From Focaccia to Panini

Mike, here.  Golly, but days off are very productive blog days.  Or, rather, they can be.  

So, during my last post (earlier today) about making Gluten Free focaccia bread, I spoke about turning the focaccia Kelly made into a sandwich, preferably a panino or two.  And that's exactly what Kelly did.  And I took pictures.

Start by slicing your focaccia bread the long way, preferably with a serrated and/or bread knife:

Pizza spice flavor on the left, pesto on the right

Meanwhile, preheat your infernal machine, er...sandwich press:

We use a Griddler from Cuisinart

Saute a chicken breast:

Kelly sauteed it in more Williams-Sonoma pizza spice.  This is why we're almost out.  

Liberally schmear some pesto on the bottom piece of each sandwich:

Be generous - it's pesto, after all

 Add some sliced, fresh mozzarella:

Homemade is best, but we used store bought

 Add a half slice of prosciutto:

The pig is a magical creature

  Assemble:

We've got greens, but we'll add them later

 Grill-n-Squish:

Watch for the ooey-gooey goodness

 When cooked, open each panino up and add greens:

I believe these were Olivia's Organic Spring Mix

Reassemble, and cut in half, then spread apart and go "Ooh":

This is mine, from the pesto side

And "Aah":

This is Kelly's from the pizza-spice side

Artfully arrange each panino for the money shot:

I'm no food stylist, but that looks good enough to eat

 Then consume:

*BRAAAAAAAAP*

 And that was that. 

Crunchy Sandwichy Goodness

Mike, here.  Had the day off, due to a couple of dead presidents (no, I didn't bribe my boss, I'm talking about a certain holiday).  And because of a rather nasty blizzard that's been raging outside for the last day or so, we have a rather spotty internet connection as well, which means Kelly's VPN session was unable to stay connected to her home office (she telecommutes) for longer than a few minutes, so she finally threw in the towel as well.  Snow day!  Woo!

What to do?  Well, what else would we do?  We bake, of course!  So, when Kelly asked me if there was anything special I would like her to research on our gluten free baking quest, I responded with two simple words: sandwich bread.

Ahh, yes, sandwich bread.  The Holy Ghost to our Father Pizza and Son Pancakes.  I believe we have mentioned those three items repeatedly in the past.  If we can pull this off, nothing is impossible.  Kelly tried a week or so back with an almond flour bread recipe, and while it was very good, it wasn't something we could really see ourselves slapping in a sandwich press and using to make panini.  It was, however, quite good toasted with peanut butter, especially once the PB soaked into the bread a little, so it wasn't a total loss.  But the quest for a gluten-free sandwich bread recipe continued.

Today, it seemed, was the day to resume our crusade.  So Kelly got to work.  And quickly discovered that there was a common theme to all of the "good" GF sandwich bread recipes out there: sorghum flour.  Which we don't have.  Recipe after recipe mentioned it, and specifically recommended it because of the taste.  "You can use a finely milled brown or white rice flour," more than a few of them said, but they cautioned that the taste would not be as satisfying.  

OK, so today was not the day for a true slice-able sandwich bread.  OK, what recipes were there for other kinds of bread?  Hmm.  How about focaccia?  

Well, now.  

We have made a "thumbprint" focaccia bread many times in the past, with herbs, oil, garlic, etc, that is fantastic.  It contained wheat, of course.  So how would a GF recipe measure up?  

Kelly was up the challenge of making it.  I, selfless martyr that I am, was up to the challenge of eating it.  Kelly had some leftover basil (got a big bunch of organic basil at the Shop & Save in Presque Isle), so she made a nice homemade pesto (I got to eat the leftover parmigiano reggiano bits...you know, the stuff that won't go through the grater?  I love that stuff.  Smells funky, like...well, you don't want me to say anything specific.  But it tastes fabulous). And for the sake of variety, she did half of the focaccia with oil and Williams-Sonoma's pizza spice (it's really good.  We're almost out.  That could be a problem).  And baked.  

Came out of the oven looking kind of dry.  We thought it was overcooked.  We tried it anyway.  We're happy we did.

Very crunchy.  But not tough at all.  The garlic and spices give it kind of a sourdough-y flavor.  And the taste is fantastic.  I honestly would pit this against any wheat-based focaccia out there.  I preferred the pesto side slightly over the pizza-spice side, while Kelly was the other way around.  But we both agreed that all sides were fantastic.  In fact, I would put this up to a taste test compared to a gluten-based recipe and dare your average wheat-eating person to tell which one was GF.  It was that good.  

It's really, really good on its own.  But wait!  Slice it horizontally with a serrated knife held parallel to the cutting board, and you get...sandwich bread!  Aha!  We haven't done this yet, but we have the following ingredients:

• Chicken
• Prosciutto
• Fresh mozzarella
• Pesto
• Salad greens

I don't know about anyone else, but to me, that sounds like a killer sandwich.  Especially if we press it, and make panini (that's plural, remember.  Singular is panino.  Don't screw it up and make the Italians hate you.  If they ever rebuild the Colosseum, they're going to amuse themselves by siccing lions on everyone who mangles their language).  If/when we do that, we will report back.  

Hopefully with pictures.  :-)

Oh, the recipe?  It's right here.  We seem to enjoy blogging in tandem; this is the second such experiment and it's pretty funny how we end up discussing the same topics, from a different point of view.  Expect more of that from here on out.  

My first attempt at homemade gluten free bread

I've always been known for my bread.  When invited to potlucks I am inevitably asked to bring the bread.  Homemade, with an airy crumb and a nice crispy crust, always freshly baked.  This type of bread baking usually takes the better part of a day, sometimes longer for breads such as ciabatta.  It involves mixing ingredients, kneading, rising, punching dough, maybe 1 or 2 more rising and punching down steps and then shaping and rising and baking.  Traditional, gluten containing bread baking is a very time consuming process so I never would have attempted it on a weekday afternoon.

But this bread is not like that.  This bread is more like a quick bread, in every sense of the word. First, it doesn't have any yeast in it.  Second, it's texture was more like a banana bread than a baguette and third, it took only a few minutes to fix up and get into the baking pans and into a preheated oven. Truly very quick.

The recipe I used can be found here. http://www.elanaspantry.com/paleo-bread/

This is a typical bread found in many paleo cookbooks and paleo recipe sites.  No grains of any kind. Lots of nuts, seeds and eggs.

So I mixed up the ingredients and popped the pan into the oven, set the timer to 30 minutes and waited.

The first difference I noticed between this bread and wheat bread is the smell.  The smell of this bread was nice, but there is nothing to compare to the smell of wheat bread baking.  This smell was sweeter and a little nutty.  Not unpleasant at all, just different.  Maybe someday wheat free breads will smell as good to me as wheat breads do.  

The next difference I noticed was that the bread didn't rise very much.  It was a much denser loaf of bread.  Again I will compare it to banana bread.  It had the same type of crumb and even a similar smell, sans bananas. 

Lastly was the flavor.  This didn't taste anything like one of my crusty French baguettes, but that doesn't mean it wasn't tasty.  To go along with the smell, it was indeed a little nutty and a little sweet.

Mike and I enjoyed some for dinner tonight.  I made sandwiches.  Fried egg, ham and cheese sandwiches, cooked like a grilled cheese, and accompanied by a big green salad.  The eggs were organic, the ham uncured and the cheese very sharp cheddar. Mike said it reminded him of a Monte Cristo.

While it was OK in a savory application, where I think it will really shine is in a sweeter application. Toasted with some butter and jam, or maybe with some peanut butter.  I think this is what this bread will excel at and I am looking forward to trying it this weekend.  Possibly with a homemade, stove top cappuccino. Stay tuned for that review later this week.