Who else remembers the 80's and 90's when pasta was "health food"? Carbs were our friend, they gave you energy, and places like Olive Garden & Carrabba's were "fancy international dining". (At least, they were if you lived in rural Missouri, where the fanciest restaurant in town was a Dairy Queen, and you had to drive 40 minutes in any direction to find a sit-down dining chain).
I will never not love and defend pasta, which is fine in moderation, like everything else. In our house, we have some form of pasta at least once a week. And this particular week, we wanted to channel our "fancy Italian" youth and make some sourdough focaccia and dipping oil to go with it. We used this recipe from The Perfect Loaf as our base.
For toppings, I saw several recipes that recommended sticking unpeeled garlic cloves around the top, noting that leaving them in the peel would allow them to roast without burning. This worked VERY well--once the bread has cooled a bit, you can remove the cloves, which pop out of the peel easily, and then stick the now-unpeeled cloves back into the bread. We also had red onion and fresh rosemary, and I included some coarse kosher salt over the top as well.
We served this the first night with a delicious, creamy entrée of Italian Sausage Orzo from Salt & Lavender (note: we used chopped kale rather than spinach because it's what we had on-hand).
The leftover bread was noshed on throughout the rest of the week, sometimes with just a little olive oil, salt & pepper, and sometimes with a fancier dip comprised of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, grated parmesan, minced garlic, red pepper flakes, and Italian herb blend, similar to this recipe.
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