Warm Chicken, Spinach and Feta Salad with Tomato Focaccia

What could be better on a hot summer day than a salad rounded out by a slice of fresh bread?

This morning, I made "Warm Chicken, Spinach, and Feta Salad" from The Good Housekeeping Step-by-Step Cookbook (1997), and Tomato Focaccia from Sunset's 1993 Recipe Annual. With a side of sectioned oranges, and a Mixed Berry Pie (Sunset 1993) for dessert, it was a refreshing summer midday meal.

Although the Focaccia recipe calls for all-purpose flour, I used whole-wheat, because a) it has much more flavor, and b) it's much more healthful. Using whole-wheat flour is a winner for both taste and health. If you don't like the taste of all whole-wheat flour, subsutitue one cup whole-wheat for part of the all-purpose flour. It will add health benefits, while still retaining the white-flour flavor and texture to which you are accustomed.

Because I started the focaccia dough this morning, I didn't have time to let a sponge work in the fridge over night, so I let the dough rest and rise for an hour before I added all the flour: Before you add all the flour, add only enough, so that the dough is still very sticky, and stirrable with a spoon. Then, let it rise for an hour. This will still soften the wheat and get the yeast working. Then, knead in the remaining flour, and continue as usual.

The first photo shows the Tomato Focaccia baking in the oven. In the second photo, you can see the focaccia rising under plastic wrap in a jelly roll pan.

In the background is my antique Pyrex mixing bowl. What a great find! This bowl is the perfect size for mixing bread. My favorite kind of bread is fresh bread, so I'm unlikely to use a bigger bowl than this one for bread making.