A Variation of Shiao-Ping's Goji Bread..
Let me just say that the crumb of my version of Goji bread has NO resemblance to Shiao-Ping's beautiful loaf. The crumb is awful, but the taste and aroma just has to match hers, because it's heavenly.
I strayed abit from her version by using grated, squeezed dry (as I could) zucchini. Like a lot of other folks, I have a surplus of that much maligned veggie. I grated up a bunch for Zucchini Spice bread and had some left over, imagine that!
Mixing turned out to be like rubbing the outside of the dough with the squash and berries. I just couldn't get them to incorporate, as you can see by the white streaks of dough. It felt like I was trying to work it into a glob of mozzarella cheese. I'm sure my subbing the zucchini was to blame.
Persevere, I did. The flavor is just incredible. It is slightly sweet, but in a different way. Not like molasses or sugar. You also get the bite of the pepper and nutmeg on your palate. This is a wonderful bread and I will try again, with spinach!
Thank you Shiao-Ping,
Betty
From your description I wish I had a slice right now. With 4 squash plants in the garden it's good to think about putting them in bread. Would you handle them differently if you were to do it again? Any tips about incorporating them?
:-Paul
Hey Paul,
The dough was very dry, but I was hesitant to add any water knowing that the Goji berries had been soaked in water and zucchini is watery by nature. If I was to make this again, I think I would not soak the berries and perhaps try sauteing the squash to draw more moisture out after squeezing. Of course flavor wise, I'm sure the spinach is much tastier.
I think squash is much more adaptable to quick breads and cakes. I did make a mock apple pie once and it was really good, believe it or not! I'm waiting for the peppers, tomatoes and eggplants to make up batches of rataouille for the freezer.
Betty
It is hard to imagine mock apple pie based on zucchini. I'd try it though. Once someone gave me a great recipe for an avocado pie, it didn't need to cook and there were only 3 ingredients to the filling as I recall, avocadoes, lemon juice, evaoprated milk... I think that's about it. But it was YUMMY. I just noticed my first 2 eggplants in the garden today. There are lots of green tomatoes, no shades of red yet. I'm squirting saliva all over the place thinking about tomato sandwiches. Maybe that was too much information. Thanks for the zucchini tips. I just now wanted to encrust the outside of some bread with onion so it would be crisp charred onion on the outside. I rolled the shaped loaves in finely chopped onion. I don't know what's going to happen when I take them out of the couche. I lined it with plasti-crap (as David calls it). Even if they didn't stick to the couche I didn't want the onion flavour to permeate. Cooking sure is fun. So is eating!
:-Paul
Here, give it a try, bet you like it! This isn't the exact recipe I used, but very close.
We call tomato sandwiches "sink sandwiches" back home..have to eat them over the sink. Yeah, I can identify with your salivary problem! We had our first golden mini tomato today,...mmm really tasty. Which means, very shortly I am going to be inundated with tons of veggies!! Anyway..if you try the pie, tell me how it came out.
Betty
http://www.americanprofile.com/article/2425.html
PS..Let me know how your onions turned out. I find that just plain raw onions come out burnt, not charred. I like them much better tossed with just a tiny bit of oil.