looks nummy :D

Lets hear the recipe please! ;)

I have two recipes, in fact. We had to use a straight dough recipe, since we couldn't do the two-day sponge pre-ferment recipe. Which would you prefer?

Whatever is easier for you bud :3

The one pictured then;

Focaccia Bread (Foh-kah-shya)

3 cups (~8 oz) AP Flour
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Sugar
1 Tbsp Active Dry Yeast
1 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp each Dried Oregano, Thyme, Basil, Parsley
1 tsp Cracked Black Pepper
1 Tbsp Veg oil
1/2 cup Warm Water
1/2 cup Heavy Cream, more if needed
Olive Oil for brushing

Possible Garnishes:
Graded Parmesan and/or Asiago cheese
Dried Rosemary
Sun-dried Tomatoes

1. Heat oven to 400F
2. Mix dry ingredients together, add oil, water, and cream.
3. Once dough has come together (may need to add cream), place on lightly floured work area. Knead until windowpanes, and is tacky, but not sticky.
4. Place dough into lightly greased bowl, cover with damp towel. Let sit ~20 mins. or until double in size.
5. Flatten dough only baking sheet. Brush with olive oil, add desired garnishings. Bake ~ 15 mins. or until GB&D (Golden Brown & Delicious)
6. Cool before service. Best served with entree with tomato sauce, or by itself garnished with olive oil, fresh ground black pepper, roasted garlic cloves, and salt.

its missing black olives :P

Low carb, right? RIGHT?

not really ^^ it's entirely made of bread and covered in oil most of the time x3

Oh my gosh I want some of that.

Looks nice. :)

Do you actually have a recipe book/textbook/something you're following?

Mix and match. Most of the time we're going off of recipes approved by the school, and put all into a textbook (which we have to transcribe to notecards, which take for-fucking-ever!) but the chef's are allowed plenty of free-reign on the recipes we produce in class if time restraints come into play, or the recipe we were supposed to do from the textbook is just plain awful. In which case, they bring in recipes of their own, and print copies for the students.

I've always thought it'd be awesome to take some cooking classes like that, even if it was just a couple semesters... but no place around here offers anything :(

I think I'm a decent cook, but I /know/ I could be a lot better. A lot of the times things that I cook, like my lasgana the other day, just seem so... muddy, the flavors just lump together. it's 'good', but there's no definition, no distinctiveness to the flavors.

Got a recipe you follow? Might be able to give some pointers.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Worlds.....na/Detail.aspx was the lasagna recipe I used

My few contentions with the recipe; canned tomatoes, canned tomato sauce, "Italian seasoning", and the only fresh herb is the parsley. While you can get the same flavour with dried herbs as you can fresh, fresh just tastes better. This is especially true for the tomatoes, since canned tomatoes will be considerably diminished in flavour from their fresh counterpart. Also, not all "Italian seasoning" is the same. I'd sub in my own blend of marjorum, thyme, oregano, and sage.

I agree-- but unfortunately, we only just ordered our tomatoes, and they aren't going to be ripe for months -- store-bought, out of season, aren't any better than canned :/

I feel like it's something I'm doing wrong, though, more than the recipe-- just in general. :(

One of the reasons I decided to watch you, was in hopes I'd learn stuff-- and I have! I looked up 'windowpanes' from the recipe here, and learnt alot-- until now any bread i amde, i was taught to 'spank it' to see if it's done. Windowpane-ing seems a lot more accurate, and I'm going to try it next batch of bread I make :)