3 local food ideas for your St. Patrick's Day smorgasboard

Tired of beer-based recipes for your Irish-inspired meal?  The following recipes are tried and true in our kitchen, and could give your St. Patrick's Day menu some festive flair.  Even better, you'll be able to incorporate seasonally available ingredients, some of which you can even grow yourself.

1. Homegrown green (sprouts)
Let's start with this guest post I did a few days ago on Foodies in Quebec.  Growing your own sprouts is a frugal way to incorporate highly nutritious fresh greens into your winter diet and into your St. Patrick's Day salad.  Watching roots develop is also a great "science" project, regardless of your age.  Since sprouting your own sprouts is really easy, it is a great activity for kids.  

How to: Click here for my 5 simple steps to growing your own sprouts.

The sweeter side of winter: Make history part of your Valentine's traditions with homemade maple taffy

Just in time for Valentine's Day, here's a 

sweet (and for some of us, local) way to 

incorporate historic traditions into your own.

Chances are you have eaten maple syrup at some point in your life. 

If you have lived through even part of a winter in Quebec, you have likely sampled maple taffy, too. Both amber-hued sweets are classic culinary elements of winter and early spring in eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. 

Maple taffy has been a North American seasonal treat for over a century. 
It is also called “sugar-on-snow” and “tire d’érable” in Quebec, and “Jack wax” and “wax on the snow” south of the Canadian border. 

Authors such as Laura Ingalls Wilder immortalized the candy, writing of woodsy traditions practised by settlers in the late 1800s. 

6 easy ways to make the best of too many apples...

If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, we shouldn't need an appointment for years.  

This autumn, we maintained an annual tradition - harvesting well over 100 (yes, one hundred) pounds of apples from a local orchard, hauling them home, and then standing over them in the kitchen wondering why on earth we needed so many.

Hotcakes, griddle cakes & flapjacks, oh my!

Around this time last year, my dear husband decided to try something new.  He didn't pick up a new instrument, and he didn't sign up for the gym or start a new career.  He decided to do away with pancakes.  This was epic news, coming from someone for whom pancakes are a breakfast and brunch staple.  

The pancakes were replaced by crêpes, which offered a new level of fun and creativity.  You'd have a hard time talking me into drizzling balsamic vinegar on a pancake.  Yet, somehow it seems perfectly reasonable coupled with micro greens, cheddar cheese, and bacon, all rolled up in a warm crêpe.  A year later, we oscillate between the two, but judging by this Wikipedia entry, we could take an international pancake-based culinary tour and not run out of ideas for quite some time.

What is Scottish and burns in the night?

Before I met my husband, I met a Scotsman.  And his French-American wife.  And their Argentinian friend.  They stayed in my remote ranch house, 50 miles from anything, in the midst of  late winter.  There was snow, though not much.  There was wind - too much. There was laughter, along with good food, and new friendships in the making.

The "cottage", fireplace and all.  Picturesque, yes.  Freezing in the winter?  Yes!

Months passed.  I met my now-husband, and learned he also knew said Scotsman, sa femme (his wife), and Argentine friend.  Eventually, my beau moved into the room vacated by the Argentinian gal, joining Scotsman and femme in a former dairy barn repurposed as a Bavarian cottage.

Ingredients for a feast
Credit: Magnus McCaffery, 2012

In that cottage-barn, during the darkness and chill of the following winter, an ornery rooster and a rangy old sheep became a feast.  Scotsman and femme introduced a great gathering to the mysterious rituals of haggis, neeps and tatties, and cock-a-leekie soup.

Tricks for tasty pumpkin treats

This post is part of "When Artists Cook," a series in which I am a guest writer.

View my other posts in the series:  When Artists Cook.

What's your favorite way of 

eating pumpkins and other squashes?

‘Tis the season to remember that throwing away good food is truly spooky! Here’s a couple tricks for some tasty treats:

When Artists Cook: Harvest Abundance (and what to do about it)

This post is part of "When Artists Cook," a series in which I am a guest writer.

My previous posts in the series: "Coming of age in kitchens"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Harvest season always fills me with ________________________ .  

How would you fill in that blank?

. . .

I’ve been mulling this over for the past month or so, as the garden peaks, the farmers markets flood with produce, and I write and rewrite the list of things to preserve for the winter. [ . . .]  I tend to get a little ahead of myself when it comes to harvesting and preserving.  By that I mean, there’s no limit for me.  It’s never enough.  As long as there is a nook or cranny in the house that is reasonably stable in temperature, and not exposed to much light, I am interested in filling it with food that will keep through, or at least into, the winter.
[ . . . ]

Having a hands-on relationship with our food is one of my absolute favorite things about the mayhem that is harvest season. The kitchen is aswarm with fruit flies, which one cheeky friend describes as “indicators of abundance,” and the occasional stow-away earwig always shows up in the least expected corner. But, even when I’m busy picking snails out of the beet greens, or scrubbing tomato splatters off of...well, everywhere, this is still about as real as it gets.

. . . Keep reading - - >

Canning tips to help savour summer flavour year ‘round

Is anyone else canning up a storm? Or wondering where to start? 

We've had a lot of people asking us how/why we do what we do, 

so here's a response to the questions. 

Canning is not just for grandmas or war efforts any more.  As self-sufficiency re-gains popularity, people of all ages are re-learning traditional skills. According to National Public Radio, 43% of canners are between 18-34 years old. Not all fruit.root.leaf. readers will be surprised by that, as many of you are at least as enthusiastic about this project as we are.

However, one thing most home canners, myself included, agree upon is that safely preserving enough of the harvest to enjoy summer well into the cold weather requires some effort and planning. Whether this season will see your first canning endeavour, or you have a long tradition of canning, the enjoyment and satisfaction felt when you dine on the fruits of your labours make it worth it.  

Home grown, already!?

Adapted from article published in the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph (5.30.2012)

It might seem a tad too early in the season to be discussing local food, other than crab and lobsters here in Québec, or last year’s potatoes in Montana. However, local farms and gardens are already sprouting fresh local produce, and we can all take advantage of it. If you are shopping, this time of the year you could seek out local microgreens and salad greens. If you are gardening, there are a variety of things to look forward to in late spring.

St. Patrick’s Table: Tips for a Greener Holiday Feast

Adapted from article originally published in the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph (03.14.2012)

St. Patrick’s Day could be greener than ever this year. Eco-sensitivity is more than just hot air, and a lot less work than playing the bagpipes! Consider these tips for a more sustainable celebration, and your “taste of the Irish” could be as green as the beer in the pubs.

Lentil Salad with Mixed Fresh Vegetables

(Brown lentils, Québec onions, carrots and garlic,
parsley (from last year's garden), curry & cumin)

This salad has become a go-to dish.  It is very simple to prepare, and can use any combination of vegetables, herbs and spices you happen to have on hand.  I made it up a while back, and make it a little bit differently every time.  Just the other night, I took it to a clothing exchange - a fantastic way to re-use and re-cycle clothes.  The hostess asked for the recipe, so I typed up some general guidelines.  Feel free to treat them as suggestions, and improvise to suit your own tastes.

What happened to the pancakes!?

My husband loves pancakes!  It's no surprise why - as he makes delicious whole-wheat cinnamon pancakes.  Every so often, he gets the urge and treats us to a pancake breakfast with a smorgasbord of toppings - homemade jam, crabapple jelly, local honey, the ever-present Québec maple syrup, and for him, pure,unadulterated, nothing-but-nuts peanut butter we get in bulk.  To my knowledge, the only breakfast he likes better than pancakes is burritos (and that's for a different post).

Dumplings chinois

Thanks to Qing, our Chinese friend here in Québec, we've been introduced to the finer points of a unique Chinese-fusion cooking style.

Jerod making dumplings

He maintains it is not a certain "type" of Chinese cuisine - it is his personal take on it.  He tends to emphasize lots of vegetables, mushrooms and subtly flavored meats.  His spices and cupboard full of sauces and vinegars are difficult to describe - some of them utterly lack English translations, but all contribute to the alchemy.  We've enjoyed a range of dinners, including several prepared en groupe under his direction.

The highlight, though, were the dumplings!  Qing patiently dedicated an evening to showing several of us how to make them.  More than one kitchen here in la belle ville has been pressed into service, putting French, Quebec, and American spins on the original recipe.  As the photographs indicate, we recently re-created the dumplings.  From what we've heard and found for ourselves, the recipe appears to stand up to a fair degree of experimentation.

Although we are a few days late (Chinese New Year 2012 was 23 January), we are celebrating Chinese New Year tonight in style.  As dumplings are eaten to ensure a prosperous year, we are planning three different fillings, along with spring rolls and fried rice.  In case you want to get in on the fun, here are some of the recipes we will use tonight.
_________________________________________________

Bethann's sketch,
based on Qing's directions

Click the titles for various versions:

• Qing’s Dumplings
• Jerod'S Chickpea Dumplings
• Fried rice recipe coming soon...
• Click  on the illustration for step-by-step instructions on how to fill and fold a dumpling.

Serve WITH soy sauce & Chinese vinegar.

Cranberries take the cake!

It turns out that Québec is a big cranberry-producing region.  Before moving here, my previous frame of reference for them was a music group introduced to me by a university classmate and cranberry juice.  Since we've been here, we have discovered cranberry products are probably second only to maple syrup products in diversity and ubiquity.  This harvest season (which lasts most of autumn), we picked up some interesting tidbits, including: 

• Cranberries are canneberges in French.
• Their name in English is derived from "craneberry", because European settlers thought the flowers of this plant looked like the head and neck of a crane.
• The berries start the season white and redden as they ripen.
• One variety is also known as the "bearberry", like the kinnickinick so familiar to us back in Montana.  Whether or not they are related, I do not know, but the origin of the name is similar - both were observed to be popular foods for bears.

We also discovered that cranberries are really easy to use in the kitchen, in savory meat sauces, muffins, sweet sauces blended with apples and of course, cakes.  This season, we purchased a hefty 20 kilos (~40lbs) from the local farmers market, and are already talking about how to go harvest them ourselves next season.  Meanwhile, we're enjoying how easy it is to process them (just freeze them or can them in heavy syrup) and how long they keep fresh in the refrigerator (at least a month!).  

Related Recipe Posts: 

• Apple-cranberry muffins 
• Gâteau coronnée aux canneberges (Cranberry-crowned caked)
• Sauce aux canneberges et pommes (Cranberry-apple dessert sauce)

SOURCE NOTES
St. Foy Farmers Market

• Seasonally available in northern U.S. states (MA, NJ, OR, WA and WI) as well as most Canadian provinces (B.C., New Brunswick, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Québec).
• Read somewhere that Canadian producers are increasingly cultivating with low-input or no chemical application methods, as a means of competing with U.S.-based growers.  Don't know about the cranberries we bought, but now we know to ask next season.

Cran-apple Muffins

I am a big fan of fruit breads, and tend to manipulate my standby banana bread recipe to accommodate just about any kind of fruit-and-nut combination I can think of.  That recipe has absorbed countless seasonal variations, including many which bore little-to-no resemblance to banana bread.  However, I didn't think it would be quite right for the cranberries, so I went looking for a recipe specific to them.  

I was on a winning streak with the MS seasonal recipes website, but this one is actually from the Tourism Prince Edward Island site.  Now, that "got me cooking" - Prince Edward Island is the home of Anne of Green Gables, a pivotal series of childhood books.  Our thanks to Maureen Cudmore, who submitted this simple recipe to that site.  Now I have yet another good reason to go visit that island while we are in Eastern Canada - cranberries!

Of course, the beauty of this type of batter is that it is versatile, and can be baked as either bread or muffins.  I made some both ways, after running out of patience for our single, tiny 6-cup muffin tin half-way through the batch.  Warm these little morsels up in a toaster oven (if you have one), and slather butter on them.  They'll melt in your mouth, with the zing of the cranberries oozing into your taste buds.  You might even make audible sounds of appreciation, but don't worry, anyone else eating them will be too busy doing the same to notice.

Did I mention you should double the recipe?  Definitely!  

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 3/4 cup applesauce (or softly cooked apples)
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine melted
• 1 cup fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp. sugar

Directions

• In medium bowl, sift together the first five dry ingredients. 
• In small bowl, combine egg, milk, applesauce and butter and mix well. 
• Add egg mixture to flour mixture just until moistened. 
• In small bowl toss 2 Tbsp. of flour with cranberries. Fold into batter. 
• Spoon batter into 12 cup greased muffin cups. Sprinkle cinnamon and 2 Tbsp. of sugar over tops of muffins. 
• Bake in preheated 400 F oven 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. 

SOURCE NOTES

• Cranberries - St. Foy farmers market (Marché public de Saint-Foy)
• Apples - Verger Nicolois, St. Nicolas, QC
• Baking supplies (flour, sugar, nuts, etc.) - Le Crac/La Carrotte Joyeuse

Cranberry-apple Dessert Sauce

No denying it, this one was borrowed from the MS Seasonal Recipe site.  It is silly-easy, keeps well, and goes a long way.  If you like sauces like this sweet, don't skimp on the sugar.  I cut back a little, from the recipe's suggested amount, and the sauce was downright tangy.  

It looks great as a drizzled flourish on a plate with this cranberry-crowned cake.  The color is amazing and it is a delightful way to meld two seasonal fruits - apples and cranberries - into an unforgettable splash of color.

Ingredients

• 2T butter
• 1 apple, peeled and chopped
• Pinch of nutmeg
• 1 C. cranberries
• 1 C. apple cider - I used fresh-squeezed apple juice, which might be part of why the sauce was not as sweet.
• 1/2 C. sugar

Directions

• Melt 1 T butter over medium heat.  Cook apple with nutmeg until it softens (~3 min.).  If you cut it smaller, this takes less time.
• Add cranberries, apple cider and sugar; bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until a) apple is tender and b) sauce thickens (~15 min.).
• Remove from heat, stir in remaining butter, and purée in a blender until smooth.
• To adjust consistency, stir in additional apple cider if a thinner sauce is desired.

Serve with almost anything, but definitely at least once with the cranberry-crowned cake mentioned here and here.

SOURCE NOTES

• Cranberries - St. Foy farmers market (Marché public de Saint-Foy)
• Apples - Verger Nicolois, St. Nicolas, QC
• Baking supplies (flour, sugar, nuts, etc.) - Le Crac/La Carrotte Joyeuse

Gâteau coronnée aux canneberges

(Cranberry-crowned caked)

Have you ever heard of a "New England Duff"?  Nope?  Well, neither had I.  I have tried to find more information about it on Wikipedia, but the closest I came were references to fruit pudding, which this definitely is not.  What it is happens to be the product of an online recipe treasure trove discovery.  It is actually thanks to the seasonal recipes section of the Martha Stewart website that this cake came into being.  I've been hooked on the BBC International Cuisine website for months, but it turns out cranberries aren't a big "thing" in the regions covered by that site, so I had to branch out when we came home from the farmers market with 20lbs of cranberries.  

And I had to do some research, because cranberries aren't a "thing" back in Montana, either.  I shared some options with Sweet Tooth, and he settled on the picture of the New England Cranberry Duff.  Go ahead and make it, if you'd like.  But, I suggest you pay heed to the comments, because I am quite glad I did.  If you want the puffy, plenty-of-cake version pictured above, try the adaptation posted below instead.  It's what I call a Gâteau coronée aux canneberges, and it is decadent.  I made it twice in a one-week period, and the second time was better than the first.  This is how it went:

Ingredients

Note: In the recipe below, the cake portions are already doubled compared to the original recipe!  If you really like cake, you could triple the recipe (divide "cake" section by 2, and add another portion based on those measurements).  However, you won't likely want to adjust the amounts in "The rest" section.  The original MS recipe yields a very thin layer of cake, compared to the amount of fruit.

Cake

 12 T butter, softened (2 T less than 1/2 cup, which is 1 stick) 

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

A pinch or two of baking soda & baking powder - This is not scientific.  I tried it in the second cake and got more lift.  It is not included in the original recipe.

The Rest

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries.  Better yet, just cover the bottom of the pan you are using, regardless of the volume.  I have since made this a 3rd time, with frozen cranberries, and had okay results.  It would probably be best to thaw the fruit before baking.

2/3 cup sugar

EITHER 1/3 cup pecans, toasted, coarsely chopped.  I did this in the first cake; it was fine, but the nuts became so soft, it was hardly worth it.  I suggest skipping the pecans all together.

OR A couple of handfuls of sliced almonds, with the brown skins still around the edges.  

Directions

1.      Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Cut a round of parchment paper to ft the bottom of a spring-form pan*.  Butter this layer and the sides of the pan.  

      *If you don't have a spring-form pan, go get one.  It will make your dessert-baking life SO MUCH LESS stressful - I can't believe I waited as long as I did to get one.  Still not convinced?  The original recipe called for an 8-inch square baking pan, and almost every comment lamented the difficulty of removing the cake from the pan. "With a spring-form", I thought, "there's no such concern."  I used one instead, and this proved to be true.  So, go get one already!  Ask for it as a Christmas gift, if necessary.

2.    Spread cranberries evenly over bottom of dish, sprinkle with 2/3 cup sugar and set aside.  If using pecans, layer them over the cranberries before sprinkling the sugar.

3.      Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat; set aside. Put eggs and the remaining sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on medium-high speed until pale and thick, about 1 minute. Reduce speed to medium-low; gradually beat in flour, and then salt. Pour in melted butter in a slow, steady stream, beating until smooth.

4.      Slowly pour batter into pan to cover cranberries. This will be a little tricky, because the batter is dense and sticky.  Just try to spread it out enough to cover the cranberries.  It will "melt" and spread as it bakes.  

5.   Sprinkle slivered almonds on top of batter, and sprinkle with a bit more sugar.  DO THIS! I added this to the recipe on the second round, and it was stunning!  A far superior nut for this cake (vs. the pecans), in my opinion.

6.      Bake until golden brown and a cake tester (knife or toothpick) inserted in center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Depending on how many cranberries you used, this might take a little longer. 

7.   Let cool on a wire rack 10 minutes. Remove cake from pan by unlatching the hinge on the pan, and lifting the pan off the cake.  Now, thanks to the round of parchment paper, you can slide the whole cake off the bottom of the pan, and onto the cooling rack.  

8.   At this point, you have two options.  If you used pecans, not almonds on top, you should invert the cake to serve.  If you garnished with almonds and sugar on top, do not flip the cake!  

Serve warm or at room temperature.  If you like a little bit of tang, serve it with this cranberry-apple dessert sauce.  If you're like Sweet Tooth, serve it with vanilla ice cream.  Don't be afraid to let it sit for a couple of days, if you have that much self control.  It seems to get better with age.  Just store in a plastic container at room temperature until you are ready to polish it off.

SOURCE NOTES

• Cranberries - St. Foy farmers market (Marché public de Saint-Foy)
• Baking supplies (flour, sugar, nuts, etc.) - Le Crac/La Carrotte Joyeuse

Thinking about it makes my mouth water.

If my mother made homemade bread when I was a child, I don't remember it.  I do remember going to my aunt's home in southern Alberta, though, and savoring the "exotic" Dutch breakfast of toasted homemade bread slathered with butter, then topped with thinly sliced Gouda cheese and cold-cut meat.  The "mouthfeel" of that bread - substantial yet light, popping with yeasty flavor, and slightly crunchy from the toaster - blended with creamy cheese and finished with a rush of cool salty ham.  Yes, there is also a tradition of spreading Dutch chocolate sprinkles on warm bread, but then as now, I preferred the savory version full of salt and butter.  Though deceptively simple, that meal was a group event.  As each person waited for their slices of bread to emerge from the toaster, the "grown-ups" drank coffee, we children sipped our juice, and we all subconsciously savored the just-out-of-the-oven smell that comes from re-heating home-baked bread.


Later, as a teenager, I coerced my mom into baking bread regularly.  Well, somewhat regularly.  For a couple of years, at least, we made bread many Saturday mornings, using the same recipe Auntie Norma used to make the iconic bread featured in my childhood memories.    Our recipe has a note for how much fresh grain to use, because my mother has a countertop flour mill, complete with granite grinding stones.  She sourced her wheat from local farmers, and let me tell you, there is nothing like starting your bread with flour that is still warm from the friction of milling.  Combined with an old-school Bosch bread mixer, we got into a relatively effortless rhythm which took about 1/2 an hour of concentrated attention, and lingered across most of the morning, through two rises of the dough, and a final baking period.


When I left for university, that was the end of homemade bread for a while.  Happily, the local bakeries in my university town are top notch, and market in the local groceries.  However, when I would go home, I would again try to coerce Mama into making bread with me.  I don't know why, but I never dared to do it alone.  Perhaps because the couple of times I tried other recipes, and kneaded by hand, the breads came out tasty but flat and dense.  Honestly, I doubt I had the patience for hand-kneading long enough to fully develop the elastins in the dough. 

Years later, I married, and Mama found a screaming deal on a Bosch mixer!  Hip, hip!  I used it a few times, but as I said, the bakeries in that university town were more sophisticated, provided delightful variety, and were reeaallly easy.  However, this past winter, my honey and I moved to eastern Canada, took a look around at food prices, and resolved then and there to do what it took to amp up our "cook from scratch, at home, as much as possible" approach to life another level.  


I pulled out that trusty bread recipe and haven't looked back.  It is safe to say we purchased one or two loaves of store-bought bread, while we were unpacking, and that's it.  I make the "Bread - 3 loaves" recipe approx. once every two weeks, usually on the same morning I make granola.  I will be the first to admit that having a bread mixer is key to motivating me to do this.  It has also made me more daring, because I don't worry about under-kneading, and I have branched out to ciabatta, rosemary-potato bread, and an utterly decadent cheddar-onion cornbread which could send anyone happily towards high cholesterol without a second thought.  Without any question, breakfast, lunch and dinner can be enhanced by homemade bread.


For now though, here's the original whole-wheat bread recipe in all it's simplicity.  It might look like a lengthy complicated recipe, but it is only long because I offer some tips and suggestions at various steps in the process.  If this is your first time, be sure to read all the way through before you get started.  This is definitely a "process influences outcome" project.


Ingredients
*Typically, you can make a bread like this up to half-and-half whole wheat without having to adjust any other ingredient proportions.  This recipe is written as just that 50% whole wheat : 50% white flour.

• 3 1/4 C warm water (105 - 115 degrees Fahrenheit)
• 1/4 C sugar (scant)
• 2T yeast (scant)
• 2 1/2 - 4 C whole wheat flour (3 C grain for fresh-ground)
• 3/4 T or 2 1/4 tsp. salt
• 3/8 C oil (scant 1/2 C) 
• 1 egg 
• 3-4 C white flour
• Oil for bread pans (vegetable oil, i.e. canola, sunflower, etc.)

Equipment
*If you don't have anything but a baking sheet, this will still work.  The following equipment just takes out some of the guess work, making it less stressful and more fun.

• Mixer with capacity to knead dough
• Dough hooks for mixer
• Bread pans (4) and/or baking sheets, if you prefer "rustic" loaves
• Kitchen scale (ideal, but not essential)
• Meat thermometer

Directions

• Turn oven on warm, no more than 150-200 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Proof yeast: Place yeast, warm water and sugar in mixer.  Pulse once or twice, then allow to rest for about 5 minutes, until the yeast begins to "puff" and the mixture appears to thicken and look cloudy.
• Add remaining ingredients in order written above, except for one cup of white flour.  When flour is added, blend thoroughly before adding additional ingredients.  
• Knead on high for 3 minutes, slowly adding final cup of white flour until the dough no longer sticks to the sides of the mixer.  If you do not use all of the flour, that is fine.  If you don't have a mixer, knead by hand for around 10 minutes, until the dough is elastic enough that it stretches rather than breaking when you pull it apart.
• Oil a large bowl, a truly large bowl, weigh it, and turn the dough out into the bowl.  Weigh the bowl again, and subtract the weight of the bowl.  Write this number down.
•  SHUT OFF the oven, and place the bowl in the oven.  Allow dough to rise until doubled in size, approx. 1 hour.
• Oil the bread pans and/or baking sheets.  Do NOT use olive oil, as it doesn't do well in baking due to its low flash point.  You will wind up scrubbing for a long time to remove sticky darkened oil residue off of your baking sheets.
• Punch down the dough.  This is exactly what it sounds like - take your fists and punch the dough a couple of times until it deflates.
• Separate the dough into 4 equal portions, by dividing the original weight of the dough in 4ths, then weighing each portion of dough, and adjusting the amount of dough until it is even.  This is a good idea because all the loaves should bake evenly, preventing lots of opening and closing of the oven to check, and reducing the possibility of some over-cooked and some under-cooked loaves. 
• Using your hands, gently shape the dough into an elongated-oval shape, tucking in the edges underneath.  Place each section of dough into a bread pan, or on a baking sheet.  If using baking sheets, you should be able to fit 2 or 3 on the sheet without concern that they will rise and stick into one another.
• Set the bread in a warm-ish non-drafty location, and allow it to rise until doubled in size (probably around another hour).  I typically just place it on the stove, and preheat the oven about 1/2-way through.  This speeds up the rising process a little.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Place all bread in the oven, and bake for about 25-35 minutes, until internal temperature is between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit.  Use a meat thermometer to check loaves at around 25 minutes.  If you do not have a meat thermometer, go get one.  It is essential for making safe decisions about cooking meat, and takes all the guessing out of bread baking.  Other methods, including "thumping" a loaf to check for a hollow sound or "baking until golden brown" still require you to use your own judgement.  Once you've baked for a while, this might be fine, but it's no fun if it is your first time.
• When loaves are at the correct internal temperature, remove to cooling racks.  If you used a baking sheet, slide the bread off the sheet and onto the racks.  If you used bread pans, place the bread pan on the cooling racks and wait 10-20 minutes until the bread cools a bit.  This reduces the likelihood of tearing the loaf apart when removing it from the pan.  Then, use a knife to gently separate the bread from the sides of the pan, lift out the loaf and place it directly on the cooling rack.
• Try hard not to eat it all right away!  Actually, as soon as it cools enough to handle, I strongly recommend slicing open a loaf, slathering a thick slice with butter, and trying not to moan out loud when you eat it.  
• For storage, wait until the loaves have cooled completely (several hours) before putting in plastic bags.  If you put them away warm, the moisture released as the cool will be trapped in the bags, and the loaves will become soggy.  Store on the counter for a day or two, in the refrigerator for a week or so, or in the freezer for a couple of months.  Ideally, you will eat it within a month, if frozen.
• To thaw and use, remove from freezer and place in refrigerator overnight.  Warm in a toaster or toaster oven, and it's almost-but-not-quite the same as straight from the oven.
• Use for sandwiches (slice thickly), breakfasts (with local butter and homemade jams or honey), or with soups for heartier meals.

Repeat.