OMG No-Knead Bread

This bread is so good, it will momentarily make your father say things like "I won't get dinner rolls" when you are discussing your Thanksgiving meal plans. My scream of "NO!" made my dad snap out of it -- we'll be having this bread with our pre-meal wine and the dinner rolls will be present for the meal, no after-hours call to my therapist necessary.

I have many bread baking failures in my past and I put a moratorium on any further attempts to turn out a decent loaf until I was sitting on the couch in my underwear, the baby sound asleep, wondering what to do with myself. So I looked up Mark Bittman's no-knead bread recipe from his old NYT Minimalist column and gave it a shot.

My first attempt produced a flat, wonky Frisbee loaf. So I checked the recipe and realized that I had mis-measured the water. I tried again and when I pulled that sucker out of the oven, God's light shone down on me and the angels sang and it was good. Really, it tastes super hella good. It even passed my husband's sniff test, which is like the Wonderlic for food.

I heartily entreat you to give this a try.

No-Knead Bread
Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 5/8 cups water

Instructions
1.  Place all ingredients in a bowl and stir to combine. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise for 18-24 hours. It will be ready when the surface is bubbly.
2.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and fold it onto itself a couple times, forming a loose ball. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minutes.
3.  Transfer dough onto a lightly floured sheet of parchment paper, lightly flour the surface and cover with a cotton towel. Let rise for 2 hours.
4. One hour prior to dough being ready, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Put a covered cast-iron or enameled pot in the oven as it heats.
5.  When the dough has finished its final rise, remove the cotton towel and transfer the dough (on the parchment sheet) to the heated pot, cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove lid and bake for another 15 minutes until the bread is a glorious golden brown.
6.  Cool and eat the whole damn thing.