TWD: Eastern European Rye

Ok! First Tuesday with Dorie of the year! Woo who! Well, the first for me that is. Right now, I've been pretty busy dealing with trying to cut down the 9 foot tall weeds in our property. Whacking them down with the weed whacker or sawing the gigantor weeds with the electric saw. Whew! And I'm still not finished! But the good thing is, the wild pigs have helped keep some of it down. Hee..

Anyway.

It was fun taking some time off to make this rye bread. Though, I learned a pretty good lesson. I got to get a spice grinder if I'm ever going to make this again. Whew-wee. That was a lot of work grinding up the caraway seeds with the mortar and pestle. It's definitely a sit down and watch TV kind of work. Also, I learned that there are many different ways to shape bread. This is the first time I've ever done this method and it was kind of hard to understand. It talks about sealing seams while rolling and sticking fingers in the sides, then making hospital corners on the bed...Ackk! I was so confused. But luckily, PBS has a video of Baking with Julia, where the contributing baker, Lauren Groveman, is making pumpernickel using the same method (start at 11:43). Once I watched the video I was set! I still don't know what making a hospital bed looks like, but I was good to go!

It smelled so good while I was waiting for it to cool down. Ahhh fresh bread. Can't beat that...For lunch (half an hour after baking), the Husb and I had the Open Faced Reuben Sandwich, which is found on the next page. It was sooo tasty. So tasty that we had it the next day for lunch. MmmMm

For the recipe, see Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan. Also, check out the TWD's blogroll for some good looking ryes.