Irish Soda Bread With a Twist!

After Saturday’s dumpling craze, I have to admit that I didn’t cook anything else all weekend. We had friends over on Saturday night so we had plenty of snack food leftover (cheese, crackers, hummus, veggies, salsa, baguette) to finish off the weekend. So I want to go back to something I made last week, while I felt too sick to sit down and write a blog entry. I’m not sure if my decision was based on all the Dayquil I had taken but I wanted to make an Irish soda bread and add spinach and cheese in it. My husband had asked me many times if I could find a way to put vegetables (and meat, but I wasn’t willing to take on this project last week) in a loaf of bread. I figured it may or may not be good but it had to be possible. As I had a little bit of buttermilk that was about to go bad a few days later, I decided to go with the Irish soda bread instead of a regular loaf or the bread-maker. So after following to basic recipe, I added spinach (the last of what we were able to grow in our garden this spring!) and also decided to put some shredded cheddar cheese that we had in the fridge.

Irish Soda Bread with Spinach and Cheddar

Ingredients:

– 4 cups of flour

– 1.5 teaspoon of salt

– 1 teaspoon of baking soda

– 2 cups of buttermilk

– 1 cup of (finely) chopped spinach

– 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese

– 1 sprig of fresh rosemary, leaves picked off and chopped

What’s Next?

1. Mix all the ingredients with a wooden spoon together until you can turn it into a ball (I tend to make mine more like an oval shape).

2. Place the ball of dough in a baking dish and bake at 350°F for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. (it took me a little bit longer before it was ready than a usual basic loaf)

The loaf was definitely heavier than the average loaf I’ve made in the past but it makes sense considering everything I’ve added. We just cut much thinner slices, which still had plenty of flavor. The taste was honestly amazing. It’s probably mostly because of the cheese but it’s nice to know that you get a bit of spinach as well.

I will probably try to make another loaf this week. At my husband suggestion, I might put of stalk of broccoli through the food processor and add it to the bread mixture. I will probably try putting more spinach as well and I might skip the cheese this time. Now the question will be whether or not this can rise and bake properly with all the added stuff. We’ll see… 🙂