Rosemary & Sun-Dried Tomato Fococcia

Having a one-month old baby makes it a bit difficult to find time for canning. Because my My Darling Clementine's Marmalade was such a big hit with our family and The Danske's (our Danish exchange student's family) Joe made another batch. He also managed to find time to make ten more jars of Giardiniera; the two of us alone can kill one jar as an appetizer. But I won't be posting on these. Let it suffice to say that pretty much any medley of vegetables can be pickled in any combination of vinegars and taste great.

This post is really about something new, something that came about after receiving a KithenAid from my Father-in-law (I am very lucky to have awesome in-laws), something I've been wanting to learn for a while: bread-making. Simultaneously, I've joined another blog-based year long challenge- The Spice Rack Challenge. Therefor, I'm attempting to put these together and make one bread per month containing the secret spice ingredient. Here we go!

Rosemary & Sun-Dried Tomato Fococcia
1/2 + 4 cups a.p. flour
1 tsp yeast
3/4+ 1 cup warm water
2 tsp table salt
3 Tbsp chopped sun-dried tomatoes
2 tsp+ 1 tsp crushed, dried rosemary
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp sea salt

 In a mixing bowl, combine 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup warm water and yeast. Cover bowl with a clean towel and hold in oven overnight (to make the next morning), or all day (to make in the evening). 

With a dough hook attachment, add 1 cup warm water,  table salt, tomatoes and rosemary, mix well on setting #1. Slowly add in 4 cups flour until incorporated, turn setting to # 2 and knead for 5 minutes. Place dough in a bowl coated in 1 Tbsp olive oil, cover with towel and place in oven for 1 1/2 hours to rise.

 Preheat oven to 475. On a lightly floured table, press dough out with fingers into a rectangle shape about 10" * 13". Move to a lightly greased sheet pan, drizzle with remaining olive oil, sea salt and remaining rosemary.  Bake for 15 minutes until golden-brown and delicious. Cut into squares for sandwiches or soup-dipping.

This bread is super easy and provided you have a mixer, not time consuming at all. Sure, all together it takes 10 hours, but very little of that time is spent giving the bread any attention. Just throw together the yeast mixture in the morning, pop it in the oven. Later on, whirl it together, spread it out and bake it. Bread-making leaves plenty of time for feeding, playing and napping!