Mamie's Italian Sausage Bread

Place 4 cups of flour, yeast, and sugar in a large bowl. Whisk together.Add water and oil and stir until all dry ingredients are dissolved. Then begin beating mixture (wooden spoon) and beat until mixture is smooth. Add salt and remainder of flour. Stir in dry ingredients until absorbed. Flour your hands. Flour board and remove dough to the board and begin kneading. If dough gets sticky add a little flour as you work the flour. Continue until the dough is silky and smooth. (6 to 8 minutes).Place ball of dough in a lightly greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Put in a non-drafty place and let rise until doubled (about an hour).For sausage bread:Buy your favorite Italian sausage. If you are going to make all Sausage Bread use about 4 large links. Remove casing, break up sausage and pan fry until done. Keep pieces fairly large (nickel and dime size pieces.)I also will mix calamata olives in with the sausage sometimes. Or, just use the olives in lieu of the sausage.I also use roasted garlic cloves in the bread often.After dough has risen, punch down and make loaves. 3 good sized loaves are what I make. You can make them smaller or larger as you choose.To make a loaf. On floured board press dough into an oval. Roll tightly. Fold over and repeat oval. At this time lightly press stuffing into loaf. Fold over again and gently roll and shape into loaf.Fold over again and this time roll dough to shape the actual loaf. I have pizza peels that I put the loaves on for rising. I dust the peel with semolina flour (you can use cornmeal) so dough will slide off peel.If you don't have baking stones in your oven you will need to put your loaves on some type baking sheet or pan, dusted with semolina (not regular flour) or cornmeal.Cover with a dishtowel, (any light towel) and let rise about 45 minutes.I use baking stones in our oven. I keep 1 on each shelf all the time.You will bake bread in the middle of the oven. Preheat oven to 425 degrees while loaves are rising. Either place a pan of hot water on bottom rack of oven, or have a spritz bottle of water that you squirt on the dough 3 or 4 times during baking.When loaves are ready place in oven (in pan) or onto baking stone.After 15 minutes, lower temp to 375 degrees. If you are spritzing start now. After 8 more minutes bread should be ready. Put loaves on cooling rack.Try not to eat it until it cools (Hah, nothing better than red hot bread).After it cools, cut the bread into sizes that you will use in the future to freeze. Place in Freezer Zip-Lock bags. You can keep frozen for a couple of months with no effect on quality.Do not defrost rapidly. To make almost like fresh, defrost on the counter and put back into a hot (425 degree) oven for 2 or 3 minutes. You can defrost in the micro, but I never do it higher than Power Level 2. You just want to bring it to room temp. You can eat it then or to crisp put in the preheated oven as above.******The baking time is correct, but ovens are different. Thump the bread after the total of 22 minutes with a flick of your index finger. If the bread sounds hollow, it is done. If it thumps, it's needs a little more time. Also, remember if you have a good mixer, or food processor you can beat and knead the dough in the machines. Goes much faster.