An atheist was walking through the woods.


"What majestic trees!"
"What powerful rivers!"
"What beautiful animals!"
 He said to himself.


As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling
in the bushes behind him.  He turned to look.





A 7-foot grizzly bear charging towards him.


The man ran as fast as he could up the path.  He looked
over his shoulder and saw that the bear was closing in on
him. He looked over his shoulder again, and the bear was
even closer. He tripped and fell on the ground.  He rolled
over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on
top of him, reaching for him with his left and raising his
right paw to strike him.





At that instant the Atheist cried out, "Oh my God!".


Time Stopped.
The bear froze.
The forest was silent.


As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out
of the sky.  "You deny my existence for all these years,
teach others I don't exist, and even credit creation to a
cosmic accident..  Do you expect me to help you out of
this predicament?  Am I to count you as a believer?"


The atheist looked directly into the light and said, "It
would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat
me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the
BEAR a Christian?"


"Very Well", said the voice.


The light went out..  The sounds of the forest resumed.
And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws
together, bowed his head & spoke:





"Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy
bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen."

Here they are, for our broody Buff Orp.:


A Cuckoo Maran:


They lay dark brown eggs:


A Mottled Houdan, that lays white eggs:


And a White Crested Black Polish:

They aren't reliable egg layers, but lay white eggs when they do. Just for fun.

This is simply the easiest way to make some really yummy and holey artisan bread as you would buy from a local artisan bakery. Making bread this way goes against all the conventional methods of bread baking, but seriously, with a loaf like this, who cares?


This is how I do it (thanks, M!):

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp yeast

1 1/2 cup tepid water

Instructions:
Stir dry ingredients, add water and lightly stir until flour is incorporated. It will be stringy and just moistened. Leave it alone, *do not knead*! Cover bowl with plastic wrap and towel, and let rise in a warm place for 12-18 hours (this is really very flexible and can be 12-24 hours).

Preheat oven with Dutch oven (this can be a pyrex dish with lid) in it at 500 F (I do this for an hour).

Turn stringy, bubbly dough out onto a tea towel lightly dusted with flour (and a bit of coarse cornmeal if you wish). Dust top with flour and bring the sides of the dough up to the top (fold sides up to the top), or, shape dough into ball *without kneading*, and slash top in a cross shape. Plop dough in to the hot pan (folds on top~this will form the edges in the crust) and cover. Bake 30 minutes at 500 F. Uncover after 30 minutes, and continue baking for 10-15 minutes until crust is desired brownness and thickness. Remove and cool.

Notes:
I need to turn my oven to 450 F and do not need to bake the 10-15 min. uncovered.
When adding olives, spices etc. do this after pouring the dough onto the towel. Just push the ingredients in here and there, fold over a few times and be done.

Here is a video that shows how it is done for the visual learners among us.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day is a book about making this kind of bread and other goodies based on the same principles. The authors also have a video on how to do this. Interestingly, they claim to have discovered this, but the above video is a year older...

Anyway, the authors suggest making a batch of dough that is then kept in the fridge for up to two weeks. You simply take off the amount of dough you need for a loaf and bake. As it sits in the fridge, the dough  gets better and better.

I have been wondering however, how well the phytic acid is neutralized when making bread this way (as opposed to a slow rise using a sour dough starter). One would assume that dough that sits for 18 hours or so, even when containing baker's yeast, would attract some wild yeasts. A natural fermentation would thus occur as well, in which the acidity would take care of the phytic acid. I need to find out. More on that to come, I hope. More info about grains and phytic acid and why you don't want to eat that here and here.

My next step in bread making will be to use this method for a whole wheat loaf. In reading the comments on the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, I was intrigued by this:

It its also ideal for whole wheat. The big problem with whole wheat is not the crust, (...), but that whole wheat contains bran, which, when kneaded, cuts the strands of gluten/protein. That's why 100% whole wheat is so dense. But, since you do not knead this dough, the bran does not cut the protein strands and the dough is free to rise almost as much as a white flour.

I am also thinking on following the same author's advice and keeping an active and a 'dormant' dough in the fridge:

As the book notes, the sourdough taste increases with time in the refrigerator. So simply keep two sets of dough running ... a "dormant" set and an active set. Start by making a batch of dough. Stick it in the refrigerator and don't touch it for at least a week. After a week or so, make a second batch of dough. (I would mix in a hunk of the previously mixed, week old dough to enhance the sourdough development.) Now put this second batch away and start using the first batch ... which will have started to taste like a sourdough. When this first batch is used up, make up a brand new "dormant" batch and put it aside while you start using the batch that's been sitting in the refrigerator for the past week or so.

Seriously, people, ermm readers, dear readers, I am no bread baker. It has been a disaster every time I have tried, and I had given up. Between the kneading and the punching, the rising and the punching and then some more kneading, or however it goes, my dough had no life left in it and the bread was always dense and dry and crumbly, or wet and caved in etc etc etc. These loaves keep popping out of the oven in sheer perfection. I am in bread heaven. I was raised on this kind of bread and now I can finally make my own.

So, get baking! You know you have always wanted to.

Homemade!

We love this, and it is a great way to take in extra coconut oil. Coconut oil is very good for you, and can help you lose weight.

So here is the recipe adapted from here. I make a quadruple batch

COCONUT BARK - ALMOND JOY 

• 6 Tablespoons coconut oil, organic, virgin, expeller-pressed (best price I found is Mountain Rose Herbs)
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 T unsweetened cocoa powder (we use Rapunzel's)
  
• 1 Tablespoon pure maple, agave syrup or stevia (agave is sweeter than maple syrup, so use 3/4 T~see this and this site for an article about agave syrup and the refutal)
• 2 Tablespoons unsweetened shredded or chopped coconut
• 1/4 cup ounces crispy almonds or crispy hazelnuts, chopped or whole
  

Measure the coconut oil (solid) and melt. Whisk in vanilla, cocoa and sweetener until COMPLETELY dissolved. Failure to do this will result in separation and an oily top.

Whisk in remaining ingredients and again, make sure they are completely incorporated.

Pour mixture into pan and tip pan to evenly spread to even thickness. (I use an 8 x 8 cake pan lined with parchment or 9 x 13 pan for double batch.) Place pan in freezer on level shelf and let sit 10 minutes (longer for double batch) or so. It will harden quickly and you simply snap off the desired amount to eat. Keep cold.

Don’t let little ones run off with this in their hands, it melts quickly!