No need to Knead

Like so many other food bloggers, I have been intrigued by the No-Knead bread recipe that appeared in the New York Times recently. It's taken me a little longer to actually making this bread because my schedule at work has been a bit nutty. I've taken off the entire week after Thanksgiving and now find plenty of time on my hands to get back in the kitchen. And this makes me very happy. :)

On Thursday afternoon I put up my first batch of no-knead bread. 18 hours later, (yesterday morning) I followed the instructions and gently folded the bread over on itself and let it sit for 15 minutes. The nest step was to gently form the dough into a ball and place it seam side down on a floured towel. This is where I think I goofed. I accidentally dropped the dough onto the counter. The gentle thump of soft dough may have been enough to stop any chance of it rising. After letting it sit for two more hours, the bread hadn't changed much. Oh well, we'll just have a smaller loaf than I planned on. I had no doubt we'd still eat it no matter what it looked like.
And this is what the final result looked like. The crust was beautiful and crunchy just the way I like it. Inside was pocketed with nice airy holes here and there and the texture was just chewy enough. Yum!

I was so intrigued by this recipe that I went and put up another batch to bake today. And I took a cue from Kitchen Monkey who added some spice and flavorings to his bread with great success. My added flavoring of choice was some dried rosemary and dried onion. I ground each pretty much to a powder and added it to the initial flour, salt and yeast mixture. Later today, I'll have to post on the results. But for now, here's how we made use of our first loaf.......Poached eggs with bacon and toast.
Is that a beautifully poached egg or what? Jim's been enjoying poaching eggs and is really getting good at it.