Since I’m on a bread making kick recently, I decided to try out The Kitchn’s artisan bread recipe which calls for using a type of pre-fermentation called a poolish. The recipe itself is very simple, but like most bread it requires a lot of time waiting.

The poolish is a mixture of flour, yeast and water that can sit anywhere from 2-10 hours and ends up like this:

It’s very important that you mix the poolish well for a good 2 minutes and work it into a batter, otherwise it will just be a clumpy mass of yeasty dough.It’s then added to a mixture of water a yeast and is supposed to improve the texture and flavor of a simple bread.

The bread turned out lovely, however 25 minutes was more than enough in my oven, even though it calls for 30-40 minutes. I do have a convection oven so that might have been a factor.

The crust was nice and crisp and the inside was soft and chewy, A perfect french style loaf of bread that would be great for a mediterranean meal of tasty cheeses and antipastos.

So, if you have some free time to wait (I made my poolish the night before and left it till morning) try it out!

Or: I gained back all the weight I lost last week and we’re just going to pretend that didn’t happen so I’m going to start over and be extra healthy and stay on plan.

Yeahhh, not so great WIW today. I’m not letting it discourage me, I just need to change up a few things. Plan my food for the whole day beforehand. Remember to track on weekends and not gorge at my friend’s baby shower’s buffet (totally happened on Sunday, croissants, doughnuts, bacon. FML)

Anyhoo, here are the recipes:

• Roasted Brussel Sprouts (A Veggie Venture)
• Lemony Chickpea Stir Fry (101 Cookbooks)
• Humble Home Cooked Beans (Jamie Oliver)
• Ginger & Soy Roasted Pork Tenderloin (Me! Will post recipe when I make it)
• More Indian Dahl
• Balsamic Mashed Sweet Potatoes

First, here’s what I ate tonight.

• Kale and Mushrooms sauteed in olive oil and tons of garlic then tossed in red pepper flakes and a bit of parmesan. It was amazing! I’ve never had kale before, but I’m sold.
• Pan steamed chicken and shrimp won tons with some chili soy dipping sauce. (based on this recipe)

The won tons took about an hour to assemble and I got 60 out of this batch. I just freeze them on a saran wrapped baking sheet then transfer them to freezer bags the next day. They are aprox  1 WW point each but that’s mostly the wrapper. I used extra lean ground chicken, shrimp, suey choy and spices for the filling.

For some reason I fail at cooking chili. I’ve messed it up so many times I don’t even know why I still bother trying! I ALWAYS make it too spicy to eat, every time. Last night’s chili was supposed to be extra amazing. Even with the extra chipotles I figured it would turn out, but I was wrong. It was so spicy that Ryan couldn’t even finish half a bowl. I was able to eat mine, but it was almost past my threshold of hotness.

2 hours later, we both started feeling horrible. To avoid a TMI situation, I won’t go into details but it wasn’t pretty for either of us.

So now the chili is sitting covered on the back porch freezing into a lump so I can throw it away. It feels like such a waste to me, but if there was something worse going on other than just extra spicyness, I don’t want to risk diluting it with more veg and stuff.

At least the cornbread turned out good but seriously, what kind of wife poisons her husband with death chili 2 weeks into marriage? I think I should just give up and stick with things I’m good at. /sigh