Day Sixty - One: R&R Quick Bread

First off, let me apologize for letting the weekend get away from me and not having the chance to write to you all yesterday, but fret not, today you will get a double dosage of my musings!

For part one of my musings, I thought I would give you all my recipe for R & R quick bread, different from my Parmesan Herb Muffins that  I wrote about weeks ago, but with certain similar elements... Easy as pie and delish!!

So let's getting going, wouldn't want to occupy too much of your precious weekend time reading my musings, too much to do, too many people to see!

R & R bread unfortunately guys does not stand for Rest & Relaxation bread, but I recommend once having baked this bread, that you enjoy a little bit of that sort of R & R. For our purposes here, R & R implies Ricotta and Rosemary. Moving right along, the cool thing about this recipe is that it is really easy and the ingredients are not going to break the bank, but the end product will definitely impress whomever you serve it to.

Recipe time!

2 cups of all purpose flour
1 tablespoon of baking soda
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 1/4 cups of water
3 eggs - one full egg, two just egg whites
1 lb of ricotta
Half a dozen branches of fresh rosemary chopped up
A sprinkling of sea salt
A generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

You may notice that there is no butter included in this recipe. That is because I am not the biggest fan of cooking with butter, I much prefer utilizing olive oil, its better for you. Don't worry you won't loose the moistness of the bread by excluding butter. The bread is made moist by the mixture of the olive oil and the ricotta but not overly rich which is what you would receive if you substituted butter for olive oil.

On to the cooking process, start by preheating your oven to 300. Combine all the dry ingredients first and then combine all the wet ingredients into another bowl and then combine wet  and dry ingredients together, whisk till fully combined. Then take a loaf pan and spray it with cooking spray, and pour your mixture in. Place in the oven and bake till the top is golden brown or about 32 minutes in my oven, but it depends on your oven. So start checking the bread at  the 25 minute mark so you don't over cook the bread. Once your bread is done, pull out of the oven and let cool. When you slice yourself a piece of this baby you will get the lovely aromatics of the rosemary mixed with the creamy, tangy, almost milkiness of the ricotta, a nice subtle flavor mixture, not too sweet and not too savory.

This bread is perfect served warm with a nice fresh Loire Valley goat cheese spread on top and a glass of Sancerre -- a classic terroir pairing. The herbaciousness of the bread will pair perfectly with the fresh tang of the cheese and the crispness of the wine. Enjoy!