Dinner at my place

Okay, so I live in Japan.  Duh!  So, you probably think I eat raw fish everyday along with miso soup and rice.  Well, you'd be wrong.  Even though I live in Japan, I still eat typical American food most days.  I try to give my kid all the comforts of home by creating delicious American staples.

Last night for dinner I made fresh artisan (no knead) bread and beef stew.

I started the bread around 1:30 PM.  I mixed the flours (2 cups unbleached white and 1 cup whole wheat), 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons rosemary infused olive oil,  1 1/2 cups warm water and 1 1/2 teaspoons of quick rising yeast, and I let everything rise.

This is what it looks like after you mix all the ingredients together.   It's a sticky, gooey mess!

After you mix up all the yummy goodness, you let it sit for about 2 hours.  After that, you remove it from the bowl and flour it, folding it on itself about 5 times.  Then, you let it rise another 2 hours.

This is what it will look like sitting on your counter rising.  

After is rises, prepare your cooking vessel.  I use my Pampered Chef Deep Covered Baker (DCB) for this particular recipe.  I coat the DCB with olive oil and place it in a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes.  Then, when the DCB is really hot, I dump in the dough.  I bake the dough for 30 minutes covered and then 10 minutes uncovered.

This is the final product.

When the bread is baking in the oven, your house will smell amazing!  It's like the bread is teasing you the entire time it's in the oven.  So once the bread is out, we usually devour the whole thing.  I usually pair the bread with a dipping oil, but last night I made beef stew.

Sorry the picture isn't that great, but I was too hungry to screw with the camera.  And please excuse the bowl.  I don't normally eat out of my kid's dishes, but I didn't want to eat too much beef stew, knowing I was about to eat half a loaf of bread. 

Here's a picture of my kid chowing down on his yummy, home cooked, American style dinner.  I tried to get him to smile at the camera, but he was too busy eating.