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.

Vegan Chickpea and Dumplings Soup

This recipe tastes so much like chicken and dumplings soup that I would have thought it was made with chicken if I hadn't prepared it myself.

You can use canned chickpeas in a pinch, but I really do recommend that you use dried.  The chickpea cooking liquid is used as the soup base here.  It gives it a little more "chicken" taste.

INGREDIENTS: 

The Soup:

• 3 cups cooked chickpeas
• 1.5 liters chickpea cooking liquid (if you don't have that much cooking liquid left over, add water to the chickpea cooking liquid until you reach 1.5 liters)
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 1 medium carrot, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 cup fresh or frozen peas
• 2 tsp poultry seasoning or hierbas finas
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 sprig fresh parsley
• 1 chile, finely chopped (optional)
• 2 tsp MSG
• salt to taste

The Dumplings:

• 2 cups flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 TB minced fresh parsley
• 3/4 cup soy milk (you can also use regular milk here for a non-vegan version)
• 1/4 cup canola oil

PREPARATION:

1. Put all soup ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil.  Lower heat and simmer.  While the soup is simmering, prepare the dumplings:
2. Mix dry dumpling ingredients and fresh parsley together.  Add milk and canola oil and mix with a fork.
3. Let dumpling mixture sit at least 5 minutes, until the vegetables in the soup are cooked through.
4. When the soup vegetables are cooked through, turn the heat up on the soup to bring it to a rapid boil.  Drop spoonfuls of the dumpling dough into the boiling soup.
5. Cover the soup, lower the heat so that the soup remains at a simmer, and simmer for 10 minutes.
6. Ladle two dumplings and soup into bowls.

Serves 4-6.