I have a plethora of cucumbers from the garden! It is nice, but what to do with all of them? I found that the don't last long in the refrigerator (I think it is because they don't have the wax coating that is typically on store-bought cukes and the fridge just dries them out), but they seem to hold up quite well on the counter.
I got the idea that I wanted to make cucumber bread. I came across a couple quick bread recipes, but they didn't fit what I had in mind, which was a lofty yeast bread with little green flecks. So I decided to do an experiment in the bread machine, and it turned out very well!
Dough rising for the second time.
Dough rising for the final time
Bread!
It has quite a nice texture.
I have an Oster 2lb EXPRESSBAKE(TM) Breadmaker and it came with a little recipe book, so I looked through that to get an idea of liquid to flour to yeast ratios then erred on the side of less liquid and added more until the dough looked good. Below is the final recipe.
Cucumber, Feta and Chive Bread
Makes a 2 lb loaf.
Ingredients:
3/8 cup water
3/4 cup cucumber, seeded and finely chopped or shredded
3/4 cup cucumber, finely chopped or shredded (not seeded)
1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1 egg
2 tbsp butter
3 green onions, sliced
3 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 tbsp sugar
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
Directions:
- Measure and add liquid ingredients to bread pan (water through green onions)
- Measure and add flour and sugar to bread pan
- Make a well in the flour. Measure and add yeast to the well.
- Put the bread pan in the machine, close the lid and select the Sweet setting, choose your crust color (I went with medium) and press start.
- Remove loaf from bread pan when it is finished baking and let cool (at least a little) before slicing.
