Okay, so the flour came home (only shedding a little bit in the trunk of the Prius). Now, what to use it for? Last weekend, spaghetti was on the menu for Saturday night, so focaccia came to mind. I use a recipe from Beard on Bread, slightly adapted to use fresh rosemary from my garden.
The basic ingredients for the bread are:
2.5 cups flour
0.5 tsp salt
2 teaspoons dry yeast (I use Red Star - bulk package. Its been in my fridge forever.)
1 cup warm-to-hot tap water
Mix everything together, then knead, knead, knead until it feels springy and not sticky. Add more flour if its too sticky. I do all of my kneading in a large stainless steel bowl from the restaurant supply store (because I'm really lazy and hate cleaning the counter/cutting board/cat once I've kneaded dough on the counter). Stick the dough in a clean bowl, loosely cover with plastic wrap and a dishtowel and leave the puppy alone until it rises (usually 90 minutes-2 hours). I went to the beach, 'cause I live in SoCal and it was a beautiful day. When I got back, I was tanned and sandy, and the dough was about twice the size that it started out - perfect.
Then punch down the dough, knead it a bit, adding 1-2 tbl. more flour if it feels sticky, then pat it out into a rough circle about 0.5 inches thick on a baking sheet. I have a 12-inch pizza pan that I use for this purpose (a word of wisdom...grease the pan first!). Drizzle about 1 tbl olive oil over the bread and use your hands to spread it evenly over the dough. Then slice two cloves of garlic into thin slices (my garlic came from a recent road trip through Gilroy, California, the garlic capitol of the world - you can smell it long before you reach it). Cut little slits evenly spaced in the dough (about 1.5 inches apart works well) and stick a garlic slice into each slit. Head out into your yard and cut several healthy sprigs of rosemary (I suppose you could buy rosemary too, but out here, it grows like a weed. If you don't have any in your yard, feel free to raid your neighbor's shrub. Or prune the display in the street median). Artistically sprinkle about 1.5 tbl fresh rosemary needles over the bread, then sprinkle on about 1.5 tsp of kosher salt (other fancy large-grain salt will work too, but PLEASE don't use Morton's from the blue can - it just doesn't give the same effect). Admire your handiwork, then go away again for about 30 minutes. This is the ideal time to make a martini, or a margarita or a moscow mule, or whatever the heck else you feel like drinking. When the drink is gone, fire up your oven to 400 degrees. The dough should look slightly puffy, but not huge. Pop the pizza pan/baking sheet into the oven and bake for about 15 minutes. I compulsively check the oven about every 5 minutes, and rotate the bread around if one side looks like its browning too fast. When 15 minutes is up (or when your bread looks nice and toasty brown) take it out of the oven, slice it into wedges (or just rip it apart if you really can't wait that long) and eat it. Plain is good, but dipped in olive oil is even better.
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