Fun with Baking

Posted on by Julia

November 26, 2025

On Sunday (November 23), I mixed up a sourdough focaccia from the King Arthur Baking Company’s website: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-focaccia-recipe

Since my pan wouldn’t fit in the fridge, I punted and put the dough in a gallon bag to let it rise overnight. This would develop the sourdough taste

On Monday (November 24), I took the bag of dough out of the fridge. It had risen nicely. I oiled my Le Creuset cast-iron roasting pan. I eased the dough from the bag into the pan and gently stretched it to fill the pan. I covered the pan and put it in my oven. I set the oven to proof. Once the oven had heated up, I turned it off. I didn’t want to leave it at 100°F. An hour later, I removed the pan from the oven.

I dimpled the dough, covered it with olive oil, and sprinkled coarse salt and garden-fresh rosemary over it.

I decided to try decorating the sourdough focaccia with produce from my garden. I cut up ripe peppers and green onions. I picked marjoram for the leaves. I used bought sesame seeds and an olive for the center of the flowers.

Before Baking
After Baking

I am pleased with the taste and the baked look. It was fun to do something different.

While I was letting the focaccia rise, Bruce and I started making caramelized onions.

I melted butter in my Le Creuset 7.25-quart cast-iron round Dutch oven. Bruce started peeling onions and quartering them. I took out my food processor and sliced the onion quarters. When the food processor bowl was full, I dumped the onions into the Dutch oven. This was repeated several times as we processed ten pounds of onions. I added salt and stirred the salt in. I set the induction stove to 5 and let the ten pounds of onions cook slowly down, stirring occasionally. The focaccia was ready long before the onions.

I looked out the window to see if it was still raining. I noticed the neighbor’s Bradford pear had lost its leaves. As Dorothy from The New Vintage Kitchen says, it’s stick season.

The rain had stopped, so we walked down to the mailbox. On the way back, I admired the paperwhites.

Once the onions had caramelized, we put two cups into quart bags. We placed the bags on the counter and flattened them. Bruce labels them. We did put one cup in the fridge for use soon.

Yesterday (Tuesday, November 25), I followed a recipe to make green Thai curry paste from hot-thai-kitchen.com.

I used the peppers and lemongrass from my garden. I used my homegrown Thai basil leaves that I preserved in avocado oil. The rest of the ingredients were bought.

I pounded the ingredients together in my heavy granite mortar and pestle. The small pestle was used to finally crush the spices.

Finished Thai Green Curry Paste

I am planning to make chicken green curry with the leftover chicken from Thanksgiving.

Bruce would much rather have chicken than turkey.

Earlier in the day, I made chunky guacamole. Bruce put together a dinner of nachos while I made the Thai green curry paste. We ate nachos with leftover steak and pork. We used the chili verda salsa made from the harvested tomatillos from the garden. We had the guacamole on the nachos also. It was so good!

We had a pretty sunset!

16 thoughts on “Fun with Baking”

  1. Happy Thanksgiving Julia! You don’t know me but I found your blog from Jeanne in the Kitchen. I’ve had so much fun reading about your move and your green thumb! I’m so impressed with how much work you do on a daily basis! I just had to let you know that you had my mouth watering for those caramelized onions. They are from your garden right? Enjoy the fruits of your labor and I wish you, Bruce, and Nod a very Happy Thanksgiving!

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    1. Hi Susan, Jeannie is wonderful and I love both her and her blog. I am glad you are enjoying my blog. I love gardening and it is fun getting everything set up.

      I used all the onions I grew this year already. These were onions I bought at Costco.

      Thank you for your well wishes.

      I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

      I stopped by your blog. The overabundance of bananas made me laugh.

      Here are some banana recipes from my blog.

      https://retirementrvdream.com/2025/10/13/banana-muffins-with-baklava-filling/ (This one is so good! )

      https://retirementrvdream.com/2022/02/12/banana-almond-muffins/ (This is a pretty easy recipe and you can use other nuts.)

      https://retirementrvdream.com/2019/12/12/banana-whip-vegetarian/ (I serve this at dinner parties to rave reviews.)

      https://retirementrvdream.com/2020/07/03/no-sugar-banana-ice-cream/ (This” ice cream” is delicious! )

      https://retirementrvdream.com/2020/12/31/blueberry-lemon-and-ginger-smoothie/ (If you enjoy smoothies.)

      You could also fry the bananas like plantains. This would give you something savory.

      Alton Brown has instructions on freezing bananas. You might look that up.

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