Whole Grain Focaccia!

I've gone through a ton of failures in my quest for a whole grain focaccia. Most of my attempts ended up as giant cracker-like things that were very strong tasting. Icky. What I wanted was a light and fluffy focaccia but whole grain. Finally. Success.

Whole Grain Focaccia

7 oz Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

8 oz Millet Flour

8 oz Oat Flour

1/2 cup Wheat Gluten

2 tsp Salt

1 Tbs yeast

1/2 cup Olive Oil

2 cups Water (bottled water works best)

1/2-1 cup Herb Oil (zap some herbs and garlic in some oil in the microwave for 30-60 seconds)

Stir together the dry ingredients. Add the water and oil (not the herb oil). Beat in a mixer for 7-12 minutes. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper then pour 1/3 of the herb oil in the pan. Plop the dough in the sheet pan and dimple the dough into the edges of the pan. If the dough doesn't stretch/dimple into the edges that's fine. Pour another 1/3 of the herb oil over the dough and cover the dough with 3 layers of plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or up to 3 days.

Take out 3 hours before you want to eat it. Remove the plastic wrap and pour the last of the herb oil over the bread. If you want to add other toppings to the bread, do that now. Let the bread rise for an 1.5 hours (90 minutes) - preheat your oven to 500F 30-60 minutes before baking. It should look like this right before it goes in the oven:

It might even rise a little higher. Anyway, pop your bread in the oven; turn the temperature down to 450F and bake for 10 minutes. Turn the bread 180 degrees and bake another 10 minutes. Remove from the over and either leave in the pan (if you want the crust soft) or remove to a baking rack (if you want the crust crunchy/hard). You MUST leave the bread alone for 20 minutes because it's continuing to bake even after you take it out of the oven.

Low-Fat Note: You don't really need all that oil to make focaccia. You can leave it out of the dough recipe when you make it. You do need to spray the bottom of your sheet pan; brush the dough with oil before it goes in the fridge; and brush the dough with oil when you take it out of the fridge. The oil you brush on both before and after refrigeration lets the dough rise since the oil keeps the surface from drying out.

Herbs and Mix-ins: You can add herbs to the dough recipe or grilled onions, bacon, or whatever. It just makes the bread more delicious. Although if you add crunchy things - like bacon - they won't stay crunchy.

Breads

I make up new recipes all the time. I try to cut out all the stuff that isn't absolutely necessary to make that dish function. I want a recipe that I can modify and tweak to go with everything. So I REALLY like recipes that can go in either the sweet or savory direction.
Lately I’ve been experimenting with adding fruits and veggies into baked goods to make them low fat. We could all stand to eat less fat. I get quite excited about eating more cookies and less fat. So cookies, cakes, and now finally breads have fallen prey to my tampering.

Quick Veggie/Fruit Bread
1.5-2 cups Pumpkin or any Fruit or Veggie puree
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
2.5-3 cups Whole Wheat Flour

Combine the puree, salt, soda, and eggs. Add the 2.5 cups of flour, stir until combined. Add more flour if the batter is runny. Bake @ 350 for 1 hour.
-Vegan Variation: Substitute 1 tbs ground Flax Seed and 3 tbs water per egg (3 Tbs Flax & ½ cup water for this recipe). Let the flax mixture soak for 5 minutes before use.
-Pumpkin Spice Variation: Use pumpkin puree and add 1 cup sugar, 1.5 tbs cinnamon, ¾ tsp ginger, ⅜ tsp nutmeg, ⅜ tsp allspice.
-Banana Spice Variation: Use banana puree and add ½ c sugar, ½ tsp cloves, ½ tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp cinnamon. Optional add ins: ½ cup chopped nuts, ½ cup chopped dried fruit, 1 tsp coffee, ⅛ tsp fresh ground black pepper.
-Cranberry Walnut Variation: Use orange puree and add 1 cup sugar, 1 cup cranberries, and ½ cup chopped walnuts.

Fruit or Veggie Yeast Bread
1.5-2 cups Kale or any Fruit or veggie puree
1 tsp salt
½ tbs yeast
3 eggs
2.5-3 cups Whole Wheat Flour

Combine the puree, salt, yeast, and eggs. Add the 2.5 cups of flour, mix until combined. Add more flour if the dough is too sticky. Knead dough for 10 minutes - I either do this in the food processor or mixer. Sometimes I put the dough in a plastic ziploc bag and knead through the bag. It’s less messy and you can add more flour a little bit at a time to make the dough not stick to the bag. Shape into a loaf and let rise in it’s pan for 2 hours (or a doubling in size). Bake @ 350 for 1 hour.
-Vegan Variation: Substitute 1 tbs ground Flax Seed and 3 tbs water per egg (3 Tbs Flax & ½ cup water for this recipe). Let the flax mixture soak for 5 minutes before use.

I haven’t tried many types of the yeast bread recipe so I’ll add variations to this post as I make them up.

Guest Post

While I've been neglecting creating my own recipes, I've been tampering with other people's recipes resulting in a guest post at HappyHerbivore.com.

Cheap Food

I can't believe I've never posted this recipe. I love beans so naturally I've experimented to make a bean chili. I generally make a double batch of this in the big pot my brother gave me for Christmas a few years back.

Bean Chili

1 onion, chopped

3 heads garlic, minced

2 chipotles, chopped

1c red beans, soaked

1c pinto beans, soaked

1c black beans, soaked

10 tomatoes, chopped or

28oz can crushed tomatoes

.5c fresh oregano, chopped or not

.25-.5 c chili powder or

1T of cumin

Saute onion, garlic, and chipotle in medium-high heat oil. Stir in beans. Add tomatoes and water to cover. Cook until beans are soft (1-2h unless you use a pressure pot). Add oregano, salt, pepper, and chili powder or cumin.

For Milehigh

Paul and I have this some weekends for lunch, it's fabulous. :)

Chile-Garlic Grits

2-3+ cloves garlic, minced

2/3 c grits (this is really 2 scoops of grits from the white spoon I keep next to the stove)

2-3 T smoked paprika (you want enough to make the grits orange-ish)

1-2 T nutritional yeast

Saute garlic in olive oil or butter for 30 seconds or so. Add the grits and some water - I usually keep a kettle of nearly boiling water going while I cook grits so that I can add more if they need to cook a little longer. Boil until cooked to the consistency you like. Add paprika - any powdered chile you like is good here - and yeast.