Italian Herb rolls

 

This is my favorite winter preparations. Nothing like home made warm bread from the oven on a cold winter day/night. My friends tell me they would trade their Italian restaurant meal tickets anytime for my warm bread, soup and salad. All this for $ instead of restaurant $$.

Ingredients:

• Bread flour - 4 cups
• Yeast - one pack/2 1/4 tsp
• Sugar - one tsp
• Butter - 2 tbsp
• Salt - one tbsp
• Olive oil - one tbsp
• Italian seasoning - One tbsp
• Pumpkin seeds - one tbsp
• Sunflower seeds - one tbsp

Directions

1. Warm the water on the stove to lukewarm.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients except Italian seasoning and olive oil.
3. Mix the Butter with the flour and dry ingredients.
4. Slowly add warm water and knead the dough into a nice pliable form.
5. Store in an air tight container in warm place.
6. Let the dough rise almost double the size.
7. Brush a 9X13 tray with olive oil.
8. After the dough rises divide them in to 14 equal parts. Place them half inch apart on the pan. The spacing is required to let the rolls rise and expand.
9. Bake them at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. After that pull the tray out and brush with the oil olive and sprinkle the italian seasoning on top and put the tray back in the oven.
10. Bake again for about 20-25 minutes until bread turns golden brown.
11. Once done take it out and cover with a wet cloth and keep aside, this step helps the bread to retain moisture and not get too hard and crusty.
12. Serve at resistible temperature with soup or salad.

Variation: For healthy bread use whole wheat flour and replace the butter with olive oil.

Also flax seeds are good options for pumpkin or sunflower seeds as they are high in Omega 3. This is a blessing for vegetarian.