“Cooking, if we allow it, can center and ground us, and bring us back to ourselves. In this day and age, we need this.” — by Sylvia Fountaine

Sylvia Fountaine’s personal thoughts on her whole foods recipe blog, Feasting at Home is one of the most insightful food philosophy perspectives that I have ever read. But it was her paragraph titled, Cooking is Nourishing (To the Soul) where I was finally able to understand my yearning and comfort in cooking and baking from fresh ingredients. If you have time, I recommend reading her About page, because it is quite inspiring.

It was while exploring her blog that I found this wonderful tasteful Rosemary Olive Sourdough Bread! I have wanted to make olive sourdough bread for some time and was searching for the perfect recipe. After reading over her detailed directions and the list of ingredients, I knew that this was the one. I decided that I would add roasted garlic to my bread just as Sylvia had suggested as an ingredient option.

The site page for this Rosemary Olive Sourdough Bread recipe has colorful images and clear step-by-step directions. I used King Arthur Unbleached All- Purpose Flour which has a protein content of 11.7%. This should be sufficient enough to make a strong bread. To aerate and strengthen the dough, I stretched and folded the dough beginning in the afternoon four separate times over three hours before letting it rise overnight. Soon, little air bubbles began to lift up from the wet dough and in the morning it looked like a poofy dough ready for the olive filling.

This final bread had an absolutely fantastic taste if you like Kalamata olives, roasted garlic, and rosemary. My husband commented that this artisan bread was the most delicious bread I have ever made. So that’s really something special!

— Carole