Sarah's Bread

This is, as the title might imply, Sarah's bread recipe. It's a blessing and a curse - now empowered with the recipe you may have trouble getting her to make the bread for you. Really easy prep, though you do have to be thinking about it the day before to give it that 18 hours of rising time!

Sarah's Bread

(1 loaf, 6-8 servings)

3 1/3 c unbleached flour

1/4 tsp yeast

2 1/4 tsp salt

cornmeal as needed

1) In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 1/2 c water (more in winter, less in summer) and stir until blended. Dough will be shaggy and sticky.

2) Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rest 16-22 hours (18 is ideal) at warm room temperature.

3) Dough is ready when surface is dotted with bubbles. Turn onto floured surface, sprinkle with more flour and fold several times. Rest 15 minutes.

4) Shape dough into ball, generously coat a cotton towel with flour and cornmeal, set dough on it and cover with cornmeal and another towel. Let rise for 3 hours.

5) About 20 minutes before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 F. Put a 6-8 quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, pyrex, ceramic) in over as it heats. When dough and over are ready, remove post from the oven, slide hand under towel, and flip dough into pot. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes. Remove lid and bake 15-30 minutes until brown. Cool on rack.

Bacon+???=Good

This time it's hot dogs.

Bacon Wrapped Hot Dogs

hot dogs, patted dry

bacon, patted dry

salsa, extra liquid drained

avocados, sliced

sour cream

hot dog buns

1) Wrap a slice of bacon around each hot dog in a spiral, securing it at each end with toothpicks (stick the toothpick in as parallel to the hot dog as possible to allow for easy turning).

2) Cook the bacon wrapped hot dogs on a grill pan or in a saute pan until the bacon is crisp.

3) Place the hot dogs in buns, top with avocado, sour cream* and salsa.

*Use a ziplock bag with a trimmed corner for a quick piping solution

Lavender Soda

Cane sugar sodas rock - as anyone that's had Mexican Coca Cola knows - and there have been blog entries before about the super delicious Dry Soda Co. Their lavender soda is a thing of loveliness, their cucumber is great solo or as a cocktail component, and Adam adores the vanilla bean. Trouble is, they go for about $7-$8 for a four pack. Yeah, ouch. This Christmas, Mark delivered a gift-wrapped solution, an iSi Soda Siphon!

Making soda at home: as intimidating as that picture? A little bit. However, takes less time than a trip to the store and the results are fantastic.

Guess this isn't necessarily going to be a super handy recipe for everyone, but you could just use soda water of any kind with your own flavored simple syrup. The thing to remember, of course, is that the simple syrup can be whatever flavor you like - vanilla bean is next, though the 2tbs measurement there would be equivalent to one bean.

Lavender Soda

Soda water

2 tbs lavender flowers

2 c sugar

1 c water

1) Make a simple syrup by combining the water and sugar in a saucepan (one that has a lid), and heating over medium-high until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat, add the lavender, cover and allow to steep for an hour.

2) Strain the syrup into a sealable container (like a handy squeeze bottle even!) and refrigerate.

3) When the syrup has cooled, combine 1 tbs flavored syrup with 8 oz soda water.

P.S. Thanks, Mark!

The French 75: Hangover

As I mentioned before, there's more than one recipe for, well, everything, but more specific to this post, The French 75. Last week's recipe from the Savoy is great in part because the ingredient list is so simple. However, since I don't have the same sort of fussily specific loyalty to this cocktail as I do to, say, the martini, I enjoy multiple iterations. I happen to have all the ingredients required below in stock pretty much all the time, but I know that isn't an entirely reasonable expectation for everyone. Still, none of the items listed are cocktail uni-taskers, so they're worth picking up - maybe I'll make a point of that by posting more drink recipes!!

The French 75 Fancified

(yields two servings)

2 oz gin

2 oz orange liqueur (like Triple Sec, or Cointreau)

1/2 a lime, juiced

a dash of orange bitters

2 sugar cubes

Champagne

1) Pour gin, orange liqueur, lime juice and bitters into a shaker full of ice. Shake.

2) Put a sugar cube in a glass (martini or champagne flute recommended) and divide the contents of shaker between each glass.

3) Top with Champagne.