Vegetabley Dinner Rolls

Its the time of year when tons of food blogs around the world are talking about the fresh bounty of the summer season. Corn, berries, all sorts of beans and peas, cherries- these are all examples of fruits and veggies that are not easy to find in my area. Every time I read another blog post telling me the best way to use up all those extra cherries (cherry jam! cherry pie! cherry jam!) I feel more and more dejected. No cherries for me. Only the whithered veggies that I forgot to use up last week, forgotten in the refrigerator drawer. Well, damn it! I'm going to use those vegetables and flaunt them in the face of all those cherry eaters. Take that.

A few notes about these rolls: Depending on how liquidy your vegetables are, you may need to add some extra flour to the dough. You can try squeezing out excess liquid from the vegetables before starting to avoid adding more flour.

These rolls are especially delicious the next day, made into cucumber sandwiches! I'm submitting this recipe to yeastspotting- a gorgeous weekly showcase of yeasted foods.

Vegetabley Dinner Rolls
Heavily adapted from The Bread Bible
Makes 12 rolls

2 tsp dry yeast
1 1/4 cups water
2 c whole wheat flour

2 c all purpose flour

2 tsp salt

1/2 lb vegetables, grated (such as: eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, carrot, onion, garlic, jalapeño peppers, etc)
1 tbsp olive oil

generous pinch each of basil and oregano

1 egg, beaten (for egg wash)

Poppy seeds

Mix all the ingredients together (except for the egg and poppy seeds) until you get a shaggy mass. Let rest for ten minutes. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and knead the dough until smooth but still sticky, about 10 minutes.

Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a clean towel. Let rise until it’s doubled in size, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Punch down and let rest 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Shape the dough into 12 balls and arrange, just touching, into a pan. Proof until the balls double in size, about 30 minutes. Brush the tops of the rolls with the beaten egg, then sprinkle poppy seeds on top.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown and sound hollow when the bottom is tapped. Cool on a wire rack.