I needed / wanted to bake bread last week. Now that I use the strait dough method, it’s easy to vary a recipe … A LOT!

I started by dumping just about any grain I could find into the mixing bowl. That turned out to include about 2 cups of spent grain from the Saint George’s brewery, a half cup each of wheat germ and oat bran and a quarter cup of milled flax seed. Considering the bread recipe only called for a bit more than 3 cups of bread flour, I needed to make some adjustments. Here is where the combination of the strait dough method, past baking, and a heavy duty mixer with a bread hook all converge. I had approximately 20 oz of water with 4 tsp of yeast in it. That was enough for two loaves. So added about half the liquid and and most of 6 cups of flour. I then dribbled in the remaining liquid about a tablespoon at a time. My target is a dough ball that pulls away from the mixing bowl and leaves the sides clean while at the same time, not being very sticky to my hands. If I over shoot with the liquid, I just add a sprinkling of flour.

This bread is heavy! Tasty. But heavy. The bread has so much extra stuff in it that when I chilled a baked loaf in the refrigerator, it allowed me to cut the slides less than 1/4" thick (nice for those starch fiends on a diet).

I ended up with three loaves. Here i have cut half the loaf as thin as I like and am trying our a strawberry rhubarb all frit preserve. It’s also great as an appetizer when lightly toasted and spread with tomato pesto (which I also ended up making more of last last week and canned).

I was recently asked for my recipe for Lobster Stew so here it is … but, since the recipe is so short, I am throwing in a couple family stories to make it interesting.

Let’s start with "why" we have lobster stew for Christmas dinner. IT all goes back to an unfortunate incident from my days in high school. Our hose was burglarized not once but twice (by the same guy) and one of the casualties was our small set of family silver ware. Between what the thief missed and what the police recovered, we were left with soup spoons, salad forks and one butter knife.

When it came time for planning the holiday dinner that year, my mother asked what I wanted to serve. I replied, "whatever we have, I want to use the family silver." Well, my mother, being creative, decided we could still have the traditional Waldorf Salad and we could have biscuits. The main course would be Lobster Stew. That was over twenty years ago and we still have the same holiday meal and we still use the family silver.

The recipe is also a family story. Many yeas ago, I took over cooking the holiday meals – from Thanksgiving thru Easter. Lobster Stew is not a difficult recipe. The challenge is that the recipe dates back to when you always got fresh whole lobsters and all the big and little bits you scavenged from the legs, claws, and carcass. I had settled on buying lobster meat from the local fish market because the holidays tended to get a bit crazy. I was getting rave reviews from my stew so I was reticent to let on to my secret. I was adding a pound of crabmeat. It added some flavor but mostly it added body and texture to the stew.

I thought I was so cleaver for adding the crab meat. It was many years later, when my grandmother passed and I claimed her prized cookbook with all of her notes and adjustments and iterations she had made to Marjorie’s recipes.

I opened up the cookbook to tuck my little secret recipe inside and found all of my grandmother’s notes for Lobster Stew. She had notes on different sized services, and bowls, and everything. And there, in her handwriting, right next to the original recipe was her little secret "CRABMEAT" !

In the photo, the post-it note shows my recipe stock in the upper right corner next to the original recipe in Marjorie Standish’s cookbook (the first edition that my grandmother had and was signed by her friend, the author) and all of my grandmother’s notes.

So, two generates apart. Two kitchens apart. The same secret

Well, since the secret is now out and it turns out it was not my secret to begin with, here is the recipe for Lobster Stew …

Ingredients:

• 1-3/4 lb lobster meat broken into small chucks and bits
• 1 lb crabmeat
• 1 lb butter (I use unsalted and control the salt as needed)
• 2 tbsp of "coral" (the cooked eggs of a female lobster)
• 2 cups light cream (you can use all whole milk if you prefer)
• 6 cups whole milk

Cooking:

• Melt the butter in a large pot (large enough to take all the ingredients)
• Mash the coral into the butter. Leave on low heat for 15 minutes. The goal here is to turn the butter pink and red. Turn off the heat.
• Add the lobster and the crabmeat. Stir and let stand for an hour. If you are making a lot of stew, you can freeze at this stage before adding the milk.
• Return the pot to low heat and add the milk and light cream. Simmer for 30 minutes but do not let it boil. Taste and season with kosher salt. Ground pepper is not recommended but that’s up to you. Remove from heat and move the pot to the refrigerator.
• Lobster Stew really needs to sit over night and can remain in the refrigerator for up to 3 days as long as you don’t double dip.
• An hour before service, reheat the stew, again simmer and do not let it boil.

Serve with fresh biscuits.

Having experimented with bagel recipes for a couple weeks, I’ve brought together the best suggestions, along with some hard learned lessons for making bagels. Separate from the recipe, I have also decided that the traditional shape is a legacy and not one I feel compelled to observe. Hence, I make "Bagel Flats".

My recipe and the directions below are more detailed than most I have authored. This is in part because I have found I need every step. After a few near misses, the keys are

1. the slow rise created by the small amount of yeast and high amount of flour
2. the generous use of oil on both the pan, brushed on the dough, and the parchment
3. applying the toppings and then flipping the dough "bottom side up" for the first 5 minutes of baking

So, without further ramblings, here is my recipe for Bagel Flats …

Base Ingredients

• 4 c bread flour (scoop and scrape measure method, not sifted)
• 10 oz water (warm)
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 Tbs honey
• 1 egg

Additional Ingredients

• 1/2 c wheat germ
• 1/4 c flax meal
• 1 c spent grain (completely optional)

Prep & Cooking Ingredients

• 1/2 c oil (prefer peanut but canola will work)
• 12 c boiling water
• 2 Tbs sugar

Finishing Ingredients

• sunflower seeds (dry roasted will add a savory flavor vs. plain)
  other options include poppy seeds, sesame seeds, dried onion flakes, etc.
• 4 Tbs corn meal

Directions

• in a large mixer with a dough hook, combine 8 ounces of the warm water, with the honey and yeast. Briefly stir with a spoon or spatula to dissolve the honey and mix in the yeast
• let sit for approximately 5 minutes
• add the egg, salt and the "additional ingredients" and start the dough hook on low (first or second setting)
• start to add the flour (it will take longer and longer to incorporate each subsequent cup) – from time to time, it may help to briefly change the mixer speed to release the dough from the hook and/or scrape the bowl
• as needed, drizzle in the remaining 2 ounces of water, a teaspoon at a time
• once all of the flour is added, continue to mix for 5 more minutes, varying the speed to fling the dough off the hook – this period is to kneed the dough and develop the gluten
• place the dough in a lightly oiled a bowl and cover with plastic wrap; place in a warm area until dough doubles in size
• turn the dough out on a large lightly floured board; punch down and start to form a rectangle 3/4 inch thick
• cut dough into 12 equal parts; 6 to 7 inches long – this should yield bars between 2-1/2 and 3 inches wide
• oil two cooking sheets and place bars with at least 1 inch space between
• brush the tops with oil
• cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm area for 20 minutes
• prepare two baking sheets with parchment and brush oil on the parchment; preheat oven to 400 degrees
• in a large pot, bring 12 cups of water with 2 tablespoons of sugar to a boil
• boil the dough pieces, 3 at a time, for 2 minutes then turn them over and cook an addition 1 minute
• using a large slotted spatula or scoop, remove the dough and place on the oiled parchment
• sprinkle any "finishing ingredient" on one side, pat gently to seat, then flip the dough over and dust with corn meal
• place cooking sheets in oven for 5 minutes
• remove; flip dough over to reveal the topping; return to the over; bake and additional 20 minutes until golden in color
• when done baking, remove from pan and place on cooling racks and let sit until room temperature

This bread used the basic strait dough method I previously described. The recipe diverges from the herb bread by first omitting the 2 tablespoons of herbs and adding about 4-6 table spoons of sun dried tomatoes diced very fine with about 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil (or in my case, I just threw those together in a food processor and pulsed until they were chopped enough). The baking time was very close to 40 minutes at 375 on a cast iron griddle pan.

Thanks to Nicole for the suggestion of drying all the extra grape tomatoes that were left over this season!

A few years ago I practiced the art of grilling steak outdoors. Now, with the new kitchen, I am revisiting steak but as an indoor sport. Here is what I have thus far …

Ruth’s Chris, the restaurant chain, is renowned for their steaks and more than one home cook has taken to reproducing the cooking results. Here is the simplest description I have found:

Broiling steak in a Wolf stove

We use NY strips from Costco. I rub on Costco’s steak seasoning mix and let the steaks sit for at least an hour beforehand in the fridge. Heat butter in a cast-iron skillet on the Wolf’s range top (medium high), add the steak(s), searing around 3 minutes per side. Flip once more and finish under the infrared broiler (I think I do use the second rack, actually) for about 4 minutes and then let the steak “sit” unheated in the skillet for a couple more minutes before serving. Perfect medium rare steak with crust! No need to leave the door ajar while broiling in the Wolf range’s oven.

source: chowhound board

This is pretty accurate and the process can work with any stove. If you don’t have an infrared broiler, one commenter suggests setting the oven to 350 degrees.

I took a #8 cast iron pan and heated it to medium high and quickly melted about 1TBS of butter. I used cheap cut of meat* about 11oz and 1-1/4″ thick. I seared it in the pan for about 2-3 minutes a side and as instructed above, flipped it back to the first side before popping the entire pan in the oven. The (infrared) broiler was already hot and the pan was on the middle rack. I left it in for about 4-5 minutes. I then removed it and left it in the pan for another 4 minutes and onto the plate. It was medium rare in the middle and medium at the edges. The next time I do it I will leave it in the oven for 7-10 minutes and will also try using a 350 degree oven at some point so I have a method that will work in other kitchens.

* cheap cut of meat = I took a 3-1/2 lb boneless chuck roast that was about 2-1/2″ thick. I cut it in half and the cut each half butterfly style to I had 4 steaks, each a little over an inch thick. I then liberally salted all sides with kosher salt, stacked them up and wrapped them in some butcher’s paper and put them back into the refrigerator. I then froze all but one which I used after 12 hours. You don’t need much more than a couple of hours in contact with the salt but I wanted to experiment with time to see if it would work to prep the meat at breakfast and cook it at dinner.