Tony made me my favorite weekend breakfast – I am calling it that since I’ve had it two Sundays in a row – huevos rancheros. He even used my chipotle queso Laughing Cow cheese! Thanks honey 😀

Over the weekend I picked up a few cookbooks from the library. One is Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home Cookbook. Good thing my library had it because it retails for $50!
It has a ton of family friendly recipes like my buttermilk fried chicken – but pretty sure I won’t be making the duck confit! One of the other books was called My Bread. It’s another no-knead (think Artisan Bread in 5) but one recipe that jumped out to both me and Tony was the focaccia bread. Tony remembers eating it in Italy all the time.
When I started to read the recipe I was like “what??!!” You apparently cook potatoes and once tender, you puree them and add that startchy liquid to the bread batter. I had never heard of that before.
I then strained the mixture into the flour mixture, sure enough two tiny potatoes didn’t get pureed so I salt and peppered them and ate them 😀
I diverged from the original recipe because I am a firm believer that you don’t need bread flour to make great bread. Good old all-purpose flour is just fine. It also called for Yukon gold potatoes, I used two red potatoes. And the original recipe called for 1/4 cup of olive oil, which I reduced to two tablespoons.
Rosemary Focaccia Bread (printer friendly version here)
Makes 16 servings (165 calories, 2.1 fat, 31.7 carbs, 1.6 fiber and 4.4 protein)
Ingredients
2 | red potatoes, peeled and quartered |
2 1/2 | cups water |
4 1/2 | cups bread flour |
2 1/2 | teaspoons yeast |
1 | teaspoon sugar |
1 1/2 | teaspoons salt |
2 | tablespoons olive oil |
1 | tablespoon rosemary |
Directions
- Peel and cut the potatoes in quarters. Add the water and cook until potatoes are tender – about 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, mix together the flour, yeast, sugar and half the salt in a large bowl.
- Using a stick blender, puree the potato mixture. Let it cool slightly (to 120 degrees) and add to flour mixture.
- You will have a very sticky and wet dough – I was skeptical, but it turned out fine.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rest for 2 hours.
- Put parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Dump dough on counter and add just enough flour to manage the dough without it sticking to your hands – between 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup.
- Put on parchment paper and using a rolling pin, roll into desired shape. Pour 1 tablespoon of olive oil all over the dough. Using your finger, push dimples all over the dough. Add the second tablespoon of olive oil and repeat, making sure the olive oil gets the sides of the dough too.
- Sprinkle with rosemary and sea salt. Let sit for 45 more minutes.
- Heat oven to 400. Bake for 30 minutes, until the top is evenly golden brown.



Since we ate breakfast kind of late, I had half a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.

Because I knew I was going to be having surf and turf for dinner – I thawed two filets from the beef tenderloin I got last week, Tony cooked me up some spicy shrimp and I over-grilled zucchini on the side, but it was still good!
Hope everyone had a great weekend – and try making the focaccia! Let me know when you do 😀
The dough worked beautifully. My DH and I demolished 3/4 of the olive/rosemary focaccia as a main meal item – straight from the oven. The left over had sliced tasty cheese inserted and we had that for lunch next day. Cold..oh yum!
Visitors called two days later and a second focaccia was made, onion added, praised and eaten. Today my third was constructed with fresh Rosemary, some parmesan, some grated tasty cheese, green and red capsicum and a finely sliced small onion..and sea salt. My Son-iL is requesting the recipe, which I’m about to copy and send.
I can’t thank you enough for sharing the recipe but somehow I feel my waistline will be most unapproving. LOL I’ll be back for more tasty meals
4 months after printing this recipe I have it ready to go into the oven. I have a question.
The recipe says 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt – half this goes into the dry mix… Where does the other half go. Is the salt all SEA salt? I left aside the ‘half’ and sprinkled Sea salt on top.
I’ll let you know how it goes later.
I will have to fix that! Yep 1/2 goes in the dough and the other half is sprinkled on top – and I do prefer sea salt for the top, but table salt will work for the dough. Let me know 😀
This bread looks phenomenal!
homemmade focaccia mmm your blog is yummy!
Mmmm that bread looks so delicious!!!
hey! thanks for stopping by my blog.
potatoes in bread? crazy! but it sure looks good 🙂
Yum! I learned to love focaccia, fresh from the oven, when we live in Rome for three years. Yours looks fantastic. When I allow myself to eat bread again, I may just make it. I love your pix.
Focaccia….potatoes!? Really?! Learn something new every day! The bread looks like perfection, Biz! Not that I’m surprised…everything you make is!! And that surf and turf…YUM! I am a lover of all things from the sea!! Have a great week — I’m still running my butt off!
That bread looks awesome, wish I had the patience to spend so much time preparing eats and that grilled cheese looks yummy like I could eat it for dinner 🙂
I had my first taste of focaccia bread this past summer and I fell in love! Thanks for this recipe!
that is the most beautiful focaccia i have ever seen!
looks delish!
I LOVE focaccia bread. Looks so good.
whoa! That is one involved bread. I’ve made focaccia before, but no potatoes involved (http://itzyskitchen.blogspot.com/2010/07/focaccia.html). It looks delicious though- worth all the effort I’m sure (all really good food is!!!). Tony makes some jammin breakfasts and I love how melty LC cheese is. Hope your week treats you well
i’m SO hungry right now and that focaccia looks outstanding! i also want to sink my teeth into that sammie!
wow! that focaccia bread looks so good!