I'm All About Alliums

When I was a kid, there were three certainties that came when Mum made chili:

1. Small bowls would be on the table for my sisters and I to pick out the kidney beans Mum put in along with the Van Camp's pork and beans.
   
2. My elder sister would spill chili on herself, regardless of her having changed into her designated "chili shirt" that was to be worn when eating chili because it already had chili stains upon it. (I seem to recall she had several such shirts growing up, starting from the time she began eating solids, I believe. She might even have one now.)
   
3. Our family of five would go through copious amounts of saltines and ketchup "dressing up" our respective bowls of chili.

The pumpkin-turkey chili I made was not the kind into which one would or should splurt a copious amount of ketchup--or any ketchup, for that matter. However, in my mind there's a tradition that dictates chili ought to be paired with some kind of crisp or dry, crumbly carb. And while I have a box of saltines in the pantry, I didn't think such things would be...right with the pumpkin-laced concoction.

If I were going to offer up some kind of carb companion to the chili, I'd have to get out the bread machine and the recipe books. Luckily, I spied a recipe in Donna Rathmell German's The Bread Machine Cookbook II that I suspected had the right flavor to be paired with chili and was one the husband had tagged for future baking.

Onion Poppy Seed Bread3/4 C water
1 1/2 T butter or margarine
1/2 C chopped onion
1 1/2 t sugar
3/4 t salt
1 1/2 T poppy seeds
1 1/2 C whole wheat flour
1 1/2 C bread flour
1 t yeast

1. Add ingredient to bread machine in the order recommended by the machine's manufacturer.
   
2. Select the Wheat, Sweet or Basic cycle on the machine.
   
3. If available, select the crust color.
   
4. Press Start.

Yield: One 1-pound loaf

Nutritional Info
Sorry, I can't give what I don't have.

The Faudie's Futzings
I don't have much to report here. For once, I actually measured the amount of chopped onion for a recipe. I knew doing so was important because imprecise measuring can really screw up a loaf of bread.

Unfortunately, I didn't the full amount of poppy seeds needed. I was just shy of filling the half-tablespoon spoon the third time around. Oh well. I don't think that missing 16th of a tablespoon impacted the loaf any.

Also, I added a tablespoon and a half of vital gluten. Maybe it's not necessary, but I've made it a habit to added a tablespoon (or fraction thereof) of vital gluten for every cup (or fraction thereof) of whole wheat flour a bread recipe needs if the recipe itself doesn't call for it. I think that additional ingredient improves my chances of having an edible loaf at the end of the three hours of so of the bread machine's labor.

I had high hopes for this loaf because I love onion buns. I think Pepperidge Farm makes a variation of these buns that includes poppy seeds, and they're pretty tasty too. Did I have any hopes of replicating those buns? Hardly, but I did wish fervently as I put the ingredients into the bread pan that the loaf would be as tasty and aromatic as the onion buns I used to buy from time to time.

Sadly, the aroma of the baking loaf was nothing like the smell that rushes out when you open a bag of onion buns. Instead, it smelled more...Italian. The boy observed that it smelled to him like "pizza you buy from the store," and I'm inclined to agree. I love the smell of browning onions, and it was completely absent. Oh well.

What I didn't expect but was pleased as punch to wind up with was a good crust:

Artisan-y, non?

And that's what the vital gluten does for you, Gentle Reader: It gives you nice, tall loaves, not squat bricks. Does it help form a good crust? Perhaps. Some niggling in the back of my mind tells me I read somewhere it does, but I often get nigglings about things I've read or seen or heard that are wildly off. Stupid brain of mine.

The bread worked nicely with the chili, and the boys both praised it. The husband's looking forward to pairing it with some tuna for lunch some day at work, which is pretty high praise considering he's addicted to his six-seed loaf with tuna.

But the highest praise came from the boy. The husband came home after the boy and I had started eating supper (plasma donation night for him), and as the husband stood at the table and gave his greetings, the boy encouraged, "Sit down and have some of this delicious bread!"

Yup, any time the boy says anything I make is delicious, I feel pretty damn good.