Recipe #10 Rosemary Olive Oil Bread

I am so behind on blogging! The problem is I normally write the bulk of these blogs at work and then finish them at home. For some odd reason, with the semester starting and my application deadline a week away, they are actually expecting me to do my job instead of blog. For example, not that you can tell, but there was about a three hour delay between those two sentences because of that very problem.

If it’s too crazy to write at work, one would assume I would write at home. Except that on truly crazy days, after work is done, dinner is made, and chores du jour are completed, my brain does this funny thing where it shuts off and I cannot think of anything to write. . . Hopefully I can get caught up a bit now.

Two weeks ago:

You know that point where you have a ton of stuff to do and it’s just all so overwhelming that you don’t know where to start so you just decide to give up and go take a nap? That’s where I was two weeks ago. Sometimes I nap, and other times I bake. Baking is entirely a control issue for me. When I feel out of control in life, I know that I can go into the kitchen and throw ingredients together and get cookies. (True story, when I got married and finally had “my own kitchen” pretty much the first decision I made was that I must have all ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies on hand at all times. It’s a rule I follow closely.) Then at least I can control something.

So the other night, despite everything else I should have/needed to do, I decided instead I would bake bread….

Rosemary Olive Oil Bread

I LOVE bread. To a fault. It and french fries are my weakness. I don’t have to be hungry to mindlessly eat it, in fact I can be full but still not resist just a little bit more. It’s a problem. Baking bread isn’t really that hard either, it simply takes time. I’m a multi-tasker (which really means I’m mildly ADD) so I don’t mind having it proof in the background while I do other tasks.

Several of our friends love to go to Macaroni Grill. Personally, I don’t care for it all that much. I haven’t found a dish I really like or want to pay the money for. The bread however, I can eat a loaf by myself, no problem. Maybe 1 1/2 if I really wanted to. That rosemary bread with the balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and cracked pepper? Mmmm (Honestly, I skip the oil half the time, perfectly happy with just the vinegar!) Now, on Pinterest, the pin claims “Identical to Macaroni Grill!” while the blog, A Hint of Honey, (who I will now refer to as “Honey”) makes no such claim. Do you know why? Because it’s not. Sure the flavors are there, but it’s a different texture certainly. Not Honey’s fault at all, her recipe is great, but whoever added that tidbit to the pin set me up for disappointment.

I get the impression that Honey is a very organic, healthy eater. Her recipe called for white whole wheat flour and raw cane sugar. Neither of which are in my pantry. I did have simple whole wheat flour though and used that. That was probably what bugged me the most about this bread. I love whole grain bread and whole wheat, but like most things they have their place, and for me this isn’t it. I would try this recipe one more time using just AP flour (maybe with a mixture of bread flour.) It was the whole wheat flavor that really did kill it for me.

Not wanting to eat calories I did not fully enjoy, the majority of the loaf has been made into breadcrumbs for future recipes…