All You Knead is Loaf

I’ve got two problems that I hope this post is helping me to remedy. My first problem is a personal matter of metabolism. I seem to completely lack one. You might even say, if you’re polite, that I am quite “susceptible to bulking up.” And, as you might be able to guess from the simple hint that I write a food blog, I don’t exactly hate food.

The other problem is one that would seem to enhance the effects of the first. I have a collection of recipes, variations, and ideas of such a size that I could never try them all in one lifetime and still hope to weigh under 3000 pounds. And I keep finding more recipes and ideas, especially on the internet. I file away my internet treasures in an MS Word file, and when the file reaches 20 pages, I create a new one. I just filled up the file titled “Internet Recipes XI.” (That’s right, Spinal Tap fans. It goes to eleven!)

It’s time to start trying some of these recipes, but also to start burning some of these calories. I exercise just about every day, but I also cook every day, so I thought I should find a way to bring some exercise into the kitchen. I feel like a dork doing knee bends or lunges in front of the stove or the mixer, even though I’m usually by myself. There was, however, one more dignified thing I could do. I could start kneading bread by hand instead of using my heavy-duty stand mixer. I’ve fought against this for years, offering a plethora of weak and whiny excuses, but it was time to toughen up. If my 88 year old grandmother can knead bread by hand, then so can I. Besides, there just might be a delicious baguette studded with dark chocolate and orange peel as my reward at the end of it all.


And so, I’ve been kneading most of our loaves by hand over the last couple weeks. (If I have Popeye-like forearms next time you see me, you’ll know why.) If I’d been hoping to gain a spiritual connection to our daily bread with this up-to-the-elbows, sensual approach, I would have been sorely disappointed. I have, however, come to appreciate just when a dough crosses over from a mixture of flour and liquid to a smooth, glutinous proto-loaf. It at least feels interesting enough to distract me from the daydreams and little songs that go through my head to pass the tiresome time while kneading.

I got the idea for this chocolate and orange bread from an old post in the archives of the blog Chocolate and Zucchini. The blog’s author didn’t post a recipe for the bread, because she had bought it, not made it, but I thought, “I can make a baguette, chop chocolate, and peel an orange. I can make this bread.”

I did, and we loved it. I used a 60% cacao chocolate that I broke into shards, so there were pieces of chocolate to bite into. I used a vegetable peeler to peel the orange part of the skin from an orange, redolent with essential oils, while leaving the spongy pith behind. I cut it into smaller pieces and kneaded it into the dough with the chocolate. The whole loaf was fragrant with citrus. The slightly bitter bits of zest were a very pleasant compliment to the decadent bitter-sweet chocolate.

This bread also made a fabulous French toast, with a little more finely-grated orange zest added to the custardy soaking mixture. In fact, I waited to write this post until I could test the French toast. I’m going to be making it again, just to make the French toast! And perhaps the calories I burn kneading the dough by hand will make up for the butter and maple syrup.

Chocolate Orange Bread Recipe
You could brush the bread with an egg wash (an egg beaten with milk or water) just before baking, if desired.

1 recipe baguette dough, just kneaded (through step 3)

3.5-4 ounces good bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (I used 60% cacao)

zest from 1 medium orange, peeled off in wide strips with a vegetable peeler (avoid the white pith) and cut into pieces

1. Allow the dough to relax about 5 minutes. Stretch or roll the dough into a rough rectangle. Spread the chocolate and orange zest onto the dough. Roll the dough up over the chocolate and orange zest. Knead the dough to distribute the chocolate and orange zest evenly.

2. Form the dough into a ball and place it in a large bowl greased or coated with cooking spray. Grease or spray the top of the dough and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Cover with a towel and let stand about 1 hour, or until it has approximately doubled in size.

3. Gently deflate the dough and form into a ball. Let the dough relax 5 minutes. Form the dough into a long loaf and place on a baking sheet. Cut several gashes into the top of the loaf. Cover with a cloth and let rise 45 minutes to 1 hour or until doubled in size and puffy. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450 F.

4. Bake at 450 F for 20 minutes. Remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack. Slice and eat. This bread also makes a fantastic French toast. You can also wrap up and freeze any (unlikely) bread leftovers.

In Case It's Good

Weeknights have been getting a bit hectic around here, so many of our dinners have to be either planned and prepared in advance, or are of the grab-and-go variety. We don’t eat at restaurants or do take-out (really, it would be silly to, since there’s so much food in the apartment), so sometimes I have to get a little creative with what’s on hand. Usually what is on hand is pretty decent stuff, I must say. The refrigerator is full of veggies from our CSA and the freezer is stocked with squash puree, pesto and corn, leaving no room for frozen pizzas or Hot Pockets.

This week, I was lucky enough to have some pesto that I had just made (from the remnants of the basil jungle that I rescued from the frost and have been keeping alive in a spare bedroom), cooked white beans that I had frozen, and some homemade whole wheat wide noodles (made with this recipe) that I was terrified I would forget about until I found them desiccated and crumbled in a lonely corner of the freezer six months from now. Just the pasta with pesto would have been great for me, but I decided to plump it up with the beans. I flavored the beans with garlic and olive oil, plus some homemade vegetable broth, waiting in the wings for its supporting role. (Okay, so it was waiting in the refrigerator to be eaten.)

As I was cooking, I decided to snap a few photographs and pay a bit of attention to what I was doing, “Just in case it’s good.” I had a feeling that it was going to be pretty tasty, but if it wasn’t all that interesting, I could simply delete the photos and get on with my life. As it turns out, this was pretty good, and a darn good solution to the quick week-night meal mystery. A few kalamata olives and a sprinkling of Parmiggiano-Reggiano, and suddenly, it’s sophisticated. The whole thing took me about 20 minutes to make, maybe even less, so if you’re going to have garlic bread or a salad on the side, you better hustle to get them done at the same time.

The measurements and methods in the recipe below are approximations, since I didn’t start out to develop a recipe. You could certainly use canned beans, store-bought pesto and boxed pasta, or use whatever broth you have on hand for the liquid, or even dry white wine, water, or pasta cooking water. I say keep it simple and easy, but keep track of what you did….you know, in case it’s good.


Pasta with White Beans and Pesto

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 ½ cups cooked or canned white beans (about 1 16-ounce can), rinsed and drained
¾ cup vegetable broth
pinch of salt (to taste, depending on how salty the broth and beans are)
½ cup pesto
¼ cup kalamata olives, pitted and finely chopped
½ pound wide whole wheat pasta, or whatever pasta you like, cooked
Parmiggiano-Reggiano cheese

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic slices and cook, stirring often until the garlic is just beginning to brown.

2. Add the beans and broth, plus a pinch of salt if desired. Cook 5-8 minutes until the liquid has reduced by about half and has thickened. Add the pesto and olives and stir well.

3. Add the cooked pasta and toss well to coat. Cook long enough to heat everything through. If the sauce is too thick, thin it out with more broth or with the pasta cooking water. Sprinkle each serving with grated Parmiggiano-Reggiano if desired.

Makes about 4 servings.

Squash that Squash

The squash is still piling up and the special Winter Share deliveries offered by our CSA begin on Friday. That will consist of a big box full of a two-week supply of winter storage vegetables, which is likely to include, you guessed it, more winter squash.The little ones are great for stuffing, and I intend to make Quinoa Stuffed Squash for dinner tonight. The big squash, however, like the kabocha, the huge butternut, and the nice sugar pumpkin we got just in time for Halloween are more than we can handle in one round of dinner for two. And so the day has come to repackage the winter squash, so to speak: cut it, gut it, roast it, scoop it, puree it, and bag it for storage. In short, it’s time to squash that squash.

A frozen puree of winter squash is a beautiful thing for quick week-night meals and rivals canned pumpkin for convenience in fall baking. You can use just about any of the sweet, orange-fleshed squash when a recipe calls for pumpkin (spaghetti squash is an exception). Some varieties may be a bit fibrous or stringy, however, so you might want to process them more thoroughly, or strain them before using them in place of canned pumpkin. I just made “pumpkin” waffles last weekend (using this recipe from Cooking Light magazine) with some pureed kabocha squash, and they were terrific.

Of course the catch to having this homemade version of a healthy convenience food on hand is that you have to do the work to get it. The hardest part of cooking a winter squash is cutting the darned thing open. I use the low-tech and somewhat brutal rubber-mallet-and-cleaver method. I whack the cleaver (you could use any large knife, but I like the wide blade of the cleaver) into the squash so that it pierces the skin, then pound on the cleaver with the mallet, shifting it as needed until I cut through the whole squash. I suppose this is technically somewhat dangerous and I should tell you to be careful, but the sheer amount of aggression relief may counteract some of the danger. Trust me, there has been more than one day when beating on an innocent squash has probably kept me from doing similar harm to fellow humans.

Once the squash has been cut open, it’s just a matter of scooping out the seeds and their fibers (you can clean and toast them), roasting the flesh and mashing it or pureeing it. I then use the resulting squash puree in a variety of recipes, some of which I hope to post here over the next couple months. You could also simply season the puree with salt, pepper, herbs or warm spices like cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, and serve it as a side dish.

Of course, if this all seems like too much work, you could simply buy a few cans of pumpkin or a box of frozen squash puree and call it a day. For me and my mounting pile of fabulous winter vegetables, however, it’s really not an option. I will, instead, be squashing lots of squash.

Roasted Winter Squash Puree Recipe

Winter squash, such as pumpkin, acorn, butternut, kabocha, carnival, etc, cut in half (or into smaller pieces), seeds and seed fibers removed
Salt and pepper, optional

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Place the squash in a baking dish, roasting pan or on a sheet pan. Sprinkle the inside of the squash with a small pinch of salt and pepper if desired. If the squash can conveniently lie cut-side down in the pan, place it that way. It will keep the edges of the flesh from getting too dried out. (If you roast the squash cut-side up, it will still be just fine, if a little less moist.)


2. Bake the squash at 350 F for 40 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the size of the squash. The squash is fully cooked when it is easily pierced with a fork all the way through. Remove from the oven and cool until very easy to handle.

3. Scoop the tender squash flesh away from the skin and place it in the work bowl of a food processer. Process the squash until pureed to desired consistency. Alternatively, if you prefer a coarser mash to a puree, place the cooked squash in a large bowl and mash it with a potato masher or a fork.

4. Squash puree can be used right away, but to preserve it for later use, cool completely. Cover and refrigerate or place it in a freezable container or freezer bag and freeze until ready to use. Thaw in the refrigerator when needed. It would be best to use refrigerated squash within a week.

Trick or Treat

I don’t get into Halloween
The way that some folks do
With vampires, ghouls and witches
And other beings that “boo.”

I put up decorations:
Jack o’lanterns and such,
Spider webs or black cats,
But really not so much.

I don’t go trick-or-treating
Or playing nasty jokes.
I don’t go around scaring
Law-abiding folks.

I couldn’t say how long it’s been
Since I dressed in costume,
Or danced nude with sister witches
By the ghostly light of the moon.

There’s just one thing that I must have.
It will be my downfall.
There’s just one thing that makes it worth
Having Halloween at all.

There’s nothing else I care about,
Only one thing under the stars
That makes me excited for All Hallow’s Eve:
Fun-size candy bars!