I’ve been waiting for a rainy day to tell you about this bread, and though today fits the quintessential dreary, wet spring day, I am a bit ashamed I’ve waited so long to share. I’m sure you all are familiar with the concept of no-knead bread, the kind that prefers to let bread get its crackly crust and incredible flavor from the tiniest smidge of yeast and a long, slow fermenting rise. I hail Jim Lahey as the king of this wondrous feat, I mean, us moms over here don’t have spare time to intensely knead bread for our dinner everyday. This concept is a game changer. It’s been insanely popular on the blogosphere for the last 7+ years, but today I would like to present my riff on the classic: a no-knead loaf filled with caramelized onion goodness and gooey pockets of goat cheese — I’m clearly not subtle when it comes to the things I like, cough, caramelized onions and goat cheese, cough.

Regardless of how un-hands-on no-knead bread might be, it still does take some foresight to plan out. When I mentioned above that a no-knead loaf needs a long, slow rise, I’m talking 24-hours. Lahey’s recipe calls for an 18-hour rise, so for those thinking I’m trying to kill you with an extra 6-hours, well, I’ve got your back. 18-hours is an odd length to time-out. When to start making the bread, and then letting it slowly rise, making sure you factor in enough time for the quick second 15-minute rise as well as bake time so that everything can be prepared and ready to eat when your husband steps through the front door ready to get his chow on. (Just to be realistic here, men should give you extra brownie points your house now smells like an angelic bread revival when he steps inside regardless of how “on time” or not your bread might be. But I digress.) 18-hours, whether you work out of the home or in the home can be challenging to time perfectly so I stretched it out, after all, isn’t the long rise where this bread grabs hold of its shekinah glory?

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This is one of those dishes that gets me super excited and begs me to tell you: make this now! Do not wait for this horrid rain to stop, do not wait for the end of your work day, do not wait for your vegetarian conscious to pipe up and remind you, you don’t eat meat. But I fear if I display this much fervor over a chicken dinner you will take my word less seriously, especially the next time another extraordinary recipe comes across these pages. So suffice it to say this frighteningly excellent recipe is what every chicken dish could be, or more correctly should be and is the perfect alternative to a disappointing spring market still lacking everything but the last withering remnants of winter’s offerings: root vegetables.

But if you will humor me for a moment and let me be far more dramatic than I am in everyday life, I would like to take this time to talk about how this, this southern deconstructed pot-pie like dish, can change your entire perspective on chicken. You see, this month I realized I only had nine recipes archived under poultry. Nine! And I don’t think I could pass off the impersonation of being vegetarian (ha ha ho ho, yeah right) even when there is an overwhelming dominance of vegetarian options (fifty-four!) categorized for you non-meat lovers. Now most of you following us into our fourth year here at the red spoon will know that I’ve griped and complained over chicken exactly nine times. Each time my opinion shifts as I recognize not all chicken has to be boring or mundane. Each time it gets better. Far better. But I think chicken and dumplings has irrevocably changed my views on chicken being dinner more than nine times in four years. In fact, it could be a weekly routine.

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I’m over here, day five in this horrible business of being sick. I don’t think anyone quite prepared me fully on how awful a thing it is to be quarantined away from your loved ones — especially the freshly trimmed blondie you spent almost a week away from — or the even more pitiful qualm of needing to be quarantined but cannot be because, well, you’re mom and how else is the laundry going to be folded, runny noses wiped or your little house going to continue chugging along in a somewhat peaceful manner.

Thankfully we’re slowly on the mend and hopefully I won’t be down for much longer. But while I am here, lazily in bed trying to ration out my last few aloe-veraed ultra soft puffs and sip my quickly depleting mug of hot tea I thought I would take a moment to tell you about some really great soup. I think tomato soup is something everyone should have in their arsenal of go-to recipes, which is odd because only recently, err when I made it from scratch, did I ever begin to question the sincerity of my former favorite: condensed tomato soup. Yes, I was a lover of the canned tomato soup — the kind that required two things: water and a bowl. It’s what I grew up on, it’s what I was familiar with and when nostalgia and the only frame of reference to base tomato soup upon is what you like and prefer, well, there’s a phrase: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. To me, it was unbroken. It was what I liked. And though my husband violently opposed such beloved affection I was set out to make him love it.

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I don’t think there will ever be a day when I declare this site biscuit complete. You see, I find myself in somewhat of a predicament every time I make them. My shoulder angel — yes, I’ve got one — tells me you all think like me, you can never have too many biscuit recipes. In fact, there is so much you can do with them it’s practically impossible to find one and declare your search over for the rest of your biscuit eating life. Or my shoulder devil who says people don’t eat biscuits any more. This is a somewhat carb-concious society.* We don’t like filling ourselves with things that we will have to later spend an extra 15 minutes on the treadmill over. Seriously, biscuits are so 1952.

Yeah, this she-devil is weird.

Not only does my shoulder angel always speak sound logic, I also happen to be a bread (okay, carb) fanatic.  I will gladly eat buttermilk honey biscuits, biscuits with salami and scallions, absurdly flaky buttermilk biscuits and creme fraiche biscuits. I could never pass them up. I think everyone should have these tucked away in their recipe box, because I know you too appreciate the nuances between a buttermilk biscuit and a cream biscuit. Us buttery, flaky bread people, we just get it. We get that you can’t have just one biscuit recipe to carry you through chili and a braise and holiday dinners. Each one has a specific time and a specific place.

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It’s been a dreary, sopping, windy mess here on the outskirts of Washington D.C. as we snuggle ourselves indoors with mugs of hot chocolate and re-runs of Grey’s Anatomy Sesame Street. This Sandy Frankenstorm has been quite the ordeal. Unlike so many lining the East coast we were fortunate enough to escape the severe damage the storm brought. Our hearts go out to those of you less fortunate, and pray you and your love ones are safe and sound, tucked some place warm and dry.

In these past three weeks, before I was worrying about cramming myself through over populated grocery aisles or perhaps missing the first practiced steps, I was a working woman. I was pulling 45 hour work weeks (my pitiful excuse for being absent lately) that rung me dry of any desire to cook a hearty wholesome meal that this beautiful autumn so begs. It’s about time I get down to it I guess, after all the sun has peeked out today, shaming my knee high wool socks and flannel pajamas into more normal adult attire.

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