Wow its been a pretty stressful week this week! Anyone who know's me will know that my car has been the subject of much complaining over the last year or so.
I bought a little runaround car about 3 and a half years ago when I was very strapped for cash. It was old and cheap at the time but its lasted pretty well all things considered. I'm not really vain when it comes to my car. I could have upgraded much sooner but stinginess stopped me. I was hoping I would be able to keep it running for another year or two ideally but alas, it wasn't to be.
Although I'd put my priorities in line and decided a car was fairly near the bottom of the list, please don't get the impression that I happily drove around in my rickety old car with a smile on my face and never complained. Oh no, I have moaned and grumped about my car pretty much daily for at least the last year. My friends, family and colleagues, not to mention my long suffering boyfriend are all sick of hearing about it. People were always asking me, "Well if its bothering you that much why don't you get something else??" My stubbornness prevailed. I'm just wanted to get another year out of it, and more to the point, I didn't want to spend any of my hard earned cash I had earmarked for other things! (More about that in a later post.)
No I preferred to whinge and moan to anyone who would listen about how much I hated my car, how it was the bain of my life. I chose to continue to worry when I turned the key in the ignition every morning that I would find something else wrong with it! I learned to live with the constant worry and relief of getting to work in the morning without it breaking down. I shivered my way through the worst part of winter with no heating because it was broken and I didn't want to spend any money getting it fixed. I got used to having the worst car in almost any street, driveway or carpark I parked in and I put up with having to park round the corner and walk whenever I went anywhere with work so that potential clients wouldn't see my shabby car and think I was from some dodgy outfit. All the while moaning and complaining but not doing anything about it! It sounds ridiculous even as I'm writing this.
On Friday morning, on the way to work, I completely lost acceleration, started to smell a burning smell and had to pull over. After nearly an hour waiting in the freezing cold on the hard shoulder for my breakdown cover to arrive, i realised that enough was enough. I finally gave in and made the decision to spend some money on getting about. Once the decision had been made, I quickly got really excited about it and yesterday test drove and bought a shiny new car! Not brand new, but its really nice and will feel like absolute luxury after driving round in a tin can on wheels for the past 3 years!
The moral of the story is not that I should have bought a new car ages ago and saved myself all the grief. That might well be the case, but its not my point.
Looking back on the past year and all the car trouble, I realise now that I should have either bought a new car, or shut the hell up about it, accepted the situation and kept saving my cash! I guess I felt embarrassed about my uncool wheels and felt like I had to make excuses for it.All the time. To everybody! In reality, no-one cared what car I drove apart from myself and all I did was become a world class bore by banging on about it!
Lesson well and truly learned. In future if I'm p*ssed off about something, I'm either going to take positive steps to change it, or accept the situation and shut up about it! I'm going to try anyway!
So its been a busy week and my Friday night when I had planned to bake lots and blog lots, ended up drinking copius amounts of red wine. Today however, I have had the house to myself and thought I'd have a go at some ciabatta.
I love making bread and try to practice as often as possible. I've got quite good at plan sandwich loaf, I'm also experimenting with grains like spelt and rye and can also knock up a mean flat bread or fougasse, but there are still a lot of breads I haven't mastered. Sourdough is one I really want to master but not got round to. The different stages and having to keep a starter alive have put me off a bit.
I've had a few goes at ciabatta before but never got the texture right at all. The secret, I discovered today, is the ratio of water to flour. This dough needs to be wet!
If you are interested in bread making I'd really recommend reading The Bread Bakers Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. Its a really comprehensive beginners guide to bread baking, really I think its aimed at the professional baker but I still found it really interesting as it explains the science of each stage in the bread baking process. It is really detailed and a lot of the recipes require 2 or 3 stages but its great to get an understanding of how the ingredients work together.
There are 2 ciabatta recipes in the book but both of them call for pre-ferment mixtures to be made a day before and then added to the final dough mixture. This brings more flavour out of the grain and is worth doing. I have used this technique on other bread recipes and the flavour is just more breadlike somehow.
I couldn't be bothered with this today though as I woke up and wanted to make bread... now!
I ended up using some of the techniques from the book but made a 1- day version. It proves twice so you get a decent flavour from that and I thought it was one of the nicest ciabatta's I've ever had. So much so that I've eaten half a loaf of it today already. And I'm not finished yet!!
Here's how I made it:
Ingredients:
500g strong white bread flour
450mls warm water
2 teaspoons honey
1 teaspoon yeast
1.5 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
Method:
Mix the flour salt and yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer. I think you do really need one for this bread as the dough is really sticky and difficult to work with.
Mix 1 part boiling water with 2 prts cold and add the honey and olive oil. Pour into the mixer and mix with the paddle attachment for about 8 minutes until the dough is looking really smooth. Then switch to the dough hook for another 2 minutes util the dough starts to come away from the sides of the bowl but is still stuck to the bottom.
Leave the dough to proof in the mixing bowl for around an hour and a half depending on the temperature. It should be doubled in size but it is a really sticky dough and difficult to handle. Punch the dough back and then shape into 2 long thin loaves. Leave to proof again on tea towels covered in plenty of flout to stop it sticking.
When its doubled in size, preheat the oven to the highest temperature. Before you put the loaves in the oven put a shallow roasting pan half full of boiling water in the oven and close the door for a few minutes.
Either flip the loaves straight onto a baking tray or bake on a baking stone. I use a baking stone. I flipped the loaves onto a paddle shaped chopping board dusted with polenta and then slid the loaves straight onto the baking stone.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until they have formed a dark crust but sound hollow when you tap the bottom of them.
Mine came out looking a little misshaped as I only had a small baking stone so had to kind of curl them round a bit to fit onto it but I don't think that matters as it just makes them look even more authentic and rustic.
The texture inside was really light, with big uneven air bubbles. When you bite it, its deliciously chewy! I was really pleased with these loaves even though I managed to get flour everywhere!
They would be perfect with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar! They really don''t need anything else!
Labels: bread