Leftovers Povitica (or, Thanksgiving Loaf and Crazy Cupboard Loaf)

This was another post made possible by Sainsbury’s. They’re such enablers. They asked me to come up with and blog these recipes in exchange for vouchers. 

 

I’d been considering making another batch of povitica. It is a time consuming project, no doubt about it, but the end results are really striking, and besides, it had been a couple of years since I made any. So, when Sainsbury’s asked me to pitch an idea for recipes to use up leftover turkey and leftover chocolate, the idea of povitica resurfaced.

 

 

I made one turkey and stuffing povitica – otherwise christened Thanksgiving Loaf – and one loaf that used up all kinds of things I had lying in the baking cupboard. There were three kinds of leftover chocolate, half a bag of walnuts, a third of a bag of coconut… you know the sort of thing. I’ll list out exactly what I used a bit later, but what this recipe development really taught me was that you can throw almost anything in this loaf, and it’ll come out delicious. Plus, if you’re making it to share, you can be pretty goshdarn sure that nobody else will be bringing the same thing. If you have some time to devote to it, povitica is an awesome potluck contribution to make.

 

Let’s talk about the process for making this swirly loaf. It starts out like a normal bread. You make and rise the dough as usual – the dough is enriched with eggs, sugar and butter, and I made mine with extra strong bread flour. Once it’s risen, you stree-e-eeeetch it out on the table, until it’s as close to see-through as you can get it. Then you spread on your chosen filling, roll it all up like a swiss roll, and fold it into a loaf pan. A short second rise happens while you heat the oven, then you bake for around an hour. Done! It sounds easy enough, right?

 

Here’s a slideshow of the steps, showing the dough being first rolled, then stretched out, topped, and rolled up. It also shows you more of my flat than you would usually see – yes, that’s a TV in the background. Don’t judge me for having a TV in the kitchen, it’s an open plan living room/kitchen arrangement.

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If truth be told, I didn’t stretch the dough to the very max, but I did get it pretty thin. You can kind of see in this photo – the colour of the sheet underneath it is almost visible, as is my hand. Using a very strong bread flour means that there is more gluten, which in turn means you can stretch out the dough thinner without it breaking.

 

 

Now that we all know what povitica is, and we’ve had an overview on the method, let’s get down to the recipe. The recipe for the dough comes courtesty of The Daring Kitchen.

Confession: I didn’t roast a whole turkey and then use the leftovers for this loaf.

Bread Dough (makes two loaves):

• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp plain flour
• 60 ml warm water
• 1 tbsp dry yeast
• 240 ml whole milk
• 85 g sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 large eggs
• 60 g unsalted butter, melted
• 600 – 750g very strong bread flour
• oil or melted butter for stretching out

 

First, activate the yeast. Mix the sugar, plain flour, water and yeast in a small bowl, and leave for ten minutes to foam up.

While the yeast is bubbling, heat the milk up to just below boiling, stirring constantly so that a film does not form on the top of the milk and it doesn’t burn at the bottom of the pot. When it gets hot enough it will start to shimmer and shake a little, with wisps of steam rising from it, and at that point you can remove it from the heat. Let it cool for five minutes.

When the yeast is ready, mix the scalded milk, the sugar and the salt until combined. The sugar and  salt will dissolve.

Add the beaten eggs, yeast, melted butter, and 300g of flour. Mix thoroughly – you will have a gloopy batter in the bowl. That’s OK. Slowly – a scoop at a time – add more flour, mixing well after each addition. Eventually you’ll have something that resembles a soft dough, which clears the sides of the bowl. You might not have used all of the flour.

Turn the dough out onto floured surface and knead, gradually adding flour a little at a time, until smooth and does not stick. Now, this step does rely on a bit of bread making experience. If you add too much flour, the bread will be dry. If you don’t add enough, it won’t hold together when you try to stretch it. That said, it’s better to err on the side of not enough flour. I used the full 750g this time, but it does depend on egg size and weather conditions, as well as the absorbency of your flour, how much it will take. Always add it slowly, and knead really well between additions. A dough scraper is really handy to keep the surface clean.

When your dough is ready, it will still be slightly tacky to the touch, but it will no longer stick to the work surface.  You will be able to form it into a ball with a taut, smooth surface. When you pinch up a big bit of the dough, you will be able to gently encourage it to stretch out so thin that you can see light through it.

Split the dough into two even pieces, and place each in an oiled bowl, in a warm place, to rise for about 90 minutes.

 

Make your filling while the dough is rising. Here are the fillings I used.

 

 

Turkey and Stuffing Filling:

• 18 cocktail size sausages
• 4 overgrown spring onions (yep, those are spring onions!)
• few sprigs sage
• 4 – 8 tbsp white wine, stock or water (or a mix thereof)
• 4 slices smokey bacon
• salt and pepper
• 300g cooked turkey meat

 

Pop the sausages out of their casings, and into the bowl of a food processor. Add the sage, and slice up the spring onion – white and green parts – and add that, too. Add 4 tbsp of whatever liquid you have to hand, and process until the meat forms a thick paste.

Chop the bacon into squares, and add to the food processor. Add more liquid if it’s too thick. Pulse a few times to incorporate the bacon without cutting it up too finely.

If you want to check the seasoning before adding anything, heat a frying pan, and fry off half a spoonful of stuffing mixture, flattening it out into a wee burger shape. When it’s cooked through, you can have a taste and decide if it needs any further salt or pepper.

 

 

 

Cupboard Leftovers Filling

• 50g milk chocolate chips
• Half a bar dark chocolate
• 100g walnuts, crushed to a coarse crumb
• 70g (ish) cream cheese
• 1.2 jar (ish) blackcurrant jam
• 50g dessicated coconut
• 4 biscuits, crushed to crumbs
• 4 squares white chocolate

I melted the milk and dark chocolate together, then stirred in the walnuts.

I also combined the cream cheese with enough jam to make a thick, full-flavoured spread.

These two mixtures were alternated across the dough, when it was ready. The coconut, biscuit crumbs and white chocolate (which I grated) were scattered over the top.

The point of this loaf is that you can use whatever you have lying around – combining a couple of different fillings makes the loaf more interesting, as with every bite you get a new flavour.

 

Back to the dough…

Once the dough is risen, place it on top of a clean sheet on your table. You will need lots of room to work, and the sheet will help you to roll the bread up at the end.

Roll the dough out with your hands and a rolling pin, at first. Once it’s about 10 x 12 inches, you’re ready to start stretching the dough out. Spray the surface of the dough with a neutral oil, or brush with melted butter. Then, working from the middle, lift and stretch the dough out, working your way from one corner to the next, and stretching each side equally. Try to keep the dough in a rectangle shape as you go.

Once the dough is thin enough to see the sheet through it, you’re ready to apply the filling.

 

For the Turkey and Stuffing Loaf:

Drop large spoonfuls of the stuffing across the surface of the stretched out dough, trying to keep them even. Flatten, spread and join up these dollops with the back of a spoon, until the whole dough is covered evenly.

Scatter the turkey over the top, and press down. Spend a few minutes lifting individual pieces and putting them in places there’s a gap (this step is optional, but I couldn’t help myself from doing it).

Roll the dough and arrange in a loaf tin as shown in the pictures above.

 

For the Cupboard Leftovers Loaf:

Spoon alternating heaps of chocolate and cream cheese mixture onto the dough, then flatten and spread out very thinly until the whole surface is covered. Scatter over biscuit crumbs, coconut and grated white chocolate.

Roll and arrange in a tin as above.

 

Cover the loaf tins and set somewhere nice and warm, to plump up.

 

Heat the oven to 180C. When ready, put the loaves in and bake for 15 minutes.

After the 15 minutes is up, check the loaves to make sure they’re not too browned, then lower the oven temperature to 150C and bakc for about another 40 minutes.

If the tops start to brown too much, cover with tinfoil.

Take out of the oven, and allow to completely cool before slicing. This helps the bread hold its shape.

 

 

You will be rewarded for your patience with some amazing swirls of colour and flavour inside each loaf.

As I mentioned, you can use any filling you like the sound of. The traditional filling is either walnut-based, or made with poppyseeds. A quick search brings up tons of varieties for you to browse through.

I took both loaves to work, and while people were at first unsure about the idea of a turkey and stuffing loaf, it disappeared in no time flat. Next time I’d consider putting some mashed potatoes and gravy in there, making a full meal of it… But I might be waiting a couple of years to make another. It’s a labour of love, after all.

 

 

Hearts Baby Blanket

Another blanket! But a really tiny one, this time, for a tiny human.

 

 

It started with seeing this plush baby wool. To coin a popular phrase, IT’S SO FLUFFY I’M GONNA DIE!

 

And now for a message from our not-sponsors: get 15% off and free shipping with Love Knitting. Yes, this is more or less an advert, but the post is not sponsored or in any way compensated by the company. I genuinely like them, and if you buy through this link I also get 15% off and free shipping. It’s a win/win situation. 

Back to our scheduled broadcast…

 

I mean, really. I was powerless to resist. Plus, the colours are pretty similar to the suffragette flag. Nothing like unnecessarily politicising your wool choices, that’s what I say. The yarn arrived and was just as soft and fuzzy as I’d hoped. Now I just needed to decide what to do with it.

 

I thought a blanket would be an excellent use, and let me tell you, there is no shortage of patterns for baby blankets. Wow. You could lose yourself for days among all the options. It’s possible that I know about that from experience. I got lost in Ravelry, I’m not ashamed to admit it.

 

I found this sweet heart baby blanket, and decided that was the one. Now, the whole crafting thing is a real learning curve for me – and for anyone else who learns by doing – so if I were to make this blanket again I’d do some things differently. For one, I’d use a less soft yarn. It’s beautifully cuddly, but the softness reduces the stitch definition. Given that this pattern relies on you being able to see what’s a knit and what’s a purl, that’s a bit of a drawback. Still, you can see the pattern, if not as clearly as I’d have liked. Call it a hidden feature.

 

 

I’d also make the blanket bigger. I wasn’t sure how much wool it would take me, so I was conservative in my plans. It turned out that I only used about half the wool I had. The rest remains in my stash for future baby knitting.

 

I cast on 110, for a border of eight stitches on all sides and four repetitions of the boxed heart motif, with dividing columns of six stitches each between them. It’s worth noting that the original pattern does have an error, and from row seven onwards it misses out those six knit stitches in between each box. It’s easy to add them in, and once you have knitted several rows you’ll start to see the pattern emerging, which will also help you to get it right. It’s worth making your own copy of the pattern, though, and reading from that to keep yourself right.

 

To make the blanket bigger, I would repeat the heart pattern another once or twice per row, and then just keep knitting until it was more or less square. I like patterns that are open ended like this: ‘knit until you want to stop knitting, and then stop’. Once you’ve got the hang of it – and the pattern’s only 30 rows long – you could go on indefinitely, though of course you may end up with the world’s most enormous scarf if you did that.

 

 

I ran the finished result through the washing machine, then stretched and pinned it out. After casting off, the blanket measured 33 inches wide and 29 inches tall. After blocking, it was 36″ square – quite an achievement! The stretching did flatten the hearts a little, though, so it was a payoff. It would probably have been better to knit it bigger, and not block it at all, unless it needed squared off.

 

The idea behind this pattern is really simple, and perfect for a beginner like me. I looked at a few patterns, some that would have been quicker than this one, but I’m glad I spent the little extra time on it. I love every one of the little boxed in hearts.

 

 

 

 

Lola & Livvy’s

A couple of weekends ago, the G man and I were looking for somewhere to have lunch in town. We were right at Central Station, and racking our brains for somewhere nearby. Now, I know there are no shortage of bars and restaurants in Glasgow, but I was drawing a blank for somewhere to get a quick sandwich and a beverage. As we walked under the Heilanman’s Umbrella (that’s the railway bridge, to the rest of the world), we spotted this place.

The meaning of the word ‘Glasgow’ is ‘Dear Green Place’. Anyone who has frequented this part of the city, though, will know that the section of Argyle Street under the Heilanman’s Umbrella is more grim than green. That means that Lola & Libby’s, with its hanging baskets, vintage bike and window full of enticing cakes, looked doubly inviting. After brief conference, we went inside.

There is a remarkable array of ready-made sandwiches to take away, which is worth brain bookmarking – they looked delicious. We wanted to stop for a while, so we chose a table upstairs and took a look at the menu. The G man brought out his brand new camera to check out what it could do. I asked if he’d take some shots of our lunch, while he was practising, so all the photos you see today are from him.

Our food and drinks arrived at our table in no time.

Greek Focaccia

Mediterranean Pannini

The sandwiches came on slate trays (I am a pushover for slate tableware), with a wee portion of dressed salad. Everything was super fresh, and the staff were really friendly. Not too friendly, they didn’t pull up a chair and join us. That would have crossed the line between ‘friendly’ and ‘too intense’, I think. The service was quick, but never rushed.

We didn’t have any cake. I now regret not having cake. Next time I’m in town, I’m having cake.

I know it’s not difficult to make a sandwich, but a really good sandwich, the kind you don’t mind paying your hard-earned cash for, those are a different beast. These were excellent sandwiches, and a number of steps up the sandwich ladder from anything I’d routinely make at home.

Let’s just stop for a minute and think about how wonderful, yet structurally unsound, a sandwich ladder would be…

If you’re around Glasgow and in need of a lunch fix, remember that Lola & Livvy’s is there. I have talked a lot about their sandwiches (I love sandwiches, OK?) but as you can see from the menu, they also do soup, baked spuds, pasta, burgers – all the good stuff, plus an all-day breakfast that looks like it ticks all the breakfast boxes for me (mushrooms AND beans. Yes.).

Lola & Livvy’s didn’t know I would be writing a blog post, and I wasn’t compensated in any way. I just really liked it there. And who wouldn’t? It’s a great wee spot for a lunchtime break. There’s a tree growing out of the ceiling inside, but don’t worry about it. I’m pretty sure it’s meant to be there. There are fairy lights on it, after all.