Easter in the Kitchen

Easter was my second favorite holiday as a kid. Thanksgiving was the first, especially when we would make the trip from down south up to Connecticut to stay with my grandparents during the holiday. The over abundance of family and food combined with the mini-celebrity of being the cousins from out-of-state made for a really great family vacation.

Growing up, Easter was a little different. I can't really remember spending an Easter with my extended family in Connecticut before we moved back when I was in high school. Instead it was spent with with my brother and parents in Tennessee or Georgia, a bit less hectic than Thanksgiving, though just as festive. Easter baskets, eggs hidden around the house, church with the family.

And of course, the food. Easter candy is the best holiday-specific candy hands down- Cadbury cream eggs and mini eggs, malted milk ball robins eggs, Reese's peanut butter eggs, jelly beans. Yeah. The best. And of course for real food, ham. Most of you know this already, but I love ham. I'm sure there were other things served, but I'll always remember the ham.

This Easter, J and I spent a quiet day at home, but I couldn't quite let the day pass without a food celebration. Save for a short run in the morning, I spent most of the day in the kitchen feeling cozy as the rain fell outside.

On J's request I made what I can only call eggs and tomatoes for breakfast. This is a dish that I was first introduced to at a neighborhood Italian joint called Basta's. We went there one morning for brunch about a year ago and I ordered something similar to this. As they stopped serving brunch a while back, I haven't had it from them since, but this comes as close as I can get to it from memory.

When I had this at Basta's I remember saying "This is so good, I wish I was hungover."

Eggs and Tomatoes
Serves 2

4 eggs
1 28 oz can chopped tomatoes
10-12 basil leaves, torn
3 tbs olive oil, plus some for drizzling
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper to taste
fresh mozzarella, sliced

Preheat broiler.

Heat tomatoes, basil, olive oil, sugar, salt and pepper in a saucepan over medium heat until hot. Break each egg and slip them into the tomato mixture. Allow them to cook until the whites are no longer translucent and hold together.

Turn off heat and scoop as much of the tomato mixture into two smaller casserole dishes as you can without disturbing the eggs. Next, scoop out the eggs and place two into each dish. Cover eggs with slices of mozzarella and a drizzle of olive oil. Place under the broiler until the the cheese bubbles and browns slightly.

Remove from oven and serve with grilled bread drizzled with olive oil.

So that was breakfast. After breakfast I went about making homemade pirogis, a staple on my extended family's Easter table and a damn good rainy day dinner...look for the recipe later this week.

I also managed to make some bread and just to let C know that I haven't gone over to the dark side, I made some carrot cupcakes with white chocolate cream cheese icing to share at work on Monday.

See C? I'm still doing the cupcake thing...no need to worry!

Walnut Honey Wheat Bread

Over a year ago, I got it into my head that it would be nice if I made my own bread. So, I mixed and kneeded and kneeded and baked and ended up with some pretty dismal leaden loaves and a few baguettes that could break a tooth. Not exactly my goal.

Luckily, Ken's Artisan Bakery is right around the corner and offers a great array of amazing breads and baked goods. If you can't have homemade bread, the next best thing is an award winning bakery with excellent bread and a schedule so you can know just when your favorite loaf will still be warm from the oven.

However, as much as I love Ken's breads, it always annoyed me that I couldn't make enjoyable bread in my own kitchen. But then one day on All Things Considered (brought to me by my beloved OPB)I heard an interview with Nancy Baggett, the woman who has changed my bread making and eating habits for the better. In the interview she talked about make pot boules, breads that are cooking in a covered pot resulting in light loaves with crisp crusts and the wonderful aroma of homemade bread filling your kitchen. The secret? Steam. A bit of water put onto the dough as you put it into the covered pan results in a wonderful crust that far exceeded my expectations.

The best part? Its really super easy. And without kneading, it takes nearly no time at all. With just a little planning (the dough rises for 24 hours for the best results) you make your own perfectly delicious homemade bread.
While I was satisfied to stick to the recipe listed in the interview for a while, I slowly modified to my current favorite:

Walnut Honey Wheat Bread

3 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp table salt
3/4 tsp yeast (I prefer fleishmans)
2 1/2 tablespoons honey
2 cups plus 1 tablespoon water
1/3 cup chopped walnuts (hazelnuts work well too!)

Step One: First Rise
Mix all dry ingredients and honey together in a large bowl.
Add the water and mix until everything is moist, scrapping the sides of the bowl.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and pop into the fridge for a few hours or overnight.
See...easy.

Step Two: Second Rise
Remove dough from the fridge and stir in walnuts with a fork. Recover and sit in a warm dry area for 3-4 hours. After that time, spray a rubber spatula with canola oil and use it to fold the dough in on itself.
Recover and allow to rise for another 3-4 hours.

Step Three: Baking
Preheat oven and 6 quart dutch oven to 475 degrees.
Once the oven is heated and a drop of water sizzles when dropped into the dutch oven, scrape the dough into the dutch oven.
Spray the top of the dough with a couple of teaspoons of water and cover immediately.
Return the pot to the oven and bake at 475 for 45 minutes.
After 45 minutes, remove the lid. If the top of the bread is not a deep brown, drop the temperature of the oven to 425 and return the lidless pot to the oven.
Once the bread is nicely browned, take it out of the oven and remove the loaf from the pot and cool it on a rack.

Once it is cool enough to touch, slather on some butter.

If you find it annoying to carve up a round loaf in order to make sandwiches, I have made this bread in a normal loaf pan with equal success. To get the benefit of the steam treatment, boil a small amount of water in an oven safe saucepan and put it in the oven along with your loaf for the first 15 minutes of baking. Just keep an eye on the top of the bread as it nears the end of baking time and tent the top with some foil if it starts to look a bit too dark.

To preserve the crispness of the crust, I keep the loaf on my cutting board, cut side down on a piece of plastic wrap without wrapping the rest of the bread.

This bread makes excellent toast.