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.

Italian Chicken en Papillote (a non-recipe post)

One of the great things about having my mornings in class is I'm forced to get up at the same time as I do when I teach. Now, I know some of you are putting your hands up to say, what the heck? There's method in my madness, I promise.

When I have time off, I stay up late. And then I sleep in. And my sleep cycle gets pushed further and further out of whack.

I don't like it when my sleep schedule gets pushed out of whack.

Believe it or not, I like productive mornings. It's so nice to get everything out of the way right at the beginning!

Plus, it means I don't have to feel guilty for my daily afternoon naps.

It's all about having guilt free naps.

Yesterday, after a drama class filled with some interpretive dance on war/peace to Zoe Keating, I walked to the library for my annual summer library reading binge. I wasn't carrying any bags on me, so I only picked up a few books, one of which was the French Women Don't Get Fat cookbook.

This recipe (if you can call it that) isn't from the book, but was inspired by her several recipes using the en papillote technique. For those of you not familiar with en papillote, it means you take meat or fish and place it, along with other flavourful ingredients, in parchment paper packages which are then baked in the oven. This steams the meat inside, but also infuses it with whatever ingredients you've thrown in along with it.

I opted for chicken with lemons, parsley (although, if you have fresh rosemary, all the better), olives, sundried tomatoes and capers.

The brilliance of this recipe, is that there really isn't one. Use what you've got on hand; just keep it to no more than 2 tbsp of toppings, plus something beneath the chicken to infuse from below. Sautéed shallots or spinach would make a great base. A few cloves of garlic in there with some lemon and lots of black pepper? Delish!

And the bonus? No added oils!

The packages are made by creating a circle out of parchment and layering all the ingredients on one half of the circle.

You then fold the other side of the paper over to create a half moon shape. Fold the sides up along the edge of the circle so it looks like this:

Bake in the oven on a baking tray at 400º for about 30 minutes.

If you're into theatrics, give everyone at the table a pair of scissors and allow them to cut a cross into the top of the package and then tear it open. The big reveal is half the fun.

Do be careful of the steam though. There's a lot of it trapped in there!