I wasn't feeling great yesterday, but needed to make greens glug, hard boiled eggs and bread. I had a little burst of go-to, and started doing all three at once. The eggs go in an automatic steamer, so are a no brainer, other than having to keep an ear out for the very unobtrusive done buzzer. While the spinach was losing its grit, however, I figured I'd measure out ingredients for the bread and let the (refrigerated) yeast warm up.

The greens glug is the best way I've found for me to ingest dark leafy greens. I test high on the ew- that's-too-bitter scale on three different compounds, as I've mentioned before, but a genetic disposition to avoid certain poisonous plants doesn't mean that other non-poisonous dark green leafies aren't really good for one. So, in making savory popsicles I learned to eat raw chard with some fruit, and also that the mix that goes in them, thinned with water, is very drinkable. So I make greens glug and water it down with a lot of good spring water and some Ceylon cinnamon, to drink with meals (to get the necessary saliva for digestion). It's not the ideal way, in terms of preserving vitamins, but the best I can do. This was a typical batch: Chard, Kale (curly green), spinach, parsley and basil, plus a few stalks of celery, a smallish apple and half a cucumber for water and sweetness, minced in the Vita-mix, but mostly not liquified.

There was greens glug left from the last batch, which had more parsley and no basil. I figured, why not put it in the bread? I'd put some greens in bread before and it was good. These weren't as fine or liquidy. I put some (about a cup) in the measuring cup before the line for the water in my basic recipe, and let the water fill it out...then added another quarter cup of water because it looked like it wanted it.

I weighed out the flour (Central Milling Artisan Baker's Craft + (malted, 11.5% protein), and thought I should add some aromatic herbs, but couldn't make myself go get a measuring spoon, so just used the shaker top on some Frontier Garlic & Herbs. And I thought it might need some extra salt because of the greens, so I used my yeast spoon (measures one packetful=1 cake) to eyeball a little more than than the required measure of salt, per the recipe. After I was done with the new batch of greens glug, I stirred the bread ingredients all together, and thought it needed more structure, so added a scoop of Vital Wheat Gluten. I know all kinds of formulae, but I just used a scoop by eye. Probably about 1/3 c., maybe a tad less. But it needed more water for the VWG, and since I didn't know the measure, I just poured some in, and it splashed a little more in than I'd intended. I thought it would be fine, but while it was kneading (in the mixer) it looked too damp, and I added some plain flour from the drawer under the mixer, checking the way it incorporated to be sure of the amount, something I do while making challah.

The result was a very soft, high hydration dough. It rose very well, but I thought it looked like it could use some stretch and fold action, so did that and let it rise again. I probably should have poured it out and tried to shape it into a ball after the second rise, but I was in no mood and just put it in a pot and left it to rise again, stuck it in the oven and kind of eyeballed when it was done (I did check with a thump after it was out of the pot).

The dough really was too soft to hold a dome, but it baked up really nicely with an even open texture and very moist crumb. The crust has some chew and lots of flavor without being hard. The little bit of extra salt works really well. It's perceptible, but not salty-tasting. Really nice. The aromatics come through, gently, but there's an overall deliciousness that I have to ascribe to the greens glug. It tastes like bread, not vegetables/greens, but just has a ton of what I have to call "flavor" beyond the salt. It's really good! And really good with nothing on it, which is my test for great bread.

So, obviously, it's irreproducible, but I'm encouraged to see how good it can be if I abandon the recipe and just make bread. I could always do that with cakes, but bread is different. :)