As usual my Thai basil plants are three times more productive than my Italian basil plants and I’ve been trimming it like crazy to keep it from going to seed/bolting. This means I have a about a 2 cups of fresh basil to use. Not really enough to make pesto, which I’ve done in the past, but enough that I can’t just use it in a stir fry.
So I thought that maybe making bread would be nice. Yeast breads are kind of a source of frustration for me. I haven’t been able to master how to get the dough shaped properly for the second rise. I almost always end up with “misshapen” loaves, rolls or whatever I’m trying to make. I don’t know if this is because my dough isn’t sticky enough or I’m just not working it enough to get it shaped.
However, I figure I’m never going to figure it out if I don’t keep trying. Therefore I decided to make a recipe for Sun-dried Tomato, Basil bread and add garlic. This recipe is really straight forward to put together. The first rise went really well which made my excited that this time things might turn out with a nicely shaped loaf. But as usual,things went off the rail during the second rise. My tomatoes, garlic and basil didn’t get mixed in and the dough properly reshaped. So I ended up with a lopsided loaf.
Luckily it didn’t effect the tasty which is quite good. Plus, now that we’ve eaten half you can’t tell that it wasn’t a nice even round loaf at all!