Savory Muffins

1. 
   I'm a big fan of savory muffins and IMHO there aren't nearly enough of them in the world.

I've never been much of a baker. I'm just not good at following instructions, and baked goods aren't forgiving enough. I love homemade bread, but I don't have the patience to knead it. But I picked up some flour from Nash's Farm the other day and it actually made me want to bake. They grow the wheat themselves and a local bakery grinds it for them. It's dense and hearty, and even has pieces of bran. It's so fresh that you have to store it in the refrigerator or freezer. Looking at it I thought, "This isn't flour. This is food."

Following the instructions on the yeast packet, I mixed its contents with a cup of water and a cup of flour, and let it sit for about 45 minutes in a warm place. Then I added 2 more cups of water, 2 tablespoons olive oil, a tablespoon of sugar and a teaspoon of salt. I mixed it together, kneading it for a few minutes in the bowl, then let it sit for another hour. In the meantime, I sauteed some shallots in olive oil with a little salt, then turned off the heat and added some chopped fresh parsley and chives. After the dough had sat for an hour, I mixed in the shallot and chive mixture. It was kind of oily and I had to work it to make sure everything got mixed in, but it was worth the effort. Then I broke it up into chunks the size of golf balls, rolled them around a bit in my hands to smooth them out, and set them on an oiled baking pan to rise for another hour before baking them at 375 for about 25 minutes.

They were dense, chewy, hearty, tasty, and reminded me a bit of some of the ultra healthy unnecessarily austere breads we sometimes ate in the 70's. But they were so much tastier than that. My sweetie took a bite and said, "I want more of this in my life."