No-knead bread!

I'm not that happy with how any of my little mixed-media collage paintings are looking at the moment, so I'm sharing the bread I'm making tonight instead. The photo is actually from a time I made it a few months ago since tonight's loaf is still in the oven.

I'm more of a cooking person than a baking person, and I've had mixed results with other bread recipes. But I'm really loving this No Knead Bread recipe I got from the New York Times. Seriously, even if you think you're not a baker, give it a try! It's so good and so easy and way cheaper than buying bread from the store!

I make the white bread recipe, but I substitute one cup whole wheat for one of the cups of white flour. You just mix up your flour, yeast, salt, and water, and leave it to rise for four hours. Then you dump your dough out on a flat surface, flip it over and let it sit for another 30 minutes. Then you bake it in some sort of closed container like a dutch oven for 30 minutes. Almost no work involved, and you get a lovely round loaf of bread with a great crispy crust! The closed container is the secret to the crispy crust- apparently professional bakers have special ovens that inject steam while baking. This is very hard to replicate in a regular oven, so using a closed container is like a little steam oven inside your regular oven.

There is another version of the no-knead recipe that involves letting the dough sit for 14 hours, which I tried once. But I liked the 4-hour version much better anyway!

Week Two- Veggie Burgers

I have been doing a lot of cooking this past week, so much that I really haven’t gotten much craft time. But I am very excited to share this recipe for homemade veggie burgers. They get my 5 smear rating. Ok, that didn’t sound so good-- let me ‘splain: Basically, the better the recipe, the more messed up my recipe card gets with ingredients while I‘m preparing it (I‘m a messy cook), hence, the smear rating. Anyway, if you’re a fan of the store bought variety of veggie burgers, I think these are MUCH better, not very complicated to put together, healthy, and delicious (my 2 year old even eats them!). Plus, when you add it all up, they end up costing something like $.25 per burger, which makes them healthy for your wallet as well.

INGREDIENTS:

1 (16 oz.) can black beans, drained and rinsed
½ green or red bell pepper, cut into wedges
½ onion, cut into wedges
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 egg
1 tbsp. chili powder
1 tbsp. cumin
1 tsp. Thai chili sauce or hot sauce
½ cup bread crumbs *

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and lightly oil a baking sheet.



2. 
   In a medium bowl, mash black beans with a fork, until thick and pasty.



3. 
   In a food processor, finely chop bell pepper, onion, and garlic, then stir into bean mash.



4. 
   In a small bowl, stir together egg, chili powder, cumin, and chili sauce.



5. 
   Stir the egg mixture into the mashed beans. Mix in bread crumbs until the mixture is sticky and holds together. Divide into four patties.



6. 
   Place patties on baking sheet, and bake about 10 minutes each side. **
   

* I used quick oats instead.
** In my oven, 13 minutes each side worked better. They might seem to stick a little at first, but once you flip them, they should firm up & be fine.


Mine seemed to need to stay in the oven longer to “set up”, but did seem a little dry- they were fine, though if served with some kind of sauce: salad dressing, ketchup, etc. Also, I felt like they could’ve used a little salt, but other than that- delicious! Bon Appetit!