#potato bread

My mom was into hippie health food, and thought white bread was not nutritious so she wouldn’t let us eat it like all our friends would… She wanted us to eat multigrain bread with all these seeds and my sister and I were like “this is so nasty, no. I don’t want PB&J full of seeds.”

So my mom’s compromise was she’d buy us potato bread to make sandwiches.

And it didn’t seem weird to me because it was all I knew, but my friends were always so fascinated by it and begging me to let them try some.

When we had sleepovers they’d always insist on making french toast in the morning because of the freaking potato bread. It was so exciting to them.

Like… my childhood friends still send me memes about weird food they remember eating at my house because of my crunchy mother.

A friend recently sent me a tiktok about soyrizo for this very reason (to be fair to my mother, soyrizo + a can of tomatoes + a can of black beans + brown rice + mayyybe a bit of melted cheese on top was the most delicious and warm and comforting and easy and fast dinner she’d make us. It was soooo good).

Another friend just texted me pics of her and her fiance making spaghetti squash “like your mom used to.”

Potato bread. Gives roughly 15 slices pr bread. Recipe is for 1 bread

Ingredients:

12.5 g fresh yeast

1.5 dL cold oatmeal porridge (0.5 dL oats, 1 dL milk/water, pinch of salt in a deep plate. 1:30 minutes full power microwave, stir, 30 seconds more, stir, cool down)

100 g potato (boiled and chilled or raw. Whatever you want. Grated) * ** ***

30 mL milk/water

200 g flour (bread flour does it best but ap works too)

1/2 teaspoon salt (for boiled potato), 1 teaspoon salt (for raw potato)

25 g butter/20 g oil

2,5 g fiber (if you don't have that, just add oats)

* boiled potato is spread uniformly throughout the dough, becoming invisible. Raw potato is in strips like if you used carrots.

** mashed potatoes works, too. Just weigh out 150 g of it and don't add fat or moisture unless dough just does not want to form at all.

*** you can use carrots or other vegetables instead if you want to. Depending on how juicy the vegetable is you might want to not have any milk/water added.

How to:

Everything in a mixing bowl (for a stand mixer, hook attached) except the milk/water

Add most of the milk, keep something back as potatoes are juicier than you'd expect.

If using a machine: Knead for 3 minutes on 1, 3 minutes on 3, and 3 minutes on 4. If it is way too dry add some more milk or just maybe knead a little bit longer as the potatoes and butter release moisture to the flour. If no machine: knead until smooth and stretchy, might take a while.

Shape to a ball and let it rest for 1 hour. Or wrap and freeze for up to 3 months. Or cover and put in the fridge until next day

Punch down and shape a bread, wet it and roll it in oats (optional), and put it on a baking paper covered baking sheet

If your oven can heat to 35 C/100 F put the bread in there with a ramekin of boiling water for 25 minutes or put it somewhere room temp for 50-ish minutes

Using a very sharp knife cut vents in the top. Anything fancy will fail as it is a very soft dough. Just do 3 slits

Into convection oven at 220 C, bake at 185 C for 20 minutes together with a ramekin of boiling water, turn the baking sheet or the bread (whatever is easiest) 180 degrees and remove the water pot and bake 10 minutes more until uniformly golden brown and center temp is at least 94 C

Enjoy when it has cooled a little.

Holds fresh and soft for around 5 days in a plastic bag on the counter if one can leave it at 3 slices per day :b

Leftover vegetables that are soft enough can easily be substituted in for the potatoes at same amount by weight.

Same with whatever porridge you happen to might have, just add 125 g. Porridge is optional, it does give a softer bread, tho.

Lunch! Today's lunch all comes from the official Elder Scrolls Cookbook, which I've made quite a few recipes since getting it for Christmas! They've all been delightful so far ^^

We've got Redguard Rice (ground lamb and wild rice), Stewed Apples and Eidar Cheese (sweetened spiced stewed apples with goat cheese), and Potato Bread (what it says on the tin)!