Bread with Chiles and Cheddar

I tried another no-knead bread recipe from Nancy Baggett's book, Kneadlessly Simple and it was easy peasy. The only thing I changed was the amount of chiles I added to the bread. I cut them in half because I already had made a spicy bean soup and I thought that it might be a little too much. Oh, and I also was using canned serranos because I haven't seen any cans labeled "green chile" like I can find in the USA. I was worried about the amount of cheddar in the bread. Three cups/8 ounces of cheese is a lot of cheese for one loaf of bread. I had visions of the bread not rising and just being a gooey lump but it rose beautifully. In fact it makes a large 9x5 loaf of bread.  

The texture of the bread is very nice, good crust, and the cheddar taste comes through. It was good with the bean soup and I made a ham sandwich with it today.....delicious.

The no-knead breads take some advance planning because of the slow rise so you need to start them about 20-24 hours before you want to eat them but they are so easy. Basically, it takes about 5 minutes to mix them up in a bowl, cover and start the rise (in the same bowl.) Most of Baggett's recipes call for a refrigerator rise and then you take it out and let it rise at room temperature for 12-20 hours depending on the recipe. Then you dump it in the pan, usually another rise and into the oven. One bowl, one pan and no clouds of flour scattered across the counter. And when you serve it to friends, they think you are a great baker.

How great is that!