I roll. To give you a frame of reference, my dad was known to roast turkeys in July. Full on Thanksgiving dinner. Not sure why, but perhaps this will help you better understand my pathos: it's genetic. Anyhoo! So at the Borders liquidation sale, I found a book called (you can excuse the irony for linking to Amazon) Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The premise is that you make a huge amount of bread dough and then store it in your fridge for up to two weeks. From that large batch, you can pull off smaller bits for various loaves of bread. And what's even better is that the longer the dough sits in your fridge, the more it will begin to develop a sourdough-like taste. No need to make and feed and cultivate a sourdough starter, my friends! Last weekend, Ted made the ginormous amount of dough - he had to go to Target to get a bowl big enough to store it. For whatever reason, we just didn't get to baking the actual bread (probably because the ginormous bowl was in our fridge in the basement - out of sight, out of mind), so yesterday I gave it a whirl. All I can say is, impressive. It was insanely easy. You pull off a one pound ball, shape it (no kneading), and let it rest and rise at room temp for about 40 minutes. You do need a pizza stone to actually bake it, but they are pretty ubiquitous these days. 30 minutes of baking and out comes a gorgeous loaf that looks like it came from a bakery (without the $3.99 price tag). There are lots of recipes in this book, mostly variations on the master recipe, so I think I may be baking my own bread from now on! So long expensive peasant loaves! Buh-bye Pepperidge Farm!