Rosemary, Chive and Thyme Potato Bread

This weekend I found myself staring out the kitchen window at the abundant rosemary growing in my backyard 'garden' (its more like in a potty pot...!). What could I possibly do with them, I wondered, except eat them on roasted chicken or potatoes? And how many roasted chicken or baked potatoes can I eat before I never want to see another spud again?

Then it occured to me that I've made bread before, so why not add rosemary to the bread? And, heck, while I'm at it, why not throw in some other tater toppings like sour cream, fried sliced sausages & onions, and other herbs like chive and thyme and have a full-on Baked Potato Bread..!

By the time I had second thoughts about it, all of the ingredients were mixed together. But you know what? It turned out excellent, the perfect accompaniment to a bowl of hot mushroom soup on a rainy day! Enough blabbing - on to the recipe!

Rosemary, Chive & Thyme Potato Bread

½ cup mashed potatoes

3-4 cups all purpose flour

¾ cup lukewarm water

½ cup sour cream

2 teaspoon instant yeast (dry yeast)

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup sausages (thinly sliced and fried)

½ cup big onion (thinly sliced and fried)

¼ cup chopped fresh rosemary

¼ cup chopped chive

Few sprigs of thyme

Method:

Fry the thinly sliced sausages and onions together until golden brown, remove them from heat. Mixed the mashed potatoes, yeast, salt, and 2 cups of the flour together in a large mixing bowl of an electric mixer. Add the sour cream, water, rosemary, chive and thyme and fried sausages & onion, and mix together until all ingredients are combined. I also mixed in the oil from the fried sausages/onions, which there was about a table spoon of in the pan, because it improves the flavour of the loaf. At this point, you'll have a very wet, sticky mess, probably more of a batter than dough. Add additional flour or a handful at a time and mix or knead it in.

Once you have combined the ingredients well and gotten the balance of flour and water to a level that seems acceptable, return the dough to a well-oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or damp towel and allow the dough to rise for 1 1/2 hrs at room temperature or until it has double it size.

Remove the dough from the bowl and shape the loaf.

You probably could add more flour and make an acceptable loaf of bread with a drier dough, but I've been finding that I get better results the wetter I am able to leave it. But this really is an art, not a science, so use our own best judgement.

At this point you need to shape the loaf, cover it loosely and let it rise until it double in size again - say about 30-45 minutes. You could put it in a greased baking pan and let it rise and bake it in those. I wanted round loaf, so I put it on a lined baking tray.

While the loaf is rising again, pre heat the oven to 350.

When it has doubled in size, put the loaf in the oven to bake. I baked it at 350 for 20 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 200 and baked it for another half hour. The loaf is done when it is nice and brown on the outside and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. For me it took about more or less an hour.

And there you have it....!

The bread was wonderful while still warm with a bowl of soup, but I actually think I preferred it the next day cold. With the fried sausages and onions and sour cream, there was plenty of fat in the bread, so it did'nt need to be buttered, just plain it was rich and moist dough.

Enjoy..!