Using Brandon’s AMAZING ciabatta, we made commuter sandwiches for breakfast today.  I knew it was going to be a day of eating without abandon.  See that spicy mayo?  Secret ingredient… onion bowder.  Not to be confused with onion powder.  There is no “p” sound in Arabic, folks.

Delicious!

And what’s a commuter sandwich?  Only the best thing EVER made with eggs and mayonnaise EVER.  If you are ever in Phoenix (or apparently now in Santa Monica too) you have to go to La Grande Orange and eat an avocado commuter for me.  Oh man.  They are so good.  They are really made with english muffins, but since we had this fresh, yummy, chewy ciabatta on hand, it just made sense to go with it.  All ours were missing was the avocado.  We can’t get really good avocados here.  At least not right now.  It’s ok.  Don’t feel too bad for me.  This sandwich was still amazing!

That’s right.  Homemade focaccia.  I know I am a lucky girl, but to have a husband who loves to cook and bake and who is awesome at it, I just don’t know what more I could ask for.  After we got our shipment a couple of weeks ago, we have been reading from Bakewise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking by Shirley O. Corriher, that my mom gave me a while ago and I hadn’t had the chance to read much of.  It’s pretty amazing and sciency, and a little difficult to follow in my anti-science mind, but having a chemist around to put some of the magic into action makes it a lot of fun.  Just a few little changes to Brandon’s usual dough recipe, and we are turning out some INCREDIBLE pizza with crust like you couldn’t believe.

Anyhow, the focaccia was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits and simultaneously motivate me to get to the gym regularly.  It turned out perfectly.  We picked up some really good gorgonzola at the nearby Italian deli which was a delight in and of itself.  Being a cheese-lover in a non-artisinal-cheese kind of place, this deli is a light in my life.  They have really good buffalo mozzarella, and it’s just a cheery place in general.

Anyhow, back to the focaccia.  It started a couple of days ago with Brandon making a dough-starter called Biga.  It’s basically just flour and yeast and water that rises and is then added to the other ingredients to make the focaccia dough.  The focaccia is made by stretching out a bottom layer of dough which is topped with gorgonzola and cream, fresh mozzarella, basil, rosemary and garlic, and a shameful amount of olive oil.  It is then topped with another layer of dough that we poked for what seemed to be no good reason, and brushed with even more olive oil in case we weren’t feeling guilty enough already.

Then we baked it.  We couldn’t just throw it in the hot oven, instead we had to… get ready… gather rocks from the filthy streets of Cairo, scrub them in bathtub with bleach until I felt like it might be ok to introduce them to the kitchen, and then put them on a tray in the bottom of the oven where they got really hot.  Brandon then added boiling water to said tray right as we put the focaccia in the oven.

And that was that.  I don’t want to calculate exactly how much olive oil I consumed that night, but honestly, it was worth it.  The filling was ooey gooey and cheesey and amazing.  And the crust was crispy and chewy and amazing.  Come to Cairo, and we can make it again!