Autumn, Focaccia, and the Ghost of Gouda
I am not a food or recipe blogger. There are thousands of such bloggers out there who can take better photos and produce prettier food than I can.
I only like to blog about food or cooking if I can make a story out of it. Enter: Sweet Potato Rosemary Focaccia.
Now, Chris, Charlotte, moi? We’re a young family. Chris and I have been dating/engaged/married—together, in other words—for 8 years. Married for (almost) 4 years. Our traditions are works in progress.
One tradition is our Annual Autumn High-Five. This blessed annual event takes place when the two of us go outside in the morning, shiver with a little chill, and decide that the weather has finally moved into crisp autumn days—meaning, WE SURVIVED ANOTHER SWELTERING MIDATLANTIC SUMMER. This is a major accomplishment for two displaced West Coasters. We converse: Do we agree that summer is officially over? And that it’s just nippy, cooler days ahead? Yes? Then we do it. And by it (get your minds out of the gutter—I’m looking at you, Lauren, Meghan, and Molly), I mean we HIGH FIVE.
Our Annual Autumn High-Five was particularly cool and sophisticated when we lived downtown and we’d high-fived it out on Massachusetts Avenue during our walk to the metro. But you know what? Crazier people than us roam them DC streets.
Now, the Annual Autumn High-Five is the green light for fall foods. And one of those fall foods is my sweet potato rosemary focaccia, which comes on the heels of the Annual Autumn High-Five and that I make only once per year. (See how I brought that whole story full circle? Let’s see your average recipe blogger do that.)
Waaaay back in fall 2005, when I had mostly finished my master’s thesis was sadly unemployed with way too much time on my hands (I couldn’t even afford cable, so not even TV could distract me), I filled my days running along the Potomac in an attempt to feel daily accomplishment, applying to jobs, interviewing, and recovering from lots of rejections when potential employers “decided to go with someone with more [any] experience.” Oh! And reading Martha Stewart Living magazines.
I decided to try a pretentious Martha recipe, but I had to pick one that was CHEAP. I selected the sweet potato rosemary focaccia, and I remember going to Trader Joe’s to buy the gouda. This was such a big splurge for me that I actually remember buying gouda cheese 6 years ago. Because buying this gourmet food item was such a big deal at the time, I still think of gouda as expensive. Like, prohibitively expensive. Thus every year I experience surprise when I discover it ain’t as pricey as I expected.
This year, as I prepared to make my focaccia, I swung by the Whole Foods in Friendship Heights to collect ingredients. Funny enough, the “bargain bin” of cheese odds and ends had lots of gouda pieces—for, like, pennies—and I figured that the gouda just gets grated. Did I need to spend extra, just for a neat little wedge lined in wax? No. So, I collected about three pathetic lumps of bargain cheese, then moved over to the good stuff (I planned to mix plain gouda with smoked gouda). I picked out a beautiful, nice-sized wedge of maple apple smoked gouda. I flipped the wedge to see the price: $4.55. For quite a bit of cheese. Fancy cheese. At Whole Foods. Still, the Ghost of Gouda haunted me. I expected it to be somewhere around $14. Because gouda was expensive. Right?
As you can see, I have a very complicated relationship with gouda cheese. It brings up all sorts of bizarre budgetary flashbacks.
Needless to say, I bought the effing gouda at Whole Foods. When I retold my gouda saga to Chris, he said, with great guilt, “I should have bought the gouda for you. That first time.”
“Not really,” I said. This girl stood on her own two feet, thank you very much. Even when it came to gouda.
“But, I mean, I ate it and everything.” This was true. “I should have bought the ingredients.”
“Really?" I said. "You were making an entry-level salary that first year in DC, living in one of the most expensive areas in the country. Sweetie, you couldn’t afford gouda any more than I could.”
So, you see, our first focaccia was considered a FANCY autumn meal. I lit candles, poured $3 wine, and turned off the fluorescent lights of my 3-foot-long galley kitchen in my 16th-floor Alexandria apartment. And you know what? This is actually a really fond memory of mine. Chris and me, against the world. Not yet knowing anyone. Him in Arlington, me in Alexandria. Not sure how everything would turn out, and hunkering down in a cozy dining room (that I decorated spectacularly, in spite of my meager budget).
See the recipe below, pictures below that. During the past 6 years, I have changed this recipe so much that I’m not stepping on Martha’s precious copyrighted toes.
Recipe:
I only like to blog about food or cooking if I can make a story out of it. Enter: Sweet Potato Rosemary Focaccia.
Now, Chris, Charlotte, moi? We’re a young family. Chris and I have been dating/engaged/married—together, in other words—for 8 years. Married for (almost) 4 years. Our traditions are works in progress.
One tradition is our Annual Autumn High-Five. This blessed annual event takes place when the two of us go outside in the morning, shiver with a little chill, and decide that the weather has finally moved into crisp autumn days—meaning, WE SURVIVED ANOTHER SWELTERING MIDATLANTIC SUMMER. This is a major accomplishment for two displaced West Coasters. We converse: Do we agree that summer is officially over? And that it’s just nippy, cooler days ahead? Yes? Then we do it. And by it (get your minds out of the gutter—I’m looking at you, Lauren, Meghan, and Molly), I mean we HIGH FIVE.
Our Annual Autumn High-Five was particularly cool and sophisticated when we lived downtown and we’d high-fived it out on Massachusetts Avenue during our walk to the metro. But you know what? Crazier people than us roam them DC streets.
Now, the Annual Autumn High-Five is the green light for fall foods. And one of those fall foods is my sweet potato rosemary focaccia, which comes on the heels of the Annual Autumn High-Five and that I make only once per year. (See how I brought that whole story full circle? Let’s see your average recipe blogger do that.)
Waaaay back in fall 2005, when I had mostly finished my master’s thesis was sadly unemployed with way too much time on my hands (I couldn’t even afford cable, so not even TV could distract me), I filled my days running along the Potomac in an attempt to feel daily accomplishment, applying to jobs, interviewing, and recovering from lots of rejections when potential employers “decided to go with someone with more [any] experience.” Oh! And reading Martha Stewart Living magazines.
I decided to try a pretentious Martha recipe, but I had to pick one that was CHEAP. I selected the sweet potato rosemary focaccia, and I remember going to Trader Joe’s to buy the gouda. This was such a big splurge for me that I actually remember buying gouda cheese 6 years ago. Because buying this gourmet food item was such a big deal at the time, I still think of gouda as expensive. Like, prohibitively expensive. Thus every year I experience surprise when I discover it ain’t as pricey as I expected.
This year, as I prepared to make my focaccia, I swung by the Whole Foods in Friendship Heights to collect ingredients. Funny enough, the “bargain bin” of cheese odds and ends had lots of gouda pieces—for, like, pennies—and I figured that the gouda just gets grated. Did I need to spend extra, just for a neat little wedge lined in wax? No. So, I collected about three pathetic lumps of bargain cheese, then moved over to the good stuff (I planned to mix plain gouda with smoked gouda). I picked out a beautiful, nice-sized wedge of maple apple smoked gouda. I flipped the wedge to see the price: $4.55. For quite a bit of cheese. Fancy cheese. At Whole Foods. Still, the Ghost of Gouda haunted me. I expected it to be somewhere around $14. Because gouda was expensive. Right?
As you can see, I have a very complicated relationship with gouda cheese. It brings up all sorts of bizarre budgetary flashbacks.
Needless to say, I bought the effing gouda at Whole Foods. When I retold my gouda saga to Chris, he said, with great guilt, “I should have bought the gouda for you. That first time.”
“Not really,” I said. This girl stood on her own two feet, thank you very much. Even when it came to gouda.
“But, I mean, I ate it and everything.” This was true. “I should have bought the ingredients.”
“Really?" I said. "You were making an entry-level salary that first year in DC, living in one of the most expensive areas in the country. Sweetie, you couldn’t afford gouda any more than I could.”
So, you see, our first focaccia was considered a FANCY autumn meal. I lit candles, poured $3 wine, and turned off the fluorescent lights of my 3-foot-long galley kitchen in my 16th-floor Alexandria apartment. And you know what? This is actually a really fond memory of mine. Chris and me, against the world. Not yet knowing anyone. Him in Arlington, me in Alexandria. Not sure how everything would turn out, and hunkering down in a cozy dining room (that I decorated spectacularly, in spite of my meager budget).
See the recipe below, pictures below that. During the past 6 years, I have changed this recipe so much that I’m not stepping on Martha’s precious copyrighted toes.
Recipe:
- Buy about 4 medium yams/sweet potatoes. Peel, poke with a fork, throw on a greased cookie sheet, and bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Let cool. They will not be fully cooked yet. They shouldn’t be—they’ll finish baking later.
- Mix two packets of yeast into 1 ¼ cup warm water. Add 2 1/4 tsp sugar. Let sit until foamy, about 4 min.
- Add 3 ½ cups flour, 2 tbs olive oil, and 2 tsp salt to yeast mixture. Knead in stand mixer with a dough hook for 4–5 minutes, on low–med speed.
- Transfer dough to oil-lined bowl. Cover with oiled plastic wrap, and let rise somewhere reasonably warm, about 20 minutes or so, or until doubled in size.
- In the meantime, slice the relatively cooled yams (a little less than ½-inch thick). Chop lots of rosemary. Like, tons. All that you can find. Roast 1 cup of chopped walnuts. Grate 2 cups of gouda cheese. Ready? Here’s where it gets fun.
- Stretch out the now-risen dough on to a big jelly roll cookie sheet (sprayed with Pam). Stretch and pull it into all four corners. Brush a layer of olive oil on the dough, cover with paper towels or plastic wrap, and let rise somewhere warm for another 30 minutes.
- Next, remove covering, liberally salt the oiled dough, spread rosemary, and then add sweet potato slices, pressing them into the dough here and there. SALT THE YAM LAYER. This is crucial, or your yams will taste like nada. Sprinkle gouda and walnuts. If you’re me, take a picture. Have your husband lift the cookie sheet so he can feel how heavy the sucker is.
- Bake at 400 degrees for 5 minutes. Rotate pan, bake for another 10–15 minutes. Take out, slice with a pizza cutter, and enjoy.
Before going into the oven.
Fresh out of the oven.
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