That artisan style bread recipe I published the other day has spurred on a few people to make their own. It really is very, very easy to make this style of bread. It is rewarding and delicious to boot!

So, if you’re reading this and you sorta kinda wanted to try to make your own bread – get on it.

Artisan bread is best described by thinking about the person who makes the bread. An artisan baker is a craftsperson who is trained to the highest ability to mix, ferment, shape and bake a hand crafted loaf of bread. They understand the science behind the chemical reactions of the ingredients and know how to provide the best environment for the bread to develop. – Artisan Bakers.

Eliza and I have a bread machine but for a while I’ve had the desire to fool around with making really, really simple bread recipes. The above loaf consists of salt, flour, water and a bit of yeast. Small variations of those ingredients, the amount you knead the dough, and how you bake it – can wholly change the way the final product comes out.

I’m having a lot of fun trying different things (I also made my own tortillas with nearly the same ingredients) and learning a lot as I go. I recommend making homemade bread to anyone that wants to learn about this process. Here is a recipe which I tailored off of Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois who have authored a book about making artisan bread in five minutes. I happened upon their recipe via YouTube. Smart strategy.

The recipe

• 1 1/2 tablespoons yeast.
• 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 6 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, more for dusting dough.
• 3 1/2 cups of water (about)
• Some cornmeal. (optional, you can use flour)

Put yeast and salt into bucket. Dump in lukewarm water. Dump in flour. Mix with wooden spoon until no more dry flour. Do not over mix or knead at all. Let sit in bucket for 2 hours. Rip off grapefruit sized pieces and bend them into a UFO shape (watch this video to see). Place on pizza peel to rest for 40 minutes while the oven preheats to 450. Preheat oven with an empty baking pan under pizza stone on the middle shelf. After dough ball has rested and oven, pizza stone, and baking pan are preheated – place dough ball on center of pizza stone, drop in a few cups of water into baking pan (this will steam to make the crust of the bread) and bake for 30 minutes.

That’s it. Give it a try!

“Sometimes there’s nothing quite like pizza. And it’s at its absolute best when it’s a homemade pizza – thin and crispy with your own favourite combinations.”

Precisely.

Domenick’s Pizza on Main Street in Carbondale and Jermyn are both fairly good places to get a slice. About as close to New York style pizza as you’ll be able to get in either of these towns.

Jealousy at this point is natural.

Pla Jean.

Steamed mussels.

These came from a new place in Scranton, PA called Thai Thai. Excellent food.

We used her new olive tray.

Pardon me while I tweet about that new Jeep I’ve been wanting.

It was a hard fought battle.

The hardest part about my yearly trek to Massachusetts to catch 50 pounds of cod fish is usually the packing of the fish for storage in the freezer. Even though Eliza and I have a very good Foodsaver sealer I always dread the amount of tedious work it takes to properly pack away our fish for the year. But not anymore, thanks to Ziploc’s vacuum bags.

No, I’m not getting paid for saying that. Yes, I wish that I was.

Ziplock’s vacuum bags and pump is really the easiest and quickest I’ve ever been able to pack fish for freezing. What took me 4 or 5 hours last year using the Foodsaver only took me 2 hours this year! I highly recommend these products if you store stuff in the freezer and dread taking the time it usually takes to do it right.

Here are some photos from the process.

Perfect.

However, that is no excuse for not working out. So, with me being a little more lax on the number of calories I took in, drinking a few beers, and burning a lot less calories – I ended up only losing 1 pound this week. I now weigh in at 204lbs.

I’m not completely upset. A loss is a loss. But I really didn’t want to have “a bad week” on this round of the diet but here it is. I hope this is my worst week as I want to make up for this past week during this next one. My goal remains 3lbs. per week and, on average, I’m still above that at just above 4+lbs. per week so far. But that could quickly fade away.

So, no more resting. I’m planning to have my best week of exercise yet and plan on being down 3lbs. next week. Maybe I’ll even get to 200? We’ll see.

Don’t forget to check in with everyone else on The Diet!

A nice slice of liverwurst.

A thick ring of onion

Fair amount of fresh, garden-picked horseradish

The complete sandwich

The sandwich is delicious but I have a feeling Eliza won’t be kissing me for a month.

This is a must link because there is cast iron, bacon, butter, duck eggs and cheese in this video. And, although I use chicken eggs, is pretty much exactly how I make my breakfast sandwiches.

Warning: The video is a bit long and may lead to extreme hunger and jealousy.

Just adding Steve & Irene’s, a simple hoagie shop in Childs, PA, to my favorite places within two hours of home list. Eliza and I ordered two hoagies for lunch today and they were both fantastic.

I’d recommend the Pittsburgh or the Child’s. Both come with spicy ranch and either french fries or onion rings jammed into them. Delicious.

We made our way to McDonald’s and, of course, I thought it would be a good idea to have a nugget eating challenge. This time, though, I would only attempt to eat 50 nuggets. As I said on Twitter, I was trying to eat 50 just so I could see how hard it would be to eat 100 at a later date. I thought I could eat 50 with little problem. Boy was I wrong.

About 12 nuggets into the challenge I knew that I would fail. I wasn’t full. I was disgusted. The grease on the nuggets is positively revolting after only a few nuggets. The few times that I’ve order McNuggets in my life I’ve only gotten 4 nuggets at a time. Obviously not enough to be prepared for a 50-nugget (let alone a 100-nugget) challenge. Yuck.

So, I quit at 28. I had 2 nuggets left in my third box of ten and, although I could have eaten those, I thought ‘what is the point?’. I gave up and I will now not eat McNuggets until at least 2020. I’m glad I tried and now know that eating 100 nuggets – at least by me – is impossible.

My two fellow nugget-challengers, Sam and Austin, did better than I did with 40 and 32 nuggets respectively.

Photo credit: Ben Wagner.

Eliza is making soup. She cut up countless mushrooms of varying types (only some pictured here). Mmmmm.

Kyle, I hope your jealous.

Like last time I used this recipe.

It was a little sweet for me (typically I do not order my french toast with cinnamon or powered sugar) but it turned out really good. The bread was from Bingham’s Restaurant (Google Map link).

I won’t lie. I made these from one of those “add butter and water” bags but still, I made them at home. Hence, homemade. Mmm.

Very much looking forward to baking bread again this winter.

On Wednesday my friend Chris and I ate dinner at Pete N’ Reenie’s in Eynon, PA – a 50s-style burger/shake joint. The food was delicious, the service was good (the owner was our waitress), and the place is altogether great.

I think Pete N’ Reenie’s is going to quickly become one of my favorite places within two hours of my home. Chris had a “Blue Moon” which was a grilled buffalo chicken “burger” that had hot sauce on it. I gobbled up a Pete’s Favorite, which was a delicious burger with onion rings on it (pictured right).

But, let me tell you about the sweet potato fries. I love sweet potato fries. All by themselves they are simply fantastic fries. However, at Pete N’ Reenie’s they are one-upped by some delicious apple sauce that they serve with it. I am not sure if this is done often and I’m the only person on the planet that had never heard of it, but I don’t think I ever want sweet potato fries any other way again.

Being a burger and shake joint of course I had to leave with a strawberry shake. I love shakes that are the real deal. Real fruit floating around inside, thick, and delicious.

So, needless to say I highly recommend Pete N’ Reenie’s (and I’m not alone). You can find it at 463 Main St. in Eynon, PA 18403 (map).

Delicious food, good service. Recommended.

I did well with beginning my exercise routine again though. I ran on Tuesday, Friday, and played football on Sunday. I ran two 5Ks, or 6.2 miles, and had “ok” times for both runs. I have no idea how much exercise I got playing football but I’d be willing to guess it was a much better workout than simply jogging. It was a lot more fun too.

My current weight is, as my goal was, 205 pounds for a loss of two pounds this week. Next week I’d like to be 203 or below. My goal, per week, will continue to be 2 pounds or more (but not much more).

My goals for this week, besides being under 203 pounds, are that I eat much better, drink only 1 night, jog at least 10 miles total for the week, and doing one other active thing this week.

Belatedly inspired by Jeff Johns, I decided to reward myself after a decent 5K jog this afternoon with some eggs for lunch. I love eggs. I love toast. I love cast iron.

Today I weight exactly the same amount as I did last week; 207lbs. Next week, I won’t.

Random 60: I love leftovers.

One of my favorite foods is leftovers. Pretty much anything that is leftover from the night before will do – but certain foods stand out. Some, in fact, seem to be even better the next day than they are on the first day. Soups, Mac & Cheese, Pizza, Brownies, just to name a few.

What are your favorite leftovers?

Yeah. Awesome.

It is going to be a nice evening.

Do you like peanut butter? Then I highly recommend you try out Crazy Richard’s Peanut Butter. Creamy, chunky, the choice is yours but I will say that it is the best peanut butter I’ve ever had.

Ingredients: Peanuts. I love that.

Find it at your local grocer. Then come back and thank me.

A late lunch with a few friends on a hot Thursday.

“If it tastes good, it is probably bad for you.” We’ve all heard this saying and for the most part it is true. Although I tend to like all food (my vice in life) – most of the food that you crave, that you pine for, that you’d be willing to walk 12 city blocks in the middle of the night in New York City for, is typically not all that good for you. Heck, I’d be willing to say that the food usually has as much nutritional value as… well, I simply can’t think of anything worthless enough to make my point.

Today while catching up on Tumblr I ran across Kyle’s ‘reblog’ of KFC’s Double Down chicken sandwich, which he found through Justin Blanton, and I was all at once appalled, intrigued, and overwhelmingly desirous of the sandwich. Let’s take these emotions and elaborate on them one-by-one.

Justin Blanton succinctly stated, after finding out that KFC had a sandwich that – instead of using bread as its primary means to package the contents of the sandwich – uses fried chicken to keep its bacon and cheese filling neatly packed, “Of course they do”. This is where the appalling feeling came from. Of course KFC would be so brazen as to offer a sandwich that would smash together bacon, cheese, and fried chicken.

But, then came the intrigue. Remember the days of The Atkin’s Diet? The diet that pretty much said “bread is bad”. That anything that has a carbohydrate in it will go straight to your hips! That if you so much as look at a plate of pasta you’re bound to never fit into swimsuit ever again! So is it bad that KFC had done what any good Atkin’s dieter had been doing for years… remove the bread from the sandwich and only offer the innards as the meal. Take away the carbs, eat the fat.

Then, like a torrent river of blood that started in my ears and went to my toes, the desire to eat one of these seemingly delicious, incredibly irresponsible sandwiches surged through my body. I must have succinct friends because Kyle simply stated “Wow. I need to try this.” and I have to agree with him. Even though I want to try this I’d be kidding myself, and lying to you, if I didn’t say I need to try this.

Hey Kyle, the next time I’m in town we’re going to find a KFC and document the noshing of this Atkin’s Diet friendly abomination. Because we need to.

Eating a Gombo at The Goose with Kyle, Jeff, and Rob. Incredisandwich.

Related: I’m adding “The Goose” to my favorite places less than 2 hours from home list.

No Reservations Australia was about food. Not necessarily Australian food either. More like food that happened to be made in Australia. Like so many other places on this planet, globalization is in full effect in Melbourne, Australia. The food is heavily influenced, if not outright made and served by, people from other cultures around the world. This episode, rather than focusing on the Australia we all think we know (shrimp on a barbie, Aborigines eating bats in the outback, and kangaroos) it focused on the side of Australia we probably never knew was there. I blame Crocodile Dundee for my skewed view of Australia.

I suppose Tony’s little black book being chocked full of amazing chefs all over the world helps – since we undoubtedly saw a side of Melbourne cuisine that most of us probably couldn’t afford. But I’m ok with that. No Reservations is the world through Tony’s eyes – not mine. Through Tony’s contacts, budget, and experience – not mine. And every single week I look forward to that… whether or not it depicts an experience that I could ever have or not.

I decided to make something a little different for this episode. Yes, I made shrimp but I decided to add a little bit of an Italian flare (read: make my own basic tomato sauce and throw it over pasta). There was no indication that Italy has had any real effect on the food in Melbourne, Australia in this episode (although I’m sure it has)… but there was a lot of showing many other areas that obviously have had a huge impact. British, Lebanese, and Sichuan influences were highlighted the most. I need some Sichuan food at my next opportunity.

When No Reservations focuses on food everything else seems to fall into place.

What better way to cap off an otherwise crappy day? Tune into the Travel Channel and be whisked away by Anthony Bourdain to someplace you’ve probably never been, learn facts about that place that you’ve probably never known, and watch him experience peoples and foods that you’ve probably never experienced yourself.

The opening few minutes of No Reservations – Chile, for me, weren’t that great. I’ve watched the episode twice now and I still think the beginning could have used a punch up in the first few minutes somehow. That being said, the rest of the episode was fantastic.

I don’t know about you, but every time I watch No Reservations I end up drooling, stomach making gurgling sounds, ever wanting a dish of whatever Tony is eating. Not this time. This time my lovely wife Eliza whipped up some empanadas for us to enjoy. We were both surprised when empanadas were not in this episode… but wait – they were. One of the missing scenes was mouthwatering empanadas. We had ours baked not fried as Tony does. I don’t know how Tony isn’t 300lbs.

Patagonia. I think the No Reservations crew are using some new lenses this year because, while Patagonia looks like one of the most beautiful coastal areas on the planet, it looked altogether real or three-dimensional on my HD TV. I could smell the seawater. Whatever lenses you’re using – keep it up. Chile is one of the most gorgeous episodes to date (Venice is high up on this list).

Twice during this episode Tony remarked how he could see himself somehow delegating the job of host to someone else. He jested that he’d just like to sit back, relax, and enjoy his food without “worrying about the cameras”. He has to be kidding right? Although I believe he’s a hard working man, a man that does his job well, puts a lot of effort into making what could be just a good show a great one – I also believe he really loves his job. But, if he wants to experiment a little – I’m available for a trip or two. There are several places on earth I’m dying to get to, to explore, to enjoy, to photograph, to eat.

I bet with Tony’s job I’d come to love Mondays.

Next up: Australia. Having had kangaroo I’m looking forward to Tony’s take on what I think is some of the best meat in the world.

To say that I’m excited, wouldn’t be enough. You all know where I will be on Monday. Sitting on my couch, mouth gaping, a warm pool of drool at my feet, staring at my television – listening to the snarkiest man alive – Anthony Bourdain – talk about meat, fat, butter, and probably cheese in Chile.

That’s an evening of entertainment friends.

Marisa, we’ll be referencing Food In Jars a lot in the coming months. Thanks for the hard work involved in putting it out there.

They plan on taking full advantage of both Facebook and Twitter with their new venture to make announcements, share deals, and generally keep everyone up to date with new things going on at the restaurant.

If you want to see the type of talent that Dave has, here is an episode of Eat Weird that features his talents.

Several episodes of Eat Weird feature Dave’s dishes so be sure to check them out. Enjoy and see you at AuRants this summer.

Yes I have been known to eat fish eggs right out of the fish. I don’t do this for shock factor – I do it because I truly enjoy trying out new things to see if l like them. Side note: The fish eggs right out of the fish tasted to me a lot like grits with a sprinkle of salt.

Which is my I’m proclaiming my love for sushi. I’ve mentioned sushi here before but I’ve never just come out and say that I love it. Or, jot down the reasons why. Oh, and by the way – the photos that spurred this post on are photos from Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Market that I saw linked to from the Flickr Blog. Tell me that place doesn’t look like a fish-lovers Graceland.

I suppose I love sushi because it is nearly unadulterated. Most sushi is first frozen to kill any potential parasites or whozawhatsits – but besides that you’re getting fresh, raw, unblemished fish from the ocean into your mouth. Most of the time the tastes from sushi are subtle. Many people like to spice up their sushi with wasabi and soy mixes – and I do too on occasion – but I truly do enjoy the subtle tastes in sushi all by itself.

I find that I enjoy subtleties in most of my foods. Wine, for example, is something I enjoy even more when the fruit of the wine isn’t altogether apparent, but you need to search for the tastes, usually on the finish, to figure it out. I was given a lovely homemade apple wine from a friend not too long ago and the taste of the apples was so subtle that I found the wine extraordinary. Some would sip the wine, expect to be hit with the flavor of apple all over their palate, and be disappointed when that didn’t happen. I, on the other hand, actually am pleasantly surprised when that doesn’t happen.

The subtleties found in sushi are many. The taste of sushi is, at least for this novice, extremely hard to articulate. On the one hand, you have the combination of raw, nearly tasteless, meat combining with the taste of some of the best rice you’ve ever had. Sushi rice is typically prepared with a dabble of vinegar to keep the rice loose – which brings an altogether “freshness” to the sushi. I suppose one of the main tastes of good sushi is, well, freshness. It tastes like you’re eating something brand new.

Other tastes seem to come from the type of fish that it is. The subtle differences between red snapper and salmon, as an example, seem to be more in texture and density than in taste. I can tell the difference between the two blind-folded (I think) but it’d be more based on the feel of the fish than the taste itself. Most sushi has a base taste. That base taste is spread out over all the difference kinds of sushi and then subtle hints are thrown in to mix it up. I suppose that base taste could be best described as the ocean. Not overpowering, mind you – but just enough for you to know where it came from.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. I love sushi. If you’ve never tried it. Do yourself a favor and try something new just to see if you like it. Maybe you won’t catch a fish in a lake and eat the eggs out of it like I did – but perhaps you can have a nice sushi chef make you a few pieces of heaven to try the next time you have the chance.

Random 60: Watch those calories! | Favorite on Viddler.

Whether you are dieting or not it is always good practice to make sure you watch what you’re taking in. Calories can creep up on you. There are more calories in everyday food than most people would guess. In today’s Random 60 I use the extreme example of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to make a point – that there is a crap load of calories in most food you’d pick up off of the shelf and whoof down before even looking at the nutrition information.

Here are some sites that will either help you track what you’re eating, or generally enlighten you as to how many calories are in some everyday foods.

• If you have an iPhone, try Lose It. It is an application that can help you track your food intake day-to-day.
• If you’re hungry, do not click this link. This Is Why You’re Fat is a Web site that shows you delicious food (read: not food that is generally a good idea to look at if you’re trying to lose weight).
• SugarStacks is a Web site that shows you the number of sugar cubes found in every day foods. Neat idea.

Have you ever been surprised by the number of calories in food compared to the number of calories you thought was in that food? And, do you know any good resources to add to this list?

I know, I play basketball a lot. But it is the sport that I could play every single day and not tire of it.

I had one ‘bad day’ on Saturday (for reasons I’ll leave out for now, but suffice to say the day consisted of not very good food, although it tasted great, and a lot of couch time). I’m going to try to avoid this type of day this week.

This morning I weighed in at 194.something pounds. My scale consists of a rotating dial with small numbers that are hard to read from 6′ 1″ above it. That is a loss of 2 pounds for this week. I’m feeling very good, fitting into clothes better, and ready to have an active summer. This brings me down 13 pounds in 1 month and 1 week. I’m looking forward to shedding this last 7 pounds, to beat Pat, before mid-May.

Mmm, bacon. Seriously, if you don’t like cast iron – we may not get along. I won’t hate you or anything, I just won’t invite you to parties, want to hang out with you and discuss topics that are important to you, or generally take your opinion on anything seriously.

The interview is very laid back and provides some enlightening information about the show, what happens after the show is over, and some really great information about keeping yourself motivated to keep your weight and health maintained even after you’ve lost the weight.

Excellent job Jennifer & Co.

I may just have to become a fruit hunter. Sometimes I find it difficult to push the limits of my fruit purchases. If I’m ever going to enjoy some of the world’s most exotic fruits I’m going to need to put in some serious effort. Although a short interview, there is a good bit of information packed into it about the global fruit economy and why some fruits are hard to find in our local grocer. I may just have to take a gander at the book.

I hope he took it.

This week I’m going to try very hard to make the entire week one of a balanced diet. It seems that each week I’ve either done well at the beginning of the week and struggled toward the end, or vice-versa. I’m hoping to buck that trend this week.

Just to be clear, I’m still 196 pounds for a loss and gain of 0 pounds. I fully attribute this to eating too much. I didn’t eat anything I’d be ashamed to admit. I didn’t drink much of any alcohol (a glass or two of wine for the entire week). I didn’t snack. I didn’t eat very late. So I just ate too much and maintained my weight. Not the worst thing in the world.

Looking forward to owning it this week though. My goal is to lose three pounds.