Cooking up Yule

If you're anything like me, you make GRAND plans for how to spend the holy days... long menus, lists of crafts to make, decorations to hang, people to invite...

and half the time you end up making one or two things for you and your SO, with at least one candle lit, and holding a small ceremony instead.

The problem with the holy days is we have lives that don't always play nicely with our plans for celebrating. The loss my family suffered in September has made celebrating at all this year all the more painful, and even holding a ceremony at Samhain was difficult. So in the midst of the sparkling lights and decorated trees, Yule has snuck up on me.

The rest of my family celebrates at Christmas, and even that has approached like a ninja - I'm mostly unprepared. Thankfully I still have a little time, and the things people want this year aren't the sort of things that need to be shipped to me first. Even still - this time of year is so rushed, so hurried, that it is exceedingly easy to forget, to overlook, and to get exhausted before our holy day actually arrives.

mmmm... olive oil..... 

So how, in the midst of sad remembrances and hurried shopping, do you actually stop and celebrate? Well, for me it'll always be in the kitchen.

Life is better when I'm in a kitchen, busy with activity, hot from the oven and burners, fragrant with whatever I'm making at the moment.  (my SO has a habit of saying "it smells good in there" even before I'm halfway done - he's just smelling ingredients at that point)

Bread is one thing I absolutely adore making - there is nothing like bread still warm from the baking. So, here's my go to bread recipe that's perfect for the busy holiday season. 

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons Kosher salt (or pink or grey - really, it's all good)
1/2 teaspoon Instant or Rapid-rise yeast
1 1/2 cups room temp water

roughly 2 tablespoons of olive oil

Mix ins: rosemary, Asiago cheese, sun dried tomatoes... sorta whatever you want to put in there 

Mix the dry ingredients together with a spatula in a large metal bowl. Mix the extras into the flour mix. Make a well in the center and pour in the water. Start mixing, pushing down a little with the spatula as you do so the water gets through the dough. Pour in the olive oil (so here, what I usually do is just up end the bottle over the bowl and keep pouring till it looks right... it's about 2 tablespoons, sometimes 3... just don't do more than that) 

Mix until the dough is wet all the way through. Leave it in the bowl and cover it with saran wrap. 

Let it rise for between 18 and 20 hours. Yes, you read that right. 

Come back the next day and the dough will have risen to fill most of the bowl, and will have LOTS of air bubbles. The bubbles are important. Grab some flour, sprinkle some on the counter in front of you and a very little over the top of the dough, and slowly roll the dough out of the bowl onto the floured surface. Gently roll the dough around till it's more or less a ball and is lightly coated in flour (this is so it doesn't stick to anything). 

Grab a covered baker (like this one) and stick it in the cold oven, empty.  Now heat your oven to 500 degrees F. 

Once your oven is up to temp, CAREFULLY take the baker out, remove the lid and drop your ball of dough into the baker. Try to do this gently, but don't burn yourself. Put the lid back on, and the whole thing back in the oven. 

Bake for 30 minutes. 

Remove the lid. 

Bake for 15 minutes. 

CAREFULLY remove the baker, remove the loaf and let it cool.