Dried Sour Cherry Scones

I am sitting in my empty house for the last time this summer. Sebastian has the last day of science camp, the only camp I have signed him up for, and Julian has his last morning of preschool. After that they are home all summer. I am an interesting combination of relief, terror, excitement and dread. I love my boys and for me being a stay at home mom is the best choice. However it is often not easy being home with two boys who are far more intelligent and energetic then I am. Forget about keeping the house clean, I wasn't good at that before I had two whirlwinds of destruction. It is just not a priority for me. Cooking however is and sometimes my boys, who are best friends, will entertain each other while I cook. Afterwards there is a trail of destruction from their games that I may get around to cleaning...

Last week while they played outside I made a batch of our favorite scones for an afternoon snack. We had them with whipped cream and the last of the strawberry jam from the previous summer. Now that we finally have enough berries for more jam I need to make these again. My British husband loves them, as do Julian and Sebastian. Lewis says they are moist and like a true scone while most scones in the U.S. are dry. The wonderful thing is these are also really easy to make because they don't use any butter, no working the butter in with your fingers, a fork or a pastry blender. Instead of using butter the scones rely on the fat from heavy cream. I usually use dried tart cherries but you can use any dried fruit you want chopped up into smaller pieces. Dried apricots with crystallized ginger would be wonderful. If you want to use fresh berries they should be frozen so you don't end up with a brightly colored pink or purple scone.

After keeping up with the boys all day, making these in the afternoon and the combined destruction in the kitchen and the yard I only had enough energy to make hot dogs for dinner. Not every meal I make is worthy of sharing here.

The original recipe for these scones is the dried fruit cream scones from Marion Cunningham's The Breakfast Book. She uses a mix of dried fruit and raisins, I prefer to leave out the raisins and just add more dried cherries. Her recipe also calls for a glaze of butter and sugar on top that I leave out. For me the scones are a perfect balance of sweet and richness and a sugar toping would just detract. It is also much nicer not to have boys with sugar glaze all over their hands leaving a trail of butter and sugar around the house.

Dried Sour Cherry Cream Scones

adapted form Marion Cunningham's Good Eating

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour or white whole wheat flour (or use all white flour)

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup dried sour cherries or other favorite dried fruit, chopped if it is larger then a dried cherry

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 425° Use an ungreased baking sheet, you don't even need a silpat or parchment paper.

Combine the flours, baking powder, salt and sugar in a large bowl and stir with a fork to mix well. Add the dried fruit and mix with the fork. Use the fork to mix in the heavy cream, stirring until the dough holds together in a rough mass. The dough will be very sticky.

Lightly flour a board and transfer the dough to it. Knead the dough 8 or 9 times. Pat it into a circle about 10 inches wide. Cut the circle into even wedges, I usually cut it into 10. Place about 1 inch apart on the baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.

I like to serve them with whipped cream and raspberry jam, or butter and jam. The following day everyone was just eating them plain.

Strawberry Freezer Jam

As you can see by the photo we are all out of strawberry jam. The boys and I have tried to go pick berries twice to fix this problem and both times the fields were already picked out. Really it is early here for strawberries. In another week the plants will be overflowing with ripe fruit. However the boys and I love going berry picking and all of us are impatient for more jam, strawberry butter and mounds of strawberries to eat just waiting on the kitchen counter.

So why am I posting this recipe before I can get enough strawberries to make it? Well many of you are already in the height of strawberry season and this is a great way to preserve their taste for the winter. Plus this recipe is on my mind right now, even though I don't have any for us to eat.

This recipe is super easy to make, even for those with a fear of canning and traditional jam making. For other fruits I use traditional preserving methods and no commercial pectin. However I prefer the taste of strawberries when they are uncooked. This delicateness of flavor is why local seasonal strawberries are so different from their grocery store relatives. So when I make strawberry jam I use freezer jam pectin. It also means this is a super easy recipe that you won't mind making after picking a mound of berries. You don't need to hang over a boiling pot of jam and boiling water bath canner to make it. Good thing if I want to have the time, and energy to make at least 4 batches this summer.

The resulting jam tastes like strawberries and summer. If you have only ever had strawberry jam from the store this will be a real surprise. I think store bought strawberry jam just tastes "red." The last time I said that Sebastian asked what I meant. I explained that it doesn't taste like strawberries, just like sugar and artificial strawberry flavor, it is what the color red would taste like. Then the boys and I went with Lewis on a business trip to Boston and at breakfast in the hotel Sebastian finally tasted regular strawberry jam. After taking a bite of his toast he said, "It tastes red, only sweet and red." He did think the bacon and cheddar omelette he had there was, "Spectacular."

The recipe I use is based on a traditional no pectin strawberry jam I came up with several years ago. In that jam I added the chopped peel of half an orange to ensure the jam would set, as strawberries are low in natural pectin. The jam reliably set well and the orange was a wonderful counterpart to the berries. I didn't keep the peel in this recipe as it would not taste good uncooked, but there is Cointreau for the orange taste and Drambuie for complexity, both liqueurs can be left out if you prefer.

Strawberry Freezer Jam

5 Tbsp Ball Freezer Jam Pectin

1 1/2 cups sugar

enough fresh, ripe, local strawberries to yield 4 cups crushed, 2 quarts should be enough. (I crush mine in a large measuring cup with a potato masher, slicing any really large berries first)

2 tsp Cointreau (optional)*

2 Tbsp Drambuie (optional)*

1 Tbsp fresh squeezed lemon or orange juice

5 - 6 1/2 pint jars, it is fine to use regular glass canning jars. Ball does make freezer jars, however they still break if they fall when frozen. Perhaps I should stop over stuffing the freezer.

Combine pectin and sugar in a large bowl and mix until thoroughly combined. Combine crushed fruit with liqueurs if using and either lemon or orange juice. Add fruit mixture to the sugar and pectin and stir for 3 minutes. Ladle jam into half pint canning jars or freezer jars leaving 3/4 of an inch of headspace to allow for expansion during freezing. Allow jars to stand at room temperature until thickened, approximately 30 minutes.

I don't like this jam until 24 hours after making it as it takes that long for the sugar to dissolve properly. My boys love it right away as the undissolved sugar makes it much sweeter. The Ball package says freezer jam will keep for 1 year in the freezer and up to 3 weeks in the fridge, I often keep it for longer in the fridge without any problems, there is enough sugar to act as a preservative. I don't know if it will last a year in the freezer, I never seem to make enough for that to be a concern.

*If you are worried about adding uncooked alcohol to the jam bear in mind that when you make a dish such as a stew with alcohol most of the alcohol is not cooked out. The alcohol content in this jam is actually very small, or you can just leave it out.

Lamb Stew with Mint and Rhubarb

I have to confess that the first time I made this dish I was very doubtful. Normally when I decide to make a new dish I can imagine how the flavors would be together in my head, if they would work well together, play off each other etc. Somehow I could not do that for this dish, I think I tried it as a form of rubber necking. I needed to make it so I could see what it tasted like, if it would work.

I realize now that the reason I could not imagine the taste is I had only ever tried rhubarb either sweetened or raw from the garden. When you sweeten rhubarb you mask some of its flavor, which I think for many people is the intent. Conversely rhubarb eaten uncooked from the garden has an astringent quality to me. Raw it is not only the tartness that you can taste, for me it is almost bitter. This is not true for everyone, I have a friend who loves to eat it straight from her yard, or with a little salt.

Well I discovered that when you cook rhubarb it mellows it a little, making it a little sour but in a complex way, very much like some of my favorite middle eastern braises that use lemon and artichokes. In this recipe the lamb is braised until tender and then the rhubarb is added at the end and cooked just long enough to become tender and mellow its bite. The rhubarb in the finished dish is silky, a little sour but balanced by the other flavors. The overall stew is rich and wonderful. Now that I have discovered this dish I want to find other truly savory uses for rhubarb, ones with no added sugar. I am trying to figure out other preparations that would have the strength to stand up to the full flavor of the unsweetened rhubarb. While I struggle with that I may just make this one again.

Lamb Stew with Mint and Rhubarb

3 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 shallots chopped

1 scallion white and all but darkest green portions chopped (or sub another type of onion for the shallot and scallion)

1 clove garlic minced (cut in half first and remove sprout if there is any)

1 1/2 lbs leg of lamb trimmed of all fat and cut in to 1 inch cubes

1 tsp ground coriander seed

3/4 tsp Vermont Baharat (optional, but if you decide to make some it is great on grilled meats as well)

3 cups water

1/4 cup fresh mint chopped

1/4 cup cilantro chopped (or use flat leaf parsley)

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

approximately 2-5 cups rhubarb stalks, trimmed and cut into 1 1/2 inch segments, sliced lengthwise if over 3/4 inches wide (the original recipe calls for 2-3 stalks, I used 3 huge stalks and really liked the results)

Heat the oil in a wide pot, I used a 5 qt Le Creuset, cook stirring often until translucent. Push the onions to the side of the pot and add some of the lamb pieces and brown them. As the pieces brown remove them to a bowl and add more pieces to brown.

When all the lamb is brown return the other pieces and collected juices back to the pot and add the coriander, baharat and water. Cover the pot loosely and simmer until the lamb is tender, about an hour. Check occasionally to make sure the stew does not dry out and add more water as needed.

When the lamb is tender season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper, then stir in the mint and cilantro. Set the pieces of rhubarb on top of the stew and cover tightly and cook over low heat for a few minutes until the rhubarb is tender. (It is actually also good if you get impatient and turn the heat up and some of it melts into the sauce. I have tried it both ways. Not that I am advocating impatience when cooking, but it happens, especially with hungry children pestering the cook)

Serve with the whole rhubarb pieces on top of the stew with rice.

Rhubarb Crumb Bars

I had other plans for what I was going to post this week. Actually I had many other plans of dishes and techniques to post. However the other night I made the rhubarb crumb bars from Catherine Newman's blog and for many reasons I had to share this recipe first. I made them while Lewis was putting the boys to bed and after they came out of the oven we stayed up late eating them. We only stopped because we really needed to go to bed. The next day I shared them with friends who all wanted the recipe. So I thought I would share the recipe with my changes here while rhubarb is still in season.

Three years ago we were deciding (and by deciding I mean arguing) about whether or not to buy our current house. Lewis spent all his time pointing out the reasons we shouldn't move, and so I spent all my time pointing out why we should. For me one of the features of the house was it came with rhubarb in the yard. If I had this recipe already Lewis would have agreed to buy the house much sooner! Rhubarb is my type of gardening. It comes up in the spring without my doing anything, which matches up perfectly with my gardening abilities. Plus it is useful in the kitchen, I don't really care all that much about growing things just because they look pretty.

I am not sure what it was about the recipe for these bars that sent me to the kitchen. Whatever it was I am glad I did. I know it wasn't her description of them as "achingly sweet and jaw-crampingly tart." I am not one of those people who craves lots of sugar. After all I don't even like soda. Now butter, oil, fat and cheese are another story. So I chose to lower the sugar and sub in some maple syrup. I wanted the flavor of the rhubarb to come through without masking it with too much sugar. They are still sweet enough to tone down the rhubarb just not "achingly" so.

I also used some whole wheat pastry flour in place of half of the white flour. If you follow this blog that shouldn't surprise you. The extra flavor that it gave to the crust really helped to highlight and bring out the rhubarbs flavor. The only two no votes I have received on them is from my boys. Their friends Silas and Rosalie both loved them, so disliking them is not a kid thing. Oh well, more for Lewis and I.

Before I present the recipe we need to take a moment to talk about a new ingredient I have been playing with. On my last visit to King Arthur Flour I bought a bottle of chocolate extract. Since then I have been adding it to many sweet dishes. I added it to sour milk butternut squash waffles twice this past week and everyone said they were the best. So I added it to the rhubarb bars and we love the end result. I am not sure what it adds, I am sure it is fine without it. I just included it in the recipe for any of you who want to play with a new ingredient. In a dish like this that is not chocolate based it does not make it taste like chocolate, it just adds to the depth of flavor.

Rhubarb Crumb Bars

1 slightly heaping cup rolled oats

1 slightly heaping cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 slightly heaping cup all purpose flour

1 cup sugar (I used raw sugar, the original calls for brown sugar, I was out)

3/4 tsp kosher salt

1 cup butter (2 sticks, if using salted only use 1/2 tsp kosher salt) sliced into small pieces or chunks

6 cups rhubarb sliced if from a thin stalk, chopped if from a large stalk (original recipe says about 2 pounds before cleaning and trimming, for me it was 3 huge 2 inch thick stalks and 2 small stalks)

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup maple syrup (I used grade B)

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/2 cup water

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp chocolate extract (optional, but just so you know this is my not so secret new secret ingredient).

Heat the oven to 400° and heavily grease a baking dish that is 13 x 9 x 2 (or close to those dimensions) with butter. Combine the flours, oats, 1 cup of sugar and salt. Add the pieces of butter and toss everything to coat the butter with flour. Use a pastry blender or your hands to mix the butter into the dry ingredients. If using your hands just rub the butter into the dry ingredients. You want it to be in pea sized pieces.

Reserve a heaping cup of crumbs and then pour the remainder into the prepared baking dish. Press the crumbs into place to form a bottom crust. Spread the sliced/chopped rhubarb evenly over the crust. In a small saucepan combine the white sugar, maple syrup and corn starch. Stir in the water and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens slightly, about five minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the extracts, or extract. Pour the syrup evenly over the rhubarb in the baking dish. Sprinkle the reserved crumbs over the top and bake for ten minutes. After ten minutes turn the heat down to 325° and bake for another hour. Serve warm or at room temperature. I am sure it would be wonderful served with vanilla or maple ice cream, whipped cream or Bird's Custard. We have been eating it plain, I am a little afraid of making it taste better.

Homemade Pizza Perfected

"What's for dinner?" Most days I have to find the answer to this question, even when I haven't gone shopping and I have no inspiration. Monday was one of these days. I arrived home with 2 slightly cranky boys in tow and no ideas for dinner. I feel like I really should have an idea what we are having for dinner by 3, 3:30 at the latest, sometimes 4 but... well, you get the idea. However on Monday we arrived home shortly before 4 with no ideas. However as part of the never ending delivery of junk I received the latest new catalog from King Arthur Flour in the mail which had a tantalizing photo of pizza on the cover.

So we went in the house and the boys immediately began raising a ruckus in the playroom and I started making pizza dough. I decided to more or less follow the recipe in the King Arthur Flour catalog as I have been searching for the perfect crust. However I do not stock, Sir lancelot High Gluten Flour, Hi-maize natural fiber or pizza dough flavor in my kitchen. The major change in the preparation of that nights pizza was prompted by this note in the recipe, "or the crispiest pizza, bake the crust for 8 minutes, until set, before topping with sauce and cheese; then bake for an additional 4 minutes." At first I thought I would follow that advice, but then I decided to use that general method but cook them on the grill instead.

I have been making pizza at home for a while now. My pizza is always good, however it has never been inspired. The toppings and sauce are often wonderful, it is the crust that I have not been happy with. The crust was always fine, everyone happily ate it. However I was not going for fine. I was looking for a crust that was crisp while still being tender and full of flavor. Well that is what I got by grilling it. Well to be perfectly honest, that is what I got on 1 of the 3 pizzas I made. I actually tried three methods of grilling the pizza, just to make sure I knew the best way. I should probably admit, it is also because I am a bit neurotic.

The method that won was to preheat all burners and then cook the dough briefly with no toppings for approximately 3-5 minutes until there were good sear marks on the bottom. On my gas grill I did this with the lid closed, with a charcoal grill I believe you would leave the lid open. Next I removed the pizza dough from the grill and dressed it with sauce, cheese and toppings. To finish the cooking I put the pizza back on the grill over indirect heat, (I turned off half the burners and put the pizza on the side that was off).

For toppings I caramelized an onion and cleaned out my fridge of leftovers. Half a grilled chicken breast, cooked potatoes and sliced pears. I also wanted a green vegetable on the pizza and had nothing in the house. Remember how I said I did not go shopping?

Happily my neighbor had offered me some broccoli volunteers from his garden as garden starts. We have both now planted as many of those as we want, so I pulled up several more of them for the pizza. Broccoli is one of the many vegetables where the tender young plants can be eaten whole. Truly a great thing to remember here in the spring. I just cut off the roots and chopped them up and then mixed them with some olive oil.

Homemade Grilled Pizza

Dough

1 3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour

2 1/4 to 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp yeast

1 1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 1/2 cups tepid water (105° - 110°)

Dissolve yeast in the tepid water and mix the ingredients together in a food processor, stand mixer of bread machine to create a smooth soft but not too sticky dough (the dough I made was a little sticky but when I poked it none stuck to my finger). Let the dough rise in a covered bowl for 1 hour before shaping, or let it rise in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 days. If you let the dough rise in the fridge you will have a more complex flavored crust.

Divide the dough into 3 - 4 pieces. Roll out on a well floured surface to approximately 1/4 inch thick. Don't worry about having perfectly round pizzas, rustic pizza is very popular now. Allow to rise on a greased cookie sheet or parchment paper approximately 30 minutes.

Preheat all burners on your grill on the highest they will go until blazingly hot. Brush the surface of each crust with extra virgin olive oil. To cook place the dough olive oil side down for 3 - 5 minutes with the lid closed if using a gas grill, until there are nice grill marks on the bottom side and the top has bubbles. Take the crusts off and when all of the crusts are pre-grilled turn off the burners on one side. Top the pizzas with sauce, shredded cheese and topping and place over indirect heat (the side that is off) and cook until the cheese is melted, about 4 minutes.

Note: in the winter I will preheat my pizza stone in a 500° oven and prebake the crusts for 8 minutes before topping and finishing to bake.

Pizza Sauce

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves thinly sliced (cut open and sprout removed if any first)

1 quart home canned tomatoes or 28 ounce can tomatoes in own juice

1 jar tomato paste (make sure it is one without added sugar)

Dried oregano

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil and garlic in a medium saucepan over medium heat until the garlic releases its flavor. Stir in the tomatoes and tomato paste and add dried oregano to taste (I used about 1/2 tsp). Cook. stirring occasionally until thick and then add salt and pepper to taste.

Asparagus with Brown Butter

Local asparagus just appeared in the store last week. The appearance of local asparagus means the true start to Vermont spring, it means more choices for local food are coming, it also means we can begin eating it so often that we all become thoroughly sick of it. That way I won't start really hankering for it until January or February, at which point I am so close to the real thing I somehow convince myself to wait. Eating local asparagus is so different from the woody stalks shipped around the country that the wait is worth it.

Asparagus is one of those vegetables that my children love. That is, they love it if prepared exactly to their tastes. I do understand, some preparation methods can result in a stringy tough stalk. Neither one of them will touch boiled or even steamed asparagus.

They prefer the sugars in the asparagus to caramelize and even have some spots of brown. Until last year this meant roasting or grilling. However late in the season last year I was searching for a new way to make it and stumbled upon Jack Bishops "Pan Browned Asparagus with Brown Butter."

Like grilling and roasting this recipe caramelizes some of the sugars, resulting in a sweeter flavor. It also retains some of the crisp tender quality that my children require, or to be more precise is not stringy. In addition the brown butter melds with the asparagus and makes the flavor smoother, silkier and richer. When I make grilled and roasted asparagus Sebastian will not eat the tips and I get extra of my favorite part. With this recipe the sumptuous flavor is the most perfect in the tips and Sebastian eats the whole thing. I have noticed he even saves the tips for last.

Pan Browned Asparagus with Browned Butter

From Vegetables Every Day by Jack Bishop

2 Tbsp unsalted butter

1 1/2 pounds thin or medium asparagus, ends snapped off where they naturally break

Kosher Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter in a large skillet set over medium heat. Place the asparagus in the skillet in a single layer (I don't always have the space for a single layer, if so shake the pan occasionally to rearrange the asparagus). Season with kosher salt to taste. Cover the pan and cook until crisp tender, 5 to 7 minutes.

Remove the cover, raise the heat to medium high and cook, shaking the pan occasionally to turn them, until lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Transfer the asparagus to a serving platter with a slotted spoon or tongs. Season with pepper and serve immediately. (or, you can tell your family to wait while you just take 30 photos of the finished dish for your blog).

Winter Squash Whole Wheat Bread

I admit it, I was formerly one of those people who looked down on bread machines. I am now having trouble remembering my pedestal, something about not being able to adjust the recipe for the current conditions and batch of flour, not getting your hands in the dough etc. Ironically enough, when I was the most insufferable about it we often bought mass produced bread in the store, the sandwhich loaf kind that is always soft and the recipe is never adjusted for the flour or humidity.

Amongst my freinds I was not alone in this snobbery, as part of her "25 random things about me" on Facebook a friend posted that she used to think bread machines were cheating until she got one. She also apologized to those who used them while she thought that. That item in my friends list began the process of chipping away at my negative attitude about bread machines. But when I first read it I admit I might have been a bit smug about my bread making, while ignoring that sometimes I wished people would stop eating it so fast.

Then I helped a friend acquire a bread machine from Goodwill. After delivering it to her I immediately regretted not keeping it for myself, what with the tales of waking up to fresh bread etc. So the next time someone posted a bread machine on Freecycle I arranged for Lewis to pick it up. I may have admitted it might be a nice addition, but I did not have to be involved in the transaction.

Lewis picked up the machine while I was at work and immediately found a simple white bread recipe and made it for snack that night. My children refused to eat it, and to be honest so did their parents. Lewis really enjoys the foods we eat, the whole wheat flour, the vegetables etc. However when Lewis gets in the kitchen he sometimes seems to forget that and makes white bread or prepares a stir fry where the only seasoning is butter, (in fairness the stir fry was 17 years ago). So with boring tasteless white bread as its inaugural voyage I left the bread machine in the basement for a month.

However the last month has been really busy for me. At the beginning of the month we went away to New York City for Passover, bringing a local Vermont Brisket with us and preparing a seder for my family in my dad's apartment. Then right after we got back I started to work for the 2010 census with a week of training. I am really enjoying my work for the census. The training could have been awful if it wasn't such a great group of people. Our supervisor apologized at the start that he had to read the manual to us verbatim. However as part of the hiring process we were all asked if we would have a problem asking people personal questions. The fact we all said no, this did not bother us means the entire group was outgoing and friendly. The test we had to take to be hired also means everyone was smart and as luck would have it quick witted. However the training did not leave me any time to bake, there was even homework in the evenings.

After the training was over, all the time I would usually spend baking bread has been filled with knocking on doors asking people what their address is and then mapping the location of the buildings. I have learned a lot about my city and I have also been missing some of my free time. So I decided to use the new to me bread machine.

I started with a bread recipe that I have made before using my stand mixer. The recipe is really a bread machine recipe. It is from the blog "Have Cake Will Travel" and is a vegan pumpkin whole wheat bread. I have made a few changes, some because we are not vegan and I avoid butter substitutes. As I have mentioned before we don't eat foods that need a lab to produce them. Also some of the changes just make it easier to make and I have discovered do not have an impact on the end result. Also we like a mix of white and whole wheat flour, although you could go ahead and make this with all whole wheat flour if you want, I am sure it would still be great. I use butternut squash puree in the bread because I have it stored in my freezer. You can use any winter squash puree, or even canned pumpkin from the grocery store. Just make sure to buy the pumpkin puree that does not have added sugar etc for pie.

When I made it the first time in the Bread Machine I got the go ahead from Sebastian. We need bread to go lunch for school so his buy in is important. However he is still 6, and when a round slice first appeared on his plate he refused it. Darn children and their survival instincts for foraging in the wild and avoiding foreign foods. My children are not gathering food in the forest, so I would really like them to stop mistrusting new foods. By the next loaf though both Julian and Sebastian loved the new bread and happily began gobbling it down. And now I can continue to make our bread, even when I am super busy or it is too hot out to turn on the oven. We can all hope I will still make bread with my stand mixer occasionally...

Winter Squash Whole Wheat Bread

1 cup winter squash puree

1 Tbsp butter at warm room temperature or melted (you could sub oil if you want)

1/2 cup water

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar (I use what ever sugar I am in the mood for, brown, sugar in the raw, turbinado, maple sugar...)

1 Tbsp vital wheat gluten (optional, especially if you use some white flour)

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 3/4 tsp yeast

Place the ingredients in your bread machine in the order listed. Turn it on and let the machine make you bread.

(A note on measuring flour. When using a bread machine it is important to measure accurately as you will not have a chance to adjust the quantity of flour while kneading. Spoon the flour into the measuring cup and level it off with a knife. The amount of four I get when using this method id vastly different from when I use the measuring cup to scoop up the flour and then leveling with the knife, or sometimes just wiggling the cup to level.)

If you don't have a bread machine you can still make this, because bread has been around for a long time and bread machines are a new thing. Just put the yeast in the water and allow to stand until bubbly in the bowl of your stand mixer. Add the butter, squash puree, sugar, salt and vital wheat gluten. With the mixer on low add the flour until the bread forms a ball that pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Continue kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic.