How to Bake Bread

Ingredients:

• 20 oz baking flour (about 2.5 cups, but use a kitchen scale)
• 12 oz water
• 2 tsp salt
• 1-2 tsp yeast

Blend in counter-top mixer on 1 with paddle to combine, maybe a minute
Switch to hook for 10 minutes on 2 -- though kneading for 5, resting for 5, and then kneading for 5 more may or may not do something.
Put in a covered bowl to rise for about 2.5 hrs, till it doubles in size
Knead out the air, let rest for 15 min under dish towel
Shape into a boulle, let it rise again for an hour in a 5-7 quart Dutch oven
Preheat oven to 450
After an hour, coat loaf with olive oil and a light sprinkling of coarse salt
Cut an x into the top, cover Dutch oven and bake.
After half an hour take lid off Dutch oven and bake until brown and crisp.
It's possible you may want to turn the heat down a bit at some point, as the bottom tends to get a bit toastier then the top.
The advantage of the Dutch oven is you don't have to worry about spraying the loaf with water or getting the oven humid with a pan of water.
I added a tablespoon of rosemary garlic infused olive oil to one of the loaves last night and it was awesome, but it makes the dough a bit wobbly.

Brooklyn-Style Spaghetti Sauce (aka Gravy)

Note: Recipe serves 20-something people, so plan on leftovers (feezes well). I suppose you could halve the quantities, but no Italian has ever done that.

Ingredients:

• 2 large cans tomatoes – peeled or diced
• 1-2 8oz cans tomato pastetomato paste,
• 2 lbs ground meat – I like to mix beef and bison or lamb
• 1 brown onion
• half head of peeled garlic
• 4 tsp sugar
• half a bottle of red wine, not too sharp or sweet
• oregano (fresh/dried)
• basil (fresh/dried)
• maybe a bay leaf or two
• salt
• pepper
• olive oil

Mix meats together in bowl, and season it with salt pepper, and dried herbs if you are using them.

Chop the onion in a medium or coarse dice. Use enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a large stock pot a couple-three millimeters deep. Sautee the onion over medium-low heat until translucent, tennish minutes. Maybe throw a few diced garlic cloves in there about five minutes in, but don’t let it brown.

Add ground meat, sautee until thoroughly browned, stirring every couple of minutes. Once browned, add the tomatoes and one can of tomato paste. It’s ok to add a bit of water if you use that to get residual tomato product out of the can. Add the rest of the garlic, either pressed or finely diced. Add the sugar (or honey) and wine. If you have bay leaves, throw 1 or 2 in there as well.

Cook for an hour before bothering to taste it, stirring occasionally. Putting the lid on will help things cook down faster, though later you will want to at least crack the lid so the sauce can cook down.

Adjust seasoning as you continue to cook it, though be careful not to over-salt. Best if you have time to let the sauce cook for 4 hours or so, but if you don’t have that much time, you can use the additional tomato paste to thicken the sauce. Finely chop the fresh oregano and chop or shred into strips the basil, if using. Add the fresh oregano to sauce in the last 20 minutes or so. Either add the basil directly to sauce just before serving, or serve in a bowl as a condiment if you have picky eaters (children).

Remember to fish out the bay leaves – you don’t want to hear the screams of children with a bay leaf on their plate.