Baking Friday - 5th Friday Bread

We Gotcha Some Focaccia!

Do you know what focaccia is?  Or even how to pronounce it?  The email I sent to my work taste testers was titled "We Gotcha Some Focaccia" to serve as a help in how to pronounce, but apparently some folks were trying to pronounce it in ways that could have gotten them in trouble with HR....or something, but it really is pronounced very similarly to "gotcha".

More importantly, focaccia is a wonderful herby, garlicky Italian bread.  I don't have a wonderful Italian grandmother that has passed down a recipe to me, so I simply use Frugal Gourmet's recipe from over 20 years ago...

Why focaccia?  What holiday are we celebrating?  Well Friday (yesterday) was More Herbs Less Salt Day.  BUT Saturday (today) is National Bacon Day...so we are celebrating More Herbs More Bacon!!!

Bacon?  Where's the bacon, Deb?  Here.

And here.

And here.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let's get back to making the focaccia.  Here's the recipe again.  The Frug gives instructions about how to mix things together, but I just threw everything into my Kitchen Aid mixer.

And kneaded the dough for about 10 minutes.

And then let it rise right in the bowl - something even the Frugal Gourmet used to do!

How pretty is that?!  I let it rise twice in the bowl before putting it in the pans that I drizzled with olive oil.

The Frugal Gourmet says that his recipe will make two 11"x 17" pans, but I wanted to celebrate National Bacon Day, so I split the dough into 4 round pans - two 10" round pans and two 6" round pans.  After drizzling I spread the olive oil out with a pastry brush.

Then I was ready to separate the dough.  It was a little bit sticky, so I used a floured surface.

And split the dough into four sections - two from about 2/3 of the dough and two from about 1/3 of the dough.

And spread them in the pans to rise.

And rise they did!

While the dough was rising, I prepared about 4 cloves of garlic by mincing them with kosher salt.

And used that to season some olive oil.

I also went out to my herb garden and picked these - basil, rosemary, thyme and parsley.  How pretty!

The basil was for later, but I stripped the rosemary and thyme from the stems and then minced everything.  I mixed the thyme and parsley, but I kept the rosemary separate so that I had more control on how much I used of it since it is more pungent than the thyme and parsley.

Once the dough was risen, I dimpled it a bit with my fingertips and then brushed the season olive oil and herbs on top along with a sprinkling of kosher salt.

Baked it at 425 degrees until done about 30 minutes until golden brown and delicious!

In order to help us celebrate National Bacon Day, I turned 3 of the 4 into sandwiches, one of the 6" rounds Wednesday night for supper for G and I, and then the two 10" rounds to take into work.  The one I made for G & I was an Italian meat and cheese that included ham, pepperoni, salami, pepper jack, mozarella, provolone cheese, some sauteed peppers and onions, basil leaves, sliced tomatoes, kalamata olives and bacon!  I repeated this same mixture the next morning for work!  Yum!!

I spread the bottom with roasted garlic humus and layered on the salami, provolone and sauteed peppers and onions.

Then I layered on ham, pepperjack, basil leaves, olive oil salt and pepper.  Look at those layers of flavor building!

Finally I added the pepperoni, bacon, mozzarella and sliced tomatoes.  I spread a pesto and parmesan dressing mixture on the top of the sandwich that you can see on the right.

I put the top on the bottom, and voila!  Sandwich!

I took the other 10" round and build a chicken and bacon sandwich that I was told was just about perfect!  Folks wanted to know when I was taking sandwich orders!

This loaf wasn't perfect...see the holes?  

Did I let that stop me?  No way!!  I layered on roasted chicken, pepperjack cheese and bacon

Then I added sliced tomatoes, more parsley and thyme and more of that pesto and permesan dressing mixture.  Yummy!

And we had sandwiches!  Happy More Herbs More Bacon Day!

My last step was to wrap each sandwich in foil and warm in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes to melt the cheese and warm the tomatoes just a tad.  One tester doesn't like raw tomatoes, but he said that I made them "less nasty" by heating them.  Ha-ha!

Another taster said that this was the best focaccia he'd ever eaten...'course it was the ONLY focaccia he'd ever eaten, but it really is good guys!  We have the 4th small loaf that we will eat this weekend as simply bread with pasta or pesto chicken or who knows?  But it will be good!

August is just about over!  Thank you for stopping by!  Hope you've enjoyed reading and enjoy celebrating the end of summer and the beginning of fall!  See you soon!