It's About Time

January is National Soup month. Who knew? And while we are featuring a soup in this meal, the truth is that the soup was just a vehicle for justifying the bread. We couldn’t just have bread and wine, could we?

We each independently saw the “Martha Stewart Bakes” episode on PBS that featured this fantastic bread and were determined to make it. Meg even went so far as to purchase a Dutch Oven in which to bake it.



Is this beautiful or what? Olive Cheese Bread fresh from the oven!

Timing is everything with this meal. The bread is started a day before it actually bakes. The soup can be started two days in advance or cooked completely in a single day. The poached pears are also prepared ahead and chilled. All and all, a pretty brilliant use of time.

It was Meg’s task to get the bread started for this meal, which required finding olives.  She was unable to find pitted Manzanilla olives, but purchased green California olives packed in salt water, pimiento stuffed jumbo green olives, and pitted green Sicilian-spiced olives from the deli.  After taste testing the Gruyere with each olive at least once, she selected the jumbo stuffed variety.  Out came the pimiento, (added to homemade pasta sauce), and into the bread batter.

The green California olives were over-powered by the Gruyere, but would pair well with a mild cheddar in this same recipe.  The spicy Sicilian beauties are probably best enjoyed with some red wine (lots), crusty bread and peppery olive oil for dipping.

Olive and Cheese Loaf
Martha Stewart – Martha Bakes PBS

Ingredients
3 cups bread flour, plus more for work surface
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
3/4 teaspoon instant or active-dry yeast
1 3/4 cups 1/2-inch cubes aged Gruyere cheese
1 1/2 cups pitted 1/4-inch-thick slices green Spanish olives
1 1/2 cups cool water (55 to 65 degrees), plus more as needed

Directions

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, salt, and yeast; stir in cheese and olives. Add water and, using a wooden spoon or your hand, mix until a wet, sticky dough forms, about 30 seconds, adding additional water, 1 tablespoon at a time, if needed. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature until dough has doubled in size and surface becomes dotted with bubbles, 12 to 18 hours.

Generously flour work surface; scrape dough onto work surface. Lightly flour hands, a bowl scraper, or a spatula and lift edges of dough toward the center. Nudge and tuck edges of dough to make round.

Place a piece of parchment paper on work surface and generously dust with flour. Gently place dough on parchment, seam-side down. If dough is tacky, lightly dust top with flour. Cover dough loosely with wax paper and two clean kitchen towels. Let down stand in a warm, draft-free spot until almost doubled in size, 1 to 2 hours.

Gently poke dough with your finger; dough should hold the impression. If it springs back, let rise 15 minutes more.

Ten minutes before dough has finished rising, preheat oven to 475 degrees on a conventional oven (450 degrees on a convection oven) with a rack in the lower third. Place a covered 3 1/2-quart cast-iron or enameled cast-iron Dutch oven (with plastic handle removed and screw hole plugged with aluminum foil) in center of rack.

Using pot holders, carefully remove preheated Dutch oven from oven and uncover. Uncover bread and loosen bottom with a large spatula. With the aid of the parchment paper, invert bread into preheated Dutch oven so that it is seam-side up. Cover Dutch oven and transfer to oven; bake for 25 minutes.

Uncover and continue baking until bread is dark brown but not burnt, 15 to 30 minutes more. Using a heatproof spatula or pot holders, gently lift bread from Dutch oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Why this was such a good idea. Can you say cheese?

Slow-Cooker Minestrone
From Cook's Country | August/September 2010
SERVES 6 TO 8

You can use any small pasta, such as orzo, ditalini, or small elbows. We recommend great northern or cannellini beans. Serve the minestrone with grated parmesan cheese.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup dried medium-sized white beans (see note), rinsed and picked over
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 onions, chopped fine
4 carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
8 garlic cloves, minced
1 (28-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, roughly crushed by hand
8 cups low-sodium chicken broth
3 cups water
2 cups loosely packed basil leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 medium zucchini, quartered lengthwise, seeded, and sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 bunch Swiss chard, stemmed, leaves chopped
1/2 cup pasta, small soup

INSTRUCTIONS

1. COOK BEANS: Bring beans and enough water to cover by 1 inch to low boil in medium saucepan over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, until beans are just beginning to soften, about 20 minutes. Drain beans and transfer to slow cooker.

2. SAUTÉ AROMATICS: Heat 3 tablespoons oil in Dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering. Add onions and carrots and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add tomatoes and their juice and cook until pan is nearly dry, 8 to 12 minutes. Stir in broth, water, 1/2 cup basil, oregano, and pepper flakes and bring to boil; transfer to slow cooker. Cover and cook on low until beans are tender, 6 to 7 hours (or cook on high 5 to 6 hours).

3. FINISH SOUP: Stir zucchini, chard, and pasta into slow cooker and cook, covered, on high until pasta is tender, 20 to 30 minutes. Stir in remaining basil and remaining oil. Season with salt and pepper. Serve.

TO MAKE AHEAD: Soup can be made through step 2 and refrigerated in airtight container for 2 days. To finish, bring to boil in Dutch oven. Stir in zucchini, chard, and pasta; reduce heat to low; and simmer until pasta is tender, about 10 minutes.

A bottle of Chianti seemed like the perfect wine for this meal. As Chianti’s go this was not as robust as some we have had, but really, once we tasted the bread, believe or not, we didn’t care about the wine anymore.

Cranberry Cherry Poached Pears
Source: Raley’s “Something Extra”, Winter 2014
Prep: 20 minutes
Cook: 1 ½ to 3 hours
Chill: several hours
Serves: 6

1 cup 100% cranberry juice
1 cup 100% cherry juice
½ cup honey or agave nectar
¼ cup almond liqueur (or additional juice)
2 cinnamon sticks
2 lemon slices
6 firm but ripe Bosc or Bartlett pears

Stir all ingredients except pears in a large slow cooker. Peel pears and cut in half; scoop out seeds with a melon baller and add to slow cooker, turning pears to coat with liquid.

Cover and cook on high for 1 ½ hours or on low for 3 hours, turning pears over halfway through cooking. Remove from slow cooker and chill.

Remove pears and dried fruit from juices with a slotted spoon, discarding cinnamon sticks and lemon slices. Place juices in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat until reduced to a syrup; let cool.
Place pears in 6 small bowls and drizzle with reduced juices.

For an extra special presentation, top each with a dollop of vanilla Greek yogurt and toasted, sliced almonds.

Our unsolicited and biased opinions:

This was a busy week for us, and this meal was the perfect way to maximize our time.  The dry ingredients for the bread can be mixed and put into a Ziploc. The cheese and olives can be cubed and sliced respectively and stored in separate bags in the refrigerator. When you are ready to make the bread, bring the cheese and olives to room temperature before adding them to the flour. And, oh yes, no kneading is required. (The no kneading is what caught Sue’s attention, besides the ingredients, and made her think she could actually make this bread.) Meg thinks getting bread flour, which has a higher gluten content than regular white flour, is particularly important since this dough is not kneaded.

Two points worth mentioning about the soup: It’s so easy and it’s really easy. Seriously, the beauty of this soup is in how quickly it comes together, and once it is in the crock pot, you can forget about it. We made this ahead and refrigerated it as the recipe suggested. Ten minutes before the bread was done, we brought the soup to a boil and added the final ingredients. So by the time the bread had cooled ever so slightly, the soup was ready.  Timing is everything.

Unfortunately, the beans did not cook through. This may be due to our altitude. We followed the recipe times and will adjust for the next time. We would also double the amount of pasta. The recipe did not call for any salt. We added some to taste once it was served.

We chose to use agave nectar instead of honey in the poaching liquid for the pears to let the juice and the almond liqueur flavors come through. The picture doesn’t show the true ruby color of these pears. This is a visually stunning desert and has such complex flavors both tart and sweet.  We only fixed two pears but made the full recipe of the poaching liquid/syrup, and you will want to the same. It is lick the bowl good.

We would like to dedicate this meal to Bettye.  It is exactly the kind of welcoming meal we enjoyed so often around her kitchen table, catching up on news, commenting on the recipe and waiting for desert.  Sue and I were known to withhold the answer to the “What’s for desert?’ question to surprise Bettye, because truth be told, desert,(especially cookies), was her weakness.

We hope that when you prepare this meal you will gather loved ones around your table and share conversations and make memories to be cherished later.

We are glad to be back blogging.