Giant Fruits and Veggies and Freshly Baked Bread
I was in the mood to cook something exciting for dinner tonight, but I couldn’t seem to find any recipes that got me jazzed up, so instead I decided to channel my creative cooking energy into baking some bread. I baked some last week, but it turned out too dry, so I went in search of a different recipe, which I ended up getting from Rebecca.
Before I embarked on the baking, I went to the produce store so I’d have something to cook to go with the bread ((for the record, I made teriyaki stirfry with a bunch of veggies with Beefless Tips from Gardein. So. Yummy.)) At said produce store I came across what seemed to me to be the biggest plums I’ve ever seen:
And then I saw this potato, which is about the size of my head!
Tomorrow I shall turn this into the biggest French fries you’ve ever seen!
I also came across these two strange looking things:
which were labeled only as “Assorted Indian vegetables.” Anyone have any idea what they are?
Also, do not fear, the door in the produce store is never far away:
After my produce store run, it was time to bake some bread!
First up was “foaming” the yeast. This is where you mix together active dry yeast, sugar, and lukewarm water. The yeast will start to eat the sugar, resulting in this bubbly looking fluid:
Once that was sufficiently foamed, I added the rest of the ingredients and then kneaded the dough ((and why I say that “I” kneaded the dough, I mean “I” kneaded the dough by attaching the dough hook to my Kitchen-Aide mixer and let it do the heavy lifting)). The dough had to rise for 1.5 hrs, which gave me enough time to putter around and then go for a run. When I got back from my run, I discovered this:
Apparently when they say that the dough will double in size, that’s your cue to put the dough in a bowl that is double the size! D’oh! ((In truth, I knew the dough would rise about the top of the bowl. I just didn’t think it would be quite this much above the top of the bowl!))
Next up was punching down the dough, splitting it into two and putting it into the loaf pan and allowing it to rise again. Now, I only seem to have one loaf pan ((could have sworn I had two)), so I made one traditional loaf:
And used the rest of the dough to make some buns and some other bread shapes:
And then baked to perfection:
Thanks for the recipe, Rebecca!
I don’t know what the long curly things are, but the round green things are called patty pan. They’re a type of squash. They’re very yummy. Just saute them in olive oil (I sliced mine first).
Patty pan squash grows all over the place and is used in lots of cuisine, not sure why they called it an Indian vegetable. Odd.
Use it any way that you would use a zucchini or other summer squash. I made a nice saute the other day with squash, red bell pepper, corn, garlic and cilantro (season with cumin and salt and pepper). Delicious!
Awesome! It looks great 🙂 I lucked out and found loaf pans – nice heavy ones – for super cheap at the Independent (our Dominion’s chain here).
And those are massive plums!
I think the green things are kohlrabi aren’t they?
Oh! How did the bread turn out? It looked great! I can also give you my very simple bread recipe too.
I just Google “kohlrabi” I’m pretty sure they aren’t.
The bread is delicious! I’d love to try your recipe too – the more, the merrier!
Stacy and Linda have the small one, it’s petit pan/patty pan.
The long ones are bittermelon. Delicious delicious bitter melon. mmm.
the bread looks great. Here’s another bread guide for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgQNx_aRZgk
[…] Food That Really Schmecks 1 I made the same recipe a few weeks ago and tweeted about it, prompting Dr. Beth to ask for the recipe. It’s a good basic bread recipe, and if you can get your hands on a […]