It's Winter! Let's make stock. (home baked bread)

snowy cottage

There's no denying that, in spite of a slow motion start, winter has fully and truly arrived.  I'm told the windchill was 18 degrees below zero last night and the sight of 3 more inches of snow this morning made my back hurt. So far this morning the sun is bright and the day beautiful but the wind is biting and so it's truly a day for staying indoors.  After a quick trip to clear off the porch I decided that I would spend my morning making bread and some kind of wintry strew out of whatever I had in the house.

camellia blooming in snow

I recently saw a recipe by Martha Shulman for a kind of tagine-style stew with flageolet beans.  It caught my eye because of the warm spices and because I happen to have a pound of flageolets that I bought, improbably, at the market in Wellfleet.  There provenance wasn't clear so I feared that they would take forever to soften (if at all)--I was right.  But they did eventually.  The recipe calls for onions, fennel and collard.  Onions I had.  I had no fennel or collards but I did have kale and an acorn squash.  I thought I could substitute those and that they would go well with the coriander, caraway and cumin called for. So I set to work on that, and a pot of vegetable stock just because stock's a good think to make on a wintry day (or any day, really.  I make alot of stock.  I find it meditative).  And I happened to have some beats so I roasted them.  I put the stew together and it's simmering.  It smells wonderful.  Here's Martha Shulman's master recipe.

Yesterday I made a recipe of bread dough which rose all night and I put that into the oven this morning as well.  I got this recipe from my spouse's father Peter Bellonci who's a sculptor in Austin, TX as well as a baker of bread. I make a couple of loaves a week.  It couldn't be more simple (but you do need a Le Creuset-type dutch oven):

3 c AP flour, or bread flour (you can also use some whole wheat--I find about 1/2 c of whole wheat improves the flavor without impairing the texture.
1/4 tsp yeast
2 tsp kosher salt (if using table salt use only about 1 1/4 tsps)
1 1/2 c warm water

Here are the complete instructions if you're interested--it's really worth making.

Well, that's quite enough for one morning.  The rest I can devote to sitting in front of the fire taking a quick look at the Times to see what Donald Trump has said in the last 24 hours (and doing the daily mini-crossword) and then turn to my Elena Ferrante novels.  I'm only in book 1!