Broccoli Bread - Trust me!

At this point I'm not going to go back and post all the recipes that we used in the last baking day. Most of them are one's I'll make again so I'll just wait till then and post them. Sorry!

However, the Broccoli Bread is totally worth sharing right now. When you go do your shopping today grab a crown of broccoli and a few carrots and just trust me. (Even Anthony eats this - that's HUGE!)

For all those with out a bread machine, I did this one with out mine to show how easy it is to make!

Broccoli Bread

1 crown of broccoli
2-3 large carrots
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp white sugar
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup warm watter
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup butter
3 3/4 cup flour (I used 2 1/4 unbleached white and 1 1/2 whole wheat)
3 tsp yeast

Boil a pot of hot watter and cook the carrots and broccoli until both are soft. The carrots take a bit longer sometimes. This can also be done in the microwave if you want. Once soft, puree the carrots and broccoli until smooth, add some of the boiling water if you need to for a smooth consistency.

In you mixing bowl, add all ingredients.

 Using your dough hook, mix until it starts to pull away from the bowl.

Because the broccoli mix is wet, I needed to add about an extra 1/2 cup of flour just to get the consistency right. You're looking for  it to start to form a dough ball in your mixer, not sticking to the sides.

Once that's achieved, plop it out onto a floured surface and kneed for 3-5 min's until it is smooth and elastic.

Transfer to an oiled bowl and let rise in a warm place, covered, until double in size.

Punch it down, kneed it back into a ball shape and rise again.

Take the dough of  the bowl, pull into two semi-equal halves. Form into a log shape and place into oiled loaf pans.

Rise again until doubled then carefully transfer into a preheated 350 degree oven for 20-30 min's or maybe a bit longer until golden brown (or more like golden green) and internal temperature is 180.

This bread is phenomenal cut into thick slices, trenched out a bit and filled with either tuna or ham, topped with cheese and broiled in the oven until crunchy and bubbly.

You can barley taste the broccoli but it certainly adds a good flavor to go with the meats. I wouldn't recommend this for a PB&J but then again, wouldn't judge anyone for trying it out, especially if it means your kids are eating broccoli!