Irish Soda Bread

There's something immensely satisfying about baking your own bread. I've always wanted to try it and yesterday morning, feeling inspired (and craving old-fashioned toast and strawberry jam for breakfast), I decided to give it a go.

I used an incredibly easy recipe from Alice Waters' book "In the Green Kitchen" for Irish soda bread and voila! I had a fresh, steaming loaf cooling on my kitchen counter in under an hour. Seriously. It was that easy. Since it was my first time, I kept a wary eye on the oven the entire time it was baking and took it out about five minutes too early thinking the crust was getting a bit too brown for my liking; it turned out fine, but just a little too doughy. I would recommend relaxing with a good book while it's in the oven and letting it be for the entire baking time.

Looks good, doesn't it? Weekend project! Let me know how it turns out. xo

Irish Soda Bread
Adapted from "In the Green Kitchen," by Alice Waters

Ingredients:
4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 3/4 cup buttermilk

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 450 F. Measure the flour, salt, and baking soda and put them through a sieve into a large bowl. Run your fingers through the flour to lift and aerate it. Make a well in the center and pour in the buttermilk. To mix the buttermilk into the flour, use the fingers of one hand, stiff and outstretched, and stir in a big circle, working from the center out. The dough should be soft, but not sticky; add a bit more buttermilk if needed. In a few turns, you will have a moist shaggy dough.

Rinse your hands, and turn the dough out onto a floured board. Gently roll and pat it into a tidy round shape about 2 inches high. Don't knead the dough; it will make it tough. Put the ball of dough onto a baking sheet. Cut a deep cross in the loaf from side to side and poke a hole in each quarter. Bake for 15 minutes, reduce the heat to 400 F, and continue baking for another 25 to 30 minutes, until crusty and browned. The bread should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Let cool on a wire rack.

Arugula Salad with Garlic Vinaigrette

It took me a long, long time to warm up to the idea of having salad as a meal. It always seemed like an unexciting side dish or, more often, something that could be skipped altogether. Greens, in general, failed to entice me through pretty much all of my childhood, adolescence and most of my adult years. It's only a very recent development that my eyes and taste buds have opened to all the glorious possibilities that vegetables offer.

But now that I know better, I can't stop eating salad and other market veggies. I find myself stopping at the various vegetable stands at the Union Square farmers' market and buying four different kinds of lettuce just because they look so fresh and rich and pretty. I'll come home and while away an afternoon separating the leaves, dropping them into water and swishing them around the big bowl watching all the dirt and sand drift slowly to the bottom. I'll do this until my lettuce is sparking clean, grit-free. I recently invested in a much-needed salad spinner, which makes all the difference when making a salad (the leaves need to be thoroughly dried, otherwise the dressing will become diluted and won't stick). I'll watch the fresh bright greens take their turns around the spinner and then lay them out on clean dish towels to rest while I start on the vinaigrette. It's all very therapeutic, this washing lettuce business.

And then the vinaigrette! I make a delicious garlic vinaigrette recipe that Alice Waters uses most often when making her own salads (what's good enough for Alice....). It's super easy and quick and worlds apart from any bottled dressing you can buy in a store (yes, even the fancy kind). When I pour this finished vinaigrette over my fresh-as-can-be lettuce and take the first bite, I wonder how on earth I could possibly have thought of salad as "boring." I do this every single time.

This salad dressing is a perfect Milk & Mode food. It's simple. It's fool-proof. It's fast. It's healthy. You can make it in ANY kitchen, no matter how big or small. And you can whip it up with almost no effort even after a long day of work. And the best part? You'll have extra servings that you can put into a glass jar and use for tomorrow's lunch or dinner also. And you just can't argue with that.

Garlic Vinaigrette
Adapted from In the Green Kitchen, by Alice Waters
4 servings

Ingredients
1 small garlic clove
Salt
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
Freshly ground black pepper
3 to 4 tbsp good olive oil

Directions
Put a peeled garlic clove and 2 big pinches of salt in a mortar and pound into a puree, with no chunks remaining. Add the wine vinegar, grind in some black pepper, and taste for the balance of salt and vinegar. Allow to macerate for a few minutes and whisk in olive oil. Taste the dressing with a leaf of lettuce. It should taste bright and lively without being too acidic or too oily; adjust the salt, vinegar, or oil as needed.

To dress a salad, put several generous handfuls of washed and dried lettuce into a large bowl. Toss with about three quarters of the vinaigrette, and taste. The lettuce should be lightly coated but not overdressed; add more dressing as needed.

*A squeeze of lemon juice added to the dressed salad at the last moment can add a brightness that brings up all the flavors.