Yeast

Crusty on the outside, chewy on the inside -- rustic breads are gaining favor among '90s cooks who yearn for a return to the natural goodness of unprocessed foods.Rustic breads are full-flavored, with a dense, intriguing texture studded with grains, nuts and savory little items such as olives, sun-dried tomatoes and herbs.Made with a fermented starter, or sponge, rustic breads signal a return to the old-fashioned way of making bread, before yeast came in little packets."For convenience and efficiency, yeast is great for bread, but flavor gets sacrificed," says Beth Hensperger, author of "Baking Bread, Old and New Traditions" (Crown, $18.95)

Good bread is our bottom line. Our kitchen can run short of fresh vegetables and fruit, or pasta and meat. That's OK. But when we're out of bread, something must be done, and out comes the bread bowl.Bread is the ultimate fast food. Slice it, toast it or simply tear off a chunk and eat it. Granted, baking good bread is hardly a quick activity, and the best bread takes patience. But if you add up the total number of minutes actively spent making bread (as opposed to the time spent doing other things while it rises and bakes)

Late this summer, one of the top food books on Amazon.com dangled an enticing promise: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The book's popularity is testament to how people love fresh bread but loathe the idea of losing a day to bake it. Bread intimidates. The time commitment is a huge part of that, but people also fear the mess or think they'll need an expensive mixer or an advanced yeast degree. And yet, they're drawn to it because, ironically, home-baked bread represents, like almost nothing else, the essence of simple living.

Happy New Year.This very first day of 1997 will most surely begin with sincere and inevitable New Year resolutions. One easy resolution for this day is to try a new recipe or two. Here are a couple worth trying.A quick hot yeast roll that "had a marvelous texture and was made with Quaker Instant Grits" was the request of Deanna Lanham Kaminski of Owensboro, Ky. She wrote that she had gotten the recipe 20 to 25 years from a cooking school held in a high school but lost it."I called the Quaker Oats people and the extension office here but no one had any knowledge of it. Hope you can help," she said.

If you're tired of the usual, you may want to try this soup and cake for a change.Melinda L. Day of Owensboro, Ky., wrote that she very much wanted a recipe for a mushroom and wild-rice soup similar to the one she had last year in Chicago at the Moonraker, "a small, quaint restaurant, and it was absolutely great."Her response came from Linda E. Loney of Walla Walla, Wash., who found her recipe in the Spokesman Review of Spokane, Wash., which called for shiitake mushrooms. "We have found it equally delectable when made with the plain fresh white mushrooms from the grocery store," she wrote.

In yesterday's A La Carte section, an incorrect amount of yeast was listed for the cheese bread recipe. The correct amount of yeast required is one cake or one package ( 1/4 -ounce) of dry yeast.You won't have to eat these breads to enjoy them, just the aroma of their baking will be fulfilling.Jane Stricklen, of Baltimore, requested cheese bread. "I still salivate when I think of a shrimp salad sandwich on toasted cheese bread once served at the Hutzler's Tea Room. I believe Hutzler's made this bread and I wonder if it is out there anywhere."

Cooking a homemade pizza on the barbecue grill seemed like a natural. After all there are few forms of animal, mineral or vegetable matter that I have not, at one time or another, attempted to slap on a grill.Moreover, the end product of this endeavor was going to be pizza, one of the few items that the kids and I agree is edible by all age groups.So I did it. I made the dough and cooked two pizzas.I would not, however, describe the process as natural. There were flours in the air, whole wheat and unbleached.

I am going to tell you how to make crusty Italian bread today because many readers asked for the recipe after I mentioned it in Friday's column and because the therapeutic benefits of pounding dough on a day like this cannot be overstated. Bake bread when there's snow on the ground. You'll feel better. Trust me. You need 7 cups of flour and 4 packets of dry active yeast. I know: That's trouble right away. You have neither flour nor yeast. (Or the yeast in your cupboard dates to the first Reagan administration.

A whiff of pizza baking in the oven promises good food and good times. One of the best things about making your own pizza is the freedom to create break-out-of-the-box combinations that redefine good pizza. A case in point is something you'll probably not find at the supermarket or local pizzeria: a vibrant vegetarian spinoff of Chicago-style pizza.Wilted escarole adds color and flavor to a meatless pizza topping that's as visually appealing as it is good-tasting, while cornmeal gives the crust extra crunch.

NOW THAT THE Baltimore Ravens have answered some of life's big questions, namely, what is the best defense in the history of professional football and how many words can be paired with Maximus, small questions persist. Questions like what can you fix for supper. My answer is homemade pizza. Lately that's what I have been tossing on the table to quiet the hungry horde. There are three things you have to have to make this version of homemade pizza. First, you need a food processor with a steel blade to mix the dough.