Keeping up with the Eyres

There is an old saying about keeping up with the Joneses.  About wanting to make sure you are maintaining the standards of those neighbours with the manicured and hoovered (yes that is a thing!) lawns, the car on the drive, the handbags, the shoes.  Being a foodie for me, I want to be eating what everyone else is eating.  Not in an envious way but in an excitable exploratory way.  What else is out there, how do they prepare X compared to the way I do?  

Now, our friends, the Eyres, are one set of friends where I watch, listen and eat avidly at their house. We swap ideas, recipes and to be honest, I always think they do it slightly better.  They do not know about this, as unfortunately they were not around, but I think this once, I trumped them.  Our lovely mobile beautician does a job lot of us girls, whilst the rest of us contain the toddlers.  Then we all eat lunch and the Eyres always put on a lovely spread.  The last time though, time did not permit and they kindly provided some posh packaged sandwiches from everyone's favourite knicker seller.

At the next beauty gathering, it was my turn to do the spread in the Eyres absence and I made my own bread.  Ok, so it was Nigel's recipe, but I baked bread.  Is there anything more impressive than homemade bread?  Well, this recipe is foolproof and delicious and the recipe is on pages 110 - 112 and this is what we are after.  A Green olive and thyme focaccia:

The ingredients are easy to come by and most I actually had in the house.  This is the great thing about cooking through this book.  As it is seasonal you see recurring ingredients and more often than not enough left for the next recipe requiring them.  I cooked this in a springform tin and actually used the one I bought for the peanut butter cheesecake.  Frugality at its best.

Right on to the recipe.  It is a basic bread recipe and you need time to let it prove.  I was doing some tumble drying this particular day and popped the bowl with the dough on top of the tumble dryer and it more than nicely doubled in size.  Once at this stage you add the rest of the ingredients and a 'cheffy' drizzle of olive oil that sinks in the cracks:

In then gets popped in the oven and the house fills with the most wonderful aroma.  They always say the smell of baked bread sells houses! I can see why:

We cut this bread into huge chunks and served with cured meats, cheeses and salad.  It was delicious and wonder if for once, someone might utter the never heard phrase of, 'keeping up with the Thorns'...?

JanieCooksNigel

1/5/16