It’s the beginning of a new month. This means that all the new themes for food blogging challenges are announced. I love this time of month; I find it inspiring. What am I going to be challenged to make this month? Is it something new? The challenge hosts are becoming known names in my household, especially Dom and his Random Recipes. This month, for Random Recipes #28 Dom has challenged us to make bread.
The 1st of May was a cold, windy day with alternating bouts of bright sunshine and sleety showers: a perfect soup and bread sort of day. I probably didn’t select this recipe as randomly as Dom would like. It was the first recipe I’d come across in the bread sections of my cookbooks which I had all the ingredients for, so I went with that one.
The original recipe for Goat’s Cheese, Onion and Potato Bread with Thyme appears in Delia Smith’s How to Cook: Book 1 (1998), which I picked up at our local charity shop last Thursday for £1. I didn’t have enough goats cheese or any fresh thyme, but she also provides an alternative recipe using feta cheese, 1/4 diced red onion and rosemary, ingredients I did have on hand.
It’s not technically a bread, I don’t think, as it doesn’t contain any yeast (but then neither do sourdough breads, and they are considered breads…. ponders) I would consider it to be a giant scone and the recipe is really quick to whip up, as scones generally are. I was skeptical that the feta cheese pressed into the top would burn after 45 minutes of cooking, but it didn’t. It turned a delicious, appetising golden colour.
For some reason when I read the ingredient red potato I just assumed she meant sweet potato, and so I used one. It wasn’t until afterwards, when I cut into the bread and realised my bread didn’t look like the one in the photo, did I realise my error.
However, it works! I like the look of orange flecks throughout the bread, although my children thought it was carrot, didn’t like the look of the bread at all and refused to even try it. I think the sweetness of the potato and the sharp saltiness of the feta cheese compliment each other very well, perhaps it’s more for grown-up tastes. This bread would make an ideal picnic lunch and I might have to try it again the next time we head up the hill for an adventure.
This bread was served with a hearty Three Bean Vegetable Soup.
Banana Bran Muffins
Love making bread but I tend to stick to plain rolls and loafs. This looks very tasty thank you x
this sounds delicious!
This looks amazing what a great sounding bread perfect to go with soup.
It looks like the cheese scones I make, that´s what I thought when I looked at the first pic. So tempting! I actually like that you used sweet potato, and I bet it tasted amazing! There´s something so interesting about breads without yeast.
Mmm cheese scones are lovely! Yes, I agree, it looks like a giant cheese scone!
Wow – that looks so good. I can just imagine the fragrance. I love feta – and for some reason I always associate it with summer…
Thank you. I love feta too, there’s just something so fantastic about it!
this is my sort of bread – actually it reminds me of one I made ages ago and I wonder if it derived from the same source – I used purple potato in mine which was fun!
Purple potato sounds interesting! That would make a very lovely coloured bread, I’m sure.
such a beautiful looking bread. I’ve not made a potato bread yet but i’ve seen many and have often thought about it, yours really does look so tasty… a great random recipe pick, so glad you’re so fast of the mark this month! x
Thank you! I’ve tried making bread using mashed potato before, which works well, but never just grating it directly into the flour. I was skeptical at first, but I’m a convert now.
Oh look at that bread, it looks wonderful!
Thank you 🙂 It was quite scrummy too, I thought!
That looks amazing
Thanks, I thought so too! It helped that I photographed it during one of the few times the sun came out yesterday!
I love the look of that bread. It’s beautifully rustic and must have been gorgeous dipped into soup. I would have thought that the sweet potato makes it even tastier than using regular potato. One to bookmark.
I thought it was really pretty too, a sentiment not shared by any of my children! I very much enjoyed dipping it into the vegetable soup. Yep, scrummy! 🙂