Potato and rosemary focaccia

I have baked loads of things with potatoes lately, potato pizza and potato pies, and now I've done it again. Now I baked potato and rosemary focaccias with lovely red ruby gem potatoes. I love the taste of these local potatoes and purchase them quite often. I used mainly spelt flour in the dough, which I haven't done before in focaccias.

Here is how I made these focaccias. The recipe makes four focaccias or one large one.

Ingredients

For the dough:

300 ml spelt flour

200 ml wheat flour

1 tbsp dry yeast

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

200 ml lukewarm water

2 tbsp olive oil

For the filling:

250 g small potatoes

Rosemary

Sea salt

20g grated mature Cheddar

Method

Mix the dry ingredients for the dough (flour, dry yeast, sugar and salt) and then add the lukewarm water and olive oil and knead to a dough. Let the dough rise for about 40 minutes under a teatowel.

In the meanwhile boil the potatoes until they are soft. Let them cool and cut them into chunky bits. I cut one small potato into 2-3 pieces. Mix the pieces in a bowl with a little olive oil, rosemary and sea salt.

Shape small round focaccias from the dough and place the potato pieces on them. Sprinkle grated cheddar on the top and some more sea salt and rosemary if you prefer.

Bake at 220 C for about 20 minutes and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Potato pizza

I was partly influenced by my trip to Copenhagen and partly by the Vegetable Palette food blogging challenge to make this potato pizza. I have been planning this sort of a pizza for ages, but never made one. I made this in the style of a fried pizza (first stage is on a frying pan, then oven), like I have made a few before. In the meanwhile I think that it's the best way to get a crispy crusted pizza with a regular oven. The pizza turned out to be lovely, so from now on I will be making such potato pizzas more often. I used my typical spelt crust as the base and rosemary as seasoning. 

Naturally I want to share this post with the Vegetable Palette for April, where the theme for this month is “White vegetables”. The challenge is hosted by Shaheen from the A2K - A Seasonal Veg Table. 

Here is my Potato pizza recipe:

Ingredients

Spelt crust:

2 tbsp dry yeast

200 g wheat flour

200 g spelt flour

2 tsp salt

350 ml lukewarm water

3 tbsp olive oil

Toppings:

1 small onion

1 garlic clove

3-5 potatoes depending on the size

Mozzarella pearls

Sea salt

Black pepper

Fresh rosemary

Olive oil

Method

Make the pizza dough first: Mix the dry ingredients, then add water and olive oil and knead. Let the dough rise in a bowl under a tea towel for about one hour. Later roll out thin pizzas from it.

Chop the onion in thin half rings and the garlic finely. Cut the potatoes into thin slices. I didn't peel mine, as then the potato taste was even more intense.

Cook the potato slices in boiling water for about 5 minutes so that they are pretty much cooked. Put them into a bowl with olive oil, rosemary, seas salt and black pepper and mix. Leave them in the bowl for about 5 minutes.

Heat a large frying pan with a metal handle to the highest setting and place the pizza dough on the dry pan. Place the toppings onto the pizza and leave in the pan for a couple of minutes. Then put the whole pan into the oven under the grill at 250C. Leave in the oven until baked and golden brown. It can take only a couple of minutes or a little bit longer depending on the power of the oven.

Serve immediately and enjoy! Have good pizza moments!

Your VegHog

Olive focaccia

I'm pretty tired today (again!), so I'm only going to share a quick bread recipe with you. Having freshly baked bread is always great, and there's something about a fluffy, easy focaccia. I seasoned this one with green olives and rosemary for a nice Mediterranean feel. Have a look how easy it is!

All you need is:

500ml wheat flour

1tbsp dry yeast

1tsp sugar

1tsp salt

200ml water

2tbsp olive oil

200g green olives

20g grated Emmental

Rosemary

Sea salt

Chilli flakes

And this is how it's done:

Mix the dry ingredients (flour, dry yeast, sugar and salt) and then add the lukewarm water and olive oil and knead to a dough.

Spread the dough on a baking parchment and let it rise for about 40 minutes under a teatowel.

Press the whole green olives into the dough. Then sprinkle a little grated Emmental cheese, rosemary, sea salt and chilli flakes on the top.

Bake the focaccia at 220C for about 20 minutes and it's done!

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Oven tomatoes

Do you want to have gorgeous home made oven tomatoes in style of sun-dried tomatoes? If you are willing to try, these oven tomatoes make a really nice side to many dishes. They are slow cooked in the oven with a lovely herb seasoning. This recipe is from the vegetarian cookbook Gemüse satt! by Alice Hart (p. 242).

500g medium vine tomatoes

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

2 garlic cloves

1tsp sea salt

½tsp black pepper

1tsp sugar

2tbsp olive oil

Cut the tomatoes in half and place on a baking tray lined with a baking parchment.

Sprinkle the seasoning and olive oil on them. I added the finely chopped garlic cloves on the tomatoes after one hour baking.

Bake at 110C for about 3-4 hours (depending on the size of the tomatoes) and enjoy the beautiful aroma coming from the oven.

These can be enjoyed in a whole variety of ways: in salads, in baking breads, with pastas...

Your VegHog

Chanterelle focaccia

Focaccia is a fine style of bread, quick to make and only your imagination limits what to top it with. I made a chanterelle mushroom variation, which is slightly different to the typical ones, but it worked very well. I had to use dried chanterelles, but do use fresh ones whenever you can get any, as they are much better. Their distinctive flavour is present in the dried mushrooms, but it's just not the same.

10g dried chanterelles

500ml wheat flour

1tbsp dry yeast

200ml water

1tsp sugar

1tsp salt

2tbsp olive oil

20g grated emmental

Rosemary

Thyme

Sea salt

Mix the flour and yeast, then add the lukewarm water, sugar, salt and olive oil. Knead the dough and let it rise for about 30 minutes under a tea towel.

Soak the mushrooms for about 10 minutes, drain and cook briefly in a pan until the excess liquid has evaporated.

Hand-stretch the dough on a baking tin lined with baking parchment.

Sprinkle the grated cheese, rosemary, thyme, sea salt and chanterelles on the top.

Bake at 220C for about 20 minutes.

Serve with a salad, soup or stew, or just on its own.

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog

Rosemary, garlic and mozzarella spelt crust pizza

My aim was to make a very different kind of pizza than I would usually do, so I ended up making a fully new type of crust and a tomato-free filling. On that note I'm not sure whether it should be called a pizza or not. It would work well as a side bread to a pasta dish or a salad as well. I chose to use spelt flour in the crust, which made a very tasty and crispy crust. My recipe makes either 2 small thin crust pizzas or one larger one.

Ingredients

The crust:

100g wheat flour

100g spelt flour

7g dry yeast

175ml warm water

1tsp salt

2tbsp olive oil

The filling:

Fresh rosemary

1 cloveless garlic

Mozzarella balls

Lemon juice

Chili flakes

Olive oil

Prepare the dough for the crust first. Mix the dry ingredients together and add the warm water. Knead to an even dough and add more flour or water if needed. Finally add olive oil to finish off the kneading. Let the dough rise under a tea towel for about one hour. There's not much to prepare for the filling, so you can just rest most of the time while your dough is rising. Pre-heat the oven to 200C.

Once your dough is ready roll it out on a baking tray. Brush the surface with olive oil. You can even use some homemade rosemary oil for this. Then place the garlic shavings and rosemary leaves on the crust. I used cloveless garlic for this and shaved thin slices of it with a peeling knife. Add the mozzarella balls and press little lemon juice on the pizza. Sprinkle some chili flakes on the top. Bake for about 10 minutes until the crust is crispy.

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog