Here is the pumpkin bread that I told you would be coming.

It’s not made with pumpkin, but with sweet potato, and enlivened with cumin and toasted pumpkin seeds. The last time I made this recipe it got rave reviews and everyone scarfed it down, but this time it is languishing, half-eaten, on the kitchen counter.

It is all my fault. I decided that the bread didn’t really need to take two days to make—I could just rush it through if I cut back on the proofing times just a little. So I did, and while the final product has good flavor, the texture is too dense and heavy. So please learn from my mistake: do not skimp on the proofing times, and you shall be richly rewarded (with scarf-able bread) for your honesty and integrity.

Pumpkin Bread
Adapted from The Breads from the La Brea Bakery

Start the bread in the late afternoon or early evening so that it can ferment in the fridge overnight.

Two medium-sized sweet potatoes, or one big clunker
1 1/3 cups (7 ounces) shelled raw pumpkin seeds
1 ½ cups (12 ounces) cold water
1 cup (8 ounces) white starter
5 tablespoons raw wheat germ
1 teaspoon ground cumin
3 1/4 cups (1 pound and 2 ounces) white bread flour
1 1/4 cups (7 ounces) whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon sea salt

Bake the potatoes in the oven,

and then peel them and scoop out 1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) of the pulp and set it aside.

Put the pumpkin seeds on a cookie sheet and toast them in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until they are golden brown. It’s important to get them all nice and toasty-brown because then they will taste lighter and crunchier once they are baked into the bread. Set them aside.

Mix together the water, starter, wheat germ, cumin, and flours, and knead well. Let the dough rest for twenty minutes, add the salt, and knead for another 5 minutes. Add the pumpkin seeds and knead for another two minutes, or until the seeds are well-incorporated. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover with a shower cap and let it ferment in the fridge for about 10 hours.

In the morning, cut the dough into two equal pieces and shape into loaves. You can make the bread into standard loaves, or boules, depending on your preference. I think they would also make fine dinner rolls.

If you make elongated boules, lay them smooth-side down on a flour-dusted cloth that has been placed on a cookie sheet. Pull the cloth up around the edges of the loaves to provide a separation between them and to help them keep their shape.

Once your bread loaves/boules/rolls are shaped, cover the loaves with shower caps (or if you’re using cookie sheets, slip the pan into a garbage, or big zip-lock, bag) and put them in the fridge to proof for another 6-10 hours.

Take the bread out of the fridge (now you are on late afternoon/evening of day two) and remove the plastic and cover the loaves with a cloth. Allow the dough to proof on the counter for one to two hours (till the dough reaches about 60 degrees). Dock the bread and bake in a hot oven, about 400 or 450 degrees, for about 30-40 minutes (less if you made rolls).

I ran down to the freezer to get a bag of green beans and a wave of despair and dismay washed over me. There is so much food in this house! How are we ever going to eat it?

I feel guilty for saying this—there are so many people out there starving, and here I am fussing about my larder’s bounty.

Don’t get me wrong. I am very thankful for all that I have. This is how it should be at this time of year, after the harvest has been brought in; the shelves groaning under the weight of the jarred produce and freezers so full you can hardly close them. So it’s not that I’m ungrateful; it’s just that I’m daunted. I’ll need to stay super-focused and employ all my creative powers in order to use up the buckets of potatoes, baskets of apples, containers of pesto and grape pie filling and Swiss chard and strawberries.

As I worked in the kitchen this morning, mixing up a new batch of rosemary-olive oil bread, I pondered what I should make for lunch. The potatoes were weighing heavily on my mind, and I had a jar of creme fraiche in the fridge that I had made last week. Hmm, what to do with potatoes and creme fraiche? Then I recalled my Aunt Valerie saying that she sometimes grates up a couple potatoes and uses them for a quiche crust instead of the standard flour-oil crust. I consulted with Simply in Season and sure enough, they had a potato crust recipe—just some grated raw potatoes, the peels still on, and mixed with a little oil, and then pressed into the pie pan.

I went right to work, grating the potatoes and then, for the filling, mixing up some eggs with the creme fraiche. I added cheddar cheese, some browned sausage that I had in the freezer, and then, at the last minute, I sauteed up an onion and added that, too. The end result was a simple, hearty, flavorful meal that the kids (most of them, anyway) loved. I liked the edge of the crust best of all because the grated potato pieces got all crispy-crunchy, like stick potato chips. We nearly finished the whole thing off in one sitting—there’s only one little piece left over.

So, three potatoes down, about five bushels to go. I don’t think we can eat that much quiche, so I’m going to need some help here, dear readers. Please enlighten me: What smarty-pants ways do you employ in order to use up all those potatoes you have stashed down cellar? (Just so you know, that last line is not a typo—it’s how I talk.)

Sausage Quiche with Potato Crust
(The crust recipe is adapted from Simply In Season.)

3 medium-sized potatoes
2-3 tablespoons canola oil
5 eggs, beaten
2 cups cheddar cheese, grated
1 cup creme fraiche (or a mixture of cream and milk)
1 onion, chopped and sauteed in a bit of oil
1 cup sausage, browned
salt and black pepper

For the crust:
Wash three medium potatoes, grate them, and toss with several tablespoons of oil, a sprinkling of salt, and some black pepper. Press the potatoes into the bottom and up the sides of a large pie plate and bake at 400 degrees, on the bottom rack (to make it good and crispy), for about 15 minutes.

For the filling:
Mix together the eggs, creme fraiche, cheese, onion, and sausage. Add some salt and pepper. Pour the mixture over the hot potato crust and return the quiche to the oven for another 20-30 minutes, or until the center is set and the pie is golden-brown.