cranberry walnut bread

In an attempt to recreate my favorite sweet bread from Whole Foods, I tried this recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction. I followed all instructions exactly and it got a bit overdone, but was still delicious. I've adjusted the instructions below to hopefully account for my oven and prevent overcooking.

Ingredients

• 3 cups + 2 Tablespoons (390g) all-purpose flour (spoon & leveled), plus more for hands
• 2 teaspoons coarse sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Red Star Platinum yeast (instant yeast)
• 3/4 cup (95g) chopped nuts (I like walnuts or pecans)
• 3/4 cup (105g) dried cranberries
• 1 Tablespoon honey
• 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) warm water (about 95°F (35°C))

Instructions

1. No need to grease the bowl.* Stir the first 6 ingredients together in a large bowl. Stir in the warm water. The dough will be pretty sticky– don’t be tempted to add more flour– you want a sticky dough. Gently shape into a ball as best you can. Cover tightly with plastic wrap or aluminum foil. Set on the counter at room temperature (honestly any normal room temperature is fine!) and allow to rise for 12-18 hours. The dough will double in size, stick to the sides of the bowl, and be covered in air bubbles.
3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and, using lightly floured hands, shape into a ball as best you can. Doesn’t have to be perfect! Transfer dough to a large piece of parchment paper. (Large enough to fit inside your cast iron dutch oven)
4. Using a very sharp knife, gently score an X into the top. Cover dough lightly with plastic wrap and leave alone for 30 minutes.
5. During this 30 minutes, preheat the oven to 450°F . (Yes, very hot!) Place your dutch oven (with the lid) or heavy duty pot inside for 30 minutes so that it’s extremely hot before the dough is placed inside. After 30 minutes, remove the dutch oven from the oven and carefully place the dough inside by lifting it up with the parchment paper and sticking it all– the parchment paper included– inside the pot. Cover with the lid.
6. Bake for 20 minutes with the lid on. Carefully remove the lid and continue baking for 8-10 more minutes until the bread is golden brown. Remove pot from the oven, carefully remove the bread from the pot, and allow to cool on the counter for 30 minutes before breaking/slicing/serving.
7. Cover and store leftover bread at room temperature for 1 week.

sweet caramelized pork with rice

Because I'm tired of cooking all the same recipes during the Covid-19 pandemic, we tried this new recipe from berrymaple.com and it was an overall success. I did keep the vent fan running after the fish sauce was added to help keep the house from smelling completely like anchovies. Gage wasn't a huge fan, but everyone else had seconds.

Ingredients

• 2 lb pork butt or boneless ribs
• 1/2 onion
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 1-2 cups water )start with 1 cup and than add more if needed)
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp gluten free sauce
• 1 tspn olive oil
• cooked white rice
• green onions for garnish

Instructions

• Chop the onion and cut pork in small pieces. Heat olive oil in a large WIDE skillet and cook onions and pork for about 5 minutes until the meat is well browned.
• To the same skillet add water, soy sauce, sugar and fish sauce, bring to a light boil and simmer for the next 30 minutes to 1 hour ( or until almost all the water will become a thick, brown caramel like sauce)
• Stir it and serve your caramel pork over rice with some green onions for garnish.