Day 4 of being snowed in. Desperately trying to keep up morale.

I was hoping I could make it to work today. I knew it was unlikely, but I decided to take Lenny for a little hike out of the subdivision to check out the roads. I found ice, ice, and more ice. Lenny had a tragically funny spill on some black ice, and clearly had no idea what had happened. Poor little peanut.

While walking back to the house, I stopped to take in the view and I realized there are far worse places I could be stranded for 4+ days. I can do this. That walk was an excellent idea.

Anyway, remember when I made bread a few days ago? I made enough dough for 4 lbs of bread, and each baguette was only 1/2 pound each. I had plenty of dough remaining and wanted to try something new and exciting, so I went with focaccia! I reeeeeeeally love the book Gluten-Free Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (and nobody is paying me to say that, although they are certainly welcome to offer 😉 …). It’s really fun to whip up a batch of dough one day, stick it in the fridge, and be able try out new variations with same dough all week long!

I won’t post the whole recipe, because I’m not a plagiarist, but basically I measured out 1 lb of my bread dough, patted it flat and poked it with my finger a bunch to give it that dimpled focaccia “look”, covered it in softened onions, fresh chopped rosemary, salt, pepper, drizzled it with olive oil, and baked it for 30 minutes. You can see the transformation below.

Isn’t it just gorgeous!?

I cut it into four lovely pieces…

… and then had to decide what to do with it. Hmmm. Decisions, decisions…

Fortunately, I had some chicken leftover from when I roasted a whole chicken last week. I’m sure I will make a roast chicken post at some point, because chicken roasting has become an almost weekly occurrence this winter — I’m addicted!

I shredded some of the leftover chicken, stirred in some mayo, Lusty Monk mustard, salt, pepper, diced celery, diced apple… and voilà! The most delicious chicken salad sandwich I have probably ever eaten in my life (and most certainly the prettiest, although the photograph would have been better if Lenny hadn’t distracted me with his begging).

So if any of you are going completely stir crazy, my official recommendation is to go walk the dog for an hour, take a deep breath, and then bake some focaccia. It’s good for the soul ❤