La Blogotheque is a wonderful site from a small group of French guys who shoot impromptu music videos of great bands playing on the streets of Paris, Montreal, etc. These little bits of joy are titled les concerts a emporter, or the takeaway shows.
I recently found that the group shot three songs for local natives during their time in st. malo - "wide eyes" on a carousel; "airplanes" at the ocean; and "stranger things" in a small pub. The "stranger things" segment of the video is particularly beautiful. Check it out!
(Sorry the video is so small...had to shrink it down to fit the blog. Just make it full screen to get a better view)
La Blogotheque is a wonderful site from a small group of French guys who shoot impromptu music videos of great bands playing on the streets of Paris, Montreal, etc. These little bits of joy are titled les concerts a emporter, or the takeaway shows.
I recently found that the group shot three songs for local natives during their time in st. malo - "wide eyes" on a carousel; "airplanes" at the ocean; and "stranger things" in a small pub. The "stranger things" segment of the video is particularly beautiful. Check it out!
(Sorry the video is so small...had to shrink it down to fit the blog. Just make it full screen to get a better view)
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
beer batter bread
A few nights ago, Mal and I cooked up a large batch of our dear friend Jenna's famous kale and white bean soup. The recipe is actually from Real Simple, but might as well be canonized as a family recipe given the depth of flavor, the honesty of the ingredients, and the simplicity of preparation. If you haven't yet, check out Jenna's blog, google kale so you know what to get at the store (I accidentally bought butter lettuce the first time), and make this delicious soup for your friends and family tonight!
The problem I run across with hearty vegetarian soups is what to serve with them. In this case, the soup might as well qualify as a salad with all the leafy, green-y goodness. The recipe calls for relatively little pasta, so I suppose the carbohydrate department was hiring for dinner. To complement this relatively simple soup, I baked up an even simpler bread with the one ingredient to rule them all - BEER!
.jpg)
This quick bread is easy to make and tastes delicious with a thick layer of butter, making it the perfect partner for hearty soups, stews, and braises. The recipe comes from the Williams-Sonoma Baking Book, which has pretty consistently delivered fantastic recipes with varying degrees of difficulty and time consumption. The recipe below makes one 9-by-5 inch loaf.
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose (plain) flour
- 3 tbsp firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 bottle (12 fl oz) beer, unopened and at room temperature
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for serving
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.
In a bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt. Open the beer and add it all at once; it should foam up. I used a bottle of Negra Modelo, as it was all I had on hand (besides one can of Tecate, but who really wants their bread to taste like Taco Tuesday?) The flavor turned out really well, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone has a good experience with a bit more unique beer. IPA? A nice red (I'm thinking Bear Republic Red Rocket for my next round of this bread)?
Stir the batter quickly until the ingredients combine (about 20 strokes). Note: at this point in the recipe, I had less of a better and more of a dough. I was well on the way to making beer dough bread, as I was literally kneading a ball of dough rather than mixing the ingredients in the bowl. I don't know whether to attribute this to slightly cool beer or a general lack of wet ingredients in this recipe, but it still turned out great. Either way, your batter (or dough) should be a bit lumpy. Pour (or place, in my case) into the greased loaf pan and drizzle with the melted butter.
Bake until the top is crusty and a cake tester comes out of the center clean, about 35-40 minutes. Let the bread rest in the pan 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. The bread is best served warm or at room temp the day it is made. Cut thick and put plenty of butter on this baby to really make this bread stand out.
Thoughts on leftovers: Just reheated some bread for breakfast this morning with kerry gold irish butter and my homemade raspberry jam. Just as good as the night before! A few nights ago, Mal and I cooked up a large batch of our dear friend Jenna's famous kale and white bean soup. The recipe is actually from Real Simple, but might as well be canonized as a family recipe given the depth of flavor, the honesty of the ingredients, and the simplicity of preparation. If you haven't yet, check out Jenna's blog, google kale so you know what to get at the store (I accidentally bought butter lettuce the first time), and make this delicious soup for your friends and family tonight!
The problem I run across with hearty vegetarian soups is what to serve with them. In this case, the soup might as well qualify as a salad with all the leafy, green-y goodness. The recipe calls for relatively little pasta, so I suppose the carbohydrate department was hiring for dinner. To complement this relatively simple soup, I baked up an even simpler bread with the one ingredient to rule them all - BEER!
This quick bread is easy to make and tastes delicious with a thick layer of butter, making it the perfect partner for hearty soups, stews, and braises. The recipe comes from the Williams-Sonoma Baking Book, which has pretty consistently delivered fantastic recipes with varying degrees of difficulty and time consumption. The recipe below makes one 9-by-5 inch loaf.
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose (plain) flour
- 3 tbsp firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 bottle (12 fl oz) beer, unopened and at room temperature
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for serving
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.
In a bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt. Open the beer and add it all at once; it should foam up. I used a bottle of Negra Modelo, as it was all I had on hand (besides one can of Tecate, but who really wants their bread to taste like Taco Tuesday?) The flavor turned out really well, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone has a good experience with a bit more unique beer. IPA? A nice red (I'm thinking Bear Republic Red Rocket for my next round of this bread)?
Stir the batter quickly until the ingredients combine (about 20 strokes). Note: at this point in the recipe, I had less of a better and more of a dough. I was well on the way to making beer dough bread, as I was literally kneading a ball of dough rather than mixing the ingredients in the bowl. I don't know whether to attribute this to slightly cool beer or a general lack of wet ingredients in this recipe, but it still turned out great. Either way, your batter (or dough) should be a bit lumpy. Pour (or place, in my case) into the greased loaf pan and drizzle with the melted butter.
Bake until the top is crusty and a cake tester comes out of the center clean, about 35-40 minutes. Let the bread rest in the pan 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. The bread is best served warm or at room temp the day it is made. Cut thick and put plenty of butter on this baby to really make this bread stand out.
Thoughts on leftovers: Just reheated some bread for breakfast this morning with kerry gold irish butter and my homemade raspberry jam. Just as good as the night before!
The problem I run across with hearty vegetarian soups is what to serve with them. In this case, the soup might as well qualify as a salad with all the leafy, green-y goodness. The recipe calls for relatively little pasta, so I suppose the carbohydrate department was hiring for dinner. To complement this relatively simple soup, I baked up an even simpler bread with the one ingredient to rule them all - BEER!
.jpg)
This quick bread is easy to make and tastes delicious with a thick layer of butter, making it the perfect partner for hearty soups, stews, and braises. The recipe comes from the Williams-Sonoma Baking Book, which has pretty consistently delivered fantastic recipes with varying degrees of difficulty and time consumption. The recipe below makes one 9-by-5 inch loaf.
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose (plain) flour
- 3 tbsp firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 bottle (12 fl oz) beer, unopened and at room temperature
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for serving
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.
In a bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt. Open the beer and add it all at once; it should foam up. I used a bottle of Negra Modelo, as it was all I had on hand (besides one can of Tecate, but who really wants their bread to taste like Taco Tuesday?) The flavor turned out really well, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone has a good experience with a bit more unique beer. IPA? A nice red (I'm thinking Bear Republic Red Rocket for my next round of this bread)?
Stir the batter quickly until the ingredients combine (about 20 strokes). Note: at this point in the recipe, I had less of a better and more of a dough. I was well on the way to making beer dough bread, as I was literally kneading a ball of dough rather than mixing the ingredients in the bowl. I don't know whether to attribute this to slightly cool beer or a general lack of wet ingredients in this recipe, but it still turned out great. Either way, your batter (or dough) should be a bit lumpy. Pour (or place, in my case) into the greased loaf pan and drizzle with the melted butter.
Bake until the top is crusty and a cake tester comes out of the center clean, about 35-40 minutes. Let the bread rest in the pan 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. The bread is best served warm or at room temp the day it is made. Cut thick and put plenty of butter on this baby to really make this bread stand out.
Thoughts on leftovers: Just reheated some bread for breakfast this morning with kerry gold irish butter and my homemade raspberry jam. Just as good as the night before! A few nights ago, Mal and I cooked up a large batch of our dear friend Jenna's famous kale and white bean soup. The recipe is actually from Real Simple, but might as well be canonized as a family recipe given the depth of flavor, the honesty of the ingredients, and the simplicity of preparation. If you haven't yet, check out Jenna's blog, google kale so you know what to get at the store (I accidentally bought butter lettuce the first time), and make this delicious soup for your friends and family tonight!
The problem I run across with hearty vegetarian soups is what to serve with them. In this case, the soup might as well qualify as a salad with all the leafy, green-y goodness. The recipe calls for relatively little pasta, so I suppose the carbohydrate department was hiring for dinner. To complement this relatively simple soup, I baked up an even simpler bread with the one ingredient to rule them all - BEER!
This quick bread is easy to make and tastes delicious with a thick layer of butter, making it the perfect partner for hearty soups, stews, and braises. The recipe comes from the Williams-Sonoma Baking Book, which has pretty consistently delivered fantastic recipes with varying degrees of difficulty and time consumption. The recipe below makes one 9-by-5 inch loaf.
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose (plain) flour
- 3 tbsp firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 bottle (12 fl oz) beer, unopened and at room temperature
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for serving
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.
In a bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt. Open the beer and add it all at once; it should foam up. I used a bottle of Negra Modelo, as it was all I had on hand (besides one can of Tecate, but who really wants their bread to taste like Taco Tuesday?) The flavor turned out really well, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone has a good experience with a bit more unique beer. IPA? A nice red (I'm thinking Bear Republic Red Rocket for my next round of this bread)?
Stir the batter quickly until the ingredients combine (about 20 strokes). Note: at this point in the recipe, I had less of a better and more of a dough. I was well on the way to making beer dough bread, as I was literally kneading a ball of dough rather than mixing the ingredients in the bowl. I don't know whether to attribute this to slightly cool beer or a general lack of wet ingredients in this recipe, but it still turned out great. Either way, your batter (or dough) should be a bit lumpy. Pour (or place, in my case) into the greased loaf pan and drizzle with the melted butter.
Bake until the top is crusty and a cake tester comes out of the center clean, about 35-40 minutes. Let the bread rest in the pan 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. The bread is best served warm or at room temp the day it is made. Cut thick and put plenty of butter on this baby to really make this bread stand out.
Thoughts on leftovers: Just reheated some bread for breakfast this morning with kerry gold irish butter and my homemade raspberry jam. Just as good as the night before!
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