bread stick

of all the various mailing lists i'm on, very few i look forward to. most are just sales talk, hype etc. the only one i really look forward to, and the only one which i learn a lot every time i read them, is the king arthur flour's mailing list. the last issue that came into my mailbox talked about baking soft bread sticks.

that seems like another excuse to bake bread! but typical of me, went for 100% wholemeal.

i used basil (just love this herb!) and oregano as dried herbs and sprinkled olive oil and some sea salt before baking.

then cut them into slices (the scissors tip is a good one!) and baked them again for 5-10 minutes.

these are great for mopping up sauces, gravies, curries... or just slath on some jam/butter. or just eat it on its own!

actually come to think of it, if it's a little thinner, it's pizza bread!
if it's a little thicker and not cut into slices, it's like foccacia!

anyway, there'll be kids coming over to our house later this afternoon. let's see how they like it. let's see if i could bribe them to keep quiet and stop bumping my stuffs around... tall order i know!

sun-dried tomato bread

in a previous blog, i talked about how i sun dried some tomatoes. it was really fun! and our car smelled nice for a few days...

so the next step is to bake bread with it.

the thing with me though, i never really plan out things to do. just go with the flow! so this time just before baking bread, found that i dont' have enough flour for the regular 2 loaves of bread. dang! so had to improvise.

• 5 cups of flour - 3.5 cup wholemeal + 1.5 cup rye  (because i ran out of wholemeal)
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp honey
  
• 2.5 cups of warm water

the above is your basic bread recipe. i usually bake 2 loaves so have to use 6 cups of wholemeal but have so little left, so opted for just a single bigger loaf with more rye. of course you could use your regular basic bread recipe

it's the next part that's interesting.

• 1/2 cup or more of sun dried tomatoes. cut into smaller pieces. a pair of scissors is very handy here.
• 1 or 2 small cloves of garlic, minced.
• some dried herbs. went for 1 tsp oregano + 1 tsp basil. use whatever you have.
• some olive oil from the sun dried tomatoes. after a day or two of soaking the tomatoes, the oil now has a slight reddish tint to it.

knead in this ingredient to the bread combo. actually, it's more like "squeeze" rather than knead in. of course you could vary with more tomatoes or garlic, depending on you!

the resultant dough should be fairly wet and oily. and smells heavenly!

an hour or two later, the dough should have doubled or even tripled in volume. cut into 2 equal portions, shape it, place on an oiled pan (or loaf tin) and wait for another hour or so.

then bake it! i didn't use a loaf tin here so baked it at 180c for about 25 minutes,  or until desired "golden brownish".

this bread tastes fantastic! somehow the flavour of the tomatoes, herbs, garlic and oil all seap in to the bread and you have one hell of a good tasting bread! smells and tastes great!

this is another of our favourite now. no doubt about it! will do more in future.

will also list out our favourite breads here soon...