I am a water sign and a watercolor painter. I think about water. I love to swim in open water. I like to take hot baths. And I conserve water. On a blog which shall remain nameless I ran across the suggestion that leaving your sink faucet running while you chop onions will cause you to cry less. I ran to the comments field to beg all who read the post not to leave their water running. My friends in New Mexico and Colorado know not to waste water. People in Africa know not to waste water. Some of us don’t understand that potable water is a limited resource and we need to treat it as a limited resource. When you turn on the faucet, water comes out. For now. If you or your landlord or your parents or your roommates have paid the water bill. If you are lucky, you live in a place where the water is good, drinkable, not polluted. Where I live we have good water: it is soft. It tastes good right out of the tap.
Recently, I read another blog post, a wonderful round up of all the things you can do with citrus peel. You can candy it — I knew that. You can zest it. I knew that, too. You can compost it. Check. You can make it into cleaning products. But some people make citrus salts. And some people make liquor. And some people make flavored sugars. You should read the wonderful post yourself.
One of the reasons I loved this post so much is that it was full of lovely things to do with something that we often waste. And one of the reasons I like learning things people did in the past is that some people had some good ideas about how to use things fully. Citrus peel is a lovely thing, quite edible and useful. Water is a lovely thing, drinkable, useful and quite versatile. Please don’t waste it.
Now, it’s winter in the Northern hemisphere and winter has got me thinking about Northern people, perhaps some of your ancestors and mine. People who lived where it was cold. People who lived where crops were limited. Many of those people grew rye. Do you know where this is going? I am offering you some northern winter bread to go with your water. Perhaps you will make some citrus marmalade to spread on your bread where it will look like trapped sunshine. Just saying. Perhaps you will eat winter bread with summer’s blackberries or raspberries preserved in a jar, or your friend Carol’s boysenberry jam.
Anyway, this is winter bread. It is dark. It is hearty. It contains yeast and all manner of dark things: coffee, molasses, cocoa. Don’t get excited — it’s not sweet: it is winter bread and the holidays are over for now. You can eat chocolate bread on Valentine’s Day if you want to, but it is January and Heidi Swanson across the bay aka 101 Cookbooks posted a recipe for black bread, the stuff I call winter bread. Her recipe is even darker than mine because it includes the dark, bitter flavor of caraway seeds. Caraway is bitter enough that it should have made it into the bitter herbs for the Passover table. I passed on the caraway. Her recipe also has golden flecks of carrot in it. You might like that. I might like it, too, but I made winter bread without carrots or caraway this time around. You can make it, too.
Winter Bread, inspired by and adapted from Heidi Swanson’s Black Bread
Get out a 1 cup glass liquid measuring cup. Put 3 Tbsp butter in it and microwave for about fifteen seconds. Empty butter into a large mixing bowl. It doesn’t have to be melted, but should be soft enough to slip out.
Now, measure 1/3 cup molasses into the same cup.
Pour it into the mixing bowl. It should slide right out. If it is recalcitrant, use a rubber scraper or a clean finger to help it along.
Take the greasy, sticky measuring cup and add 1/2 cup lukewarm water to it.
Dissolve 1 packet or 2 and 1/4 tsp active dry yeast in the water by whisking it with a fork. Set aside for now.
Add to your bowl of butter and molasses:
2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 Tbsp instant espresso powder diluted in 1/4 cup warm water
2 tsp kosher salt
Now add your proofed yeast to the bowl. Get it all: use a utensil or finger — fingers are truly useful in the kitchen.
Measure 1 and 1/3 cups rye flour. Add to your bowl
Measure 3 cups unbleached flour or bread flour into your bowl.
Have a cup of cool water at the ready, plus 1/4 cup flour for work surface, plus additional flour.
You can make this with a mixer with a dough hook. I do sometimes. But this time I hand-kneaded it: it was a new recipe. Rye flour takes a lot of kneading to make good bread and hand-kneading made it easier for me to make adjustments and keep track of how it was going.
First I stirred it. Then I mushed it with my hands. It was still pretty dry and shaggy with wet bits. Finally, I filled a cup with water like I’ve told you to do and spread 1/4 cup of flour on my bread board. Then I dumped the not-quite-bread-mass out on the board, added a little water with my fingers and started kneading. Do you know how to knead? It’s really folding the dough on itself and pushing it forward, letting the weight of the dough work on the dough, then repeating. Endlessly — it will seem that way the first time you knead a loaf of rye or whole wheat or sourdough: it can take awhile to work the proper amount of flour and water into your dough. If the dough will not pick up the flour from the board after several minutes, it is too dry — add some more water. If the dough is super-sticky and gloms onto the board, add flour by the tablespoon and work it after each addition: as you knead bread it tends to get drier and less sticky. You want it neither dry nor wet. It should feel sort of like your ear lobe. Touch it. Like that. Rye bread can take ten or twenty minutes to knead. It’s winter. Slow down. You can sing to yourself as you work: rhythmic songs are good: “I’m gonna WASH that MAN right OUTta my HAIR…”
When it’s done, butter or oil your mixing bowl, put the bread in it, cover with a warmed, dampened linen or smooth cotton dish towel and set it in a warm place to rise, for instance an oven that has been on “Warm” for a few minutes and then turned off. Or an oven with a pilot light. Or a pre-warmed clothes dryer. Go away for at least an hour, maybe an hour and a half. When it has doubled in size, reward it by deflating it: push on it to let the air out. Form it into a rustic round and put it in a tart pan or on a baking sheet to rise again. Check it in half an hour. Preheat your oven to 425. Take a sharp knife and cut an “X” or cross in the top of your bread. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350. Check again in 25 minutes. Bread is done when it makes a nice sound when you thump it. No thump? Bake it some more.
Then you have to let it cool. I know, but if you cut it hot, the middle gets icky and soggy. So wait awhile. You have my permission to cut it warm — barely warm. Eat with unsalted butter. Or jam. Or marmalade. Dunk it in your soup. Get out the cheese. You know what to do.
Food Notes: Oh yeah — I added just a touch of orange juice and zest — I had half an orange sitting on the counter. You can use brewed coffee instead of instant espresso. Use whatever salt you like and adjust accordingly. For a completely different, lighter, sweeter rye that incorporates more citrus, try Swedish Rye Bread.
Painting Note: I’ve had the blues lately, so I decided to inventory my paints. I found I had a lot of ultramarine blue. As in four tubes. I had some other blues, too, so I made a tablecloth of blue stripes with blues straight out of the tube: starting at the left, the stripes go cerulean, cobalt, ultramarine, violet and then repeat. The window frame is mostly cobalt. The glass has mauve pencil underneath the blue created by all of the pigments in the water.
I like the graphic stripey background! Painting has a nice surreal feeling. Good work!
Thank you, Suzanne. Natalie would say the stripes have energy — and I did, too, after completing tasks all day, talking with you, painting and reading.
Your post had perfect timing, as I have “candied citrus peel” on my mind lately… will be using those links and trying to decide which recipe to use, as I have never made candied anything at home
My father was a huge influence on me, both he and Mom, having gone through hardship growing up, were (my Mom still is) quite attentive to waste. Water, electricity, you name it… they would go out of their ways to conserve it, at a time when conserving energy was not a major concern. I am constantly turning light bulbs off everywhere, equipment not in use in the lab… it doesn’t matter who is paying the bill… myself, the grant, the university, the government… waste is waste. Should be avoided.
Loved your message, and the bread recipe too (of course!)
Thank you, Sally, for your support. Obviously. I feel strongly about waste and sometimes speak out about it. Candying citrus can be a wee bit tedious — or meditative, depending on how you feel about hanging out in your kitchen for long periods of time, but the flavor and texture of homemade candied peel is incomparable.
We composted and conserved long before it was popular.
Hello Kale, this is Spree and I’m the one who posted on ways to limit tears when chopping onions – one such method being to chop onions next to the sink with the water running. (I was certainly not suggesting the water be running like a torrent. A little dribble would do.) I agree with you entirely that it can’t be the best way. As you learned in subsequent comments (from grateful guinea pig who is my husband) I’m very conservation-minded. I compost all vegetable waste. I recycle everything I possibly can, I pack my dishwasher as full as it can possibly be, and I even make chocolate-covered candied orange peels. I grow what I can, I shop at farmers markets and belong to a CSA. I also support water-related charities in Africa. I’m sure that people who live in drought-prone areas would have taken my “suggestion”, which it really wasn’t, with a grain of salt. I would have. But just so you know, and can perhaps keep it in perspective, I live in the pacific northwest – our water does not come from aquifers. It does not come from a well. It comes from rain and snow melt, and right now we are in the midst of torrential downpours and flooding. Unless the climate changes enormously, we in this area will not suffer from water shortages. That does not mean however that I’m not sensitive to the issue, or that I wantonly waste. Thank you for allowing me my say on your space.
Absolutely, you are entitled to your say, Spree. I am glad to hear that you are conservation-minded, as I have heard now from yourself and your husband. “Our” water here depends on snow pack and rain and I have lived through several severe droughts as long as seven years running. And I study frequently in Northern New Mexico where every drop of water is precious. I am pleased that you are conscious about water use. Many people aren’t. Some of them will read my blog. Some of them will read yours. Some of them may read both. I happen to believe that no one on earth is in a position to waste potable water. Please do not take my position or my remarks as a wholesale criticism of you and your habits — I just have this thing about water use. I look forward to reading more of your blog posts, which came recommended recently by Nick on Frugal Feeding.
Sharyn, I’ve always admired how you create your dishes and now even more so as I see how you so care for our world and resources. I thank you for sharing tips and this wonderful winter bread. I’m excited to try it. And…I love the blues!!!
Thank you, Linda, for your kindness. I do care about resources and think we have much to learn from the old ones and those who came before us. If you like black rye, you will probably like this. And if you like carrots and caraway in your rye, be sure to visit Heidi’s original recipe.
I like the blues on paper and in my ears (I’m a big Chris Smither fan) — just not in my head!
I love this post; love the rant about wasting water and other precious, finite resources; and am so excited by this recipe. It’s funny you should have posted this (in tandem with your comment on my blog), as I have been hankering to make a good black bread like one finds in Polish stores in Green Point, in Brooklyn … probably with caraway, though (another one of those nostalgic flavours). I agree that with rye flour it’s best to knead by hand (although I tend to knead all my breads by hand because it’s meditative). Lovely lovely.
Thank you, Susan. Caraway is traditional, of course. My mother does not care for it and otherwise loves black bread. My sister-in-law used to summer in New York and New Jersey with her family where she was sent out to buy the groceries with only their Russian names.
I’ve bookmarked your recipe for Winter Bread…another thing to love about winter for sure! And thank you for the conservation reminder. My husband is bad about leaving water running while he’s doing dishes, but has turned and started on something else…and I run in and shut it off. Still, this reminds me that I’m not as conservative in this area as I could be and need to be. Have also bookmarked the things to do with citrus post, and, BTW, I made your curd with oranges instead of tangerine tonight…delicious! ~Betsy
Yay, Betsy! Yay for conservation and yay for orange curd in January. What did you eat it on or with?
Actually, I’m about to make Cecilia’s cake with some of it! It’s so good that I’ve been “spoon dipping” into it to taste and, you know, make sure it is STILL good. I’ll be making more because it’s so great and so easy. 🙂 Sharyn: Oh good! I want to hear about how that comes out. It will be on your blog, right?
Great post! I agree with you about water conservation, and like the challenge of conserving in as many ways as I can. I can always do a lot better, though, and you’ve kind of inspired me to think again on the topic. I was also telling friends tonight about your blog and referring them in your direction. They enjoy a CSA I might be able to join…I’ve had a few setbacks in my journey along this path, but they have assured me of one that will work well in my area. Your name naturally came up 🙂 I will definitely make this bread…I do love a dark bread, and tend to like caraway. Fun and inspirational, Sharyn! Debra
Thank you so much, Debra. Speaking out about things can be scary, but we have to live by whatever principles we’ve got. Thanks for mentioning me to your friends as well.
great post sharyn. i agree with you on water conservation as well as treating or using waste.
i live in a country where there is water problem and also we do not get clean drinking water straight out from the tap. we have to treat the water by using filters, purifiers or boiling it and then filtering it.
on a personal front, i still exploring ways and methods through which vegetable, fruit waste can be used.
i like dark bread and i recently saw the recipe in a book. in fact i was thinking to make it at home…. am sure the home made one must be good…
Thank you, Dassana, for commenting and sharing your experience. Homemade bread is a wonderful thing. So is good bakery bread.
I saw your rendering of the loaf of bread and thought how much I’d like “one of those.” I should’ve realized you wouldn’t leave us dangling. Thanks for the recipe and, more importantly, for singing out about water preservation. We are robbing the Future.
Oh good: it’s a simple drawing — I’m glad to know it got its message across. About water: there are so many of us now on planet earth that it is important not to take water for granted. We may have an abundant supply where we live right now, but this is not true for others.
I love dark, heavy and crusty breads…thanks for the recipe.
You are welcome, Karen. Thanks for commenting.
I gathered from your strongly worded post that water is indeed very scarce where you live… We are water conscious here in Canada as well, but perhaps don’t see the looming scarcity of water quite as much as you do. I, too, read Spree’s post but thought (from my perspective) that her advice was meant more as a “superstitious” approach to avoid onions stinging the eyes, not an actual remedy or technique… (I prefer goggles:P) I would hope that no one rushed out to try it? Good grief… we have to watch every word we write, eh? But at least you’ve reminded us all to shut off our taps and that is a good thing!
This bread sounds lovely and I just love Heidi’s recipes.. they’re always so healthful. I’m not a fan of caraway either so would have happily left it out. The last recipe of her that I’ve tried was the Irish Soda Bread and it was pretty tough and dry. This one looks much nicer:) xo Smidge
Last year it rained a lot in California and we had heavy snow pack. This year it is dry. I have lived through at least two seven-year droughts: we lost big old shrubs. Some people lost trees. Whatever your local water conditions, I want to remind people that it is one world and local abundance may be matched by critical scarcity elsewhere — we’ve got to share and however much there is, there isn’t enough to waste.
O.K. I’ll climb down off my soap box now and talk about bread: the black bread is good. I ate some for lunch with cashew butter yesterday.
It’s great to have someone on a soap box now and then… keeps us all on track:) Ahhh, cashew butter, now that would be a great combo. I have neither bread nor butter in my kitchen this morning, must be time to get to work! Sharyn: thanks, Barbara, for your kindness.
I thoroughly enjoy every single one of your articles, but I think this one will be a favorite. Beautifully done and beautifully said. Much tenderness and kindness, almost like a mother pleading for the wellbeing of children, gently but wholeheartedly. Thank you.
Ten years ago, my husband and I traveled around the US in an old RV. I discovered the preciousness of water the first time I used the shower. The RV had a 40 gallon reservoir. It was full. My shower emptied it. We had to drive out of our way to find a proper filling station. Wake up call. I have never used water the same way since. Not even when it appears to be available in abundance… and it always just appears that way. Thanks again for your powerful and honest words.
Thank you, Granny. It’s provoking a lot of responses, as you can see. I would love to waste water — but only if everyone could.
What a great post. I also hate to waste things. It’s not just about the money either, but that’s a part of it. So often what you’re throwing away has value, not monetary value alone either. Zest tastes great, compost makes my garden grow….
Thanks, Greg, for saying that. Money is like anything else — you can waste it, or you can use it wisely and well — the trick is to know the difference! It makes me happy, for example, to make stock from winter squash gunk — seeds, strings, and roasted skins: the stock adds lots of flavor to the soup and the peels and seeds are one more thing I don’t throw out. That means I got all of my money’s worth from the organic squash, plus all of its flavor
Hi Sharyn!
I enjoyed reading about waste and water. Water, in particular, is an issue that I have been thinking about. Living in southern California has made me very conservative with water usage. I took out most of my lawn and planted drought resistant plants. Recently as I flew across the country, I changed planes in Dallas. As we landed, I could see all the brown lawns, a result of the Texas drought. In contrast, the house we are buying in Connecticut has a well. “What do people do when the well runs dry?” I asked our realtor. “Doesn’t happen.” My husband then notes that the river is a mile away. There’s a river a mile from our southern California home too. Currently it’s dry. In twenty years, the river has been full twice. Our environment shapes our attitude.
I think the bread will be perfect for my New England winter.
Thanks, Maura. A lot of people are weighing in with water stories, either saying, “It’s not a problem where I live” or “Yes, this is important.” Drought resistant landscaping is quite popular here, as you probably know — but so are lawns if you go over the hill to Walnut Creek. I expect bread will be a good thing to keep your kitchen warm. And soup. And stew.
You rock! Keep reminding all of us of the scarcity of our natural resources. Also, I too have been thinking of our foremothers and fathers trying to eek out a life in cold, cold weather like we have here in Michigan in the winter. Makes me very grateful for the warmth of my home, my meals and my friends.
Thanks for adding gratitude to the conversation, Jane. I love water. I love drinking it and bathing in it and swimming in it. I love it that it comes out of the faucet. I just want to keep loving it, which means caring for it as best I can.
I love Rye breads. But I love your thoughts on waste and water and waste and peel even more, I’m lucky to have travelled and every time I come home from say India, I turn on the tap and brush my teeth and drink water straight from the tap, and I’m grateful. Thanks for the reminder.
Thank you, Claire. I have never been to India. I’d like to go. My best friend lived there for awhile. I love the food and the textiles and would probably love other things as well.
Wow I love the sound of this. I haven’t made rye bread before so I’m saving this for later!! Thank you x x
Thanks, Lauren. I look forward to reading about it on your blog someday. Take a look at the Swedish rye recipe, too — it’s one of my favorites, especially if you like sweeter breads.
We are pretty good about conserving water, but we’re not perfect. I don’t run the tap whilst brushing my teeth, I water the lawn all day…but I have to say, our water is wonderful, particularly in mid-winter when it’s so cold and refreshing out of the tap…YUM.
I would have left out the caraway seeds too, not my fav.
Nobody is perfect, Eva — we all have to live and we all have to make choices (like leaving out the caraway!)
I definitely don’t waste water. I have to bottled because the fresh isn’t so fresh here.
Glad to hear that you don’t waste water and that you “like” the post. Thank you.
Hear hear – I think so many people really take water for granted. They don’t think about where it comes from – just that they turn on a tap and there it is. They all spout (no pun intended :p) about how it’s “their right” and yes – everyone should have this right, but in many places in the world it’s just not a question of turning on a tap. I used to work in a factory where they had water gushing out of a pipe into an overflowing tank 24 hours a day! Even the water company, I read, wastes millions of litres of water every year because of poorly maintained pipes – it’s just escaping straight into the earth!
I love making bread – I think it’s one of the most satisfying things you can do in the kitchen and I try to make all my bread these days, unless I’m after a real “speciality” bread – thanks for another great sounding bread, and I love the painting – so pretty! 🙂
Thanks for stopping by my blog – I’m really pleased I could discover yours too! 🙂
Thank you, Charles. I always see your comments on other blogs I read. At least if water is escaping into the earth it may make its way into the aquifers for re-use. I love baking bread, too, and eating it: I eat little bread that isn’t homemade or from some wonderful artisan bakery. I think I’ve subscribed to your blog — I’ll have to look at my subscription pages. Thanks for the curried vegetable comment reply: I see celeriac and parsnips in my near future. And I’m glad you like the painting.
Your winter bread sounds wonderful. I’m all for saving water, too. 🙂
Thanks, Nancy.
Awesome post. I think we all need to be reminded now and again how to conserve. Sometimes we are diligent, other times we are lazy and we need a post like this to remind us to be diligent. Now I’m off to go make some sunshine – because winter is full of citrus and my jams from summer are almost all gone. Marmalade is calling me.
Thank you for your kind words and happy sunshine-making (I may make a different flavor since my citrus peels are stacked in my freezer, ready to be candied).
As a new comer to your blog, I am enjoying the lively discussion, enticing recipe and most of all your delightful watercolors!
Thank you, Deb. I visited yours for the first time today as well to look at those scrumptious oatmeal cookies. I look forward to seeing more.
[…] I was chopping the onions for this soup I was reminded of a recent post from the Kale Chronicles on conserving water. You will have to go read the post to understand the connection to chopping […]
[…] adapted this recipe loosely from a black bread recipe written by the wonderful Sharyn Dimmick of the Kale Chronicles, supplementing it with the black […]