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This fun food brings out creativity

Recipe: Garden-variety focaccia decorated with whimsy

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The finished product: Edible art.
(Photos: Debbie Arrington)

It's OK to play with your food, especially when making focaccia.

This simple Italian flatbread can be a blank canvas for garden-inspired edible "art." Use cut vegetables, tomatoes and herbs as your "paint."

Using sliced peppers, tomato, onions and more, create geometric designs or whimsical flowers. Clusters of sliced cherry tomatoes can become bouquets of appetizing blooms.

Slice toppings about 1/8- to 1/4-inch thick. Dip parsley or cilantro in lemon juice mixed with water, so those leaves will retain their green color during baking.

Then, have fun. Garden-variety focaccia is something the whole family can help create.
A bread machine speeds up the dough-making process. The actual baking takes less than 25 minutes.

Too hot to turn on the oven? This focaccia can be "baked" on the grill.

Garden-variety focaccia
Makes one large loaf

Ingredients:

1-1/4 cups water (room temperature)
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons bread machine or quick-acting yeast
Additional olive oil as needed
Lemon juice, optional
Coarse sea salt
Parmesan cheese, optional
Decorations: Sliced peppers, tomatoes, olives, onions, scallions, mushrooms, parsley or other vegetables and herbs.

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Use a variety of vegetables to "paint" a picture.
Instructions:
In the bowl of a bread machine, combine (in order) water, 2 tablespoons olive oil, flour, 1 tablespoon salt, sugar and yeast. Process dough in bread machine. (Dough also can be made in advance and refrigerated up to 24 hours.)
With olive oil, oil a large rimmed baking sheet. With oiled fingers, gently spread dough onto baking sheet. Don't worry if it doesn't stretch all the way; the dough will spread as it relaxes.

Set the dough and baking sheet aside in a warm place, out of drafts, and let rise until about double in size. (On a warm day, this takes about 20 minutes; on cold days, up to an hour.)

Meanwhile, prepare toppings. Slice peppers, tomatoes, onions, olives or other toppings 1/8- to 1/4-inch thick. Dip any green herbs such as parsley in lemon-infused water.

When ready, pat dough down evenly with your palms. Arrange decorations as desired, pressing the pieces down gently into the dough just a little.

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Satisfied with the picture? Brush with olive oil, sprinkle
with salt, and pop it in the oven.
When complete, brush the entire top surface and decorations lightly with olive oil. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Bake focaccia until top is golden brown, about 20 to 25 minutes. Rotate pan front to back in oven after half the time to assure even baking.

Remove focaccia from oven and transfer to a wire rack or bread board to cool slightly. Serve warm with grated parmesan cheese, if desired.

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June 9: Grow coneflowers for pollinators -- and yourself

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May 19: Plant dahlias now for late-summer flower power

May 12: Know your coreopsis from your bidens

May 5: Mums the word on Mother's Day weekend

April 28: Majestic Matilija poppy is worth a look

April 21: Celebrate roses, America's favorite flower

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March 31: In praise of a pollinator magnet (small-leaf salvias)

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March 3: Fruit tree blossoms are a fleeting joy

Feb. 27: Are your roses looking rusty?

Feb. 24: Treasure spring daffodils now and for years to come

Feb. 17: How and why to grow wildflowers

Feb. 10: Let's talk Valentine's Day roses

Feb. 3: Why grow flowers?

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Garden checklist for week of Sept. 6

Now is the time to plant for fall. The warm soil will get these veggies off to a fast start.

* Keep harvesting tomatoes, peppers, squash, melons and eggplant.

* Compost annuals and vegetable crops that have finished producing.

* Cultivate and add compost to the soil to replenish its nutrients for fall and winter vegetables and flowers.

* Fertilize deciduous fruit trees. Make sure to deep water before and after feeding.

* Plant onions, lettuce, peas, radishes, turnips, beets, carrots, bok choy, spinach and potatoes directly into the vegetable beds.

* Transplant cabbage, broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower as well as lettuce seedlings.

* Sow seeds of California poppies, clarkia and African daisies.

* Transplant cool-weather annuals such as pansies, violas, fairy primroses, calendulas, stocks and snapdragons.

* Divide and replant bulbs, rhizomes and perennials.

* Dig up and divide daylilies as they complete their bloom cycle.

* Divide and transplant peonies that have become overcrowded. Replant with “eyes” about an inch below the soil surface.

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How to grow summer salad greens

 Weird stuff that's perfectly normal

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