craving tabbouli

I've had a craving for tabbouli lately and last evening I finally got together the ingredients to make a batch. It being November, I made what I refer to as "winter tabbouli" which has cucumbers instead of tomatoes (the lack of tomatoes also means it will keep longer). Store bought tabbouli is often a bulger based salad with some stuff in it and it invariably lacks the freshness of homemade. Clifford Wright reminds us in Little Foods of the Mediterranean that tabbouli ought to be an herb salad with some bulger in it. Wright claims that the proper ratio is 7 parts parsley (6 or 7 large bunches plus a bunch of mint) to 1 part bulger. I used the leaves from two bunches plus a bunch of mint and next time I'll probably increase that to 3 bunches. Diced cucumbers, lightly salted, give it volume and some crunch and some thinly sliced scallions in addition to or instead of minced onion give it a little bite. Dress with some lemon juice and a generous drizzle of good olive oil and allow the bulger a little time to absorb the dressing - yum. Though it might well be traditional to scoop up tabbouli with romaine lettuce leaves, I like to use pita chips or even flour tortillas.

pizza dough

I remember the first time I looked through Nancy Silverton's Breads from La Brea Bakery, reading the sourdough recipe which takes 3 days to make (this after tending a sourdough starter for 10 days, feeding it three times a day and doubling it at each feeding during the day) I thought to myself - a home baker can't do this. First of all, what are the chances a home baker is home to feed a sourdough starter three times a day. Second, who among us can toss 4 or 6 (or whatever it was) cups of starter at the end of every day for ten days. And third, who has 3 days to make a loaf of bread?!

Who indeed...

It turns out that my own breadmaking has evolved to the point where I routinely start bread the evening beforehand with a sponge, made either from yeast or a starter in my fridge. In the morning I add salt and flour and knead it into dough then leave it to rise for most of the day (long slow rises in cool houses give flavor time to develop). I've discovered that a mere 1/4 teaspoon of yeast is enough for a loaf (or a couple of 12" pizzas or a flatbread) and the overnight sponge makes a big difference in the final taste of the bread. It's possible to keep a small starter (enough for a loaf of bread) in the fridge and use it as infrequently as once a week and have the starter survive. We've settled into a Friday Pizza Night habit and it's been weeks since I've used yeast to start a batch of dough. It's not Nancy Silverton's sourdough starter, but over time it develops more flavor and I'm not going through 5 or 10 pounds of flour per week.

For those of us who can't bear to throw away cups of starter, adding some water and flour to the sponge in the morning and setting aside a cup or two of the result before adding flour and salt to the remainder will provide a small amount of starter that will last about a week in the fridge. This isn't as time consuming as it seems and after you get used to the taste of homemade dough, ready made crusts and doughs pale in comparison. It's absolutely worth it!

eating locally

I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and while this is an experiment I would not want to do myself (not even living here in Southern California where I just tore out my zucchini plants, and not because they had stopped producing), the idea of supporting local growers as much as possible - certainly more than we do - appeals. I used to be much better about going to the farmer's market and here there is really no excuse, I know of local farmers markets both days of the weekend and Thursday evenings. I'm sure that we'll never give up all of our conveniences, but know that as we become accustomed to making things ourselves, convenient alternatives often pale in comparison.

Take pizza dough, for instance. Over time I've developed a recipe that I start the evening before - whether with a quarter teaspoon of yeast or a cup of starter saved in the fridge - with a sponge that develops overnight and with the addition of salt and flour and kneading in the morning gets turned into dough that will rise much of the day before being punched down and stretched or rolled into pizzas. We usually add some whole wheat flour and cornmeal, sometimes rosemary or another herb and there's just no comparison to refrigerated dough or worse one of those Boboli crust things.

This week I'm going to get started learning to make a good squash soup. It'll have to be something I can make in small batches as my husband won't touch winter squash and of late the only way I've gotten the daughter to eat it is to sneak some mashed stuff into her macaroni and cheese, but I hear that's possible.