It's Alive!!!!!

Woo-Hoo!!!!

Well, it was alive. And now it's focaccia :)

My Trio of Focaccia

I took the Food Yenta's advice and just put it back in the fridge, so this morning it was all yeasty and ready to rock and roll. I had planned on spinach calzone, but I just wasn't feeling it so I googled easy focaccia recipes instead. I found this: http://www.grouprecipes.com/39064/rosemary-and-tomato-focaccia.html. I ended up having enough dough for two big ones and a mini, so I used the recipe as a loose guideline and added my own toppings.


Here's what they looked like before I put them in the oven:

The one on the left is tomato, mozzarella cheese, basil and parsley. The other two are tomato, honey balsamic onions, beet, and feta cheese. I drizzled them all with garlic-infused olive oil.

I wasn't sure about cooking times because I don't own a rolling pin, so I had to just stretch the dough with my hands. The little one was a tester to see if it would be better if I made them thinner. I don't think it came out better, per se, but it was quicker - it was done 2 minutes early while the big ones needed an extra 3 minutes.

Here are the finished products:  

Mozzarella

Big Feta

Little Feta (although it looks huge in this pic!)

I wouldn't be me if I had actually wanted to eat the breads I had just cooked. No, I was craving something else for lunch. And that thing was a caprese sandwich. So I made one, taking the Food Yenta's advice about grilling the bread in some olive oil, adding some honey balsamic onions, and frying it like a grilled cheese. It was glorious. 

But also a little lonely, so I made a big salad to go with it. Yes, I know my salad is pink. It is pink because in addition to the tomato, cucumber, orange pepper, and feta cheese that I had planned to use, I added the rest of my roasted beets and honey balsamic onions. Roasted beets, if you didn't know, look like they're bleeding hot pink when you try to cut them. And I cut them. So they bled hot pink all over my salad, turning it a pleasant rose color. Instead of salad dressing, I used the rest of my garlic olive oil and mixed it with the feta cheese until it was a bit creamy. It tastes a lot brighter than it looks.

Extreme Close-up!

Fast forward to dinner time after work, and for some reason I'm still not in the mood for my focaccia. I think I just had so much fun cooking today that the finished product just wasn't as important to me as the sense of accomplishment I got from making it. So instead I had a snack that my cousin reminded me about - ricotta cheese with sugar/splenda and vanilla extract. I added some leftover chocolate covered clementines for a cool burst of flavor. With low or non fat ricotta cheese and a sugar substitute, this is a really good healthy alternative to ice cream.

Overall, I'd call today a success. I woke up feeling a bit blah, but the cooking really invigorated me. And if the focaccia tastes even half as good as it looks, I'll know I did a great job.