Kim's Rosemary Olive Bread

As I was browsing around Facebook, I noticed on my fabulous friend Kim's status that she was about to make rosemary bread. Of course, I immediately emailed her and asked if she'd take a picture of it and send it to me along with the recipe, so I could share it with everyone. And she did!
Thanx Kim!!!!!



OK, Joey-here it is. I don't know if you know but I have food "issues." I can't eat anything with yeast in it and I don't do well with sugar. PLUS, I'm vegan by choice. So coming up with recipes that work is sometimes a trick. I took this recipe from a Christina Pirello source (cookbook, on-line recipe, pulled from her TV show - I forget). So this is the Rosemary Bread. I'm not sure how the average bear would feel about it but I like it. It's a rather dense bread - as you can imagine - but it feels very hearty and I like it with soup and a nice green salad.
-Kim


2 1/2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 tablespoons dried rosemary
1 cup unflavored rice or soy milk
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons brown rice syrup
1/2 cup olives (the recipe says halved, I slice mine)
1 cup coarsely chopped walnut pieces

Preheat oven to 325 prepare 9x5" pan

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add in rosemary. Whisk milk into oil and rice syrup in another bowl. Stir into flour mixture until just moistened (sometimes depending on the weather or whatever it needs just a touch more moisture. If so, I add JUST A TOUCH of water until all the flour is absorbed - it's a very thick batter). Fold in olives and walnuts. Spoon batter evenly into prepared pan.

Bake 45-50 minutes until the bread is golden and the top springs back to the touch. Cool in pan 10 minutes before removing from pan and cooling on wire rack.

Tip from Kim:
Rice syrup is a sweetener that I can tolerate and is frequently used in macrobiotic cooking. I buy mine at Whole Foods. I'm not sure that you could substitute honey for this particular recipe as I think it would probably be too sweet.