Easy Bread and Salad

Morning all,

So yesterday I felt particularly adventurous. There's just something about cooking in Summer that I really enjoy. Unfortunately I mostly only get the chance on Sunday's.

So I had a spare rib braai (barbeque for my international friends) and I baked a bread and made a simple easy salad to go with it.

First the bread, it really is the simplest thing to do and you can really go mad with flavours. Yesterday I made this one:

Garlic and Italian Herb Bread

2 Cups white bread flour (sifted)
1 Pkt Anchor instant yeast
1 cup warm water (not boiling, just from the hot tap)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp sugar
7 mls Garlic Salt
1 ml salt
15ml Robertson Italian herbs (dry)

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. Make an impression in the middle and add the olive oil and water. Now for the fun part, mix with your hands until it forms an elastic dough (you can add more flour if its too wet) and knead by folding the dough in and punching/pushing it out for 5 to 10 minutes.

Then place the dough (it must not be wet at this stage) into a bowl wiped out with olive oil. Cover with a Pick 'n Pay (shopping) plastic bag and place in a warm room to rise for at least an hour and a half, at which time it should look like this:

Bread dough has risen to as least double its original size

Then knead it down again and place in a small bread pan. Cover in the plastic bag again and leave to rise again for at least half an hour. Preheat your oven at this point to 200 degrees Celsius. It should look like this:

Raw bread dough risen in a bread pan and ready for baking

The bread is now ready for baking. Place in the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes until a skewer comes out clean, the bread is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

Final product, yummy!

Remember to let the bread cool down completely on a rack before slicing. There are endless varieties to this simple every day recipe. You can add a cup of grated cheddar, sweat corn etc. Just remember that you need at least 5ml salt ( i needed less for my recipe because of the garlic salt).

Experiment with flavours and enjoy!

Next up my Beetroot and Feta salad.

1 Tin Divine whole baby beetroot
Simonsberg Feta - plain

Dressing

2 1/2 Tbsp Honey
2 Tbsp Lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Cut up the beetroot and feta into blocks/chunks and put into a bowl. Whisk the ingredients for the dressing together, drizzle over the beetroot and feta and toss to coat. Easy Peasy. This dressing really makes the flavours of the beetroot and feta pop and it utterly moreish. Try this simple recipe, it is sure to impress.

Simple and delicious Beetroot and Feta salad with a honey and lemon dressing

If you like you can add thinly sliced red onion (I don't do onion!) but not the normal white onions as the taste will overpower this salad completely.

It went down a complete treat with my guests.

Right, that's it for today. Try these recipes next weekend, they are sure to be a hit. Let me know what you think about my blog, looking forward to some comments. Tell me what you want to hear about/know about etc.

Have a good week!

Cheers, Wayne