Cheese and Olive Focaccia

Bev Bennett

Cheese and Olive Focaccia Recipe
Focaccia Bread with Cheese & Olives

Recipe for Focaccia - Cheese and Olive Focaccia for two

Focaccia is large flat bread slathered with olive oil and sprinkled with salt. Rosemary sprigs are sometimes tucked into the bread dough for flavor and eye appeal.

However, don't be deterred if you have the urge for more. That blank canvas of Focaccia dough begs for toppings.

You'll want to stop short of pizza territory. Unlike pizza, which is often an entree, focaccia is a snack or a mealtime accompaniment. Don't weight it down with sauce, thick cheese layers and meat.

Choose ingredients that complement the other flavors in your meal, and use them in modest amounts. Thinly sliced shallot, diced artichoke hearts packed in oil, roasted red peppers, olives, oil-packed sun-dried tomato slices and goat cheese are excellent covers for the bread.

And speaking of bread, you have a number of options for that as well.

You can prepare dough from scratch or take a short cut, starting with frozen, thawed bread dough. You'll find loaves of frozen dough in most supermarkets.

For a quick alternative to making your own bread, pick up a loaf of ciabatta, which is a long, wide and flat Italian bread. Top the bread, place it on a baking pan and run it under the broiler for a minute. Follow the same steps using a 7- to 9-inch pita bread as a substitute.

Use bread dough or one of the above suggestions to make cheese and olive focaccia for two. Add vegetable soup or a robust salad to round out the meal.

Cheese and Olive Focaccia Recipe

Prep Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Yield: Serves 2

Cheese and Olive Focaccia Recipe Ingredients

8 ounces bread dough at room temperature (see note)

Cornmeal

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 medium shallot, thinly sliced

1/4 cup pitted green olives, thinly sliced into rings

2 tablespoons crumbled herb-flavored goat cheese

2 tablespoons reduced-fat shredded mozzarella cheese

Cheese and Olive Focaccia Recipe Directions

Press dough into a 4-by-6-inch rectangle on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal.

Cover lightly with dishtowel or an oiled sheet of plastic wrap and let rise in warm place for 1 hour.

Make dimples in the dough with your thumb.

Sprinkle oil over the dough, allowing some to run into dimples.

Scatter shallot and olive slices over dough.

Spread on goat cheese and mozzarella cheese.

Bake in preheated 375-degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove from oven.

Cool for 10 minutes.

Cut in half to serve.

Note: Frozen bread dough usually comes in 1-pound loaves. Cut a loaf in half; return half to the freezer and thaw the remainder according to package directions, using the quick-thaw method.

Each Cheese and Olive Focaccia serving has:

400 calories; 11 grams total fat; 16 grams protein; 57 grams carbohydrates; 9.5 milligrams cholesterol; 1141 milligrams sodium and 3.5 grams dietary fiber.

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