Carrot Bread

The time of backyard BBQs and fields of blooming flowers is at hand!  May is steadily winding-down; working it’s way toward Memorial Day and the official beginning of the summer season.  Other than those first few weeks of spring blooming with flowers, early summer has to be my favorite time of year…or at least my favorite time of year to look forward to.  There is a distinction of course.

I find I’m always looking ahead to the next exciting project, plan, vacation, etc… and I don’t think I’m alone in this.  What keeps us trudging through the day-to-day activities is a promise of greater, brighter future “things” and I think it’s about time we put a stop to it.  Now, I’m not suggesting canceling all future plans, finding a giant tree and waiting for the divine to strike you down with your purpose in life, but more mildly might I suggest you do something nice for yourself right now!

I have been looking forward to summer so much lately, and when the sun decided to show over the weekend I took advantage.  The first task was to go shopping. Who doesn’t like to go and buy themselves a little something from time to time?  My gal pal, Izabella, and I planned to run a quick errand to a local nursery, but ended up going to a home goods store instead where I was seduced isle by isle with little treasures and finds that I don’t need but still seemed perfectly reasonable to buy…like another cake stand.  I’ve owned up to this habit in the past and will continue to own up to it.  It’s like Indiana Jones searching for the Holy Grail…I just know the perfect cake stand IS out there.

After narrowly escaping the store with our life savings we did manage to get to the nursery and look for red, yellow and blue flowering plants to fill some empty pots on her back porch.  The baby shower is upon us this weekend and there is nothing like a party to force your hand when it comes to all the things you have been putting off doing around your home (or haven’t had time to do for that matter).  We had been looking at a charming, French Country entertaining spread in the June Martha Stewart Living and were feeling quite inspired.  The nursery, Rosedale, is only about fifteen minutes from our house, and I surprisingly had never been there.  The place is massive and they had the cutest little red wagons for you to pull around and fill up with plants.  My red wagon driving skills have decreased over the years, but we managed to get out with what we came for and only injured a few toes of passersby along the way.

On the way home we stopped at the organic market because I needed to get fresh carrot juice for this week’s recipe:  Carrot Bread, and because I wanted some ground turkey and kielbasa to throw on the grill.  After all was said and done I made my way home to start the delicious cooking festivities.

As I exclaimed earlier, the weather was warm and I had summer and BBQ on my mind.  I also had carrot bread on my mind.  For my birthday, Brian got me a book called My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method by Jim Lahey, the owner and baking guru of Sullivan Street Bakery in New York City.  In 2006, a reporter for the New York Times interviewed Jim.  In his interview he gave his recipe for no-knead bread.  Being an avid fan of timesaving techniques, I’ve wanted to try the carrot bread recipe since I saw him do it on the Martha Stewart show. 

When he calls it no-knead, he means it.  It literally took me five minutes to put the few ingredients together in a bowl (this recipe does include yeast), mix them up for about 30 seconds until they come together and then just cover the bowl with plastic wrap and stick it on top of the fridge (or somewhere out of the way that is roughly 72 degrees-ish).  I’ve never seen a baking recipe, let alone bread, where I could spend five minutes and shout from the mountain top “my work here is done!”  You go Jim!

Was I a tad skeptical?  Yes.  Was I pleasantly surprised?  Indeed!!!  Now, the trick is to let your dough sit anywhere from twelve to eighteen hours while the chemical processes that normally happen from kneading naturally occur (but without all the work!).  So I put away the bowl and went to the backyard to pull out the grill.   I haven’t had the grill out since last fall, and it was nice to dust off the harsh winter grit and get it into prime cooking condition.

There is really nothing like grilling your food outdoors to take you to a special place, or at least that’s what it does for me.  Grilling always seemed to be a special occasion growing up and definitely a summer thing.  My dad enjoyed cooking filet mignon wrapped in bacon from the local meat market as well as baked potatoes sealed up in foil.  To this day I always think of him if I ever have a filet.   Paired with a simple salad and a Coors Light, he was happy. 

The burgers and kielbasa I made were great and hit the spot, as did the yummy mustard potato salad we had along with it.  I’m telling you, simple pleasures truly are the best.   Now I just need a field full of wildflowers, a long picnic table and a balmy evening lit up with fireflies to make the picture complete…it’s good to have goals.

Sunday I got up late, but not too late to get my bread going.  Because of the laze fare attitude of this week’s recipe I was able to catch the dough at the eighteen-hour mark and get it ready for the next step.  It had doubled overnight and was ready to be punched down.  All you have to do next is fold it on itself and give it a quick push/knead, then toss it in a flower dusted cotton towel.  Cover the dough with the cloth and let it rise for another two hours.

When an hour and a half has gone by, pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees and get out your Dutch oven.  That’s right…a 4 1/2 to 5 quart Dutch oven with a tight fitting lid is all the equipment you need to make this bread come out like it was wood fired.  Place the Dutch oven in your stove to pre-heat.  When the second rise of your dough is complete, open the stove, take out the hot pot, drop in your dough and put on the lid.  Bake for 25 minutes, then take the lid off and bake for fifteen minutes more.

The carrot bread came out perfectly.  Moist inside and a chewy, crispy crust on the outside.  It’s beautifully studded with walnuts, currants and cumin seeds that caramelize to a deep mahogany brown while sealed inside the magic Dutch oven.  Who would of thought that it could be so easy?  Apparently no one until the New York Times article came out and Jim Lahey has been a huge success ever since. 

For people who are afraid of making bread, this recipe is definitely for you.  My yeast fears have been easing off the longer I’ve been doing this blog, but this is possibly the easiest baked good I have ever made and one of the tastiest.  You don’t even really taste carrot so much as just a general sweetness in the bread mingling with the spicy cumin.  Brian and I also discovered that it goes great paired with maple BBQ baked beans…a little tip from me to you. 

What is the take away from all of this?  Well, it’s a Tuesday, it’s raining and chilly again and I’ve got my warm weekend memories and some leftover bread to keep me warm.  It’s just who I am.