No Knead Focaccia

Kenji starts this article stating the absolute truth “It’s difficult to make good bread today, but it’s darned easy to make hot, fresh, world-class bread tomorrow”. I should know, I have made lots of average bread when I’ve tried to bake the same day. I’m a huge fan of no-knead bread and I will always be grateful to Mark Bittman for popularizing Jim Lahey’s technique. I use the recipe in “Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day” by Jeff Hertzberger. A long slow rise that works the gluten for you and develops a rich sourdough flavor, a closed Dutch oven to mimic the steam in professional ovens – it’s genius. I’m all set with the basic boule recipe. My focaccia though doesn’t always turn out the way I want- till now. Kenji’s recipe works for the most part- I had to add 30-50 cc more water, the dough has to be moist and tacky at the end. He made his focaccia with olives, rosemary and pistachios. I made mine with vegan hot dogs bits, rosemary and olives. My top started to burn at the 550 F temp- I covered it with some foil. Next time I’ll start the baking with the foil cover and remove it 10 min in. Still a delicious bread- I served it with spinach soup.

https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/02/how-to-make-the-best-olive-rosemary-pistachio-focaccia-bread.html

Deep dish pizza

I do pizza once a week, generally with store bought dough. I do my deep dish pizza in a cast iron skillet with some olive oil on the bottom. I push in pieces of vegan hot dog and olives into the dough so the dough can bake up around them like a focaccia. Today I did a sauce of ricotta mixed with olive oil, salt and pepper and topped it with onions, jalapeños and corn. Oven 450 for about 20-25 min. I grated some Parmesan on top. It’s not healthy but it’s very good.