Tomato Basil Bread

oh man am I excited for this weeks bread! I’ve kinda been dreaming about it all summer long actually. But in June the prices of tomatoes are like $5 a pound at the farmers market and so I waited and waited through June, July, August….it’s been a looooonnngg wait for this recipe. The past few weeks when I’ve shopped at the farmers market I kept seeing tomato prices falling and falling and I kept thinking to myself, “come on Laura, get on this, you have a new recipe to be writing!” And alas, the recipe has finally been written, tried, the bread tasted, devoured, I’d go as far as to say that it was demolished. Yes my friends, I present you two of my favorite summer things.

Exhibit A, the tomato, or rather, a mountain of tomatoes….

Exhibit B, basil, by the bag

Exhibit C, my new recipe!

I substituted some of the water with squished fresh, organic tomatoes, added some chopped basil and voila, tomato basil bread. I love the orange hue that is created by the tomatoes. I definitely didn’t put  in enough tomatoes with my trial batch, but that will be altered for all of you lovely folks. Somehow the idea of this recipe appeared to me on a food blog years ago and somehow it stuck hard in the deepest crevice of my brain and just would not leave no matter how many years went by. Funny how the brain works…I can barely remember what I ate for dinner last night yet this one memory of this one recipe on this one blog oh so many years ago is still with me. Love it. I’m glad to have finally tried it out and I can’t wait for you to try it too.

I wish I had noticed which stands I bought my ingredients from, my bad. Farmers Market at the People’s Co-op rocks, y’all. If you don’t shop there yet I highly recommend it!

I’ve also got plans for next weeks bread, which I’m also super excited and geeked out by but I’m not going to share it with you yet. Why you ask? Because I’m mean and I want to keep the suspense fierce!

In other news, I have officially been dubbed the “bread lady”, my neighbors signed up for a new subscription. They have a couple of daughters and one of them designed this lovely envelope my payment came in. LOVE IT!!! Thanks!

Happy bread eating….