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Chewy, olive oil-enriched Italian focaccia is filling and delicious, either on its own, as an accompaniment to a meal, or with a green salad for a light lunch. The pizza-like flatbread tastes great plain, or with anything you want to add — herbs like rosemary, nuts, fruit or prosciutto, fennel and mozzarella. Start with our basic recipe for focaccia. Then go wild.

Tuscan Tomato, Cucumber & Bread Salad

“Panzanella, little swamp, is another tomato favorite, a salad of oil, vinegar, tomatoes, basil, cucumber, minced onion, and stale bread soaked in water and squeezed dry - a true invention from necessity. Since bread must be bought every day, Tuscan cooking makes good use of leftovers.” Nothing could be easier. I used 3 small tomatoes cut up in small bites, half a cucumber also cut up into small bites, minced onion, fresh local basil, 8 slices of leftover hard baguette seasoned with salt and pepper. Like many Tuscan cooks, I added the olive oil and vinegar by eye but you should know the typical ratio is 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar. The bread was soaked in water and squeezed as dry as possible. At first I didn’t think it would taste very good but after dressing the salad and letting it sit for a while, the bread gave the salad a wonderful texture and absorbed some of the seasoning with the juices from the vegetables. It was amazing.  And it went great with a chilled bottle of Prosecco!