Sunday, 11 January 2015

Post Apocalyptic Survivor

A while back I sent my brother-in-law a link to a recipe for 24 hour bread. I have made this bread quite a few times now and except for that one time that I forgot it was in the oven for twenty minutes, it has always turned out. Oh, and it is delicious! Last night, Louise and her brother were chatting on facebook and he wanted some more details about baking the bread.


Everything about the recipe is pretty easy, but the thing you absolutely can't do without is a cast iron Dutch oven. An enamelled pot is better, but I don't have a few hundred to spend on one of those. To tell the truth, until I saw this recipe I didn't have any use for the Dutch oven I had other than baking beans once a year or if I needed a heavy weight when I was gluing a panel down. It looks pretty cool too and one year I might set up a Stampede display using it as a centre piece. If our technological society breaks down and we revert back to the hunter-gatherer stage, whoever kills me and ransacks my home will have a very useful cooking utensil.

The pot was a sticking point for Mike. He doesn't have a cast iron pot and somehow I doubt he will rush right out and buy one. You can't use a crock pot liner for this as it is not intended to get very hot and will explode. You might be able to get away with a lighter pot, but I just don't know how it would turn out. I did a little research and it turns out that you can actually bake bread in a crock pot. Just not this bread.

It never occurred to me that Mike wouldn't have a Dutch oven. Now that I think about it, why would he have a Dutch oven? They aren't what you would call standard kitchen fare and unless he regularly goes on trail rides, the pot is useless. The reason I have one is that I was involved in Scouting when Brendan was younger and there was a dessert we made with fifteen charcoal brickettes a cake mix and a can of pie filling. I never used my Dutch oven for the scouts, they already had one, but I saw it in a garage sale and couldn't resist it. I thought that I might be the one ransacking homes when our society collapsed and would need a large pot for cooking rabbits and squirrels.
 
I was just trying to figure out if I spelt "brickettes" correctly. It just doesn't look right to me, maybe one "T"? If ever a word looked like it should be wearing barrettes and ribbons, this is it. Man up charcoal!

I am something of a hoarder. I like to think of myself as a collector without any specific interest or dedication, but truth be told I am a hoarder. I have spent a lifetime of collecting odd stuff that caught my eye and consequently there aren’t too many things that I don't have at least one of. I have a special measuring tape (without numbers) to tell which bocce ball is closest to the pallino (small white ball). I don't play bocce as a rule, but if I ever do and there is a measurement needed, I will be properly equipped. Suffice to say that I have a houseful of crap that rarely or never gets used, but just may at some time in the future.

I think I will keep my eyes peeled for another cast iron Dutch oven in my rounds of the second hand stores. We will be driving out to Ontario sometime this year and it would make a lovely gift to Mike and Sharon. Mind you, I could always do with a spare just in case mine wears out or gets stolen by a post apocalyptic survivor. 
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Briquettes

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