Rosemary focaccia? Piece of cake.

I have a tendency to dive into recipes before doing a thorough investigation of my cupboards to make sure I have all/enough of the ingredients. I didn't make an exception for this tasty rosemary focaccia, a recipe from the Earth to Table cook book. I didn't have whole wheat flour, so I used all purpose. I barely had enough olive oil. I measured the salt over the lid of my flour container, then went to go dump the spilled salt into the sink and dumped half of my flour into the sink (the lid wasn't on tight). Oops. So I didn't have quite enough flour. Which meant that while kneading the bread, I ran out of flour to put on the table, so it started sticking, so I gave up after 4 minutes of going at it (you're supposed to knead for 10 minutes). My oven is apartment sized, so I had to use my one and only cooking sheet that can fit in it, a round pizza pan thing. The dough just barely fit on it. After all that I just hoped the bread would come out edible.

AND...in the end the house smelled delicious and we now have a giant (its big!) loaf of tasty focaccia. It was actually quite easy to make, besides the mishaps. We used some for ham, brie, roasted red pepper, and spinach sandwiches pressed in the panini press for dinner last night. Yum. Next time I'll use whole wheat flour, and I think I'll try putting rosemary in the actual dough...it has a tendency to just fall off the bread once its baked.

Earth to Table Whole Wheat Focaccia

6 cups of whole wheat flour (preferably red fife), divided

2 tsp dry instant yeast

2 tsp salt

3 cups water

1 cup olive oil, divided

2 cups all purpose flour

chopped fresh rosemary (I used dry, they suggest fresh)

kosher salt

cornmeal for dusting

In a large bowl, combine 4 cups of the whole wheat flour with yeast and salt. In another bowl, combine water and 1/2 cup of the oil. Add this to the flour mixture. Using a spoon, stir the mixture together while slowly adding the remaining whole wheat and all purpose flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Place in a large greased bowl, and turn dough to grease all over. Cover with a tea towel and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.

Punch down dough and place on an greased baking sheet that's been dusted with cornmeal. Press out dough to fill the pan. Pour remaining oil on dough and work in with your finger tips to create dimples all over the bread. Let rest for 30 minutes, and preheat the oven to 400 F.

Sprinkle dough with rosemary and kosher salt. You can also cover the dough with tomato slices. Bake until golden and crisp, about 30 minutes. YUM.