The daring cooks: september challenge stock-soup consomme

This time, Peta from Australia (a non-blog member of the daring kitchen) challenged us to make a stock and turn it in a soup or consomme. And a bread to accompany the soup,
I'm used to make my own stocks (see earlier posts), but she gave us a lot of background information to go on with it. How you can make a clean consomme and the different types of stock.
So indeed I learned a lot of it, and that's what I think a big plus for the membership of the daring kitchen.
If you want to read her recipes and background information, you can go to the homepage of the daring kitchen: www.thedaringkitchen.com.

To stay in season I've made a tomatosoup. And a pesto bread. Most of the vegetables came from my own garden, as well as the herbs that went into the soup and the pesto.

And I tried a no knead bread. This was the first time that I made it and my conclusion: it's a bit more of a mess, because the dough becomes sticky to everything in it's neighbourhood (a big lesson for the next time), but it was very smooth and soft. Not a dry bread after it was baken, but really, really nice.
Definitely something I'm going to make a lot more.
The recipe of the bread came from the www.theitaliandishblog.com






Ingredients:
Stock:
- 2 kg (4.5 lb) meaty beef;
- 5 liters (5 quarts of water, cold);
- 500 gram (1lb) mirepoix - 2 medium onioins, 2 medium carrots, 2 large celery ribs;
- bouquet garni: 2 leaves of leek, 5 sprigs of thyme, 3 sprigs of parsley, 2 bay leaves. 2 celery ribs;
- oil or butter

Soup:
- 1 portion of stock (above);
- 1 kg (2 lb) tomatoes, washed and sliced;
- 1 liter passata sauce;
- 3 tablespoons sweet soja sauce;
- 3 tablespoons sugar;
- 500 grams (1 lb) minced meat;
- 1 onion, sliced very thin;
- 10 sage leaves, sliced very thin;
- 150 grams sliced bacon;
- 10 yellow cherry tomatoes, basil for garnish;
- oil or butter

Bread:
- 3 cups lukewarm water;
- 1.5 tablespoons yeast;
- 1.5 tablespoons salt;
- 6.5 cups (800 grams) all purpose flour.

Pesto:
- 2 tablespoons pine nuts;
- 80 grams basil;
- 50 grams parmesan cheese;
- 2 garlic cloves;
- 6 tablespoons olive oil.

Preparation


Stock:
Cook your beef until brown. Sweat the vegetables in the oil or butter until soft. Put the ingredients in a stockpot and cover with cold water.
Cover with a lid then bring to a boil on medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer uncoverd, skimming foam from the surface, for 4 to 8 hours. Strain stock through a muslin-lined sieve. Discard solids.

Tomato soup:
 Put olive oil in the pan and bake on medium high, the onions and sage leaves for about 10 minutes, while stirring. Add the tomatoes and put a lid on it for about 3 minutes. Add the stock, and simmer for about 20 minutes. Blend the tomatoes and pour through a fine sieve. Add the passata sauce, soja sauce and sugar. In a second pan heat water. Roll small balls from the minced meat and cook for about 15 minutes. Add to the soup. Put the slices of bacon in a frying pan and give it a slightly brown color. Put the bacon in the soup. Season with salt and pepper. Serve in a bowl, while garnished with the yellow cherry tomatoes and basil.

Pesto:

While using the food proccesor or blender mix the basil, cheese, cloves and pine nuts to a smooth green paste. Drip in the olive oil untill it's a smooth paste. 

When you've got some pesto you didn't use you can freeze them in a muffin plate for later use.

Bread:

Add yeast and salt to the water in a 5 quart (1.5 liter) container with a lid. Mix in the flour Add al the flour at once. Mix with a wooden spoon - do not knead. You're finished when everything is uniformly moist without dry patches. 

Allow to rise for about 2 hours. If you put the dough in the refrigerator afterward, the stickyness tends to be less. You can refrigerate overnight.

Shape your loaf. Lay the dough on parchment paper and make a rectangle of it. Spread out the pesto on top. Roll the bread and lay the parchment paper around it. Let it rise for another 30 minutes. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 450 degrees (230 degrees Celsius). Bake the bread for 35 minutes on a pizza stone (if you have one).