Healthy Recipe: Veggie Bread

Between my Mother in law, my wife and myself, I am amazed this recipe managed to last 4 full days. Using the ideas I was introduced to in Jessica Seinfeld's book Delicious Deception, I decided to make some bread that would allow me to sneak some extra goodness into my daughter's diet. I cracked open The Joy of cooking, and armed with the purees I describe here, I set out to make my own bread.

I tend to modify recipes quite heavily, so even though I am giving credit where it is due, this is all mine. So we'll start with the ingredients:

Ingredients:

For starters, you need 3 cups of all purpose or bread flour (and 3 more a little later)

1 package of yeast dissolved in 14 cup warm (110° F) water

1/3 cup of each of the following purees:

Lima Bean
Spinach
Cauliflower
Broccoli

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon salt

2 slices of onion, chopped

1 ½ cups warm water

Tools:

A stand mixer

Measuring cups (duh)

2 loaf pans

Silicone spatula/scraper

Pour the yeasty water in your mixer first. If you don't have a mixer with a dough hook, first of all, I'm sorry. Stand mixers are worth their substantial weight in platinum. Second, put the ingredients in a large metal bowl if you don't have a mixer.

Add the flour next, then the purees, sugar, salt and onions. I like to give it all a little stir with the mixer (or your hands) real quick to get things blended before the real mixing starts. Next add the water and mix for about a minute. After everything is incorporated, add 3 cups of flour, ½ cup at a time to the mix and let run (or knead) for 10 minutes. If you have made bread before, then after 10 minutes, this will be a horrifying mess. Usually bread dough would be similar to pizza dough right now, stringy, a little dry on the outside, and easy to move around.

Not so in this case; it will be a sticky green glob of vegetarian Hell. Accept this with a stiff upper lip, and spray it with some cooking spray, and cover loosely with plastic. Let it sit in a warm place for an hour; it should double in volume. If your house is cool because its winter, I recommend heating you oven to 450°, let it run for a little bit, then shut it off, open the door, and place your dough on top of the stove. If you have a gas oven, place it near the vent, but not too close; you'll cook the side facing the vent, and that isn't any fun (I know from experience).

When you have about 10 minutes of rising left, turn the oven on to 450° F. If you have a cast iron skillet, fill it halfway with hot water and put it on the lower rack of your oven, this will keep the cooking environment moist.

Once it has risen (no savior jokes, please), get the two loaf pans ready by spraying the insides with cooking spray. Use the scraper to get as much into the pans as possible. Slash the tops with a sharp knife (it cooks nicer) and give the tops a spritz with the cooking spray. Bake for 30 minutes at 450°, then crank it down to 350° and bake another 20 minutes.

Once they are done, stick a toothpick in each loaf, dead center, if it comes out dry (no sticky dough), you are all set. You can also pop them out of the pans and thump the bottoms, if they sound hollow, they are done.

Put the loaves on a cooling rack for a few minutes. Don't be too patient though, I waited a whopping 5 minutes before slicing one open and slathering it with butter. If you want to keep it 100% fat free, skip the butter, the vegetables make the bread amazingly moist, and the onions give it enough of a sweet flavor that it winds up with a general "veggie dip" like flavor where it is impossible to discern any one vegetable from the mix, which is good since it contains 3 of the most unpopular veggies on earth.