Fantastic focaccia bread

Focaccia is a delicious Italian flat bread which can be topped with all kinds of delicious things, herbs, olives or cheese are common toppings and a great place to start. What I really love about focaccia, what makes it really special is the olive oil which is both mixed into the dough and drizzled liberally over the top before baking. This is THE recipe for using that expensive bottle of extra-virgin you've got stashed away in the cupboard, nothing will show off it's flavour quite so well.
Recipe:

For the dough:
350g/12oz Strong white bread flour
200ml warm water
50ml Extra virgin olive oil
One 7g sachet of quick action yeast
1/2 tsp Salt

For the topping you can use whatever you like although the olive oil is essential and the salt highly recommended, I used:
1 Small onion cut into wedges
A handful of black olives, halved
Mixed Italian herbs
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt flakes

To make the Foccacia:

• Mix the flour yeast and salt together in a large bowl, make a well in the centre and pour in the oil and water.
• Bring everything together to form a dough (it will be quite sticky) knead for a few minutes on a well floured surface (you will need to rub some flour on your hands too, it is sticky!)
• Cover the bowl with oiled clingfilm and leave to in a warm place to rise for at least 1 1/2 hours but preferably overnight.
• Once the dough has risen knock it back and press out onto a large baking tray (you could make smaller breads by cutting up first)
• Pre-heat your oven o gas 6/400f/200c
  
• Using your fingers press dimples all over the surface of the dough, this will stop all the olive oil running off.
• Sprinkle over your toppings, drizzle generously with olive oil (don't be stingy with it!) and sprinkle over some sea salt.
• Leave to rise again for about 1 hour or until doubled in size.
• Bake for around 30 minutes.
  

Cheerful tray-baked chicken

I love how bright and colourful this dish is, it looks fantastic and best of all it's really easy. As it's finally warming up a bit now (at last!) I felt like cooking something summery, I had some chicken in the fridge, yet more leftover pesto which seems to keep appearing! and some really good bacon. after a quick trip to the shops i also had a good selection of Mediterranean vegetables: an aubergine, courgette's, tomatoes, mushrooms and olives.

All I did was rub pesto over the chicken and wrap it in bacon. I chopped the vegetables tossed them in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, white wine, a few herbs, salt and pepper. whacked them in a baking tray, put the chicken on top and into the oven on quite high until it was nicely cooked. I basted everything every now and then to stop it going dry and it came out great and so simple.

I served my chicken with couscous and poured the juices from the tray over the top.
This is such a good way to cook and has endless variations, it would be great with fish, or pork chops and any selection of veg that takes your fancy, (try to choose a good selection of colours). Asparagus and fish would be a good combo about now.