So this last week i was suuuuper broke. Boss messed up my time off and i ended up with a $78 paycheck... so what to do? scour the cabenates for stuff to cook up! I found Alton Browns fabulous recipe, but didnt have all of the ingredients, but most of them. i also had to work so i tossed it all in my 4 quart crockpot. This came out AMAZING! I also baked up some white bread for sammiches and to dip...Soup Ingredients Ingredients
1 finely chopped onion
3 chopped carrots
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 cups lentils, picked and rinsed
1 can diced tomatoes
1 quart chicken or vegetable broth
2 cans water (with tomato can)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground toasted cumin
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
I put the lentils in the bottom and tossed everything on top. I let it cook over night, about 10 hours, and its about perfect.
Homemade Sandwich Bread
2 cups lukewarm water
2 Tbls. sugar
1 Tbls. dry active yeast
2 Tbls. butter, softened
5 1/2 cups all purpose flour + more for kneading the dough
1 Tbls. kosher salt
Yields 2 standard loaves
Proof the yeast
Put the water and sugar in a large mixing bowl.
Whisk vigorously to dissolve the sugar. (Yeast eats sugar, so consider this
its appetizer before you add the flour.)
Toss in the yeast.
Whisk again to dissolve. Walk away from the bowl for 5-10 minutes to give
the yeast time to work.
After 5-10 minutes, there should be a thick, creamy layer on the surface of
the water.
Make the dough
Toss the flour and salt into the bowl with the yeast.
Cut your soft butter up into a few pieces (to make it easier to work into the
dough evenly).
Toss the butter in with the flour.
Mix well to combine the ingredients. If you’re using a stand mixer, use the
dough hook. (I use a stand mixer to knead my dough, but I always get it
started by hand to keep the flour from flying all over the place.)
Knead the dough for 3-5 minutes.
It’s ready when it’s formed a smooth ball that feels elastic-y when you touch
it.
Other signs the dough has been kneaded enough: Very little of the dough
will stick to the dough hook when you pull it out of the bowl…
…and there will be very little dough actually sticking to the sides of the
bowl.
The first rise
Round the dough up into a ball. Put it in a large, lightly greased bowl
Coat a piece of plastic wrap with a little oil. Loosely cover the bowl with it,
oil side down.
Let it sit in a warm place for about an hour, or until it’s doubled in size. If
you check it after about 15 minutes, you should notice that it’s started to
grow:After about an hour, your dough should be doubled in size.
Form the bread loaves
Punch the dough down. (Basically, just poke it a bunch and smoosh the air
out of it.)
Knead it a couple of times (I do this in the bowl) and form it into a neat ball.
It should be smooth and tacky, but not sticky.
Sprinkle a little flour on a board. Set the dough ball on the flour.
Whack the ball in half with a bencher or a large knife. Each half will become
one loaf.
Let the loaves rise like this for about an hour, or until they’ve doubled in
size.
About 15 minutes before your hour is up, preheat your oven to 350 degrees
Bake the bread
When your loaves have doubled in size, pop them into your preheated 350-
degree oven for 35-40 minutes
Let them cool for 5 minutes in the pans. Then, with potholders, tip the
loaves out of the pans and let them finish cooling on a rack.
If you can bear it, let them cool to room temperature before slicing. When
you slice bread that’s hot out of the oven like this, the remaining loaf can get
a little gummy
I pulled this recipe from another website but the darn this is so full of ads and spamware, my poor laptop almost bit it twice, and it CRASHED MY Iphone... so I wont be promoting it here... sad because the recipe is REALLY good. I did two loaf folding techniques, one traditional, and one where i broke the dough into 4 parts, rolled flat and then rolled them up and let them rise. This worked out really nice, and looks cool!
