Olive Spelt Bread and Carrot Bread (6 of 42)

Errata: In the last post I offered, with respect to living with an abundance of women, the sentiment of Friedrich Nietzsche—and Conan the Barbarian—that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Since then, I came across a variant in Dr. Mardy's Quotes of the Week -- March 14 - 20, 2010 which to me seems more accurate, and so I offer this correction: "Adversity in immunological doses has its uses; more than that crushes."

So,  with that out of the way, on to this fortnight’s assignment. I first made the Olive Spelt Bread.
Olive, (n) small ovoid fruit of the European olive tree; important food and source of oil. Princeton’s WordNet
Spelt, (n) 1. (Triticum spelta) a hexaploid species of wheat. Spelt was an important staple in parts of Europe from the Bronze Age to medieval times; it now survives as a relict crop in Central Europe and has found a new market as a health food. Spelt is sometimes considered a subspecies of the closely related species common wheat (T. aestivum), in which case its botanical name is considered to be Triticum aestivum subsp. spelta. Wikipedia 2. A hardy wheat grown mostly in Europe for livestock feed. Princeton’s WordNet This latter definition is not to be confused with Dr. Samuel Johnson’s definition of oats: “a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.” In response, the Scots noted that, as a result, England is known for the excellence of its horses and Scotland for the excellence of its people.
Bread, (n) breadstuff, staff of life, food made from dough of flour or meal and usually raised with yeast or baking powder and then baked. Princeton’s WordNet.

Olives are kind of a tough sell around here, especially green ones. While we are free to substitute ingredients, and I often do where I feel the results are substantially similar, e.g. slivered almonds for pine nuts in the Pesto Pine Nut Bread, I have decided that, as for me and mine, I would not make a substitution for an ingredient solely on the basis that it was new or different or something I did not think I liked. (Expense, on the other hand, is a valid basis for substitution.) After all, one of the points of this exercise, for me, is to try new things and experience all the recipes in HB in 5. As Lyndah at Bloom,  Bake & Create put it, “it stretches me to bake breads I wouldn’t have even thought about trying.” And, as Kansas City barbeque legend Arthur Bryant put it when asked why he still fried his French fries in lard, “if you want to do a job, you do a job.” 

I decided to get “better” olives for this recipe, and opted for the “olive bar” rather than the jarred variety. Having tasted one (if you are not tasting you are not cooking) I admit they were much better than I expected, and so was the bread. First, I made a regular loaf. I usually make an elongated loaf rather than a boule, since I can get more uniform slices.

 Note the high-tech arrangement to help keep the dough from spreading too much as it rises—2x2’s. I wanted to incorporate duct tape into the design, but that just made a mess.

The bread baked up beautifully, and tasted very good, with a distinct, but not overpowering, taste of olives.

“Celebrating Spring” is the theme of this assignment.  And it so happened that on the first day of Spring we were having a group of friends over for dinner.  We had worked together almost 30 years ago, and have stayed close.  We dubbed the group the Magnificent Seven (not to be confused with either the Seven Samurai or A Bugs Life, although all three are basically the same movie), although there were usually either 6 or 8 in the group.   Anyway, I decided on a Spring theme for dinner.  Spring Rolls, Spring lamb with mint pesto, new potatoes with peas, chilled asparagus, and strawberry-rhubarb shortcake.

In addition, to all of the above I made one other recipe for our dinner that always reminds me of Spring.  It is not a very “haute” dish, it is Jell-O^® (brand gelatin) based.  (As a learned college professor once famously observed, when Jell-O^® was first introduced, it was amazing, like the iphone.  According to Wikipedia, before the invention of  Jell-O^® “Gelatin was sold in sheets and had to be purified, which was very time-consuming. It also made gelatin desserts the province of the relatively well-to-do.”)   But it is a recipe my sister always made for Easter, and over the years it became  associated with Spring for me.  So it is more about the associations than the dish, but I do like it a lot.   It is savory rather than sweet, and green.  I confess that most of my family do not share my enthusiasm for it.  I continue to make it for Easter, however.  

Anyway, I know my sister would want me to share her recipe, so here it is:

Karen’s Lime Jell-O^® Salad
1 Regular size package Lime Jell-O^®
1 Small carton cottage cheese
3/4 cup Mayo
1/2 cup diced cucumber
1/4 cup chopped green onion tops
(Sugar free Jell-O^®, and low fat cottage cheese and mayo are fine.) 
Dissolve Jell-O^® in 1/2 cup boiling water, let cool to consistency of egg whites and whip until frothy (this “frothy” business never works for me but it is what the recipe says,  I skip it).   Stir in cottage cheese, then Mayo, then other ingredients.  Pour into an 8 inch square baking dish and refrigerate until set.  Serves 9 (or just me).  Double or triple for a large mold.  

This seemingly pointless tangent does connect, because for my Spring Dinner I also made the rest of the Olive Spelt dough into a focaccia.   

 

Unfortunately, by the time I remembered to take a picture, it had already been set upon.  As you can see, it was pretty well received.

 

The second task was the Carrot Bread.  I had been looking forward to this bread since I first saw it in the book, and I was not disappointed.  For the dried fruit I used a 7 fruit blend.  I baked the entire 1/2 recipe at once, which was a bit more dough than called for.  I also let it rise quite a bit longer than I meant to-- it was warm and sunny and I got to working in the garden, and next thing I knew

 I had a pretty full loaf pan.

It baked up beautifully, though it did take quite a bit longer to bake than the recipe suggested, no doubt due to the size of the loaf.   

I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else did with this dough.   

 Be sure to check out the links at Big Black Dog,  to do the same.  And be sure to tune in next time when we go gluten-free!