Today is Saturday, hallelujah. This was a great week at school but also a looooong one, so I have really been looking forward to some downtime. I started my day by delivering donuts to some awesome volunteers for the DCHS Show Choirs that were working on the set, which meant that I got to go to Long’s Donuts. I love going to visit real bakeries and they always make me remember how much about baking I still have to learn. That’s really exciting to me! There’s enough stuff to bake to last a lifetime! Also, Lon’g always smells amazing and the donuts are fire.
Sometimes when I have hours in my day that are not scheduled, I have a lot of trouble resting. I have trouble shutting down enough to watch TV or read a book and I can’t stop myself from wanting to multi-task or clean or check email or…. you get the idea. Baking is a really good way to get off of the carousel for me… it is active and requires me to concentrate, but it is also soothing. You just follow the directions. It’s almost like meditating.
This particular Saturday I decided to make focaccia to go with the salad I was planning for dinner, so I consulted the King of Bread, Mr. Paul Hollywood. I used my favorite cookbook, “How to Bake.” Focaccia seemed like the perfect bake…it only used pantry ingredients, but it makes me feel super fancy and sophisticated.
I assembled the ingredients, which are pictured to the left. Bonus picture of my cat Dexter eating his gross prescription cat food.
Focaccia is supposed to be very open-textured, so the dough is very sloppy. Mr. Hollywood advised making this dough by hand the first time you make it to become accustomed to the feel of the dough, but that sounded both icky and damaging to my nail art, so I went ahead and used the good old kitchenaid mixer. The dough (bread flour, yeast, salt, water, olive oil) came together quickly and I dumped it into a big plastic bin. Paul advised using a square container to encourage the bread to be square, so I searched one out, but based upon the finished product, this direction is, sorry Paul, stupid. It’s going to be a blob. It will resemble silly putty. It will ooze. But in a good way.
I set this aside to rise for an hour, and found myself bored, so I meandered through my fridge looking for a project.
If you don’t know me and only read my blog, it probably seems like I always bake and cook using recipes, but honestly that is not the truth at all. I almost never use a recipe, and I tend to just throw together things that I like and hope it all goes well, especially when making casual food for my lunches or quick dinners for my man-friend and myself. I also knew that I would be happy to have something homemade to eat for lunch this coming week and that breakfast for any meal is a good idea, so an egg casserole seemed like the perfect idea.
I chopped up an onion and pulled out some mushrooms, and sauteed them with some ground turkey sausage.
A casserole like this is also a great way to reduce food waste and get rid of things in your fridge. I’ve made it with lots of vegetables in the past, including asparagus, brussels sprouts, kale, leeks, and a memorable but very ill-advised avocado. (Don’t use avocado.) I chopped up the remnants of a loaf of sandwich bread and a random hotdog bun I had chilling in the pantry and put the chunks in a casserole dish I had sprayed with cooking spray. While the veggies and the sausage were browning, I whisked eight-ish eggs with some skim milk, seasoned salt, pepper, ground mustard, and paprika. Next up: assembly.
I added the veggies and the meat to the bread, added some shredded cheese, mixed it all up, poured on the eggs, and added some more cheese on top. And then added a little more. And a little more. It’s protein, crucial for energy or something. I popped it in the oven at 375 and turned my attention back to my dough, which had risen quite a bit.
I was skeptical about the plastic container, but one advantage was that I was able to look through the bottom and see the bubbles that signaled that the yeast was active.
Paul directed me to pour out the dough without knocking the air out and gently stretch it into a square.
That is not how this went down. It stuck badly to the bottom and sides of the container, which I promise I oiled with olive oil. It then dropped onto the parchment paper in a heap of splat and I stared at it wondering how I was supposed to stretch it into a square without knocking out the air. I just kind of mushed it all together and then pulled the four corners out, but I will say that I did indeed knock out the air and I wound up with an Indiana-shaped dough lump with thickness levels ranging from as thin as a dime to as thick as a fluffy towel. Whatever, Paul.
I left it to rise, pulled out my casserole, and left it to cool before sneaking a couple bites and popping it into the fridge to snack on all week.
I worked on making some giant salads for dinner, and the prepped the dough to go in the oven!
I remember watching an episode of “Salt Fat Acid Heat” and seeing Samin Nosrat learn how to add dimples to focaccia from a little old Italian man. He showed her how to use four fingers at a time to press through the risen dough all the way to the pan, creating little pockets for olive oil to pool, and I was really looking forward to doing this and channeling Samin and her joy of food and cooking. I tried to make the dimples with my fingers, and the dough immediately stuck to my long acrylic nails, so I used the end of a paring knife instead. Don’t tell anyone from Italy.
Isn’t it pretty?
I drizzled it with olive oil, added some coarse salt and Italian seasoning, and baked it at 425 for about fifteen minutes.
For something so simple, I was surprised by how flavorful and satisfying this was. The finished bread was open-textured and springy, and it went very well with my salad with mushrooms and chicken. Now that I’ve made this once, I would definitely consider adding sun-dried tomatoes, olives, or parmesan cheese. It would also taste very good dipped in tomato sauce or olive oil and balsalmic viniagrette.
This is a great bread to make if you are looking to make something quick, rustic, and impressive to the casual observer!
I tried to think of a funny quip to end this post with, but I’ve got nothing. Stay warm out there folks, the wind is howling.
