Variations on the no-knead bread

Well, there are a couple variations of the previous recipe that I can recommend so far.

Check out the closeup of the olive loaf I posted above. Gorgeous!

Roasted garlic and kalamata loaf
Ingredients:
3 cups of regular bread flour (probably the best way to learn is to start with your favorite brand of standard bread flour)
1/4 tsp. instant yeast OR 3/4 tsp. active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups of cool water (you'll probably need more)
3/4 of a 13-ounce (the bigger jars) jar of kalamata olives
8-12 cloves fresh garlic

Notice the salt has been omitted this time around. There's enough in the olives.

I peel the cloves and put them in a food processor to chop roughly. You could roughly chop them by hand, though, especially if you want larger chunks (yum!). Add them to the dry ingredients.

With the olives, drain them and then split them by hand to make sure there are no pits. I found one in mine. While you're at it, dice them into small bits. It works better to do it by hand because then you don't have the purple coloring leaking into the batter. (I put them in the food processor to start with and the edges got all raggedy, and the dough turned a slight gray color. No biggie, though.) Now add the chopped olives to the dry mix.

Lastly, you'll add water and proceed with the recipe as normal.

Toasted steel cut oats & roasted garlic loaf

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups of regular bread flour (probably the best way to learn is to start with your favorite brand of standard bread flour)
3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp. instant yeast OR 3/4 tsp. active dry yeast
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup steel cut oats, toasted
8-12 cloves fresh garlic
1 1/2 cups of cool water (you'll probably need more)

For this version, you'll want to toast the steel cut oats in a dry pan on the stove before adding it to the dry mix. It adds a warm roasted depth of flavor to the final bread.

If you've never toasted nuts or grains, it's easy. Simply put as much in a dry pan to cover the bottom in a single layer. Set your stove to medium low. Don't crank the heat to make it hurry up; you'll end up with burnt grains. You'll first see, then hear the little grains of oats starting to 'pop' in the pan. Once this starts, start vigorously stirring the grains with spoon and shaking the pan around. You'll notice them starting to darken, and once each grain has a bit of "toast" on them, they're done.

Never having toasted oats before this, I wasn't aware of the somewhat unpleasant smell it gives off. (Not like the delicious smell from almonds) So, just know that the final product is worth the weird smell.

NOW when I make this bread again, I am going to soak my toasted oats overnight to prevent them from hogging all the water in the bread mixture. I would probably soak 1/2 cup of the toasted oats in 1 cup of water, and drain off any excess that happened to be leftover in the morning. Then, I'd use them in this recipe as usual.

Again, I peel and process my garlic cloves in the food processor, but you can roughly chop them. If you want to find chunks in the bread, just cut them in quarters. If you want it to be more of an overall flavor, process them more finely.

Make sure to give all the dry ingredients a good stir before adding the water. You'll probably need more water for this recipe than 1 1/2 cups listed, especially if you don't presoak the grains. In fact, as time goes on and the dry grains soak up lots of water like mini-sponges and you notice your dough looking uber-lumpy, you can still add more water to the mix to smooth it out. It doesn't like to incorporate immediately, but give it a few jabs to get the water soaking in and as long as it has about 6 hours to go on the dough, you'll be fine.

This loaf was AMAZING as bread for turkey sandwiches. We simply topped the meat with cracked black pepper, laid down some fresh spinach, and slathered some mayo on the bread. WOW!!!