OhOh….Home Made Focaccia Bread…Oh so good, this is one of my most favorite bread recipes, and it is from one of my favorite cook books “Baking with Julia”

I have adjusted the original recipe to skip the long rise time (of 24 to 36 hours) in the refrigerator.  Of course it does not have all of the wonderful bubbles, holes, and robust flavor as it does when you allow it the extra rise time in the refrigerator, but man oh man….it is still soooo good! 

Once our son Aidan asked my wife why is daddy’s food so good, and she replied because of all of the love he puts into it….  This recipe is one of those labors of love.  It takes some time to make, it takes some patients, and a bit of practice to master, but you know when you finally get to eat it that it is made with a lot of love inside.  So now I’ll stop blubbering and salivating over the simple thought of it, and give you the recipe.

Focaccia Bread

Makes 3 Focaccia Loafs

2 ¼ to 2 ½ C warm water about 90 ̊

2 Tbsp Dry Active Yeast

¼ C Extra Virgin Olive Oil

6 ½ C All Purpose Flour

4 tsp kosher salt

2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Whisk ½ C of the water and the yeast together and allow the yeast to bloom or turn creamy.

While your waiting on the yeast to bloom, add 1 ¾ C of the water to your mixing bowl and add ¼ C of olive oil.

In the bowl you measured the flour into, add the salt and mix together.

Now that your Yeast has started to work, add it to the water and oil mixture, and ½ of the flour to the water, oil, and yeast mixture and stir together.

At this point you can put it into your stand mixer with the dough hook, or continue with the recipe and mix & kneed it by hand.

Add the remaining flour to the flour, yeast, and oil mixture, and place it into you mixer with the dough hook, or begin to kneed it for at least 6 to 10 minutes by hand or with your mixer on medium low speed.

As you kneed the dough (within the first 3 minutes) it should not be sticky wet---if so add a few Tbsp of flour, nor should it be crumbly dry---if so add a few Tbsp of water…What is ideal…it the dough should be silky smooth to the touch after the 6 to 10 minutes of kneading.

Now that you have either worked hard kneading it, or just watched your mixer work hard kneading it, turn the dough out into an oiled bowl and allow it to rise (covered) until doubled in size….around 30 minutes depending on how warm your house is….the warmer the dough is the faster the rise….

While still in the bowl, punch it down with your hand and fold it over onto itself.  Recover the bowl, and allow it to rise a second time, until doubled in size again…around 30 minutes

Preheat Oven to 450̊ F

Finally after both rises, punch the dough down one last time, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and divide the dough into 3 equal portions and shape into 3 balls…place onto the parchment lined baking sheet and flatten out into 1 to 2 inch thick flat dough circles…use the remaining 2 Tbsp of EVOO to brush the tops of the loaves and sprinkle a nice big pinch of Kosher Salt over the tops of each loaf of bread, and allow to rest on the counter top until it almost doubles again in size….about 15 to 30 minutes.  Place into hot oven and bake for about 20 minutes or until the bread is golden brown.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a rack.

Serve with your favorite pasta, as bread for your favorite sandwiches, or just with a bit of EVOO and Aged Balsamic Vinegar…Enjoy…

What a fun recipe today.
Craig and Heather has been talking about Spam so much for the last two weeks that I just had to make a recipe with Spam
Ok…so…on to the recipe and some great variations.

I’ll add more later today about the NK Project and my recipe for the day on KXOJ.

With the help of my sister-in-law, I packed up and moved back to Oklahoma with no job prospects on the radar.  I picked up odd jobs for a friend of the family who was an interior designer and florist, and began catering parties for some of his clients.  It was then that Poached Pear Catering was hatched.....A little light that took almost 10 more years to develop into my catering company. 

To supplement my meager income, I started working at a great Tulsa Bakery, where I fine tuned my cake and pastry skills.  Next, I received a call from an old employer, the original owner of Wild Bills BBQ, and worked with him developing my catering and BBQ skills.  While running the BBQ restaurant for Bill, I revisited my old flame Amy.  After a year or so, I received a call from my former church, Garnett Church of Christ.  The administrator said, “We have a new 2000 sq ft state-of-the-art commercial kitchen we want to open soon, and we need someone to run it.”  Of course, I could not pass up this opportunity.  I also could not let Amy get away, so we were married and I started my new job as the facility Chef for the church.

I thought that working as a Chef/Butler was tough, but it was just God’s way of preparing me to work for a church.  Think about it this way….you have 1200+ people together interacting as one very big family, and well, most everyone with any family at all knows, we all do not get along all of the time.  Although tough at many different points, my job at the church was a wonderful experience.  The church’s annual Worldwide Workshop allowed me to flex my creative muscles by researching and cooking many foods from around the world for groups of missionaries and many others.  With an ever-shrinking congregation my job as Facility Chef was downsized, and that is where the small light, Poached Pear Catering, began to shine once more.  I proposed that Poached Pear Enterprises, Inc. lease the kitchen facilities and the lights for Poached Pear Catering were again shining.

Teriyaki Chicken Satay   Recipe @:  www.kxoj.com/cookbook/viewrecipe.php?id=1233241668&category=Poultry 

Beef Encrute with Caramelized Onions & Baby Portables
Recipe @:  www.kxoj.com/cookbook/viewrecipe.php?id=1233248043&category=Beef

When I am grilling Chicken, I almost always grill off twice as much as I need.  I take the additional chicken breasts hot off the grill and wrap them individually in plastic wrap and place in the freezer for a quick meal at a later date.  I simply take out the frozen & partially cooked chicken breast and microwave for 4 to 7 minutes, depending on your microwave, and you have quick meal with a salad. 

If there were a single most important cooking tool that I use….I would have to say it is the Insta-Read Thermometer.  Of-course I am partial to my many other kitchen gadgets and widgets, but I can guaranty my chicken will be 1^st and for-most Safe for my family to eat and 2^nd a ver ver very close 2^nd nice and juicy and perfectly cooked.   You can find Insta-Read Thermometers at most grocery stores on the tool isle….when you get one…you should calibrate it so you know it is measuring the proper temps… 

To calibrate – simply fill a glass with ice and add just enough water to cover – place Insta-Read Thermo in iced water and it should read 32deg F.  If it does not adjust the set nut on the back with a pair of pliers so that it reads 32deg F. while in the iced water and it is ready to start measuring temps…

I have listed safe food serving temperatures below.  These temperatures are in accordance with the Oklahoma State Health Department.

Always remember to account for carry-over cooking and take your chicken or other meat off the heat about 5deg before the final required temp.

Chicken & Poultry 165deg F

Pork 145deg F

Ground Beef 155deg F

Seafood 145deg F

Steak Med Rare - 135 to 140

Steak Med  140 to 150

Steak Med Well 150 to 160

Of course, my only other hope was that the dinner would help build community for those who attended, and it has been such a blessing getting to watch, as so many strangers began to chat and slowly build relationships and ever so slowly community.   This concept of opening up a free meal was hatched in my head a few years back, but I just did not have the organizational know how to pull it off my-self, and that is where Jeff Krisman came in with Neighborhood Kitchens (NK).  Jeff has done so…so…so much more than I could dream to have done alone. 

There will be plenty more to come about Neighborhood Kitchens as each weekly meal concludes.  Until then you can learn more about our Neighborhood Kitchens project at http://neighborhoodkitchens.pbwiki.com/

There are a few more tips that I would like to have added while reviewing the directions, but there is so little time while going over a recipe on two short breaks in the 8am hour on KXOJ.  Craig and Heather are great and really know how to ask the right questions to best convey the recipe on air, but I still would like to pass on a few more directions to help. 

First and foremost make sure you have all of your ingredients ready and by the range, and when Pan Searing, you need to start with a nice solid & heavy skillet that has been well heated.   This recipe happens really fast, so you need to have all ingredients ready to go.  You need to pat the steaks dry after they have been marinating, because the salt in the marinade will draw some moisture to the surface of the steak.  If there is moisture on the steak when you add it to the hot pan the moisture will create a steam barrier between the pan and meat, and will not allow the steak to brown properly.  When pan searing….browning is exactly what you are after…the browning process is actually the caramelization of the natural sugars in the meat, and that is what develops those wonderful flavors.  Just about 6 minutes into this recipe and the steak should be around med-rare.  Just as soon as you get the steaks into the plate to rest, you should immediately be ready to add the ingredients for the Jalapeno Jelly pan sauce, as you add these ingredients you should stir them or swirl them into the broth.  If your pan is still really hot, as it should be, the sauce should be reduced and ready within 45 seconds to 1 minute.

You can listen in on the KXOJ www.kxoj.com/morningblog/ morning show Blog 1/15/09 to catch other tips that we discussed about this recipe.

Enjoy, and remember you can contact me with your cooking questions from my home page www.poachedpearinc.com  (contact the chef).

Attending Western Culinary Institute was a dream come true, with an unlimited exposure to Fresh….and …I mean Fresh out of the water that day Sea Food, locally grown produce & wines, and many ingredients that I had never seen, tasted, smelled, or touched before.  It was a gastronomical sensory climax.  About half way through my degree I started a job at the “Multnomah Athletic Club”.  The Club had two restaurants…one of which was  rated four stars, a Sports Bar, a Café, and Banquette Hall seating 2000 people where we created 3 course plated meals for 900 to 2000 on a regular basis.  Chef Franz Poppel took me under his wing and with his tutelage I learned many of his European cooking styles.  While at Western Culinary, I met one of me great friends Peter Jolliffe, who opened my eyes to foods from his travels through, Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy, , and Malta, and my tastes expanded from an Oklahoma farm boy’s to a world traveler in just a few months, by simply meeting, making friends, sharing stories, and cooking meals together.

On through graduation and my next new and exciting job… The Personal Chef/Butler…. Just after I graduated, I landed a job with one of Portland’s affluent families.  I was their Chef/Butler/Go-fer/Whipping Boy/Driver/you name it, and I bet I just about did it…   It was a 24/7 on call job for 19 long and exciting months.  I do not wish the job to sound all bad, because it was not all bad all of the time…just very demanding all the time.  It was like having four 12 year old spoiled-rotten brats as a boss, all at the same time; yet, it was like gaining a new family.  At times, it felt like I was an older brother for their two children, and at times, I just felt like a paid member of the family.  I learned so much about fine foods, fine dinning, fine arts, and managing 5,800 and 19,000sq. ft. estates, that by the end of my 19 month stint, I was spent, wore-out, and completely home-sick for my family, friends, and Oklahoma.

On to my first restaurant job….it was at the Double Tree Hotel, where I was a Bus Boy.  I’m sure I just about drove the chefs and cooks crazy with my constant questions about what were they cooking, and why, for how long, and why…are you cutting the fruit like that….and I just had so many questions….  Some where in there, I attended OSU for the Restaurant Administration degree where I learned that I could indeed make A’s in school.  I was so excited with my first cooking class that then and there I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.

On through other various restaurant jobs to my next great opportunity….my great friend Tim Hewitt was moving back to his beloved Portland, OR, and it just so happened, as he put it, that there was a culinary school down town that I would be able to visit when I came to visit him.  Needless to say, the thought of moving had hardly settled before I realized that I was packing my truck to leave all as I know it….small town Oklahoma…and move right smack into down town Portland.  WOW…what a life changing…culture-shocking event that proved to be….one of the best experiences of my life.

I am so excited to open a space where I can share my thoughts, talents, and interests on cooking and eating.

I grew up just outside of Coweta, OK and started cooking along my mom’s side at the tender age of 5.  My mom would give me a pot-pie tin that she had saved from a previous lunchtime, the scraps from her cobbler dough, and just enough filling to make my very own Peach Cobbler.  I was always so excited to get to cook diner with my mom.  I must say, it was an up-grade from my normal mud pies that I always shared with my dog…Prince Albert….my trusty companion all through my childhood.  As I got older, I discovered Julia Child, and was absolutely captivated with what she was going to cook up on her next show.  Of course, most of my 8 older siblings used my affection for Julia as a prodding device, just as good older brothers and sisters should do.  Despite their prodding, my love of cooking bloomed into my very first job at the Sonic Drive-In in Coweta, and then on to McDonald’s and then my big break….and first encounter with fried appetizers at Bequette Appetizers, Inc. where I learned about quality verses quantity, along with how to make the very best fried cheeses, stuffed jalapenos, and fresh salsa that we sold to local restaurants, and most importantly where I met my future wife.