Cook the Book - My Bread by Jim Lahey - Pane con Formaggio (Cheese Bread) pg. 71

Well was this ever a hit. Essentially this was the basic bread with an addition of some delicious cheese. I used fontina and it was out of this world. Everyone liked it and said it was the best so far. You can see the great cheesy crunchy bits in the picture of the whole loaf!

Cook the Book - My Bread by Jim Lahey - Pane all'Olive (Olive Bread) pg. 69

I am not a fan of olives so I didn't know if I'd like this bread. Lin loves olives so she was very excited. We had some big spanish olives in the fridge so I rough chopped them (after removing the pimentos) and those are what I used. I must say the bread turned out great all around. The baking with the olives made them have a wonderful mild flavor. The thing I don't like so much about olives is how strong the flavor is but in this bread it was great.

Cook the Book - My Bread by Jim Lahey - Pane Integrale (Whole Wheat Bread) pg. 61

I made a new bread today to go with our salmon dinner. It's the second in Jim Lahey's My Bread cookbook. Its called Pane Integrale and is a basic whole wheat bread. Essentially 25% of the bread flour is replaced with whole wheat flour. It cooked up great and was very tasty. The whole wheat flour gave the bread more flavor than the basic recipe. It may become the everyday go to bread.

Pictures are top to bottom:
1. Dough after mixing
2. Dough after 24 hr rise and after second rise - ready to go in pot.
3. Finished bread still in the pot.
4. A slice of bread.

Cook the Book - My Bread by Jim Lahey - Basic No Knead Bread pg. 50

I have started the journey to cook through the book I got from Christmas - My Bread by Jim Lahey. The Basic No Knead bread is as simple as it gets. 4 ingredients, a pot, an oven and time. I actually let the dough rise for 24 hrs since its the middle of winter and I had the time. Additionally after cooking for 30 minutes in the enclosed pot I only cooked for 20 minutes with the lid off. The color on the top was what I wanted. The loaf this recipe made was beautiful and I'm very happy with the results.

The top picture on the right shows the dough after being mixed and starting the initial 24 hr fermentation. The second picture is the dough after the 24 hr rise and the second two hr rise. Its ready to go in the pot. And the last picture is the finished bread ready to be removed from the dutch oven.