Harvest Monday and Kalamata Olive and Rosemary Artisan Bread

The Dark Days are here and it will soon be winter.  I have a few greens started in the greenhouse but no harvests to report. I'm joining other bloggers over at Daphne's Dandelions as we share our weekly harvests (or lack of same) ... it's fun to see what others are harvesting and what they are cooking up with it...check it out!

I've been playing with my Easy Artisan Bread Recipe .  I'm still working on a wheat variation but the Kalamata and Rosemary Loaf is a keeper!

The recipe starts out the same as for my basic Easy Artisan Bread ...

Ingredients:

3 cups warm water
6 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 tbsp instant yeast

Dump all of the ingredients into a mixer bowl and mix on slow speed just until all the ingredients are combined and form a soft dough ...

After mixing I removed half of the dough and set it on the hearth to raise for some plain loaves and then added chopped Kalamata olives, chopped fresh rosemary and some coarsely ground black pepper to the dough remaining in the bowl ...

... turned the mixer back on for about a minute, dumped the dough into another plastic container ...

... and set it on the hearth to raise for 2 hours.  I put the dough in the refrigerator overnight and the next afternoon formed half of it into a loaf on a piece of parchment paper. I set the oven to 450 degrees, set a baking stone on the top oven rack, set the lid from my turkey roaster on top of the stone and closed the oven door. 

 After 30 minutes I sprinkled the rest of the flour onto the risen loaf and made 3 slashes in the dough with a serrated knife ...

I opened the oven door and (using pot holders) set the roaster lid aside, slid the parchment paper with the loaf onto the hot baking stone and covered it with the hot lid.  30 minutes later I had a beautiful loaf of fragrant olive and rosemary bread.  It was great with a bowl of my "Countdown Beef Stew"  (recipe coming soon).

Enjoy!