Rustic Rosemary Bread

A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou.

I had a lovely date last weekend. This bread was not part of it, but that phrase keeps going through my mind today.

We had dark dark beer and mashed potato pizza. He had never tried any of the beers or the pizza–kept ordering the same beers I did–and I think he really enjoyed them. He likes that I like dark beer, keeps telling me about this meatball pizza he had in Omaha. Hmmm. Meatball pizza. That sounds good.

It’s so nice at the end of the evening to hear him say, “so when can I see you again?” … and to realize that I actually DO want to see him again.

That hasn’t happened to me for a long time.

This bread turned out crusty on the outside, and soft on the inside. That might be because I forgot about it rising in the microwave and baked it 2 hours later. But it turned out just how a rustic bread should be.

Rustic Rosemary Bread

Adapted from Learn, Laugh, Cook (she posted the recipe on facebook and I didn’t want to lose it!)

• 1 cup of water
• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning (I forgot the Italian Seasoning but I do think it would be nice in this bread)
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper — or more, to taste
• 1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh or dried rosemary (I used fresh–you can tone down the amount if you use dried)
• 2 and 1/2 cups of bread flour (can substitute whole wheat flour for part of the flour … I used 2 c. bread flour, 1/2 c. whole wheat)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp active dry yeast

Place all ingredients in the pan of a bread machine. I set mine to the “dough” setting, took it out and shaped it, then baked it in the oven, but if you want, you can just let your bread machine do all the work.

Your nose will go crazy from the warm rosemary scent while it’s baking.

I think next time I will add more pepper. A little more “bite” would make this bread just perfect. And maybe a little freshly shredded parmesan cheese.

This is part of my series of 31 Days of Warmer Connections. Every day in October, I am blogging about connections through food.

This recipe was shared at Best Bread Recipes of 2011.