I write this before I know how the bread is going to turn out.
But I am optimistic. Optimistic.
The standard white bread recipe I have is quite tasty. The bread is great with butter and honey or even peanut butter and honey, but it does not make a good sandwich bread. This one, which I found via Google, uses some nice whole milk. Just proof the yeast in the warm(ed) milk, then mixed the ingredients, knead, and set aside to rise and hour or so.
This I did.
I set it aside just as Heroes began and returned to it shortly after 9p.m. when I decided to make a couple chicken breasts for a late(r) dinner. It had risen quite nicely, kept its indentation when poked, and plopped right out of the bowl onto the counter. I rolled it out and then rolled it up. It’s rising now in the bread pan, and so far it is the nicest dough I’ve handled. Literally, that is.
I still have to bake it, but I have high hopes.
Fluffy White Sandwich Bread: recipe
“This simple loaf has so much more flavor and character than store-bought white bread. It makes the best tuna or egg salad sandwiches. I toast Day-old slices for BLTs made with thick-cut bacon and end-of-summer tomatoes.”
Makes one 9-inch loaf
* 1 1/3 cups whole milk
* 1 envelope (2 1/2 teaspoons) rapid-rise yeast
* 3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more if necessary
* 2 tablespoons sugar
* 2 teaspoons salt
* 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
* Nonstick cooking spray
1. Heat the milk over low heat in a small saucepan until just warm to the touch. Pour it into a glass measuring cup and whisk in the yeast. Let the mixture stand for 5 minutes to give the yeast a chance to dissolve.
2. Combine the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor and pulse 2 or 3 times to combine. With the motor running, pour the milk and yeast mixture and cooled melted butter into the feed tube and process until the dough forms a smooth ball, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula once or twice if necessary. To knead the dough, continue to process for 1 minute.
3. Coat the inside of a large mixing bowl with cooking spray. Shape the dough into a rough ball and place it in the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough stand in a warm, draft-free spot until the dough has doubled in size, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
4. Coat the inside of a 9×5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and gently press it into a rectangle measuring about 1 inch thick and 9 inches long. Tightly roll the rectangle into a 9-inch-long cylinder and place it in the prepared pan, seam side down. Press the dough into the pan so that it touches the sides and reaches into the corners. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm, draft-free spot until doubled in size, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
6. Remove the plastic wrap from the loaf pan and place the pan in the oven. Bake the bread until it is golden brown and firm, 40 to 50 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and turn the bread out onto a wire rack. Let it cool to room temperature before slicing and serving.
Fluffy White Sandwich Bread may be wrapped in plastic and then aluminum foil and frozen for up to 2 weeks.
For dinner I made chicken as I did last night — 30×2 + 90×2, which is to say, 30 seconds per side on high(est) heat in the skillet followed by 90 seconds per side at about 500F in the oven — although this time I added a little red wine to it after the salt and pepper but a while before rubbing in some canola oil. Last night was no fluke: these chicken breasts were juicy, tender, cooked-through, and done in 4-5 minutes.
When it comes to music I’m done with Laibach — see last night’s entry — but I haven’t yet gotten around to the next musician. I had work today and this afternoon and evening I didn’t feel like music. Yet. Soon “M” will arrive and with it the rather heavy tones and production of Metallica, Ministry, and similar groups. But 10 hours of Laibach prepared me, I like to think.
Tonight was Heroes — one of two shows I actually watch when they air, the other being Lost — and I have to say that it was a great episode, even though it dealt with one subplot exclusively. During the introduction it was basically Alias + Lost … the flashback(s) [Lost] and the “here’s your cover — paper factory — for this secret job you’re doing for us” [Alias]. The ending was quite well-scripted, shot, and placed (so to speak, hrm) and cast new light upon something earlier on. And this was a much better “backstory” episode than the previous one (the one after the mid-season break).
The way the story is shaping up reminds me of numerous Marvel comic book plots of years past, but what the TV show has going for it so far is not so much novelty but rather quality of execution, and why this is interesting is that the type of “every-man” psychological realism evident in Heroes is exactly type of story-telling upon which the myth of Marvel Comics is built — Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men — and so it is sad to see Marvel in comparison (for the most part) with the House of Ideas being the House of Poorly Conceived Marketing Schemes these days.
There is an element of Heroes which was prefigured in a way and which is perhaps why NBC took a risk on it: in ways it reminds me of The 4400 (I’ve seen the first two seasons).
