Cathy's Artisan Bread

I made this last night and it was SO delicious.

Ingredients

3 C warm water
1 1/2 T yeast
1 1/2 T coarse salt
6 1/2 C flour (I used half white, half freshly ground white wheat)
Cornmeal

Dissolve yeast in warm water in a mixer bowl. Add half of your flour and salt (to protect your yeast from direct contact with the salt) and mix. (I used my kitchen aid with a dough hook.) Add remaining flour. The dough will be VERY sticky.

Grease a large plastic bowl and transfer dough. Cover bowl with a lid or tight Saran wrap that's been sprayed with cooking spray. Let sit for 2 hours at room temperature.

Flour your hands and the counter top with a half cup of flour. Grab a grapefruit size hunk of dough from the bowl. Drop it on the counter and nonchalantly form it into a loaf. (Whatever you do, don't knead it. Because this is supposed to be a no-knead recipe. The consequences might be disastrous.) Cover the loaf with Saran wrap. Cover remaining dough and put in the fridge to be used at a later date. (Keep in the fridge for up to a week, Cath says after that the sourdough flavor is too strong.)

Preheat oven and a baking stone to 400 degrees. Allow oven to heat for a full 20 minutes while dough is doing it's final rise on a pizza slip sprinkled with cornmeal. Slip dough off pizza slip onto baking stone. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

Spread slices of bread with butter and have your neighbors over for a slice . . . or two.

To make loaves from remaining dough, just double your rise time. Take your grapefruit sized hunk, let it return to room temperature and give it two rises, with the final rise on the pizza slip. Don't forget to get the oven and baking stone good and hot!