I killed my rosemary plant. I’ve been meticulously watering it with a concoction of vinegar, salt & bleach but so far nothing seems to be helping. Buying herbs is for losers and the un-lazy and so I shall prevail without! The rest of the herb garden is doing well; I cooked with my own basil for the first time this week. (Carefully not over culling anything.) Onwards & forwards, for an account of various failures & eventual success.
I followed Sophie’s Rosemary Bread guide but mine is simply ….. Bread, now that said plant is dead. Long live the rosemary.
Once Active-Dry and Instant yeast make sense the world is a better place. Dough rises quickly and just like magic! I broke the incredibly fluffy dough into two boules but fear they were slightly crushed in the process. After rising, the dough was incredibly light, butthe consistency was almost dense while I preheated the oven. *Shrug* Perhaps that settling is normal?? Everything continued to rise nicely while baking and looked like Christmas morning after half an hour, only covered in sea salt and edible.
I added salt on top of the dough after I formed the loaves rather than with olive oil after baking. Some salt dissolves, leaving a thin, sea-spray layer of flavor throughout the crust as well as in the crystals. I’m not sure which I prefer yet.
There were slight irregularities in the shape of the loaves, probably due to small creases in the dough that I had not properly folded over. At one point, the crust slightly separated slightly; again, likely due to an air bubble, crease, gremlins, etc. The consistency was very reminiscent of Macaroni Grill Bread, which is about everything I was hoping for. The flavor was slightly bland, which is easily correctable by reanimating/finding another rosemary plant, and in the immediate sense, fixed by using excessive amounts of olive oil, basalmic vinegar, salt & pepper. This was a triumph, my roommate agrees. We’re honest about our cooking, here. I’m also one step closer to self sufficiency in the event of the zombie apocalypse.
Bread Boules. Slicing the top turned out better than expected.
Bread!
It's art, guys.
It’s interesting how different the climates are where we live. Probably it is all humidity… since our rosemary plant is doing great but our basil dies all the time. ;__;
So far the humidity isn’t too extreme; the house is air conditioned, even. I’m not sure what climate rosemary is best suited to but it should be possible to keep it alive here, albeit with a little extra attention.
No more king’s plant for you, I’m sorry! I like basil a bit more than I do rosemary but each has their place.