Grissini and Feta/Olive loaf

This morning I wanted to use up the remainder of my whole wheat olive oil bread dough from the Healthy Bread in 5 book. I'd been eying the recipe for Grissini (thin little bread sticks) for some time and this is one of the doughs that is supposed to be good for it. It seemed that when I weighed the dough I had twice as much as I needed (about 1/2 lb is all that is needed). So now I needed to make two things to round out our March 1 bread braid from the book. (I know...I am veering off the schedule here).

So I rolled the dough out about 1/8" or so thick and about 8 x 12" rectangle and used my pizza wheel to make approximate 1/4" or thinner cuts in the dough. It makes 24 according to the recipe so I divided accordingly. I place them all on a Silpat on my baking sheet and dabbed on the olive oil, sprinkled half with kosher salt and rosemary and the other half with kosher salt and Herbs de Provence.

I popped them in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes or until brown. They turned out great and even better tasted great. I will make these again........especially when I have a small amount of dough left over from the basic un-enriched doughs.

 

Since I had some more dough left...about the same as before ... I just improvised by rolling it out on a pastry cloth, added drained and blotted Spanish olives w/ pimento, feta cheese crumbles and some turkey bacon from a package in the fridge. I rolled it up and popped it in a loaf pan with a piece of parchment under it. I brushed with the remaining olive oil from the brushing on of the grissini and left covered for about a hour and a half. It didn't rise much. I had been warned by others in the bread group their bread didn't rise much either. I think my loaf pan was also too large. I baked until it was over 200 degrees but I think it could have baked a little longer. The crumb is dense and it could be browner....but I LOVE the savory ingredients in this bread.

While all this was going on I figured I should make a pot of lentils with Canadian bacon and veggies..

Yum Yum good...lentils and home-made breads.

 

Southwestern Foccacia w/ Roasted Corn and Goat Cheese

I'm back to baking some more with the Healthy Bread in Five Minutes bread braid. I was just too busy last braid.
I can only make 1/2 the recipe of Whole Wheat Olive Oil bread this time as I have limited time and mostly limited amount of calories I can consume. This dough has to be prepared into something within 7 days.

The first recipe of the braid sounded good to me.... Southwestern Foccacia w/Roasted Corn and Goat Cheese. Since I live in TX that seemed like a natural. Looked through the cabinets and found , first...no roasted corn or corn to roast so that was the first of my substitutions... I used drained  1/4 cup of Niblets. I, also, don't keep poblano peppers since my husband doesn't care for hot/spicy foods. However, I do, so I have diced jalepenos to substitute. I used diced, seeded plum tomatoes instead of canned ones, and yellow bell pepper. I used white whole wheat. Hum....looks like I made up my whole recipe from substitutions for one reason or another.

Some people in our group seemed to be having problems with this dough. Mine seems fine but I'm not making the plain loaf either so maybe that was their problem

I haven't received my digital scale in the mail yet so I estimated about a grapefruit sized piece of dough and started rolling it out (with fingers) on to a piece of parchment paper. It seems like it will be pretty thin like a pizza to me if I make something 10-12 inches. AND, does look like a pizza to me. (Other Foccacias I've made are much thicker and baked in jelly roll pan thickness.)

 

While the dough rested for about 20 minutes, I preheated the oven to 425. I didn't prick the crust as it didn't say to for this recipe like is usual for pizza.

I placed about a TBS of olive oil in a skillet, chopped one onion, a few tablespoons of yellow bell pepper, and diced up the tomatoes. I used diced, drained jalapenos..about 2 TBS. I cooked the onion until translucent, added the peppers, 1 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1 tsp cumin, and 1 TBS kosher salt when I added the tomatoes. I cooked for a few more minutes and removed from heat.

I sprayed a little oil on the crust to seal it and arranged the topping previously prepared on the dough. I used about two ounces of Goat Cheese dotted all over the top. I could have gotten away with less and saved a few calories I think.

 

I baked for about 25 minutes and sprayed the oven with a water mister instead of the broiler pan. I think I could have left it a tad longer but it turned out good........Tasted really good but I forgot to add the cilantro to the top with more salt. Good thing about the salt as it certainly did not need any more with this version. Maybe it could have if I'd used a can of tomatoes instead of the substitution. Oh yeah... I was supposed to scatter the corn on top but I didn't note that until too late since I added it to my saute.

Here's the finished foccacia/pizza.....YUM!