The long and winding road to fitness, day 44

Image by Rev. Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos (ClintJCL) via Flickr

Long day at work today, just about 12 hours.  I’m so glad to be home.  Of course, I’ll just have to do it all over again in the morning…hopefully not for 12 hours though.  I do feel like we accomplished a lot, but there’s always so much more to do.  I guess the day there’s nothing to do is the day I need to worry about my job.

I rode the exercise bike and did upper body strength training this morning before I left for work.  I also walked for 45 minutes, in addition to a lot of climbing up and down ladders today.  Pretty good exercise day.  My eating was even better than my exercising today.  I consumed 1555 calories, ate only what I’d planned to eat, and didn’t have any diet Pepsi at all (or any other soda).  Overall, I think this was one of my best, easiest days.  For some reason, the stress didn’t seem to have any effect on me at all today.  Hey, I’ll take it that way any day I can get it.

I was delighted to see an old high school friend in the store today (hey, Jan!!).  We were able to chat for a few minutes.  Don’t you enjoy running into an old friend and getting the chance to catch up a little?

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My version of focaccia

I read a blog yesterday where the writer had made the most beautiful focaccia…  http://foodblogandthedog.wordpress.com/ Did I ever mention how much I love good bread products?  Or how I find baking my own bread, kneading it, the aroma, one of my greatest cooking pleasures?  Or how my dad actually taught me to bake bread (between his leaving us and coming back multiple times)?  That’s one of the only pleasant memories I have of him, but hey, at least I can dig one up, right?   So anyhow, after reading that lovely blog, I decided I wanted to make my own focaccia today.  I’m going to use it as the base of some mighty tasty veggie sandwiches for work this week.

One of the things I’ve discovered about bread making is that you don’t really need a recipe.  Provided you don’t kill the yeast but do get the liquid used to the correct temp (warm to the touch), your bread will turn out fine.  So…today’s focaccia consists of whole wheat flour, a little white flour (I’ve never tried whole wheat bread flour, but have heard wonderful things about it, let me know if you’ve incorporated this in to your bread recipes), a small amount of sugar, oil, yeast, and warm water.  I also added some dried basil…the blog I referred to earlier showed the basil cut into strips and placed over the top of the focaccia before baking…I told you it was beautiful.  Mine isn’t as aesthetically pleasing, but oh my, did it ever taste good.  I mixed everything together, then kneaded it for a while.  Once it was the right consistency, I put it on a pizza stone and spread it flat to cover the stone.  I then covered it with a towel and let it rise for 45 minutes or so (I told you this isn’t exact, didn’t believe me?).

Once it had risen, I uncovered it and poked holes in it using my finger.  I then spread a little canola oil (olive oil would have been good too) over it, sprinkled more dried basil and grated Parmesan cheese (the real deal, not the stuff in the green can) over the entire focaccia. 

 Then baked it at 350 degrees for 10 or 15 minutes.  I didn’t want to overbake it, and the time was closer to 10 minutes than 15.  Took it out of the oven and placed the baking stone on a wire cooling rack…this is totally unscientific, but I think things continue to bake when you leave them on the baking stone, even out of the oven.  Anyhow, this turned out nice…soft, fluffy, not too dense, great taste.

How’s that for a quick bread that is oh so much better than what you can buy at the grocery store?

 I do have one little question…I’ve seen it spelled both foccacia and focaccia…is one right and one wrong, or are both acceptable? (Spell check here at word press doesn’t even recognize the word…hmm…)

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