Pretzel Dogs

The other day, husband wanted pretzels. While at the store to buy yeast, I walked past the Nathan's hot dogs, and thought...pretzel dogs!

Make your pretzel dough. I like Grant Achatz's recipe. Cut the dough in pieces, stretch each piece and flatten to about 1/4" thick and 3/4" wide. Wrap around the hot dog. Let rise while the oven pre-heats to 450. Do the baking soda bath, brush with egg, sprinkle with salt, bake until browned.

These were slightly greasy, which can be solved by removing the hot dog, squeezing out the grease, and putting back in the pretzel. But that's a bit weird. Next time I might try poking and par-boiling the hot dogs first.

Pappa al Pomodoro

I had half of a baguette leftover that wasn't worth eating. Until I remembered that you could put dead bread in soup, as a way to thicken and a mark of frugality. Behold, pappa al pomodoro. I'm not sure exactly what 'pappa' translates as, but I think it's something like mush, hence: tomato mush. Not very appetizing, is it? I'll stick with pappa al pomodoro.

I used this recipe from Dana Treat, chicken stock instead of vegetable stock, and a little less basil because I didn't have enough.

Whatever you do, don't skip the garnish of baked basil and croutons. It's amazing. You could sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top if you wish, or even add some crispy pancetta. I didn't. And it was still good.

Pretty amazing for dead bread, huh?

Olive Bread

I felt like doing something productive in the kitchen, but was too lazy to go to the store (that seems to happen a lot, doesn't it?). Glancing through what I had on hand, I soon came to the conclusion that I had to bake something, since every protein product I had was frozen solid, and pasta with homemade sauce just wasn't what I was looking for.

So, the first part of the decision was made. But what to bake? Hmm...I've got yeast. And a new bag of flour. Yeast + flour = bread. (Of course there's more to it than that, but you know what I mean.) Then I saw the containers of olives in the fridge, and remembered Ravenous Couple's no-knead olive bread. Everything about it was appealing, especially the no-knead part (see above regarding lazy).

So I grabbed my Oxo cherry pitter, and set to work on the olives (Castelvetrano and a marinated mix). I love my cherry pitter, and it's allowed in my kitchen because it pits both cherries and olives cleanly, and therefore has more than a single function.

I halved the recipe, and was later extremely glad that I did, because the jiggly puffy bubbly dough rose pretty close to the top of the largest bowl I own. After a few hours on the counter and a few more in the fridge, I scooped out a very sticky glob of dough, coated it in flour because I was out of cornmeal, and plopped it into my pre-heated enamel-coated cast iron Dutch oven. Into the oven it went, along with a tray of water below it to provide steam.

Ten minutes later I turned on the vent fan and removed the batteries from the smoke detector.

Twenty minutes after that I had delicious olive bread with a crackly crust. I had a slice still warm, spread with butter. The rest we ate with soppressata, Spanish ham, and cheese.

The best part? The dough keeps in the fridge for days, getting a little more sour with the passage of time. Four days later I had another loaf that was even better than the first.