Tomato-Quinoa Bread

I stumbled on this recipe a few weeks ago, and it's one of the only things I've made in the same day, although I'm only just now getting around to blogging it.  It was just too interesting a bread to pass by.  Somehow, Elizabeth at Kitchen Confit convinced me without knowing it to trudge through rain, sleet, snow and wet hail (literally) to buy some V8, the only ingredient I was without (okay, we were getting a movie anyway).  

But I did it for the bread.  This Tomato-Quinoa Bread, have you ever heard of such a thing?  A magic bread with the tomato soup already inside, it's like Willy Wonka's gum that contains an entire meal.  This bread is begging to be made into a grilled cheese sandwich (in this case with prosciutto and swiss cheese), and if my sister were here, she'd eat bunches of my grill cheese sandwiches on tomato-quinoa bread.  What a spoiled sister she would be.

But instead I'll send her images across cyber-space and hope they make her very jealous.  A little jealousy from a younger sister is always a good thing.

Tomato Quinoa Bread

From Patricia Wells Vegetable Harvest via Kitchen Confit

1 teaspoon active dry yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

1/3 cup lukewarm water

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

1 cup seasoned vegetable juice - in this case, V8

1/2 cup quinoa (uncooked)

3 3/4 cups (I pound) bread flour

Mix the yeast, sugar and water together in the bowl of an electric mixer.  Let stand for 5 minutes, until foamy then stir in the oil, salt, juice and quinoa.

Fit your stand mixer with the dough hook, set it on medium-low speed and add the flour in a little at a time.  Mix until most of the flour is encorporated and the dough comes together in a ball.  Continue to mix for 4-5 minutes more, until the dough becomes soft and shiny, but still firm.  If the dough is too sticky, add a bit more flour.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until the dough has doubled or tripled in size, this should take 8 to 12 hours.  The dough may also be left in the refrigerator for up to two days, but you may need to punch it down a few times as it doubles.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and punch it down.  Form the doug into a ball, return to the bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Allow the dough to double once again, this should take about an hour.

Punch the dough down one more time, then form it into a tight rectangle.  Place the dough into a rectangular bread pan, cover with a cloth and let rise until double in size.  One more hour.

Oven preheated to 450, slash the top of the loaf with a very sharp knife so that it can expand properly and place on the middle rack of the oven.  Bake for 45 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and it sounds hollow when tapped.  Turn the loaf out on a wrack to cool and wait at least 1 hour before slicing (it will continue to cook while cooling).  Enjoy your magical bread!

*     *     *

I'm sending this into my beloved YeastSpotting, the weekly event hosted by Susan of Wild Yeast.  Everyone say "Thank you Susan!"