Daring Bakers' Challenge - Tender Potato Bread

Well it's official – I am not a breadmaker. Heck - I am not even a breadmaker’s elbow. Much as I luuuuuuurve to eat bread in pretty much any form, I most definitely do not love to make it, least of all by hand. There’s that whole time thing with the raising of the yeast and the kneading is not something I enjoy. However, the November Daring Baker’s challenge was issued by Tanna from My Kitchen in Half Cups and I’d missed the two previous challenges so I really had to participate for fear of being kicked out of the group.

The recipe sounded really great; I mean really great, and the variations gave lots of interesting options with the addition of different herbs, cheeses or olives but as I was time challenged I decided to stick to the basics. The end result was edible but unattractive and not very exciting in flavour. The best thing to come out of this challenge was the pleasure of being able to snip fresh rosemary from my very own herb pot and the worst thing to come of this challenge was that the fairly high heat of the baking reminding me that it is time to clean my oven – ugh!


In hindsight I think I should have tried to make a foccacia style loaf but I opted for the ball of dough/freeform shape.


I really only took this photo to show off my expensive-but-worth-it WMF spitzenklasse bread knife. Anyone who enjoys homemade or bakery bread should have a decent bread knife like this.

If you've got a few hours to spare you can check out how the other Daring Bakers got on by visiting our blogroll and selecting a baker of your choice. I've picked a random post for you here.

I’m looking forward to the December challenge which is..........drum roll please ...............................oh come on people, you didn’t really expect me to accidentally spill the beans did you? Ha! You’ll have to wait til the New Year to find out.

Aloha

I’m baaack. I know you missed me.

I still haven’t quite settled back into normal routine so I have no foodie offerings just yet. Hawaii was fabulous and we had a really fun time on our cruise. The reason for the holiday was a celebration of a friend’s 50th birthday. There were 6 couples in our group – all Americans apart from ourselves. It was the first cruise for us but most of the others were veteran cruisers. Unfortunately for me there were no real foodies on the trip so I didn’t feel comfortable whipping out my camera during dinner.

Here’s the extremely expurgated version of our trip….

On the Big Island we rented a van and drove around the National Park at Hilo to see the Kilauea Volcanoes. Everyone was getting all excited about seeing the steam coming out of the ground but I was thinking – “Well that’s a big nothing – I can see that by driving two and a half hours up the road”. I realise I am blessed to live in such a beautiful country as New Zealand.


On Maui the others got up at stupid o’clock to drive up the top of Mt Haleakala and see the sunrise. My husband I and I opted to have a lazy day on the ship. The main reason though was that I needed to see the ship’s Dr because I had a scratch on my cornea. $150 later I had some icky ointment and was told no makeup and no contacts for a week which is not the verdict you want to hear when you’ve spent months getting into shape in preparation for having frequent photo opportunities. For the most part it didn’t matter because summer holidays are all about sunglasses and sunhats but at night time when we dressed up for dinner I felt like the ugly bung eyed duckling

On Kauai we rented some Harleys and a Jeep for the non motorcyclists and took in the sights of including Waimea Canyon.



I loved seeing all the chickens and herons on the roadside and smelling all the lush greenery which was fragrant after a recent shower.

On the final night of the cruise we sailed past the cliffs of Kauai that have featured in movies like Jurassic Park and King Kong. Awesome.


At the end of our cruise we had two days at an amazing resort hotel – the JW Marriott at Ko Olina. It was one of those places that took your breath away with beautiful rooms - definitely the biggest hotel suite I've ever stayed in; its own fish pond full of pretty tropical fish, sting rays and baby hammerhead sharks, and of course views to die for.




Here's one of the stingrays coming up out of the water.


The highlight for me was a lei making session which was hosted by a couple of kids from a local cultural centre.


Food-wise there was nothing particularly special to write about although the fresh tropical fruit was delicious. Our cruise was “freestyle” which meant there was no specific meal times and no compulsory formal night. We ate from the buffet a lot but also ate in their speciality restaurants which incurred an extra cover charge of around $10 per person – The Lazy J Steakhouse (crab cakes and filet followed by bananas foster), East Meets West (shabu shabu), Little Italy (Caesar salad and fettucine with shrimp fra Diablo) and the Liberty restaurant (crab cakes again, then braised beef short ribs followed by a baby coconut cream pie). On land we lunched at Cheeseburger in Paradise in Lahaina which had a really fun atmosphere – in fact the town reminded me a lot of Key West. We had a great dinner on Kauai at Duke’s Canoe Club. They are famous for their hula pie but everyone was too full from their wonderful salad bar. As far as I can figure out Hula pie is a cookie crust filled with macadamia flavoured icecream, topped with fudge sauce and macadamia nuts and finished with whipped cream.

I almost forgot to mention the cute little towel animals that the steward put on our bed every day on the cruise. Here's one of my favourites.