Dill Bread

This is a pretty close approximation of the excellent cottage-cheese dill bread that the late lamented Tassajara Bakery used to make. Excellent toast, especially with cream cheese (or goat cheese) and tomatoes. You can throw in some other fresh leafy herbs too, and make it into herb bread--parsley, chives, a little thyme or oregano...whatever you've got.

One thing I've found is that this makes a really wet, sticky dough. Obviously, you could keep adding flour til it gets unsticky, but I rolled with having big gooey dough paws while I kneaded, and the resulting bread rose up like a huge cloud and was beautifully light. So err on the side of goopy, if you can. Use a dough scraper to turn the dough while you're kneading, or do it mechanically in a stand-up mixer with a dough hook.

Cottage Cheese Dill Bread

1 1/2 packets dry yeast
1 3/4 cups lukewarm water
6-7 cups flour
2 TB oil
1 small or 1/2 large yellow onion, minced
2 TB honey
2 eggs
1/3 cup (or more) minced fresh dill or mixed fresh herbs
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1 TB salt

Make a sponge with yeast, water, and 2 1/2 cups flour. Cover and let sit until very bubbly and doubled in bulk.

Saute onions in oil until translucent and soft. Let cool, then mix with honey, eggs, herbs, cottage cheese, and salt. Add to sponge, mix in, and then add enough flour in 1/2 cup increments to make a soft dough. Knead 5-8 minutes, then put back into bowl and let rise again until doubled. Punch down, let rise again, then punch down and form into loaves.

Put into greased bread pans, let rise and then bake at 350 until well browned and hollow-sounding.

I'm not giving rising times, because they vary greatly depending on how warm your kitchen is. But in general, this bread rises pretty fast, so keep an eye on it. The final rise should probably only take 30 mins or so.