Tabbouleh Bread with Parsley, Garlic and Bulgar and Pear Coffee Bread (20 of 42)

As some of you may have gleaned from previous posts, I like Ben's Hot and Sweet Mustard. A lot. Well, apparently the feeling is mutual. Ben's ran a contest this summer, and I won! I won a trip for 2 to be the guests of Morgan Shepherd Racing at Lowe's Motor Speedway. My daughter Katie and I got all access pit and garage passes.  (On the way we stopped at Cabo Fish Taco for lunch, a Triple D destination.  It was great.  Be sure to stop if you are ever in the area.) 

Morgan and the team were gracious hosts and it was really neat to get a "behind the scenes" look at a Nationwide race.

We even got to hang with Danica.




As anyone who knows NASCAR knows,  sponsorship drives the sport, and this was one of my favorite sponsors, Boudreaux's Butt Paste.

Which it's a Diaper Rash Ointment and Skin Protectant.

Once we got home from the race it was time to get baking.  The assignment for this time involved making Tabbouleh Bread with Parsley, Garlic and Bulgar and Pear Coffee Bread.  We really enjoyed both these breads.

The  Tabbouleh Bread includes lemon zest, in addition to the parsley, garlic and butter, and I was surprised at how much that hint of lemon shone through in the bread.  But then I thought back to the ingredients--there was almost no whole wheat flour in this bread--only 1/2 cup for the half batch I made.  (In fact, that is my only quibble with the recipe, the lack of whole wheat flour, though there was the bulgur, which for most intents and purposes is whole wheat, though up to 5% of the bran is removed in polishing.)  I baked a (rather free-form) boule, which we thought was wonderful.










With the rest of the dough I made pitas.  With all the stuff in the dough these did not puff, but they made great flatbread to go with grilled lamb. 

When I saw that we were to make Pear Coffee Bread I thought it was a bread to have with coffee, like a coffee cake.  But the bread has coffee in it!  This dough had even less whole wheat flour, and with the addition of the pureed pears made a very tender loaf.  I made both an oval loaf and a boule.

We thought this bread was was particularly good toasted. 

For my 'speriment this time, I decided to try Michelle's version of Volkornbrot with sauerkraut.  I am not quite sure why.  I do not like sauerkraut (except in rubens).   That is one of my (many) character flaws.  Pretty women can talk me into anything.  (I suspect I am not alone in this.)  That is how I ended up married.  With four  children (counting Marissa).  I got lured.  Anyway, this loaf did not turn out too well, and so I thought I would pass on my experience.  

Michelle drained her sauerkraut, but then bemoaned not using the liquid in the bread.  So I did use the liquid.  I treated the sauerkraut itself as liquid, since it is so wet, and for a half batch of bread dumped an 8 ounce can of sauerkraut with its liquid into a measuring cup and added water to get the total amount of liquid I needed.  I mixed the dough up.  Let it rise.  And---nothing.  I thought maybe it was a bit dry, so I added more liquid, and let it rise again.  I got some rise, but not much.  My suspicion is that the brine from the sauerkraut retarded the yeast growth.  I baked it anyway.  It was pretty dense, but tasted it good.  If you like sauerkraut.  Which I don't. 

And now it's time for Trick or Treat.  In honor of my Ben's Mustard junket, I am giving away a jar of  Morgan Shepherd Special Edition Ben's Mustard.  The trick is, that to get the treat you must be hanging in and still reading my post to know about the contest. (This may be a big mistake.  I may learn something I do not want to know about my readership.)  If you are still reading, and you want to enter, just post a comment and mention Ben's Mustard in it.  I can only ship to the US and if you turn up at my house for dinner fairly often you don't get to enter.  The winner will be selected based on my whim,  and in the complete discretion of the author duplicate prizes may, or may not, be awarded. 

So that is it for this time.  Check back on the ides of November for Pumpkin Pie Brioche Redux.