Sesame/Poppy Seed/Oat Bread

There is something so hopeful about making bread. 

I've made it a few times for this blog:

It's a little bit different every time, even if the ingredients are exactly the same.

 Maybe it's a different time of day.

Maybe it's cooler in the house than it was last time. 

Maybe it's snow-bright instead of cloudy.

 Maybe it was a bad day and pounding the dough into itself is a good outlet for frustration.

In any case, it's something you can do over and over again, and it doesn't exactly fix all your problems or make you see the world in a new light, but...

There is something about having a new loaf ready for the knife that makes me feel better. 

So, without further ado, here's another loaf. 

One day, I will have a kitchen that has massive windows, and I will make all my food in the all-encompassing matrix of ethereal natural light that instagram and Saveur magazine have taught me to expect.

But that day is not this day. Anyway.

Two flours, 3 additives. Sesame seeds, oats, and poppy seeds.

Two sugars: muscavado here,

and molasses here.

Molasses, brown sugar, yeast, and a bit more than a cup of warm water, all go into three cups all-purpose and 1 cup Longspell Point Farms red wheat. 

I add seeds and oats when everything is still shaggy. After a five-minute knead:

Covered and left to rise for an hour or two:

And after 45 minutes in the oven at 350:

I flipped the dough ball directly into the pot, so all the flour on the bottom is now on the top. Pretty neat. I think I'll keep doing that. 

Till next time!

Kabocha Squash Cinnamon Rolls

I did a lot this week. 

I finished a book (while trying to ignore my messy apartment).

I officially switched from working at a winery (and occasionally a food truck) to working at a pasta restaurant. Glamour shots from my ride back from work below.

Last night, I made myself go out after work to shake out some worries and loosen up. I danced so much that my neck, shoulders, knees, and hamstrings all ached this morning. 

So I made cinnamon rolls and used up the last bit of squash in the fridge. 

This has happened before, if any of you remember this post from a while back. There's a definite correlation between how frequently I go dancing and how frequently I make cinnamon rolls. In any case, this time I remembered to take pictures during the actual mixing and rolling process. 

Hello, Pot. 

We start with the squash. In case you aren't familiar with Kabocha, here's a handy guide. I find the sweeter, orange kabocha the absolute best squash to puree because its flesh seems to have very few strings. 

Since we're making cinnamon rolls, I don't care how much butter goes into the greasing of the squash for the roasting. Not that I usually care how much butter I consume. That happens to be a weakness of mine.

Clean up the apartment while the squash is roasting. 

Gorgeously roasted, time to sieve it!

This is what happens when you mash roasted Kabocha through a fine sieve. How cool is that??

Okay. Squash sieved. Now the dough. 

I'm working from this recipe from Joy the Baker, and this one from the Sprouted Kitchen. JTB for the basic roll recipe, and SK for adjusted moisture amounts. 

First up, milk, butter, and sugar: heat on the stove until warm and sugar is dissolved.

Then yeast. 

Is that the milky way? No? Are you sure?

Then flour. (Wait - I need to talk about this flour.) 

I am so excited about this. For months I've been mixing store-bought all-purpose flour with the rougher, grainier soft and hard red wheat flours from Longspell Point Farms. BUT, now I've got my hands on their fine, lovely, red wheat pastry flour. I love buying local. 

Now squash! In!

And a little more flour! Possibly I didn't follow directions to the letter, but I needed a little more than four cups to get my dough to Joy's consistency in her recipe. This could also be due to the flour's lower water-retension capacity.

Find a warm spot... hmmm, this'll do. Now wait an hour. 

After an hour, it didn't really look too risen, but that's okay. I forged ahead anyway and mixed in the rest of the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Onto a surface, and knead, knead, knead!

Smack and roll flat, 

 butter up, 

and sugar that dough.

(1/2 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg)

Now roll!

And slice and place. Nobody slices in perfect rounds, don't worry.

If you want perfectly round rolls, I suggest putting individual slices in the cups of muffin tins. 

There's butter, brown sugar, and honey in the bottoms of these pans, by the way.

A sprinkle of chopped walnuts, and they're ready for some heat.

In the oven at 375F for 20ish minutes. 

Ta-daaaaa! 

Enjoy, folks. Have a piping hot roll, wrap up, go out, visit a vineyard, birdwatch, be merry.

Swiss Chard Bread Pudding

Today, I'm taking advantage of the grocery store. The persistent cold weather, pictured below,

is retarding the ability of local farms to produce the beautiful bunches of greens I've come to expect in April. So, off to the grocery store I go.

This bread pudding is based off of this recipe by Kitchen Vignettes. I'm halving it, roughly. We start with beautiful swiss chard. Red stalks, green leaves.

2 to 3 garlic cloves, an onion, and a handful of chopped parsley make up our base and aromatics.

Fry 'em up!

Once the onions turn translucent, chuck in the chopped chard. Cover and steam...

until wilted, like this:

Meanwhile, make the base. About two cups of whole milk go in with two eggs and about a cup of cheese. Some shameless advertising here: Milk from Foxhill Cheese House in Port Williams.

And eggs from Jordan's Natural Acres.

Cheese (old cheddar, but add grated swiss and parmesan too!) goes in

This is all whisked together with a teaspoon of salt and a half-teaspoon of pepper. Now the bread. Cut up whatever leftover loaves you have to make about three cups of bread cubes. If you want a dense pudding, use dense bread. If you want it lighter, with pockets of filling interspersed throughout, use airy bread. I opted for dense. Below are halves of two rye loaves.

This works fine for gluten-free breads, too. You may end up with a less chunky, smoother bread "puree" after the bread soaks up the milk and eggs, but if you want to avoid that, add the bread to the mix just before putting the pudding in the oven. 

Cut them into cubes, like this:

Now dump the wilted chard/onion mix into the milk and eggs and cheese. Stir.

Throw in the bread cubes and stir until it looks like this! 

If you're working with really stale bread, let this sit for 15 - 30 minutes, adding more liquid as necessary, until the bread cubes are soaked through.

I put this in the oven for an hour at 350, but I think slightly less time at 375 would be good as well. If all else fails, wait till the top is golden-brown before taking it out.