Lisaopolis.comA Nurse's Journey to a Healthy and Balanced Life

I was recently thinking to myself “its been ages since I have made any bread”. It’s true I don’t know how it happened but somehow I totally went off of bread making. I love making bread, so I am thinking it was probably work that got me off of my bread making spree. Needless to say I am back on the bread baking bandwagon.

This morning I made two loaves of Focaccia bread. Focaccia bread is one of my long lost loves. Years ago when we use to have a bread maker I made this type of bread ALL the time. It really was one of my favorites. However after our bread maker broke I hardly ever ate focaccia bread let alone made it.

This morning I was paging through my favorite vegetarian cook book when I came across a recipe for focaccia bread. I decided today was the day to make it.

Onion Focaccia Bread (adapted from Vegetarian – edited by Valerie Ferguson)

Onion Focaccia
(makes two loaves)

6 cups all purpose flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp white sugar
1 tbsp quick rise dried yeast
4 tbsp olive oil (plus extra to drizzle on top)
2 cups lukewarm skim milk
2 tbsp dehydrated minced onion
2 tbsp dried parsley
red onions (diced)
green onions (diced)
Chives (diced)
Grated low fat marble cheese

Preheat oven to 170 degrees F (or your lowest oven temperature). Once the oven reaches this temperature turn the oven off. In a large stainless steel bowl add: the flour, sugar, salt. Mix well. Add the yeast and mix thoroughly. Add 4 tbsp oil and the lukewarm milk and knead the for 10 minutes. Cover with plastic warp sprayed in olive oil. Let rise in oven for 30 minutes or until double in size. Remove from oven. Divide dough in half. On two pizza pans roll out each ball of dough until it is flat and pizza shaped. Cover with plastic wrap sprayed in olive oil. Let rise in oven for 20 minutes. Remove from oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sprinkle desired amount of grated cheese over each bread. Sprinkle on onions, and chives. Drizzle a small amount of olive oil over breads. Bake in preheated oven for about 25 minutes.
Serve warm with a favorite soup, salad or pasta.