Focaccia bread and strawberry lemonade

05-28-12
 Day 1: in theory the plan was to wake up ungodly early (somewhere between dawn and 10) and well....That clearly didn't work. At all. My alarm began to go off, and I snoozed. Five minutes later I snoozed. Ten minutes later I snoozed. And then I turned it off completely. Probably not the brightest idea considering bread takes at least two hours. At twelve thirty I stumbled out of bed and began my journey to the kitchen.

Looking at my handy dandy The Easy Way  to Artisan Bread & Pastries by Avner Laskin, from the library of course.  After perusing the thing for a time I decided on a simple recipe, foccacia bread. Foccacia bread is Italian, it's delicious and can have all kinds of things in it, but my recipe was simple. Despite popular theory, bread does not in fact require salt and sugar to have the yeast work and this recipe clearly showed that. Salt and sugar just makes it more elastic. Crazy right? I had no idea, but there you have it.

Anyway, ignoring the complexities of bread dough and all that great science stuff (there's actually a lot of science in bread dough creating, but explaining all of it would be a bit over the top).

I began mixing the dough, olive oil (the Greek Gods contribution to humanity, making life for the pasta creators more bearable), water, yeast and flour. Squishy...and very much like batter, but hey, the more you knead and mix it, viola! BREAD DOUGH! See?

It's a miracle!

Now, to those that may not be bakers, bread taker awhile. I wish it didn't, it's be fabulous to be able to shove flour and the necessary ingredients together and then pop it in the oven for a few minutes. But is anything that simple? Certainly not,otherwise we'd have money from trees daily and things of that sort.  

Unless you have some mystical tree in the backyard you're not telling the rest of us about O.o

After contemplating the meaning of man and life as we know it, I took a peek at the dough that was "resting." And lo and behold, it had risen! Huzzah!

I know I know, a new bowl? Really? Yes, because a greased bowl as opposed to a floured bowl caked in the remnants of dough works much to one's advantage. There's a purpose to nearly everything done in baking, though some of it I really contemplate skipping, like letting the dough rest.

After putting the thing in pans, letting it rise, and baking it to a glorious slightly golden color, I sliced it up for lunch and made strawberry lemonade.

Olives and butterscotch pudding to polish off lunch, dericious!

Here's the recipe for the sandwiches for the curious reader:

Loaf of foccacia bread (any type you like)

Muenster cheese (I expect something like mozzarella or provolone would be fantastic in this but up to you)

1 Tomato

Spinach Leaves

Ham

Fresh basil leaves

And dressing of your preference

Slice up the cheese and tomato. 

Place the tomato, basil and ham on the bread. 

Top it off with the cheese slices. 

Toast in the oven (the bottom part mind you). 

When cheese is melted take it out, put the spinach leaves on, squirt your dressings on and place the top on. Cut up into whatever size of pieces and enjoy :)

There you have it my doves, a time consuming but worthwhile lunch.

On a side note, everyone should bake at least once in their life!

Thanks,

B.