Avigayil Damm

Today my hubby was struck by the ‘cooking’ lightning, and decided to bake bread. I, on the other hand, was due to cook chicken meatballs in tomato sauce, according to the one week menu.

First, the bread. My hubby found a basic white bread recipe which he followed. It’s the basic all purpose flour, yeast, milk and butter. This recipe also called for three teaspoons of honey. The dough is kneaded for a while, left to stand and raise for 45 minutes, kneaded again, divided into two baking forms, and left to raise again for another hour. My hubby read somewhere that instead of egg yolks, you can also use cold coffee (as in the drink, not the ground beans) to brush the surface of the bread to give it a nice colour. That’s exactly what he did, before he sprinkled some poppy seeds on the top. Right after it has cooled a bit, we dug right in, and were very happy with the result. Of course, nothing really beats the taste of freshly made bread.

As for me, I started my cooking process a few minutes after the bread was finished – or shall I say, after I have finished tasting a piece of the newly baked bread. The chicken meatballs (yes meatballs again, and yes I can see the ‘chicken’ tag grow bigger and bigger in the cloud) also contains fresh chopped thyme as well as breadcrumbs. The meatballs are fried first until golden brown, and then set aside. The sauce is made of chopped onions, stir fried in butter until soft, combined with crushed tomatoes, chicken stock, some balsamic vinegar and Italian seasoning mix. I added some tomato sauce which gives a little sweet taste to balance out the sour taste from the tomato and balsamic vinegar. After the sauce has thickened slightly, the meatballs are returned to the pot and left to simmer for some minutes. I served it with spaghetti (second favourite carbohydrate source) and sprinkles of parmesan cheese. The result left my sole customer happy – and customer satisfaction is the most important thing in my line of business!