Baking Day

I decided to bake bread today. Since I don't have a car and I have all the ingredients for a pasta dinner....except for some crispy bread.

I found a wonderful-sounding recipe in "The Italian Country Table" for a Sage and Mushroom Focaccia. The sage is still bountiful in my garden, but the dough takes a day or two to rise. I may start that for tomorrow, we'll see.

Today I found this Simple Crusty Bread recipe that was published in "The New York Times." I'll have to rescue my baking stone from the gas grill. We had a wind storm after hurricane Ike that cause a power-outage just when I was about to bake off a bunch of pizzas for guests. My husband did a wonderful job of rescuing the situation and helped me bake them in the gas grill. They were delicious, but the baking stone is a bit charred.

I also came upon this recipe for Pane Rustica (Italian Peasant Bread) which is a modified version of the recipe above. It looks easy and delicious.

In any event, I'll try the crusty bread and see how it goes. After that, I'll be finishing up some scarves, hats and fingerless gloves keeping busy busy busy!