In February we planted over 100 onion sets with the goal of having a good supply of storage onions for the fall and winter. Unfortunately, the sets I planted were a little too old and spent their energy going to seed instead of producing big beautiful onions. So between the crummy onion harvest and an excellent supply of dill in our backyard we made onion dill bread.
Dill is a wonderful herb to grow in your garden. It is fantastic on fish, in salads, and on eggs. But dill is an especially great herb because swallowtail butterflies lay their eggs on dill, parsley, and fennel. We always plant extra herbs every year to encourage the butterflies. They are such graceful and delightful creatures to watch and I will happily share my herbs with them to have their presence in my garden.
Onion dill bread has always been a holiday tradition in my family. My mom would make this wonderful bread for Thanksgiving and Christmas every year. She would set up an assembly line in the kitchen and make over 20 loaves of bread. She would then give onion dill bread as a gift during the holiday season. People loved it and always wanted more. Since we stopped eating industrialized bread several years ago, onion dill bread was the obvious choice for our homemade bread needs. Plus it freezes beautifully and can be defrosted in the refrigerator without compromising the texture. Onion dill bread also makes great toast, sandwiches, and croutons.
Making your own bread takes a little patience, but the results are greatly worth the effort. The other added bonus is that you know what is going into your food. With onion dill bread you will be able to pronounce all the ingredients needed to make this bread and you don’t need high fructose corn syrup or crazy chemical fillers. What a concept!
Plant some dill and make some bread. With the smell of freshly baked onion dill bread and butterflies in the garden what more could you ask for? Enjoy!
- 5 to 6 cups of flour
- 4 T sugar
- 4 T finely chopped onion
- 4 t chopped fresh dill
- 2½ t salt
- ½ t baking soda
- 2 T dry yeast
- 2 cups cottage cheese
- ½ cups water
- 2 T butter
- 2 eggs
- In a large mixing bowl, using a dough hook on your mixer, combine 2 cups flour, sugar, onions, dill, salt, baking soda, and yeast.
- In a saucepan, heat cottage cheese, water, and butter until the temperature reaches 120 F.
- With the mixer on low speed add two eggs to flour mixture.
- Add the warm cottage cheese mixture to the flour mixture.
- Blend until moist.
- Add the remaining flour to achieve the right consistency.
- Cover the mixture and allow it to rise until it has doubled in size, about 1 hour.
- Knead down the bread and split the bread into two well buttered loaf pans.
- Allow the bread to rise in the loaf pans for 30 to 45 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F.
- Bake the bread for 35 to 45 minutes.
- Allow the bread to cool for 10 minutes after baking and remove from the loaf pans.
