As I sat on the couch Wednesday afternoon watching Chef Anne Burrell make focaccia bread, my mouth started watering. I knew I had to make some for dinner that night.

SUCCESS. It paired well with our vegan shepherd’s pie (which I will be making again for sure, but with different seasonings, omitting the thyme. Ever since Tyler tried to serve me cinnamon-thyme squash in the first months of our marriage, neither of us can stomach the herb. And we don’t like Thanksgiving food, so why would we be expected to like the flavor profile of it?)

Here’s the recipe for focaccia bread. It was easy to make and turned out melt-in-your-mouth delicious. It doesn’t keep very well (or reheat very well in my experience) so I halved the recipe. The half recipe was still plenty to feed 4-5 people generously. I also didn’t use as much olive oil as it called for and it still was moist and yummy (for reference, in my halved recipe I used less than 1/4 c. for drizzling in the sheet pan). Also, by letting it rise in a warm oven, I was able to almost half the rising time (so it really only took 2 hours to make total).