Homemade Onion-Herb White Bread

En español

This bread was a hit at a recent dinner party.  You don't find too many homemade savory breads here in  Mexico, so when you show up at a dinner with one of these loaves, folks will think you're a cooking god... and you are, aren't you?

My favorite part about this bread (aside from the rave reviews that were lavished upon me all night) is that it only cost me $30 pesos, or less than $3 dollars, to make FOUR loaves.

I made two loaves in bread pans and I braided the other two loaves Challah-style.  The braided loaves were beautiful, and the bread pan loaves have made some delicious sandwiches.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups soy or cows milk (I used soy)
• 5 TB sugar
• 2 TB salt
• 4 1/2 tsp bread yeast
• 2 cups water
• 12-13 cups white flour
• 5 TB melted butter or margerine, or olive oil
• 1/2 onion, minced
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 2 tsp crushed rosemary

PREPARATION

1. Combine milk, sugar, salt, and water in a pan and heat on the stove until lukewarm (it should feel warm, not hot, on your wrist).  Remove from heat and dissolve yeast in the mixture.  Set aside.
2. In a very large bowl (you might even want to use a Dutch oven if you don't have a very large bowl), combine half of the flour and all of the dried herbs.  Add the liquid-yeast mixture from step 1.  Mix until smooth, then add the melted butter or oil and the minced onion. Mix until smooth, then add the remaining flour.
3. Knead the dough for ten minutes, adding more flour if the dough is too sticky.  As you knead, your dough should be silky soft, elastic, and not sticky at all.  It should be easy to knead the dough, although you will certainly break a sweat as you knead, because the dough will weigh about five pounds!  To avoid making a huge mess on my table, I always knead my dough directly in my bowl or Dutch oven.  
4. Oil your bowl or Dutch oven, and place your dough ball inside.  Flip the dough ball over so that the whole ball gets covered in oil.  The oil will make sure the dough doesn't dry out as it rises.
5. Cover the bowl containing the dough with a towel and place in a warm, draft-free place.  If it's a cold or rainy day, you might need to fire up your oven for just a few minutes, then turn it off and put your dough inside to rise where it's nice and warm.  Let the dough rise until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.
6. When the dough has doubled in size, punch it down and divide it into four equal peices (I cut mine into quarters with a knife).  Shape each peice into a loaf and place either in a greased bread pan or on a greased cookie sheet.  Cover the loaves again with a towell and let them rise until double in size, about one hour.
7. While the loaves are rising, pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F.  
8. When the loaves have risen, place them in the oven and bake for 45 minutes, or until the loaves begin to get a golden color and they sound hollow when you knock on them.
9. Let the loaves cool for about ten minutes, then remove them from the pans and/or baking sheets and set them on a rack to cool.  IMPORTANT! You need to let them cool completely (about an hour) before you cut them.  This is very tricky if you don't live alone!

Makes 4 1-lb. loaves.

Basil Pesto Pasta

In our rooftop garden, we grow tomatoes, chile, oregano, and basil in buckets.  Because winter is very mild where we live, we can grow a lot of the plants year-round.  We planted the basil last September, and it's still growing like crazy.  Yesterday I trimmed it back and ended up with about two cups of basil clippings.   Usually I dry what I trim and give it to friends, but this was a lot of basil.  I decided to make a pesto.

I found a tasty Pesto Pasta Salad recipe on Simply Recipes.  I didn't have all of the ingredients and neither did my local supermarket, so I did some substitutions and came up with the following pasta salad.

By far the oddest substitution must be the yogurt for parmesan cheese in the pesto.  Parmesan is very expensive in Mexico, and there's no adequate local substitute.  We make our own yogurt, and I had some in the kitchen that had been fermenting for a bit too long.  It was very, very sharp.  My husband was skeptical when he saw me at work in the kitchen, but he loved the end result, and I think you will, too.  Vegans can simply omit the yogurt entirely, or substitute it with a tablespoon of white or light miso.

We served this pasta with rustic bread and Basic Beans, Mexican Style for a very filling meal.

INGREDIENTS


Pesto

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
• 2 tablespoons plain, unsweetened yogurt OR 1 tablespoon light or white miso
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup almonds
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

(makes about 1 cup pesto)

Pasta 

• 1/2 kilo (about 1 pound) uncooked penne or spiral pasta
• 1 cups basil pesto (see recipe above)
• 2 tablespoons chopped green olives OR olive tapenade
• 1/3 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 3 plum or roma tomatoes, chopped
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION

1. Prepare pasta according to package directions in salted water.
2. While the pasta is cooking, combine all pesto ingredients in a blender and blend until basil leaves are pulverized and the almonds are chopped (don't worry if there's some almond chunks).
3. When pasta is done cooking, drain.  Return the pasta to the cooking pot and add remaining ingredients.
4. Serve warm or cold.

Serves 6-8.