No-knead Bread and Tortilla Soup

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Yesterday I made chicken tortilla soup in the slow cooker. For a change of pace, I threw in some of the collards and kale I had on hand, even though it wasn’t called for in the recipe. I find that if I can get the vegetables into the main dish, we tend to eat more of them than if I make them as a side dish. My husband liked the soup enough to take this photo of it.

I also made the famous no-knead bread using the recipe in Jim Lahey’s My Bread. Actually, this bread takes 2 days to make, if you account for the rising time, but it is essentially a hands-off recipe (hence the “no-knead” in the title). The most difficult part, I found, was transferring the extremely sticky dough to the tea towel for the second rise and then into the preheated dutch oven. The bread is very flavorful, dense, chewy and slightly sour. It’s true what they say: Homemade bread does taste better than anything you can buy at the store.

This recipe is easy enough to give me the confidence to try more breads. My Bread provides several variations on the basic recipe. One of my cooking goals right now is to bake more of my own bread, and I’m sure this book will be a big help.

Here is Mark Bittman’s original recipe for Lahey’s No-Knead Bread, if you want to try to make it yourself.

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• Kiss him, he’s Jim Lahey: no-knead Irish Brown Bread recipe (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• The Tastemakers Spotlight: Sullivan Street Bakery (everydayfoodblog.marthastewart.com)
• Chewy, Crispy, and Hot: Fresh-Baked Yeast Breads Recipe Roundup (thekitchn.com)
• The Curious Cook: Better Bread With Less Kneading (nytimes.com)
• How To Make No-Knead Bread Home Hacks (thekitchn.com)

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Tagged: Breads, Chicken, Jim Lahey, Mark Bittman, Soups, Tortillas