Bottom Line I was determined to write a post about the best food group, whether that be pasta or bread.
I made ricotta gnocchi last night, and I was fully prepared to wax poetic about pillowy soft cylindrical cheesy goodness. But this recipe was only okay. It was good, and probably the reason it wasn't great was that I did something wrong, or made too many substitutions. I am NOT one of those commenters that changes everything about the recipe and then says it is trash. If you want to laugh at those kind of people head to @nytimescookingcomments. It's top notch. (Shout out to one of my readers for putting me on to it. She wishes to remain anonymous due to my massive following. That's not true, I didn't even ask her. Let me know when this "I have a ton of readers" joke gets old. Comment!)
Anyway, no long-winded celebration of ricotta pasta here. And yet, I am determined to discuss carbs. Since we were lucky enough to get both flour and yeast at the start of quarantine, I've been playing around with bread. I stumbled across this old video from The New York Times, and it seemed not only like an excellent entry bread, but also a perfect way to indulge a little early 2000s nostalgia. Reader, I want to marry it. Jane Eyre allusions aside, this bread is excellent.
It is excellent as written, and I encourage you to make it that way to start. But the real magic happened when I played around with flavors, and ended up with what is essentially a bread calzone. So far, I've folded in rosemary, a whole head of roasted garlic, parmesan cheese, slow roasted tomato, and gruyere. Best combinations are for sure rosemary & roasted garlic and tomato & parm. If you have flour, yeast, and salt, you have the beginning of an amazing and easy crunchy-on-the-outside, soft-and-light-on-the-inside loaf.
Play with flavors, layering them on top of the bread before you make the folds. I used my dutch oven, (thanks mom!) but honestly any heavy coverable pot will work - a cast iron with high sides, a ceramic baking dish, glass, or even a stainless steel pot if it's more than one ply.
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