I'm a Carb Pusher

Dear Turkey,

I have a confession to make, yes, another one: I am a carb pusher. I didn't tell you this before because I temporarily suppressed this aspect of my personality while my husband was on his diet. Now that it's a baking free-for-all at our house, however, my old patterns have bubbled to the surface:

Honey: I'm hungry.

Me: Have some banana bread.

Honey: I'm in the mood for something salty.

Me: How about some squash bread? I don't want that to go bad, you know.

Honey: That's not salty.

Me: How about some of our favorite New York Times chocolate chip cookies?

Yes, those famous NYT cookies are actually salted and, yes, I am a carb pusher. Baking makes me happy. Eating my baking makes my husband happy, and then creates an opportunity for more baking. So this tendency of mine might have had something to do with the reason my husband went on a diet. I am ashamed.     

Since every household needs a carb pusher, I'm going to share another bread recipe with you. This one is adapted from yet another Moosewood cookbook. 

Squash Bread:

In a large bowl, combine:

2 c cooked butternut squash, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, or something like that

4 c whole wheat flour

2/3 c brown sugar

1 stick melted butter (just pretend you didn't read that, honey)

2T yeast

2 c whey, milk, water, even cider or juice...whatever you have

1t salt

Knead this together with your hands, adding more flour as needed to make a ball of stretchy dough that holds together (I added white flour). Let it rise covered for a while. I shaped mine into two loaves and baked them next to each other on a parchment-covered stone at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. 

this is such a forgiving dough and it makes really beautiful bread

you probably don't even need a carb pusher to make you want to try it

but it helps if you've worked up an appetite

running 10 miles first

I moss you,

Tofu