In our house, twenty eleven started off with a bang. That morning I baked, for the first time ever in my whole entire life, a real baguette.

Actually, I baked six of them.

I had to keep pinching myself to make sure it was for real. I jumped up and down. I ate a whole one (and then some) for breakfast. I broke off hunks of bread for the kids. I called Mr. Handsome in from the barn to show him the loaves. Then I ran out to the barn with some fresh, buttered bread and made him get out from under his truck where he was changing the oil (or something) to eat it. He didn’t complain. All six loaves were gone in less than 12 hours.

What is a real baguette, you ask? I’ve never been to France and I’ve never trained in any cooking school, but even so, I know this is the real thing. I just know! The loaves are long and skinny, caramel-brown on the outside, crackle-y, crispy. The insides are chewy and riddled with holes of all shapes and sizes. Finally I can understand those pictures of French people riding home with skinny wands of bread strapped to the backs of their bikes. These baguettes are solid and indestructible (wait a couple days and you have a homemade baseball bat), yet, they’re still ethereally delicious. (There’s analogy there—the most earthy things take you the highest, perhaps?—just waiting to be expounded upon. Go for it.)

I learned about this bread at our church’s Christmas breakfast. I noticed the huge basket filled with little slices of French bread, but thinking they were some store-purchased offering, I passed them by. But then my friend MAC came bounding up to my table, took one look at my plate and exclaimed indignantly, “What? You didn’t get any of my bread?” In no time at all she had enlightened me on the wonders of her real French bread and we were weaving through the tables on our way back to the buffet line so I could amend the errors of my ways. One bite of her bread and my eyes rolled back in my head. “What—? How—?”

MAC didn’t need any prompting. She launched directly into The Tale of The Bread and then left me alone to fill my plate and return to my seat. I made several trips back for more, and I even got kind of evangelical about it, putting little slices on other people’s plates and proclaiming, “Eat!”

MAC promptly sent me the recipe via email, and after a flurry of questions, a couple phone calls, and a trip to the grocery store, I got down to business. And what a profitable business it has been!

Here’s the gist. Before going to bed at night, mix up flour, water, salt, and rapid rise instant yeast (what I had to go to the store for). It can even be no-knead if you have a Kitchen Aid—just six minutes in the machine and you’re done. Let the dough ferment in the fridge over night. In the ayem, move it to the kitchen counter and let it rest for a couple hours.

Then, crank up the oven to 500 degrees, and shape the baguettes and promptly bake them—there is no need for a second rising.

So basically, if you get up by six, you can have fresh baguettes and coffee for a late breakfast or mid-morning snack. Be still my beating heart!

Bread is my food. Some people like meat. Some people like potatoes. Some people like chocolate. For me, though, if I had to chose one comfort food, it would be bread. And not just any bread, either. It must be substantial, like a tangy sourdough or a chewy baguette. Served with lots of butter and cup of steaming coffee. Oh my.

Who’s with me on this one? Anyone? Or do I have to stand alone atop my yeasty mountain of bliss?

If bread isn’t your first choice, then tell me this: if you could choose the one food that soothes your spirit and comforts your soul, what would it be?

Baguettes
Adapted from my girlfriend’s recipe which she, in turn, got from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice

The original recipe called for 2 1/4 teaspoons salt, but I found it a bit bland. Three teaspoons did the trick—adjust to suit your tastes.

I used the little packs of Fleischmann’s rapid rise instant yeast. The amount called for is less than 1 packet—tape the pouch closed and save the extra for the next time. (To understand the difference between active dry yeast and rapid rise instant yeast, read this.)

They say this dough can be shaped into all sorts of delectables—large artisan loaves, bâtards (bastardized baguettes, short and fat), pizza crust, rolls, etc. As for me, though, I’m sticking with baguettes for now. Can’t get enough of ’em.

1 pound 11 ounces (5 ½ cups plus 2 tablespoons) unbleached bread flour
1 3/4 teaspoons rapid rise instant yeast
3 teaspoons salt
2 1/4 cups cold water

Dump all the ingredients into the bowl of your Kitchen Aid mixer and mix it (with the bread attachment, of course) for six minutes. Or, if bulky machines aren’t your thing, stir it up with a spoon and then knead by hand. (Clue: in the mixer, the dough should be dry enough that it pulls away from the sides of the bowl, but yet wet enough that it sticks to the bottom.)

Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and pop it in the fridge.

The next morning, move the bowl from fridge to counter and let it to sit for another 2-3 hours.

Oven Prep
Before you shape your bread, get your oven ready.

Put one of the racks on the very highest level. This rack will hold a pan of boiling water. Set the water to boiling on the stove top and then, a couple minutes before putting the bread in the oven, pour the water into the pan and slip it in to the oven. Replenish the steam pan with more boiling water as necessary.

As for baking the bread, there are a variety of ways to do this. Here are two:

a) Put the shaped loaves on an upside down cookie sheet and bake it on the next to bottom rack.

b) Put a baking stone on the next to bottom rack and allow it to heat up with the oven—get it really good and hot. Put the shaped loaves on a parchment-lined, side-less tray. When ready to bake, pull the hot stone from the oven, slide the loaves and paper onto it, and return the stone to the oven.

Shaping the baguettes
Using a rubber spatula that you dipped in water (to keep it from sticking to the dough), gently scrape the dough out onto a well-floured surface. Using your fingers, gently lift and adjust the dough so it makes a small rectangle, about 8 x 6 inches. Now, using a knife, cut the dough in half and then each half in three rods. You’re making baguettes so cut accordingly. There’s no point in cutting the dough into triangles or squares when you’re going for long skinny rectangles. Be lazy!

Now, very gently, lift and stretch the dough to make a long baguette—make it as long as your baking stone or cookie sheet. Use flour to keep the dough from sticking to your fingers, but do not knead or roll the dough. You want to keep as many air bubbles in it as necessary. Lift the shaped baguette onto the cookie sheets. Repeat with two more pieces of dough. (Cover the other dough and wait to shape it till it till the first three loaves are in the oven.) Dust the loaves with flour and then score with a sharp knife. Cover the baguettes with plastic wrap and let them rest for 5 or 10 minutes. Or not. As soon as the oven is ready, the baguettes can be baked.

Baking
Put the bread into the preheated, 500 degree, steaming hot oven. Immediately, spritz the sides of the oven with a water bottle. Two and a half minutes later, do it again. Another two and a half minutes, spray again. Close the oven door and do not disturb for 8 minutes, at which point, turn the oven down to 475, rotate the bread, and bake for another 10-15 minutes. Aim for a total of 23-25 minutes and a burnished crust that verges on black in some places. Of course, the exact time and temperature will depend on your oven, pans, size of loaves, etc. Experiment.

Transfer the baguettes to a cooling rack, crank up the oven, and repeat the process for the remaining three baguettes.

Store the baguettes at room temperature. Partially eaten baguettes can be stored in a towel to prevent them from getting stale too fast. But the truth is, after one day, baguettes fade tremendously. They can be stored in a plastic bag, but their crusts turn soft (which might be a plus for some people). They can be frozen and reheated in the oven (but I have yet to try it). Dry bread can always be used as French toast, croutons, etc.

I have submitted this post to yeastspottings.

This same time, years previous: sweet and spicy popcorn, lentil-sausage soup, hitting the jackpot

I have a bunch of unfinished agenda banging around in my head. Unfortunately, my disorganization manifested itself in a confusing and splat-like presentation of this morning’s Sunday school lesson. This is the curse of an out-loud thinker—if I don’t get a chance to extensively process my material with a bunch of people prior to presenting, I’m just a crazy person spouting gibberish. Mercifully, the class members gently shut me down, and now, after listening to them work on the issue for 45 minutes I know exactly (more or less) what I would say were I to ever teach that lesson again.

But I digress. The unfinished blog agenda is what I’m to be talking about.

Marshmallows
I made another batch and rolled them in toasted coconut and then drizzled and/or dipped them in chocolate.

I liked them, but I prefer the plain marshmallows. I’m not a huge marshmallow freak—I don’t like to eat them just for the sake of eating them—so most of my marshmallows get set afloat a steaming cup of hot chocolate. And anyway, who wants bits of toasted coconut floating in their hot cocoa? Not me!

We’ve taken to roasting them in the fireplace. Divine.

I mentioned that using a 9×13 pan yielded super-thick marshmallows. So the next time around I did them in a jelly roll pan, but those were too puny-thin for my liking. The third time I made them I divided them between a 9×13 and a 9×9 and they were better. But I still kind of like the huge square ones best.

We’ve had marshmallows sitting around in jars on the counter for a couple weeks now and they’re showing no signs of going bad. So as best as I can tell, these keep indefinitely.

Unschooling Experiment
Our one week of unschooling has stretched into one month … and beyond. I have no desire to go back to the way things were. I’m curious to see if this unschooling period is just that, a period, or whether or not it will be sustainable for the long haul. Stay tuned.

Cards
Teaching my kids to play cards was one of my more brilliant moves.

Now they play cards, Uno in particular, which grants me some much-needed reprieve at various intervals throughout the day.

Etsy

As with any baby, it changes as it grows. Over the past few weeks we have learned that:

a. pounding coins is really hard work
b. Yo-Yo has trouble seeing the big picture (we knew that before, but still…)
c. Yo-Yo does not possess the wherewithal or attention to detail that is required to make jewelry
d. I enjoy making jewelry
e. there is a market
f. running a business makes for an excellent math curriculum

Christmas Citrus
These dried oranges, grapefruits, lemons, and limes really boosted our tree’s pretty factor.

The sparkle sticks, however, have yet to be glued into twiggy stars. Maybe by next year…

I made another batch of chocolate-dipped candied orange rinds. I used six oranges and still had plenty of syrup. It yielded about three pints of chocolate sticks.

I used the leftover orange syrup in my simple granola recipe. (I omit the granulated sugar and add 1 3/4 cups of orange simple syrup in place of the water.) It adds a very subtle orange flavor to the granola. And it makes me think that some orange zest would be a swell addition to the French Chocolate Granola. Chocolate, coconut, almonds, and orange zest—how could it go wrong?

Article
Remember that article that I mentioned? The one that got accepted? Well, it’s out in the January-February issue of Home Education Magazine. The author’s copy came in the mail. I opened it at the dinner table and did a honkin’ big happy dance, war whoops and all, right in front of my wide-eyed young’uns and bemused husband.

Miss Beccaboo was shocked, absolutely shocked, to see a picture of herself in a glossy magazine. Later she confided, “I wish you would’ve told me about it ahead of time so you could’ve gotten a better picture of me.” I told her that I chose that picture because it was beautiful. That was all the assurance she needed—she scampered off, pacified.

This same time, years previous: maybe not a true confession

Seeing as it’s the last day of the year I suppose I should do a recap of my favorite books or blogs, recall my best memories or the things I learned, or itemize the ways in which my body has aged. Or maybe I should tell you all the things I plan to do differently in the upcoming year.

But I don’t wanna. It’s not that I’m not introspective because I am (or can be). It’s because I don’t like anything to dictate when I ought to do something. In other words, if I want to tell my mom I love her and think she’s awesome, I’ll do it, and not just because it’s Mother’s Day. (Hey Mom! I love you and think you’re awesome!) If I want to tell the pastor I appreciate her, I’ll make her a loaf of bread and write a note, but it might not be during the scheduled pastor-appreciation month. If I want to roast a turkey, I’ll do it, though it just might not be on November’s Fourth Thursday.

This makes me sound contrary and rebellious, which I’m not. (I don’t think.) I just like to do things when they are meaningful to me. Perhaps it would do me good to be more introspective at the appropriate times. Maybe if I let myself (forced myself) to follow the customs I would get more out of life. Maybe it would be a good discipline.

On the other hand, my kids discipline me on a regular basis. I’ve been subject to their demands/needs/wants for so long that I crave autonomy. (That I was this way pre-motherhood is something I’m choosing not to dwell on right now.)

Anyway, I assumed that for New Year’s this year we would have a nice supper of leftover Christmas Eve cheeses and crackers, and then we’d all go to bed. But then I read this invigorating post by Aimee over at Simple Bites and started thinking that I might like to throw a party. It even occurred to me that we could keep it a secret from the kids—tell guests to arrive at 9 after the kids are in bed and then have our very own, adult-only shindig. (My mother thought the idea absurd.)

But then I asked Mr. Handsome what he thought about having a bunch of friends over. He was nonplused. “It’d be so much work,” he said.

“True, but after we have people over, you always feel great about it,” I pushed.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said, sighing heavily. “Go ahead and do what you want.”

“I’m not doing it if you’re not on board,” I retorted.

That was pretty much the end of the discussion. Because when it came down to it, I didn’t really want to up the ante on our relaxed week any more than he did. And it was clear that my husband was having some much needed alone time in his barn and really didn’t need to have me put a wrench in it. To top it off, I’m rather fond of full nights of sleep. All boring reasons, but true.

In any case, party or no, tonight you need eggnog.

Yes, you do. Don’t even try to argue with me.

I made eggnog for the first time ever on Christmas eve and it was a huge hit. We’re going for round two tonight.

I must confess that weird drinks make me a little queasy, and I’ve always considered eggnog to be on the weird side. Raw egg, ugh—gag me with a Volkswagen. I developed this aversion when I was living in Central America and got served some pretty wicked concoctions, cornmeal drinks and such. On one particular occasion when we were out in the Guatemalan bush, I ungratefully poured my hostess’s prized offering through the cracks in the wooden floorboards when no one was looking. Then I had to ignore my husband’s horrified expression while acting like it was a total coincidence that the family pigs (which were—oh darn!—sheltered under the house) were having a heyday directly under my butt.

You will not want to dump this drink in between the floorboards or anywhere else but down your throat. I promise.

Lots of eggnog recipes call for raw eggs and whipped egg whites, and while I’ve never actually tried them (and in all probability would probably like them) (I just said “probable” two times in one phrase—that’s bad), I think I’ll stick with this moderate, but oh-so-creamy-and-delicious, cooked-egg version. Basically, it’s just like the mix for homemade ice cream, but with more milk than cream. The spices make the tongue dance, and the rum (my favorite) takes it to higher heights.

I made the mix again this morning (it’s chilling in the fridge) and Mr. Handsome and I will be sipping it tonight while sitting in front of the fire, our eyes propped open with toothpicks. Happy New Year!

Eggnog
Adapted from Simply Recipes

Set three of the egg whites aside and use them to make marshmallows to go with the hot chocolate that some people might prefer.

This recipe is plenty rich. I think it’d be good with just three cups of whole raw milk or with half-and-half in place of the cream (which I did today on my second go-round).

Also, I want to try this recipe as an ice cream. For that I’d swap the cream and milk proportions.

Good liquors for spiking: brandy, bourbon, rum (my favorite), and Kahlua.

Also, I read a comment somewhere that suggested using this mix in a latte. I’m eager to try it—half coffee, half eggnog, with some Kahlua thrown in for extra yums.

4 egg yolks
2 cups milk
1 cup cream
½ cup sugar
2 whole cloves
pinch of cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, plus more for garnish dust
1 teaspoon vanilla
liquor of your choice

Beat the yolks till creamy and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat some more.

Put the milk/cream, cloves, and cinnamon in a saucepan and heat it up till nice and hot, but not boiling.

Temper the eggs with the hot milk by slowly adding about a cup of the hot milk to the egg mixture while whisking steadily. Pour the tempered eggs into the saucepan and continue to heat on medium-high heat till slightly thickened. Again, do not boil. Strain the mixture and set it aside to cool. After an hour, add the nutmeg and vanilla and transfer to the refrigerator.

Serve the chilled eggnog in mugs, a light flurry of nutmeg for garnish and bottles of liquor on hand for spiking.

This same time, years previous: in which I throw my bread on the floor and stomp on it, parents ARE teachers, and delight