(and Bread : Round 1)
So before I get to the bread, let’s talk about soup. This one is super easy. Last weekend I seasoned a couple of pork roasts with Greek seasoning and slow roasted them – probably 4 to 6 hours at 325 degrees. One roast I shredded for sandwiches. The other I cut into cubes.
If you’re starting with an uncooked roast, you can cube it and then brown in a skillet with a couple tablespoons of oil. Then just toss it in the crockpot with a few diced carrots, a diced onion (or be lazy like me and use a handful of dehydrated onion), a can of diced tomatoes, 1/2 jar of salsa, equal parts frozen corn and green beans, a couple cups of water, beef bouillon granules, garlic, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low 8 hours.
Once the soup was going, it was time for the bread. The directions say to take your big batch of dough out of the refrigerator and cut off about a one pound piece.
Okay, a confession. The part I was most nervous about was hacking off a hunk of dough that was about one pound. I’m just not good at eyeballing. In junior high I did the long jump, and I could never eyeball that point where I should stop running and jump. Silly, right? But that’s what you get when a computer programmer bakes.
Anyhoo, put your anal retentive tendencies aside and simply hack off a hunk of dough. Dust it with a little flour and shape it into a ball by pulling the sides down underneath of it. That will make the bottom all bunched up and bumpy, but it’s okay. It will smooth out as it rises and bakes.
Then it’s supposed to rise for 45 minutes, and a commenter yesterday pointed out that the authors’ website says to let it rise more like an hour and a half.
Me? I let it rise something like 3 hours because I went back upstairs to work and promptly forgot about the bread. But it all turned out okay.
After the rise, I dusted it with rye flour and then slashed a tic tac toe pattern in the top with a serrated knife.
A 40-minute bake in a 450 degree oven and we had this:
The family loved it, and it went perfectly with this:
The only problem? I should have made 2 loaves. One wasn’t enough for the 5 of us.
Tomorrow I’ll eyeball another hunk of my batch of dough and use it to make olive bread. Stay tuned…
Pork & Vegetable Soup
2 pounds boneless pork roast, cubed
2 tablespoons oil
3 medium carrots, diced
1 onion, diced
16-oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
8 oz. salsa
2 cups water
1-1/2 cups frozen corn
1-1/2 cups frozen green beans
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tsp. beef bouillon
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
Brown pork in oil. Add to crockpot with remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on low 8 hours.
NOTES:
* I used a handful of dehydrated onion in place of the fresh onion
* I didn’t have a can of tomatoes, so I used a 16-oz jar of salsa and 2 extra cups of water instead
* I didn’t have any beef bouillon, so I just left it out and added a little extra salt
* I almost always use granulated garlic in place of fresh minced garlic because I’m lazy
* I cooked on high for 4 hours, instead of low for 8 hours.
1 year ago:
Oh yum. This ought to go well with the pork roast I cooked on Saturday and now have no clue what to do with the leftovers. And there are no freaky ingredients – my kind of cooking! That bread looks super yummy – I’d be going through 2 loaves a day….Kris
Those both look delicious! I read about that bread recently, but wasn’t sure whether it was worth the hype, thanks for sharing your experiences with it.Now, I’ve got a questions for you. What do you do with your ham bones? I’ve used reciped before to make bean soup with them, and the consistency always comes out nice, but it’s always a bit too salty for my tastes. Any recommendations?
Are you kidding me? That bread looks amazing. Totally amazing. I am 100% sure that my bread would not look like that. 100%.And the soup? Wow. I am gonna have to try that out. After I get over my bread envy.
That sounds good, I’d have to make it ith chicken but that bread also looks good.
These two posts – this and the post on bread – are fascinating. I bake my bread using a bread machine, but I’ve wanted to bake bread from scratch. This sounds like the way to do it. The soup we will have to prepare this weekend. Thanks for publishing these recipes.By the way, I’m the one who talked about my wife coming from Osage/Manley. I reviously posted as Anonymous because I hadn’t figured out the comment system.
Ang – that’s pretty much all I do with them, too. Maybe more water, to dilute the salt?frugalmom – give it a try – I’ll bet it turns out great!DennisP – thanks for stopping by again 🙂