HERBS - BREAD

The patch of herbs garden

To have a herb garden is essential for any cook, and freshly picked herbs is always a treat.  Following a recipe using herbs can be very expensive if they are bought from the shop.  Often a dish needs five mixed herbs, and the cost per bunch is at the minimum three dollars, five bunches of herbs will cost you fifteen dollars, that is too much to spend just for the herbs and what about the rest of the ingredients.   To avoid that,  simply set up potted herb plants which are useful in your cooking.  The herbs that you may need to have: parsley, chives, thyme, sage, mint and rosemary.   I am lucky to have a patch of herb garden as well as potted herbs.  Herb is almost the signature of my cooking.

Herb Bag to Keep the Herbs

Pick the fresh herb in the morning, wash and clean.  Keep them in a cloth bag, they will last for a week refrigerated.

Mixed Herbs-Washed / Clean

Herbs and edible flowers are useful in my kitchen, they are not only for cooking but also for decorations and garnishes.

Date Scones
A platter of savouries or fruit scones can be more inviting by adding some fresh herbs for the garnish.  Date finger scones that I baked the other day were excellent and stay fresh to be served for morning tea the next day.
These are what you have to do, the freshly baked scones must be kept aside to cool, then put in a sealed container and freeze it at once.  The next morning, take it out, place the scones in a hot oven for a few minutes to get them fresh again. Split the scones, butter them in pairs, and place on a serving plate, garnish with fine fresh herbs and edible flowers.  The platter looked pretty and sweet.

The quantity and ingredients for  Susy Date Scones Finger
Using an egg, cream, butter and milk into this mixture, to get a light and delicious scones.

600 g self-raising flour
50 g butter
200 light cream
150 ml of milk
1 small egg
First, rub the butter into the flour thoroughly (in a large bowl) make a hole in the middle, add in the mixture of the lightly beaten egg, cream and the milk in one go, and mix all together to make a soft dough.  Transfer on to a floured board, knead lightly and roll the dough to a square shape, with 2 cm thickness.  Divide the square onto three, and cut them into strips, to make 18.  Place them on a lined baking tray and bake in a hot oven at 220 degrees C for 11-13 minutes (in my oven)

Freshly Baked Scones Finger

It is a very easy and practical scone, it does not need a special scone cutter, what you need is a knife, just remember to dip the knife onto flour before cutting the scone.  The less the dough is tempered, the better the scone becomes. Obviously, it is not a traditional scone, I say it is a rustic style.

Olives - Olive Bread with Herbs
This year Rayner's olive tree is going to give us a good harvest, a kind of a worry to me because I have to look after and to preserve the olive.  I am not a farmer, so you could tell.  Anyway, of the last harvest, I preserved the olives, and today I am baking olive bread with herbs.
It has sufficient ingredients for the bread; plain flour, dry yeast, salt, sugar and oil.  Fresh herb is always there from the garden, and using the matured dressed olives from the last harvest is just perfect.


Now what I need is to gather the ingredients to make sizeable olive bread.
600 g plain flour, 13 g yeast, a teaspoon salt, sugar and oil. A cup of warm water to dissolve the yeast. The olive has to be seeded and chopped,  The mixed herbs -  fresh oregano, mint, fennel fronds, mints all chopped finely. Clean, warm water to add into the flour.

Kneading the dough was fun, and to see that the dough has risen into doubled in size.  The olive bread was baked successfully. 

Home Preserved Olives

Bread Making Can Be Addictive

Potted Gold Oreg

Rustic Look Olive Bread and Olive Bread Rolls 

Freshly Baked Olive Bread and Herbs

Freshly Baked Olive Bread Rolls with Herbs.

Potted Mixed Herbs

The dream pizza.
At last, I had baked the pizza successfully, and what is it?  It is a thin base pizza with mushroom topping and Gorgonzola cheese.  Thanks, Mel for the recipe, this time I used my own dough as I had to prepare for my bread rolls.  To complement the pizza, the crusty bread rolls were baked from the leftover pizza dough.  The rolls were delicious and almost perfect.  Well, they were accurate enough by my standard, they were crusty and chewy in the middle.  Love them.

Adding Chopped Chives

Adding Gorgonzola to freshly baked pizza

Hot Pizza with mushroom topping and Gorgonzola Cheese

The Crusty Bread Rolls
It was using the same dough, and the bread was baked in a hot oven with a tray of hot water underneath for the steam to help the loaf expand better and also create a good crust.

shaping and proofing the rolls

Freshly Baked Bread Rolls

The rolls in a basket

The crusty roll and chewy in the middle

This month has been busy for baking.  From errors, mistakes I have learnt, I know that I will do better next time.

I am very proud of my olives and the bread, maybe it is not a bad idea that I will do a particular post about it.  Recipe for the making the food and the process of it which is not hard but fun.  Stay Tuned.

Thank for stopping by
Until Next Post
Susy