Meditteranean Olive and Rosemary Bread

 I often make olive bread but I find most of the recipes for it call for a no knead bread.  Though it is good, it tends to be heavy and dense.  I've been looking for a good yeasty olive bread and I finally found a perfect recipe.  It is so good that I made a loaf yesterday for us and 2 loaves this morning for my daughter to take to work.

 This would be excellent for sandwiches but is really good all on it's own too.

 The recipe:

• 3 cups flour,
• 2¼ tsp. rapid rise yeast
• 1½ tsp salt
• 1½ cups water
• 1¾ cups mixed olives, pitted and roughly chopped
• 1 Tbsp olive oil, plus extra to coat the bowl

Mix the ingredients together until you have a rather sticky dough.  Dump it into an oiled bowl, cover and let rise until doubled.  Plop it out on a floured surface and spread it out into a rectangle. Sprinkle some chopped olives over it and fold it over on itself.  Sprinkle with more olives and fold it.  Do this for a total of 3 times. Form into a ball and place it back in an oiled bowl.  Cover and less rise until doubled.

 Heat a covered dutch oven in the oven until the temp reaches 450 degrees.  Carefully remove the pot from the oven and uncover it.  Spray it with cooking spray and turn the dough into it.  Cover it and place it back in the oven.  Cook this covered for 30 minutes then uncover it and continue to bake for about 25 minutes or until golden.  Turn it out on a rack to cool.

 I made up a plate of assorted cheeses with some of my refrigerator pickles and this slices of the bread for my husband to munch on during the first preseason football game.

He was in football/food heaven.