Rosh Hashana Apple and Flax Quick Bread

Welcome back to Seduced by Produce!  I apologize for the extended and unexpected absence I took from this blog.  This Summer, my life intervened in the most interesting ways, but that is for my memoirs and not for today.  Today is for celebrating this coming Fall's bounty as well as the upcoming Jewish New Year.

For those of you out there in the blog-o-sphere who haven't yet been told, Rosh Hashana, is quickly coming upon us.  Rosh Hashana, Hebrew for Head or First of the Year, is when Jews around the world celebrate the spiritual New Year.    Should you not be savvy to the Jewish food traditions, allow me to catch you up to speed.  During this time, Jews keep an even closer eye on their food then normal to ensure their food can be a harbinger of things to come.  We eat sweet foods for a sweet year and foods that look or sound like positive things like carrots and lentils since they look like coins.  There's a lot of foods with symbolism, (for more information, check out this link) but suffice to say we Jews adapt to our surroundings, are a superstitious lot and if it tastes good, we find a way to enjoy it often.  We do avoid hot and spicy foods and foods with nuts during this time.  Do you want to have a nutty year?  Didn't think so!

You didn't come to a cooking blog for an education on Judaism, though.  You came here for FOOD, so here you go!

The inner workings of deliciousness

Meet Apple Bread.  She is my new friend.  My family has a tradition of a deep, dark honey cake being served this time of year.  I don't know the recipe, but knowing my maternal Grandmother (Nanny), it was probably Joan Nathan's recipe first.  There is something comforting about a warmly spiced, sweet nosh when shared with family.  Or in my case, being sneaked from Nanny's kitchen behind my Mom's back.  (Sorry, Mom, your parents snuck me a lot of goodies over the years.  Take it up with Pop Pop, but I figure you probably already knew because of those eyes in the back of your head you kept telling me about.)

This is not that cake.  That cake was all sweetness and cinnamon like a true fall dessert made for a munchkin.  This is a lighter and more adult quick bread that incorporates my personal favorite Rosh Hashana food tradition - apples.  Apples dipped in honey are traditionally served the first night of Rosh Hashana and are eagerly awaited by kids and adults alike.  Who doesn't like apples and honey, I mean come on!  I've been known to sneak more than a few slices myself for an impromptu honey tasting.  I'm sure as this blog goes on, you will hear more on my honey obsession.  Today is for the apple.  I was inspired by Brown Eyed Baker's Apple Cinnamon Bread recipe.  Everything I've made from her has rocked my world, but I can't help but tweak as I bake.  I've put my spin on it by using ground flax seeds and mixing in whole wheat flour for a more nutty flavor. If you've never used flax seeds before, they are a great source of fiber and a myriad of other health benefits.  I keep a bag of them ground and in the freezer for an easy nutrition boost.  I've also made it with walnuts which was truly awesome, but not for today.  It's also staying at home, no matter how much my co-workers beg.

Ingredients:

1 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
2 eggs
¼ cup canola oil
¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup vegan cane sugar (use granulated if that's what is around)
2 tablespoons ground flax seeds
2 tablespoons ground walnuts, if using
2 cups peeled and chopped apples (about 1½ to 2 apples)

Topping
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon


Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  After greasing a loaf pan, cut parchment paper to fit and then grease the paper too.  This will help ensure the bread can be pulled out neatly later.  Then, peel and chop up apples.  The type of apples do not matter, but something crisp will ensure a more firm bite of apple later.  With apples just coming into season, take your pick of whatever looks delicious and is selling for the cheapest.  They don't need to be perfect squares, but they do need to be reasonably small here. 

Mmmm.....apples......

In a medium sized mixing bowl, mix all of the bread's dry ingredients and set aside.

Jackson Pollack and his paints has nothing on me and my spices.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the eggs on medium speed for about 30 seconds. Use farm fresh if you can, and in the process help out your local farmer while enjoying a superior egg. Add in the oil, applesauce and vanilla and mix until smooth. Make sure you are using unsweetened applesauce.  Next, add the sugar and mix until well-combined.  I'd love to try using honey and then begin trying to cut down the amount of added sweetness overall, say by half, but that is for another day.

Eggy goo, anyone?

Then, add the dry flour and spice mixture to the wet in the mixer in thirds.  Adding the dry mixture in portions allows for full incorporation without creating clumps and helps to avoid over mixing the batter.  Once combined, take the mixer bowl off and then gently fold in the apples into the batter making sure to incorporate them fully. 

Apples = Fruit gold!

Pour the batter into your prepared loaf pan.  In a small mixing bowl, combine the granulated sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle evenly over the batter in the loaf pan.

Sugar, cinnamon and apples are never wrong.

Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, or until the loaf is golden and a thin knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  I use a piece of dried linguine instead, to make a smaller hole in the crust.

Cool the bread in the pan and on your cooling rack for 10 minutes, then and turn it out on a cooling rack, remove the parchment paper. Cool completely before slicing, if you can. The smell of this bread is intoxicating.  If someone made this into a perfume, it'd be dangerous.  Making this transports your home instantly into fall.  It's much better than an apple cinnamon air freshener.

 
Wrap leftover loaf in plastic wrap and store at room temperature.  If you manage to have leftovers, that is.  I made a walnut-enriched version of this quick bread for a recent training, and not a crumb was left.  I baked it the day before and it held up incredibly well.  I'm not entirely convinced that it was even better the next day, but I don't think it will last that long without serious planning including hiding the baked goods out of sight.

Ginger Carrot Breakfast Muffins

My inspiration this week is clean out my kitchen!!!  As part of the last two weeks' worth of funk, I realized that my kitchen is so stocked, that I might not have to go food shopping to for meals for the entire week.  So for breakfast this week, I have decided I need to make these Ginger Carrot Muffins I found while figuring out a way to use up the carrots I have in my fridge.  

As part of a discussion with a friend around New Year's, my hubby and I decided we need to break out the juicer and start juicing more often. Or really, I asked hubby to bring home some juice when I was sick with a stomach bug and he brought home this:

Yeah, that's a 25 pound bag of carrots under there. I'm still staring down half of this bag, and I'm starting to get creative in my carrot consumption here before I start turning orange.  I love ginger and carrots, so this recipe was a no brainer for me.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 cup oat flour*
3/4 cup honey 
1/2 cup milled flax*
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup minced crystallized ginger
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk - or in my case 1 cup milk with 1 tablespoon white vinegar to sour the milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 cups grated carrots

*Most people probably don't have this all on hand, but I'm weird.   To make the oat flour and to grate the carrots, make your life easy and use a food processor.  Do this separately! I use ground flax in my smoothies to give me extra fiber, and get it at any natural foods store.  Keep it in the freezer, as it's highly perishable.  Also, if you don't want to use honey, switch it out in equal portions for vegan cane sugar like the original recipe shows, but I have an unholy obsession with honey and try to use it in my baking whenever possible.
I'm not kidding about the obsession - here is the current honey survey of my pantry. Well minus the Queen LaBeeva brand that I just used up.

Recipe:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin pan.  If you only have a six muffin pan like me, use that and prepare to do part of this recipe twice.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, including the minced crystallized ginger.

In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, honey and oil, and stir into the dry ingredients. Fold in the carrots. It does not look pretty at this stage, but just trust me on this one.

Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling them almost full. Allow the muffins to rest for 10 minutes before baking.

Bake the muffins for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean. If you don't have a toothpicks, try using a piece of dry spaghetti.  It works!

Remove the muffins from the oven, and cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

These are so good.  One was sacrificed for testing purposes, but started out as a crumb test and somehow disappeared.  :)  I'll be having them for breakfast this week - split and topped with peanut butter and  Citrus Marmalade.

Whole Wheat Pizza with Greens and Tomatoes

After much prodding by friends and family, I am sharing my love for food in a blog of my very own :)

To introduce myself, here is a short explanation of what you can expect to see here at Seduced by Produce:

I get pleasure out of experimenting in my kitchen  with food.  I love going to local farms and farmer's markets, taking home my purchases, and then trying to figure out healthy and delicious ways to cook it all.  If I can't get it direct from a farmer, I try to find foods that pack a nutritional punch and are "eco-friendly."  That doesn't mean that I don't make unhealthy foods, but when I do, I try to make them worth the calories and time.  When I cook, I try to cook from scratch as much as possible and practical.  When I cook from scratch, I tend to cook using measurements like"some of this"  "a bit of that" and cook "until it looks right" but am working on using my measuring skills more often so the food can be replicated.  When I get home, some days I need a way to decompress and some days I just need to refuel.  Every day, I want to eat food that is delicious. 

Here's my first recipe using up what my eyes couldn't resist from the farm - Whole Wheat Pizza with Greens and Tomatoes

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough:

1 1/3 cups water

1/4 olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 cups all purpose unbleached flour

2 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

*Makes two pizzas

I love my bread machine for kneading doughs so I don't have to worry about proofing and can let the machine do the work while I am on to my next project (or just sitting watching TV.)

  

My bread machine specifies that all liquids go in first with the salt, and then the flours with the yeast on top.  I put it all in on the wonderful setting of "pizza dough" and finished prepping the farm produce while the machine did its thing.

When the dough was done, I separated it into two parts and let it rest in baggies in the fridge for an hour until it rose by about 20 percent. 

While the dough was rising, I made sure my pizza stone was in the oven preheating at 500 degrees.  I let it heat for one hour, which gave me more than enough time to prep the toppings which included:

2 small, firm tomatoes - sliced thinly

3 cups arugula, cleaned, de-stemmed and shredded

3 garlic cloves, sauteed in some pesto I had in the fridge thinned out with some added olive oil

A small handful of turkey pepperoni slices - about 20 - sliced

3 Large Green Onions, sliced  - about 3 tablespoons

Mozzarella and Parmesan Cheese - Shredded - No measurements here, just enough to look "right" 

I rolled out the dough on a floured counter and then topped with one tomato each, and approximately one half of all other toppings.  First, I brushed the pesto on the dough and then topped it with the tomatoes, arugula, scallions, turkey pepperoni and cheeses.  

After topping, the pizzas each went into the oven for 8 minutes until the dough begins to tan and the cheese melts and begins to brown as well.