She loves her chickens, garden and travel. But cooking is Olathe teacher’s big passion

Debra Hannah is an instructional coach in the Olathe school district, and when not teaching, her days are filled with preparing delicious, beautiful food, caring for her chickens, gardening and enjoying time with her family. Debra and her husband, attorney Mark Hannah, live in Olathe.

They have three adult children, five granddaughters and are excited to soon welcome their first grandson. Debra and Mark both enjoy fly fishing and the last few years they have traveled to Montana and the Cook Islands in the South Pacific Ocean to fish.

Q: How did you learn to cook?

A: She (my mom) was an intrepid cook who encouraged my sisters and me to cook. My mother-in-law, sisters and sisters-in-laws are all great cooks, so I am surrounded by a family of great cooks. I also learned many cooking skills by watching YouTube videos. Now, I read cooking blogs such as Smitten Kitchen and Sally’s Baking Addiction, two of my favorite blogs.

Q: What do you enjoy cooking?

A: I enjoy cooking all kinds of food, but really love baking breads and other foods from scratch. In addition to bread, I bake granny’s rolls, cinnamon rolls, doughnuts, English muffins and cookies. I recently made graham crackers and snack crackers like Goldfish and Cheez-Its.

I believe pies are my favorite thing to bake, and I always make a lattice or intricately adorned pie crust. When baking I am careful to make the pies, or any food I cook, look beautiful.

I love to garden, then enjoy canning or making jams and jellies. It is fun to own chickens and I now have 13. The farm-fresh eggs are great to use for all kinds of cooking. When baking Danish pastry or pies, I make an egg wash with a beaten egg to brush over the crust. The egg wash makes the crust bake up glossy and beautiful.

I find it relaxing to come home and cook dinners or bake. I had our kitchen adapted to support my love of cooking, with built-in drawers to hold flour and sugar. My uncle made a special board that I use when cutting bread.

I love cooking so much, I occasionally teach cooking classes, especially for my family and friends.

Q: What recipe are you sharing?

A: The recipe is for Easy French Bread, which is a family favorite. I must have made this recipe hundreds of times. My friends expect it when they come for dinner.

This recipe is very forgiving and can withstand lots of variables. For example, when you first make the dough, it is supposed to rest for 20 minutes, but it still works well if you shorten the time to 15 minutes or extend the time to almost an hour.

After shaping the dough into the loaves, you can cover them with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to eight hours. If you refrigerate the loaves, just let them stand at room temperature for about 30 to 60 minutes before baking.

Easy French Bread

Makes 2 loaves

Cornmeal

2½ cups warm water, see tip

1 teaspoon sugar

2 envelopes active dry yeast

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

7 to 7 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Butter, softened

Sprinkle a cookie sheet with cornmeal and set aside.

Pour the warm water into the mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Add the sugar and yeast to the warm water and whisk briskly until dissolved. Set aside and allow it to stand for 5 minutes or until the mixture foams. Stir in the salt and oil.

Attach the dough hook to the mixer and add 3 cups of flour. Mix until smooth. Add the remaining flour gradually, mixing with the dough hook on low speed, until the dough comes together into a smooth ball.

Turn the dough out onto the counter and bring it together into a tidy ball, kneading by hand a bit, if necessary, to make sure it is no longer sticky. Cover with a damp towel and let it rest for 20 minutes on your counter.

Punch dough down and divide dough into two equal parts. Roll out each half into a rectangle and roll up into a “loaf” starting with a short side. Use your hands to even out each loaf, making sure that it is symmetrical. Place each loaf on the cookie sheet sprinkled with cornmeal. Pull the ends of each loaf down to cover the spiral on the end. Using a sharp knife, cut diagonal slits across the top of each loaf.

Let it rise again until doubled in size. This may be as short as 45 minutes or up to 1½ hours depending on the temperature of your kitchen.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 30 minutes or until browned and done. Remove from oven and coat each loaf with softened butter.

Tip: When making a yeast dough, the water should be warm, similar to what you might think of when warming milk for a baby bottle, about 100 to 115 degrees.

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Roxanne Wyss and Kathy Moore are cookbook authors and food consultants that make up The Electrified Cooks. They have published over fourteen cookbooks and thousands of recipes. They are members of Les Dames d’Escoffier and blog at pluggedintocooking.com .