La Garrigue - A Beautiful Morning

La Garrigue is a scrubland found on limestone soils around the Mediterranean basin, generally near the sea, typically consisting of evergreen shrubs such as lavender, rosemary, wild thyme, sage and myrtle, and trees such as juniper and stunted holm oaks.



This morning I grabbed by camera and took a walk up into the aromatic and gorgeous garrigue.






varieties of pine

wild thyme in bloom


a variety of orchid


purple seems to be a popular color


stone walls are built


and stone walls fall




a view of the village from up in la garrigue


If you understand French, check out this site, La Garrigue Gourmande.
In English - History of the Garrigue. Pin It

Saturday Bread

Since the middle of April I've been following three blogger/bakers who started an admirable project they call A Year in Bread.
But I haven't been baking any of my own! Finally, this morning I felt the need to knead.

Looking back at what they've been up to, I see they've been busy with pizza dough, no-knead bread variations and fluffy, white sandwich bread. All great recipes but not what I was craving this morning. The weather is unseasonably cold and I felt like something with more texture and flavor and bite.

So, back to one of my favorite's, adapted from this recipe.
We always have extra bits cheese lying around and this is a great way to use it up. Today the bread dough was infused with fresh thyme and the rest of the Tomme Noir de Pyrénées from last Tuesday.



Herb, Honey and Cheese Bread

• 3 cups/500 grams flour
• packet of yeast
  
• 1 cup/250 mls warm water
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• big pinch of sea salt
  
• 3 ounces/100g finely grated cheese
• 1 tablespoon flavorful honey
• 2 tablespoons of your favorite herb, chopped

1. Dissolve the yeast in the water
2. Mix the flour, yeast & water mixture, olive oil, sugar and sea salt together in a bowl until combined
3. Dump out onto a floured surface and knead about 10 minutes, sprinkling with flour as needed to make a nice, springy dough
   
4. Cover with a towel and put in a warm place and let rise for 1 hour. I usually leave the dough to rise on the board I've been kneading it on
   
5. Punch down and knead in the cheese, honey and chopped herbs
6. Shape dough into a loaf, slash the top several times with a knife, place dough on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and let rise again, covered, 30 minutes
7. Heat oven 400 degrees F/200 degrees C
8. Bake about 35 minutes

A few notes: Sometimes I drizzle olive oil over the dough just before it goes in the oven
Freshly ground black pepper is wonderful to add to the dough for a bit of a bite
Experiment with cheese and herb combinations Pin It