Dorie's Provençal Olive Fougasse

It's been one of those weeks where I start to consider bringing a paper bag everywhere I go, just, you know, so I can deal with all of my hyperventilating. We're gearing up for both Hallowe'en and Remembrance Day at school (although, we've been banned from using the word Hallowe'en) - both of which were things I didn't involve myself in before, but as one of teachers attached to the student council, I'm involved in all of their activities this year, And, since my drama class was doing the bulk of the work for Remembrance Day, I decided that it was easier and less stressful for me to manage the whole thing.

We'll see if that thought holds true.

We also got news that we'd have a news crew at our school for the Remembrance Day assembly, so the pressure is on!

I used to find the stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas to be the longest and most painful to teach, but being so busy this year is making the time fly by too quickly. I never thought I'd hear myself beg for more weeks of school, but I could definitely do with some extra days.

Alas, my own schooling is taking up a ton of my time. We had both Saturday and Wednesday classes this week, so I'm thoroughly looking forward to a weekend that's longer than one day. I will say that, if I have to be in school on top of working, there's no place I'd rather be than taking drama. Yesterday I realized how sad I'll be to have this drama class be my last at the university/teacher's college level. It's nice to meet new people, learn lots and bond in a short period of time!

Knowing how little time I'd have to myself this week, I made some bread on Sunday with the intention of munching on it throughout the week. I returned Mario Batali's Molto Italiano to the library and took out Dorie's Around My French Table, and was immediately taken with her recipe for Provençal Olive Fougasse.

You've probably noticed my love of dough by this point (bread is so easy to make, and everyone is terribly impressed when you do it because they think it's hard) and my love of olives means that I spend way too much on Whole Foods' olive bar... I wish I could quit it, I really do. They're just so bloody tasty.

Turning bread into shapes (other than little round buns) isn't something I'd tried before. Fougasse typically has slashes through it to make it resemble a leaf. Again, easily done, and it makes the bread dead easy to pull apart.

You can find the recipe and directions here. I made absolutely no adjustment to the recipe, though next time, I'll go for the orange rind instead of the lemon, I think. And, I'd love to try this out with green olives too.