Roasted Vegetable Hoagies on Homemade Focaccia

As I was setting out to investigate football foods, I thought: can you really sit down to enjoy a big game without a sandwich?  Sure chips and dip, soups, chili's, and stews are all great- but isn't there some thing about clinging on to a sandwich with both hands as your team defends it's position and tension is high, and then tearing off a bite with your teeth- a feeling just as animalistic as a great tackle on the field- right? 

I might be stretching, just a tad with that one, but the sandwiches I settled on for our football viewing party were worth a lot more! I decided to get them started on my favorite "guilty pleasure" sandwich bread- Focaccia.  I am a ridiculous freak for Focaccia- it's crisp exterior blending into a pillowy soft yet thin interior has just the texture contrast I love.  Baked with olive oil, earthy rosemary, spicy pepper and a sprinkling of salt the flavor profile separates this from just a typical bread to something truly special.

I decided several things about these sandwiches- first, I would make the bread from scratch.  It's time that I become more comfortable with breads, and since my love of Focaccia is so great, I should be able to make a good one.  Second- I wanted to make them vegetarian.  Football food, and perhaps rightly so, is often very meat heavy, and it relegates our vegetarian friends to chips and dip while the rest of the party noshes on meatballs, sliders and Italian hoagies.  Silliness.  These sandwiches were just as warm and comforting as a big meatball sub, jam packed with flavor, and veggie friendly!

I found a recipe on King Arthur (of course) that I knew would be both easy (because I remain a baking wimp), and delicious.  I set to work on the bread, and let me tell you- the recipe was pretty fool proof.  It all got slapped together in no time, while I concentrated on other tasks.  


Focaccia Bread (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 cup warm water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup King Arthur Traditional Whole Wheat Flour
2 1/2 cups (approximately) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon chopped rosemary

2 teaspoons each- black pepper, salt

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the water. Add 1/4 cup of the all-purpose flour. Stir with a whisk and let this sit for 10 minutes to give the yeast a chance to get going.

Add the salt and the whole wheat flour. Add the rest of the all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough is pulling away from the sides of the bowl. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and knead it, adding more flour as necessary, until the dough has formed a smooth ball. Place the dough in an oiled bowl and turn the dough to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp towel. Let the dough rise in a draft-free place for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

When the dough has doubled in bulk, punch it down, and turn it out onto a lightly floured counter. Stretch the dough into a 14-inch circle and place on a greased baking sheet. Let it rise for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 425°F while the focaccia is rising. Dimple it with your fingers and place it in the oven. Evenly spread the dough with olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper.  Bake for approximately 25 minutes, or until lightly browned and cooked through. 

After the bread had cooled, I cut it into squares  (approximately 4" x 4") and then stuffed them with roasted Portobello mushrooms, roasted red and orange bell peppers and a slice of Provolone cheese.  I baked them off for 10 minutes or so, until the cheese had fully melted, and then devoured.  

These sandwiches were simple, but truly delicious.  The simplicity of the roasted vegetables paired with the gooey cheese and then stuffed into the flavorful homemade bread was a combination worth its salt.  They were hearty and satisfying, providing all of the toothsome feel you want when savagely ripping into them...or daintily eating them as a lady would. 

Go Pats! 

Walnut, Strawberry and Nectarine Bread

Every year I fill out these wellness tests for my health insurance, and every year I receive the same feedback- eat more fruit!  Somehow this always proves challenging to me-but this year I decided to take it to heart and have been packing myself a fruit salad to eat when I get to work in the morning.  Berries, melon, pineapple, nectarines- whatever looks fresh and tasty I purchase and then cut up and dole out portions of each morning.  Honestly- chowing down on my fruit salad while I sort through the over night emails at my desk is one of the highlights of my morning now.  However, invariably, at the end of the week I have some leftover fruit- and I am left with ways to use it up. 

This past sunday, I opened my fridge to find something for breakfast and I found an almost empty carton of strawberries staring back at me.  They were bruised, a little soft for my palatte, and itching to be incorporated into something that did not require them to be at their peak.  So decision made- I would be making something with strawberries- but what?  Not enough of them for Strawberry Ice Cream, they weren't nice enough for Strawberry Shortcake.  I pulled out my trusty King Arthur Flour cook book and started scouring it for strawberry recipes. And then I found it- Walnut Strawberry Bread in their quick breads section.  I read the recipe, and realized that I had every ingredient I needed-score!

Off to the kitchen I went, and just about an hour later I had piping hot loaf of Walnut Strawberry Bread.  Well...kinda.

Once I mashed the strawberries I realised that I just didn't have enough of them.  The recipe mentioned combining the strawberries with rhubarb, but I definitely didn't have any rhubarb.  However, what I did have was some almost over ripe nectarines.  They would do.  I peeled and mashed two of those- and hit my measurement for mashed fruit.  I also realized (very late in the process) that I was out of vegetable oil- I subbed in the same amount of melted butter- successful substitution- game on!

Walnut-Strawberry and Nectarine Quick Bread (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

1/2 cup (2 ounces) chopped walnuts

1 1/2 cups (6 1/4 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon lemon zest OR 1/4 teaspoon lemon oil
2 eggs

1 cup (10 ounces) mashed strawberries*

1/2 cup peeled and mashed nectarines

1/2 cup (3 7/8 ounces) vegetable oil

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease and flour (or spray with non-stick vegetable oil spray) a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the walnuts, flour, sugar, soda, salt and nutmeg. In a separate bowl, whisk together the lemon, eggs, strawberries and vegetable oil. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients, whisking until well-blended.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake for 55 to 60 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the bread in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove it from the pan and transfer it to a rack to cool completely, 1 hour or longer. For best flavor and easiest slicing, wrap the bread while still slightly warm and let it sit overnight.

This was the easiest, most delicious bread!  The fruit was sweet and flavorful throughout, and the lemon zest really made the flavors pop with every bite.  Nutmeg can often over power, but here it just created a real dept of flavor and made this bread seem much more complex than it really was.  I will definitely be making this bread again- and I might start trying new fruits in it as well! 

Baguettes: Homemade, Crusty and Delicious!

I was forced to take a bit of downtime the past few days as I was struck with a dastardly flu bug Christmas morning and am just now recovering. Unfortunately that made it a little difficult to get too excited about food, so I thought I'd save my thoughts on Christmas Eve dinner til I was feeling better.








So to kick things off, I conquered one of my biggest goals on Christmas Eve- I made French Baguettes! I love, I mean LOVE, a good loaf of fresh, crackly on the outside soft on the inside French bread. Is there anything better? I love the very idea of the baguette, the image it's shape conjure of riding through the streets of Paris on a bicycle with a loaf artfully displayed carried in it's basket. Ok maybe a bit cheesy, but honestly it's basically the perfect loaf. It's light flavor perfect on it's own, or paired with simple sweet butter, spread with salty and creamy Brie, or as a vehicle for soups and stews...it is just a perfect accompaniment. So, given my love, it was a big accomplishment for me to set out and make my own.










I decided to follow the recipe on the King Arthur Flour website (http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/classic-baguettes-recipe). I won't completely recap the recipe here, but I will say that it was a lot easier than I had anticipated it would be. I chose to follow the directions for using an electric mixer (the hook attachment on my kitchen aid), which made the initial kneading simple, though I feel that I might have let it go a bit too long and over kneaded the dough. The next several steps were simple, a matter of allowing the dough to rest and rise, punching it down and then again allowing it to rest and rise several times over. Once those steps were complete then it was a matter of forming the baguettes, and again allowing them to rise. From there it was just a matter of "misting" the loaves with water and popping them in the oven. 20 minutes later the bread was a beautiful beautiful golden brown. Having watched far too many hours of The Food Network, I knew that if a baguette sounds hollow on the inside when you tap on it, a good loaf has been made- mine sounded hollow!










My only concern with my bread was that it was a bit dense inside, which I blame on my initial kneading as a bit too much. Otherwise though...it was a success!










I find it both awesome, and slightly dangerous, that beautiful fresh French Baguettes are so easy to make, and so undeniably delicious. If someone needs to roll me out of my front door-you'll know it's because I fell victim to they yeasty goodness of French bread...probably with Brie.