Hamburger Buns

Hey there! My goodness but its been a while since I've been around these parts. I've missed writing and sharing and all that other blogging goodness, but it seems that summer has a way of sweeping you up in its arms and not letting go. What is it about the days of summer? At moments they appear stretched out as long as the eye can see, but then in a blink of that same eye they're gone.

I had such a fun, busy, relaxed yet productive summer that I am bummed not to have shared more of it with you all. Much of the summer has, of course, revolved around food. There have been BBQ's, Fair's where I consumed my yearly quota of fried food, lots of hummus and falafel at this gem, and even a trip to the Reno Rib Fest where I embarrassingly managed to not consume a single rib, but did stuff my face with an embarrassing amount of pulled pork.

Much of my food experience has revolved around summer produce as I have become a bit obsessed with canning over the past few months, and as such, most of my free time has been spent preserving those fleeting fruits and vegetables of summer. It has been an extremely fun and rewarding hobby that has made me appreciate the food that we cook for ourselves even more. If you will indulge me, I hope to share some of that canning joy (and some of the trials and tribulations as well) with you soon.

In the meantime, I'd like to share with you some of my favorite produce of the summer season, and a few of the things I've been making with them, along with a Hamburger Bun recipe that changed all future hamburger experiences for me.
Being a very food oriented person, I tend to associate the changing season with the foods that go along with them. I particularly experience this association with fresh produce. As soon as a fruit or vegetable comes in to season it triggers a changing of the guard for me. I love the way that pumpkins scream fall, that the taste of fresh peas make me feel like it's spring, and that there's nothing else like a ripe heirloom tomato that's picked at the height of the hottest time of year. And those strawberries above, eaten at their peak of ripeness in May, tasted like the promise of summer. With every weekly trip to the Farmer's Market comes a sense of excitement of what newly ripened item may have blossomed in the short time between my last visit. Here's where some of that excitement led me this past summer:

Irish Brown Bread

For the past few years when St. Patrick’s Day comes around, I have tried my hand at cooking the traditional Irish-American meal. Corned beef and cabbage, Colcannon, plenty of Guinness, and of course, Irish Soda Bread. But soda bread and I have had a cantankerous relationship, and I’m beginning to think that it’s not all my fault. I have tried over a dozen different recipes (including four this year), and the same problem always seems to occur. The bread is delicious if eaten soon after it’s cooked, but left to sit for any amount of time and it becomes dense and dry.

Part of the problem is in the name of the bread itself. Soda bread gets its name from the fact that it uses baking soda as a leavener instead of yeast. This makes the bread very simple to prepare, no waiting or kneading is necessary, but if overmixed it can become thick and heavy. Without the yeast there is not as much lift and lightness to the crumb.

After throwing away yet another batch of soda bread, I decided that this year, I needed to go in a slightly different direction. So I went looking for Irish Brown Bread recipes instead. The first brown bread recipe I tried was pretty decent, but after a half day it was already becoming too dry for my liking. Then I stumbled on a recipe that used yogurt instead of the traditional buttermilk as the liquid in the recipe. I knew that this recipe was probably anything but traditional Irish (even though it was in the title of the recipe), but I was desperate to find a bread that I could actually enjoy.
And enjoy I did. The yogurt helped keep this bread nice and moist, yet it is still a thick and hearty bread. And it appears to be passing the day-old test, which means it won’t be seeing garbage can action any time soon.