Roasted poblano stuffed with meatball, broiled tomato with cheese

Leftover roasted poblano. One more of these left.

Leftover meatball. Six or so of these left. 

And I'm glad to have so many of these on hand they are perfect for an immediate snack. One minute in the microwave refreshes to original splendor. Any one of the diet plan books that you read, Atkins, Weight Watchers, the Zone, what have you, encourage this type of thing. Something steady and slow like this to even out your blood sugar and convince your body there is no need to store extra fat for emergencies because there never are any of those and allows it to shed stored unnecessary body fat. 

The success of this round of meatballs is the extra moisture. They stay wet and loose when reheated and cannot tighten up. 

Microwaved for one minute because the broiler will not heat through the center of the meatball without burning the cheese on top. The broiler is only for melting the cheese.

The meatball is already heated through. The plate removed from the broiler before the tomato cooks. The tomato stays raw and hardly heats through. 

I like raw tomatoes a lot better than stewed tomatoes so I try to arrange things to keep it that way when possible. Even so far as raw tomato with cooked vegetable and meat and cheese this way. 

Eggs, ham, tomato

Broiled potato, tomato, chili, cheddar

Two types of chili mixtures found in storage containers in the refrigerator, one with ground beef the other with beans.

Jacket potato, except smashed flatly. A broiled open-face sandwich with potato instead of bread. Like a pizza made with smashed potato instead of pizza dough. 

Whole wheat bread, homemade, no-knead cloche method, cream cheese, fresh garden tomato

Biga started 24 hours in advance. Anywhere from 8 -- 12 hours will do. This looked ready at 7 hours. So, a bit overproofed. Proofing initiated with only 1/4 teaspoon yeast.

Whole wheat bread is never 100% whole wheat or else the loaf will turn out like a brick. It is too heavy and dense so all purpose flour is included to lighten the loaf. Usually no more than 50% whole wheat and that is pushing it. This is more than 1/3 whole wheat but less than 1/2. This is a difficult thing for beginner bakers to accept, but that is just the way it is, so get over it. 

By weight: roughly 14 oz. water, 4 oz whole wheat flour, 10 oz all purpose flour

By cup: 1 + 3/4 cup water, 1 C whole wheat flour, 2 + 1/2 C all purpose white flour

1 T salt (added at the beginning retards the yeast somewhat) 

This sticky wetness is what allows the dough to rise beyond regular dough. We want the dough to be wet and somewhat difficult to manage because of it. 

The hands are powdered with flour, the bench scrapper too. This is how the wet dough is managed. An entire side is lifted from the work surface and pulled away from the body, then folded back to the edge. This stretching along with the extended time proofing is what constitutes kneading and substitutes for working the dough. It redistributes the yeast cells inside putting them in proximity with like-type yeast allowing them to reproduce sexually as well as simple budding.

A full side is lifted and pulled in the same manner.

Then the opposite side. The flattened dough is being stacked, the stretching produces a skin.

The front is pulled, stretched and folded the same way. Now the flattened dough becomes a stack of wet layers inside. 

The pile is pinched around the edges to seal it. Dusted with flour and pushed around using the bench scrapper to form a reasonable shape. This is showing ↑ the size of the dough in relation with the bench scrapper, 6 inches.

This is showing ↓ the loaf expanded somewhat after it is covered and rested, the yeast redistributed inside, proofed for some 20 - 30 minutes or so while the oven and clay cloche with its lid are heated to maximum oven heat, about 550℉, the numbers go only to 500℉.

Baked for 30 minutes then uncovered and baked an additional 10 minutes until the internal temperature reaches 200℉ thereabout. When tapped the loaf will sound hollow.

Desayunar

Pan tostado

queso filadelfia

tomate

basil

ayunar = fast,  des = against, against fast, it could have been contrarayunar, but there you go, the same thing as break+fast.

In Mexico the first meal in the morning that breaks the overnight fast is usually lighter than a full on American breakfast of eggs, toast with jam, bacon or ham, hashed browned potatoes, and coffee. Calm down. It's warm outside, and you'll be having lunch soon enough. It can be anything that is light, it needn't be a fixed thing, like milk and cereal every single day, or a Denny's style breakfast every single day like clockwork. 

This is my own splendid bread. I do not want to gum it up with gobs of sweet goo. No, this bread deserves something better than that, better than butter and fruit preserves. Plus those fruit preserves are commercially mass produced anyway. Notice how closely my topped off toast resembles a pizza. It is the perfect thing in the morning. The bread itself is substantial, and satisfying as mass produced bread cannot be. It just is.

A week ago I mentioned to a friend I hadn't bought a loaf of bread in a decade and his stunned look in response was quite comical. Actually, I did buy a loaf a few years ago, at Sam's two loaves come together, thoughtfully selected for its multi grain composition, but once home I found there was something dreadfully wrong with it. It preserved way too long and way too well. You can smash a slice back into a dough wad, and I ended up tossing both out. Boom. Right in the trash. Because that is what it is, basura. I couldn't imagine eating that stuff, even as punishment. So I lied. But actually, that purchase was a mistake, or let's say a test that failed, and in reality once I got thinking and calculating years, it's been more like two decades. Twenty years I've been making my own bread. My habit is make my own bread, and the bread I make is clearly better than anything I can buy. Significantly better. Substantially better. No brag, just fact. It just is. And at this point it is quite easy to do. There is no measurement except counting the scoops. These two slices of toast beat any commercial cereal, any commercially produced bread available due to the mass production efficiency techniques and economies of scale. And this is why American have such difficulty with weight. There is no longer a connection between healthy cereal and grain-related mass produced food products the exact same as given to cows in feedlots to quickly fatten them up, having remained lean on the range. The full array of grain-related products is bogus. In first world societies the connection with authentic human food is gone. Long gone. 

But not disappeared. 

Scrambled eggs on toasted croutons, avocado and tomato, bacon

The most important thing is prevent the eggs from overcooking. 

Says chef Ramsay in this excellent video of his showing how to whisk cold butter into eggs on and off the heat. He does not say this but he is making a sauce. 

The curd in scrambled eggs is the fail in sauce.

Different parts of egg, two types of white and the yolk, various proteins, denature at different temperatures ranging from 145℉ to 180℉. You'll notice below boiling water temperature. Prolonged cooking at boiling water temperature causes molecule strands to tighten and squeeze out water and they keep squeezing and squeezing until all the water is out, in a small pot like this the water evaporates, in a larger pot with greater volume the water separates.

Hamburger, blue cheese, heirloom tomato

This hamburger has blu cheese in it and I like that idea spurred by the recent steak with blu cheese on it surprising me with its combined excellence. How is it that this combination is coming to me so late? It will be blu cheese with steak for now on. This Angus hamburger indulgently has blu cheese in it. 

But not enough.

Not enough indulgence.

They always do that too. Come on! If you get, say, sausage with jalapeño or chipotle in it you can bet with assurance you will not be able to taste it. Because they've already experienced pansies complaining and know even a little is too much for some so it's lowest common denominator all the way every time, so just forget it.  I've been disappointed on that score a hundred times. Here too. Not enough. Better to buy it separately and slap it on yourself, or if you want it in there then make it yourself. 

Tomato, oh my. 

Pro Hint: In most large grocery stores I've seen these ugly tomatoes separated to the side when they have them, forlorn and lonely like orphans due to their unsightliness, their cooties exiled, Cinderellas, oftentimes going soft just sitting there so long ignored. Go straight to those and buy all of them no matter the shape or the color. Except the squishy ones. You'll be amazed. And thereafter regard all those other perfect tomatoes as...

...such vapid little snowflakes. 

These ugly tomatoes are like saki, and vermouth, Marsala and Madera in that they all make things they touch better, deeper, more interesting.