I crave salad. Maybe because the weather is like a sauna full of old men, or maybe because my body is trying to tell me something; all I know is I want the greens.
One of my favorite restaurants is a Lebanese place that makes a "feta salad." It's basically lettuce, feta cheese, and dressing. Add chicken if you so desire (and I often do). But after paying $8 or so every week for one of these things, I began to think of how easy it would be to re-create it at home. So now I'm eating "feta salad" almost every night, for pennies!
The main thing here is the dressing. I knew it was chock-full of oregano and garlic. I mean, I never eat this salad before a business meeting, as I feel like it would be cruel to breathe all that garlic on a client. So delicious though.
What I ended up doing is putting about a cup of good olive oil in a sealable container, adding about a quarter cup of dried oregano, and 4 or 5 peeled garlic cloves. As long as the garlic cloves are covered by the oil, this dressing seems to keep pretty well in the refrigerator (although the oil does start to thicken and needs to be stirred before use). The ingredients marinate together to form a garlicky wonder.
I serve it with dark, crisp, fresh lettuce and crumbled feta cheese. Maybe a squeeze of lemon if you have some lying around. I could eat it all day, I tell you. Actually, on at least one occasion, I have!
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
soup in the summer
I love soup, as is evidenced here, here, and here. So, with the leftovers from this recipe I made soup. Wonderful, soul-healing soup. Jesus, I love soup.
Ingredients
3 stalks of celery, diced (I have to dice it super-small because I hate the texture so)
1 medium onion, diced
3 carrots, diced
6 cups chicken broth (use the canned or make your own)
4 - 5 ounces bacon, cut in bite-size pieces
1 cup of frozen corn (or fresh, if you're not just throwing this together with what you have around)
2 - 3 cups cooked cannellini beans
1 tbs olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
I've said this dozens of times, but my love of soup comes partly from the fact that you.can't.screw.it.up. You just can't.
Saute the vegetables in olive oil. Add a pinch of salt to help them soften. When the onions are translucent, add the bacon. As I used bulk bacon, there wasn't much fat to render. But if your bacon is fatty (and most bacon it), let the fat melt off it and then dump it out of the pan.
Once the bacon is browned a little bit, add the rest of the ingredients. Bring the soup to a boil. Then turn the heat to low and let it simmer until you feel like eating it. The longer you cook it, the most your beans will burst open and give you a faux-cream flavor. A delicious one, if I may be so bold. Season to taste.
Vote, vote, vote, please.
Ingredients
3 stalks of celery, diced (I have to dice it super-small because I hate the texture so)
1 medium onion, diced
3 carrots, diced
6 cups chicken broth (use the canned or make your own)
4 - 5 ounces bacon, cut in bite-size pieces
1 cup of frozen corn (or fresh, if you're not just throwing this together with what you have around)
2 - 3 cups cooked cannellini beans
1 tbs olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
I've said this dozens of times, but my love of soup comes partly from the fact that you.can't.screw.it.up. You just can't.
Saute the vegetables in olive oil. Add a pinch of salt to help them soften. When the onions are translucent, add the bacon. As I used bulk bacon, there wasn't much fat to render. But if your bacon is fatty (and most bacon it), let the fat melt off it and then dump it out of the pan.
Once the bacon is browned a little bit, add the rest of the ingredients. Bring the soup to a boil. Then turn the heat to low and let it simmer until you feel like eating it. The longer you cook it, the most your beans will burst open and give you a faux-cream flavor. A delicious one, if I may be so bold. Season to taste.
Vote, vote, vote, please.
pasta with pancetta and cannellini beans
Well, folks, this recipe ended up being a bit of a wreck. Don't get me wrong, it was tasty enough. But it seemed like God was tossing up roadblocks all over the path to deliciousness. Let me explain.
First, I couldn't get my hands on any pancetta. Or proscuitto. The butcher was clean out of it. I mean, they had some pre-sliced. But because it was pre-sliced it wasn't thick-cut. And Lidia definitely had thick cut little squares of pancetta. So I bought bulk bacon instead. I think this is the first wrong step I made. Because there's so few ingredients, I think the dish really needed pancetta for depth of flavor. Anyway, on to the next obstacle.
I was determined to make fresh pasta. On her show, Lidia literally had her food processor about halfway filled with flour, turned it on, drizzled in some water and voila! Fresh pasta. Now, my food processor is the miniature size, so I used my standing mixer. No problem there. About three cups of flour and maybe 1/4 cup or so of water and the dough came together in a ball. Perfect.
I let it rest, rolled it out super-thin (I don't have a pasta rolling machine, so I used a rolling pin), cut it into strips, floured it very generously, and placed it on a floured towel. Then I set it aside for about an hour as my guests were arriving and my friends S, R, and I were setting stuff up. Mistake number two.
The sauce itself is super easy to make. I threw the bacon in a pan, planning to render the fat off it...but there really wasn't any. It was bulk bacon that I had cubed, and in the process, I had trimmed the fat off it. I thought I was doing us a favor. But in retrospect, I think that fat might've been necessary for flavor! Are we at mistake number three?
After browning the bacon a bit, I added the finely diced celery. Then tossed in about a half-can of tomato paste. It was super-thick so I thinned it out with the water boiling for the pasta. Then I added the beans. I let it simmer while I went to cook the pasta.
Well, the pasta was a mess. Letting it sit on the counter near my hard-working stove with 10 people in the room had warmed it up. The warming had resulted in it congealing back into lumps of dough. No longer did I have beautiful individual strands of pasta. It was as though I had never rolled and cut it at all! Luckily I had a box of dry fettuccine on hand.
While the fettuccine cooked, I went back to the sauce. I tasted it and was unmoved. It was...fine. Not great. The beans weren't bursting open to make the sauce creamy. The bacon wasn't giving a real bacony flavor (more just a pork flavor). And the tomato was exceptionally acidic. Poor news all around.
So, I added about 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese and about a tablespoon of honey, hoping the cheese would create some creaminess (had I had any cream or milk in the fridge, I would've added that) and that the honey would cut the acidity. I bet a tablespoon of butter would've been a good idea, too, but I couldn't think fast enough.
In the end, we all ate it and enjoyed it. I guess I just set my expectations too high. It was yummy...but...meh.
Anyway, when I do this again I will make sure to do the following:
1. use pancetta!
2. cook the beans longer than I did...I slightly undercooked them to help them keep their structural integrity. So great, I perfect little beans but no creaminess. Let the suckers cook!
3. be more careful with my fresh pasta. I frankly think the fresh pasta would've made the dish. I made some more the following day (just put olive oil on it) and the texture really makes a difference. I think the starches on the outside of the fresh pasta would've helped the sauce.
Luckily, I did something better (and more succint) with the leftovers. Stay tuned.
First, I couldn't get my hands on any pancetta. Or proscuitto. The butcher was clean out of it. I mean, they had some pre-sliced. But because it was pre-sliced it wasn't thick-cut. And Lidia definitely had thick cut little squares of pancetta. So I bought bulk bacon instead. I think this is the first wrong step I made. Because there's so few ingredients, I think the dish really needed pancetta for depth of flavor. Anyway, on to the next obstacle.
I was determined to make fresh pasta. On her show, Lidia literally had her food processor about halfway filled with flour, turned it on, drizzled in some water and voila! Fresh pasta. Now, my food processor is the miniature size, so I used my standing mixer. No problem there. About three cups of flour and maybe 1/4 cup or so of water and the dough came together in a ball. Perfect.
I let it rest, rolled it out super-thin (I don't have a pasta rolling machine, so I used a rolling pin), cut it into strips, floured it very generously, and placed it on a floured towel. Then I set it aside for about an hour as my guests were arriving and my friends S, R, and I were setting stuff up. Mistake number two.
The sauce itself is super easy to make. I threw the bacon in a pan, planning to render the fat off it...but there really wasn't any. It was bulk bacon that I had cubed, and in the process, I had trimmed the fat off it. I thought I was doing us a favor. But in retrospect, I think that fat might've been necessary for flavor! Are we at mistake number three?
After browning the bacon a bit, I added the finely diced celery. Then tossed in about a half-can of tomato paste. It was super-thick so I thinned it out with the water boiling for the pasta. Then I added the beans. I let it simmer while I went to cook the pasta.
Well, the pasta was a mess. Letting it sit on the counter near my hard-working stove with 10 people in the room had warmed it up. The warming had resulted in it congealing back into lumps of dough. No longer did I have beautiful individual strands of pasta. It was as though I had never rolled and cut it at all! Luckily I had a box of dry fettuccine on hand.
While the fettuccine cooked, I went back to the sauce. I tasted it and was unmoved. It was...fine. Not great. The beans weren't bursting open to make the sauce creamy. The bacon wasn't giving a real bacony flavor (more just a pork flavor). And the tomato was exceptionally acidic. Poor news all around.
So, I added about 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese and about a tablespoon of honey, hoping the cheese would create some creaminess (had I had any cream or milk in the fridge, I would've added that) and that the honey would cut the acidity. I bet a tablespoon of butter would've been a good idea, too, but I couldn't think fast enough.
In the end, we all ate it and enjoyed it. I guess I just set my expectations too high. It was yummy...but...meh.
Anyway, when I do this again I will make sure to do the following:
1. use pancetta!
2. cook the beans longer than I did...I slightly undercooked them to help them keep their structural integrity. So great, I perfect little beans but no creaminess. Let the suckers cook!
3. be more careful with my fresh pasta. I frankly think the fresh pasta would've made the dish. I made some more the following day (just put olive oil on it) and the texture really makes a difference. I think the starches on the outside of the fresh pasta would've helped the sauce.
Luckily, I did something better (and more succint) with the leftovers. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
fresh pasta with beans and bacon
I am a slight oddity in that I don't have cable television at my home. I have a television, and it is hooked up to a digital converting thingamabob which turns the signal that my bunny ears antenna picks up into something useful. Or some such technical silliness. Point is, I don't have a lot of channels. This means I spend a good deal of my tv-watching time with PBS.
Specifically, I watch PBS's Create! channel. And I love it. Mostly. Bob Villa, I could take or leave.
Create! programming involves a ton of cooking shows. And as someone who would gladly sit in front of the tv languorously absorbing Food Network all day, I am so pleased to have these cooking shows from PBS (the rest of Create! is rather silly, IMHO, although I do enjoy cracking jokes to myself at the expense of some of the hosts).
Anyway, one of the shows is called Lidia's Italy, hosted by Lidia Bastianich. Her food is so easy to make at home. And somehow I feel like making it fulfills the Italian side of me (my Dad's side) that wants to make big Sunday dinners and encourage people to make babies.
Last weekend, I watched her make a delicious-looking recipe. Now, normally, I just go grab the recipe details from her website. But for some reason, this recipe isn't there. Horrors!
So, I'm going to try to recreate (no pun intended) it without a recipe. I haven't done it yet, but when I do, I'll be sure to write. Let me give you an ingredient list.
Fresh, homemade pasta
Pancetta
Cannellini beans
Tomato paste
Olive Oil
Parmesan cheese
Celery
Nothing with such simple and wonderful ingredients could taste bad. I think.
If you've been a reader of mine for any length of time, you know I shy away from celery. This is because I find the texture of raw celery incredibly offensive. Because I'm crazy. However, this celery is diced very finely and cooked. So I'm hoping it will be like when I put celery into a gumbo - where it cooks to a point that you can't even tell it's there, texture-wise.
Results to follow. Wish me luck.
And as is becoming my normal sign off, please vote for my brother's essay about cooking well on Anthony Bourdain's website.
Specifically, I watch PBS's Create! channel. And I love it. Mostly. Bob Villa, I could take or leave.
Create! programming involves a ton of cooking shows. And as someone who would gladly sit in front of the tv languorously absorbing Food Network all day, I am so pleased to have these cooking shows from PBS (the rest of Create! is rather silly, IMHO, although I do enjoy cracking jokes to myself at the expense of some of the hosts).
Anyway, one of the shows is called Lidia's Italy, hosted by Lidia Bastianich. Her food is so easy to make at home. And somehow I feel like making it fulfills the Italian side of me (my Dad's side) that wants to make big Sunday dinners and encourage people to make babies.
Last weekend, I watched her make a delicious-looking recipe. Now, normally, I just go grab the recipe details from her website. But for some reason, this recipe isn't there. Horrors!
So, I'm going to try to recreate (no pun intended) it without a recipe. I haven't done it yet, but when I do, I'll be sure to write. Let me give you an ingredient list.
Fresh, homemade pasta
Pancetta
Cannellini beans
Tomato paste
Olive Oil
Parmesan cheese
Celery
Nothing with such simple and wonderful ingredients could taste bad. I think.
If you've been a reader of mine for any length of time, you know I shy away from celery. This is because I find the texture of raw celery incredibly offensive. Because I'm crazy. However, this celery is diced very finely and cooked. So I'm hoping it will be like when I put celery into a gumbo - where it cooks to a point that you can't even tell it's there, texture-wise.
Results to follow. Wish me luck.
And as is becoming my normal sign off, please vote for my brother's essay about cooking well on Anthony Bourdain's website.
Monday, July 26, 2010
a 60th birthday dinner - pork chops, mac 'n' cheese, sauteed spinach, blackberry cobbler
I went out to California last week to celebrate my step-mom's 60th birthday. As part of said celebration, my brothers and I put our collective culinary brains together and made a delicious meal for her. We decided to do a take on Southern food - some real rib-sticking dishes with a bit of a continental flair.
My older brother, J, put himself in charge of marinating and making a sauce for some thick cut pork chops (he also completely forgot that we have five people in our family, and only bought four chops). Isn't it just like an older brother to put himself in charge of things? Maybe it's just like my older brother. Perhaps yours is the epitome of egalitarianism.
My younger brother, D, was relegated to being sous-chef. As you know from his guest posts, however, he is as skilled as I in the kitchen. Wow, doesn't that sound pompous? I just mean his food is yummy. He did eventually take over the actual cooking of the pork, however, as J flubbed up his sauce the first time round and needed an extra set of hands. Knowing how difficult it is to perfectly cook pork, and having absolutely no skill with a barbecue (seriously, I can't even light mine), I was very impressed by his results.
With the pork, J made sauteed spinach with garlic, and I made butternut-squash macaroni and cheese. So the menu was pork chops, mac 'n' cheese, and greens - southern enough, no?
For dessert, I put together a blackberry cobbler, which we served with vanilla ice cream and a blackberry-rum sauce. So delicious.
As I wasn't really involved in the pork-making, I can only say that J marinated the pork for about 4 hours. His marinade involved olive oil, molasses, soy sauce, shallots, garlic, and salt and pepper. He cooks sort of like I do, which was evidenced as he made the marinade. He put the pork in a large zip-top bag and wandered from the pantry to the fridge, bag in hand, pouring in little bits of this and that. Then he stuck it in the fridge.
He made a sauce for the pork which consisted of stone-ground mustard, honey, olive oil, sauteed shallots and garlic, and lemon juice. As a said above, he did it twice, as he felt the first go-round was too mustardy. That's the thing about this kind of cooking, you just keep tasting as you go along until you find something you like.
The spinach (two bags) was sauteed gently with garlic and shallots that had been softened in olive oil and butter. We love us some shallots.
On to my dishes! As has been my wont lately, they were not my recipes.
I made the cobbler ahead of time, meaning I put it all together in the morning, and popped it in the fridge until about two hours before we wanted to serve it. I got the recipe, once again, from The Pioneer Woman. You can find it here.
The only changes I made to the recipe are that I used about double the amount of lemon juice and lemon zest than is indicated in the recipe. Also, I used brown sugar for sprinkling over the top of the cobbler. I did this because J loves brown sugar. I mean, loves it. When he was deployed with the military for 8 months, I sent him 4 dozens cookies every week, none of them containing a speck of white sugar, as per his request.
Anyway, having never made this recipe before, nor having ever made a cobbler before, I was unsure about how many pints of blackberries would make up the six cups needed for the recipe (yes, you'd think it would be 3 pints to make six cups, but you would be wrong - luckily we erred in the other direction, buying 6 pints), and was unaware of just how much juice the blackberries would produce in the bottom of the cobbler pan. So, armed with about 2 cups too many blackberries and fearing that the cobbler would be dry, I made a sauce. Finally, something I can actually give you a recipe for!
Blackberry Sauce
Ingredients
2 cups fresh blackberries
1 tbs. water
2 tbs. sugar
1 tsp lemon zest
2 pinches cinnamon
2 oz rum
Put the blackberries and water into a saucepan. Turn on the heat to medium-high. Use a wooden spoon to crush the blackberries a little. Sprinkle in the sugar. Let it cook until the blackberries have let out their juices. Add the lemon, cinnamon, and one ounce of rum (dark rum is best). Stir it gently, then allow to boil until it reduces by about half. Take off the heat and allow to cool.
At this point, run the syrup through a sieve to remove the blackberry seeds. I didn't want the texture of the seeds messing with the texture of the cobbler - but if I was serving this sauce over something simpler (like just ice cream), I'd consider leaving the seeds in.
Right before you're ready to serve, put the extra ounce of rum into the sauce and either nuke it in the microwave for about 1.5 minutes (that's what I did, as I'd had it in the fridge all afternoon), or just reheat it in the saucepan. Pour over cobbler and enjoy the blackberry blissfulness.
On to the Macaroni and Cheese!!
Again, I used someone else's recipe. This one, from The Tasty Kitchen. Here's the recipe for it. I wanted to make it a little more sophisticated, so I used Cellentani. It's like elbow macaroni for grown ups.
As usual, I fooled with this recipe too. But not by much! I used all of the pulp from a roasted butternut squash. I wanted to kick up the squash flavor and the health aspect, since macaroni and cheese is so delightfully bad for us. You'll see the recipe says to use a food processor or blender to mash up the squash - trust me, you don't need to go to such great lengths. I cooked my squash for a little longer than recommended (just over an hour), covered tightly with aluminum foil. The squash becomes so very soft that you can actually mash it up with a whisk - so don't bother with the food processor! Who wants to clean it anyway?
So, I had about 1.5 cups of mashed squash (as opposed to the .5 cup in the recipe). I recommend just buying the smallest squash you can find, and using all of it. I also used more Monterey Jack cheese than recommended, increasing that to about 3 cups. What can I say? I love cheese.
When I make this recipe again, I will likely change up the cheese a bit. Something in me feels that a blue cheese or a havarti would be delicious. Should it be so, I will let y'all know.
Bonus: my father, who is not especially fond of squash, loved this macaroni and cheese. This indicates to me that it is a perfect way to hide vegetables for picky children. The squash provides that great orange color that the "blue box" macaroni and cheese has, while also adding all the health benefits of squash. Awesome!
I hope this post wasn't too rambly for y'all. Have a great week.
Oh, oh, PS: vote for D's essay! This bleg with continue for months, folks.
My older brother, J, put himself in charge of marinating and making a sauce for some thick cut pork chops (he also completely forgot that we have five people in our family, and only bought four chops). Isn't it just like an older brother to put himself in charge of things? Maybe it's just like my older brother. Perhaps yours is the epitome of egalitarianism.
My younger brother, D, was relegated to being sous-chef. As you know from his guest posts, however, he is as skilled as I in the kitchen. Wow, doesn't that sound pompous? I just mean his food is yummy. He did eventually take over the actual cooking of the pork, however, as J flubbed up his sauce the first time round and needed an extra set of hands. Knowing how difficult it is to perfectly cook pork, and having absolutely no skill with a barbecue (seriously, I can't even light mine), I was very impressed by his results.
With the pork, J made sauteed spinach with garlic, and I made butternut-squash macaroni and cheese. So the menu was pork chops, mac 'n' cheese, and greens - southern enough, no?
For dessert, I put together a blackberry cobbler, which we served with vanilla ice cream and a blackberry-rum sauce. So delicious.
As I wasn't really involved in the pork-making, I can only say that J marinated the pork for about 4 hours. His marinade involved olive oil, molasses, soy sauce, shallots, garlic, and salt and pepper. He cooks sort of like I do, which was evidenced as he made the marinade. He put the pork in a large zip-top bag and wandered from the pantry to the fridge, bag in hand, pouring in little bits of this and that. Then he stuck it in the fridge.
He made a sauce for the pork which consisted of stone-ground mustard, honey, olive oil, sauteed shallots and garlic, and lemon juice. As a said above, he did it twice, as he felt the first go-round was too mustardy. That's the thing about this kind of cooking, you just keep tasting as you go along until you find something you like.
The spinach (two bags) was sauteed gently with garlic and shallots that had been softened in olive oil and butter. We love us some shallots.
On to my dishes! As has been my wont lately, they were not my recipes.
I made the cobbler ahead of time, meaning I put it all together in the morning, and popped it in the fridge until about two hours before we wanted to serve it. I got the recipe, once again, from The Pioneer Woman. You can find it here.
The only changes I made to the recipe are that I used about double the amount of lemon juice and lemon zest than is indicated in the recipe. Also, I used brown sugar for sprinkling over the top of the cobbler. I did this because J loves brown sugar. I mean, loves it. When he was deployed with the military for 8 months, I sent him 4 dozens cookies every week, none of them containing a speck of white sugar, as per his request.
Anyway, having never made this recipe before, nor having ever made a cobbler before, I was unsure about how many pints of blackberries would make up the six cups needed for the recipe (yes, you'd think it would be 3 pints to make six cups, but you would be wrong - luckily we erred in the other direction, buying 6 pints), and was unaware of just how much juice the blackberries would produce in the bottom of the cobbler pan. So, armed with about 2 cups too many blackberries and fearing that the cobbler would be dry, I made a sauce. Finally, something I can actually give you a recipe for!
Blackberry Sauce
Ingredients
2 cups fresh blackberries
1 tbs. water
2 tbs. sugar
1 tsp lemon zest
2 pinches cinnamon
2 oz rum
Put the blackberries and water into a saucepan. Turn on the heat to medium-high. Use a wooden spoon to crush the blackberries a little. Sprinkle in the sugar. Let it cook until the blackberries have let out their juices. Add the lemon, cinnamon, and one ounce of rum (dark rum is best). Stir it gently, then allow to boil until it reduces by about half. Take off the heat and allow to cool.
At this point, run the syrup through a sieve to remove the blackberry seeds. I didn't want the texture of the seeds messing with the texture of the cobbler - but if I was serving this sauce over something simpler (like just ice cream), I'd consider leaving the seeds in.
Right before you're ready to serve, put the extra ounce of rum into the sauce and either nuke it in the microwave for about 1.5 minutes (that's what I did, as I'd had it in the fridge all afternoon), or just reheat it in the saucepan. Pour over cobbler and enjoy the blackberry blissfulness.
On to the Macaroni and Cheese!!
Again, I used someone else's recipe. This one, from The Tasty Kitchen. Here's the recipe for it. I wanted to make it a little more sophisticated, so I used Cellentani. It's like elbow macaroni for grown ups.
As usual, I fooled with this recipe too. But not by much! I used all of the pulp from a roasted butternut squash. I wanted to kick up the squash flavor and the health aspect, since macaroni and cheese is so delightfully bad for us. You'll see the recipe says to use a food processor or blender to mash up the squash - trust me, you don't need to go to such great lengths. I cooked my squash for a little longer than recommended (just over an hour), covered tightly with aluminum foil. The squash becomes so very soft that you can actually mash it up with a whisk - so don't bother with the food processor! Who wants to clean it anyway?
So, I had about 1.5 cups of mashed squash (as opposed to the .5 cup in the recipe). I recommend just buying the smallest squash you can find, and using all of it. I also used more Monterey Jack cheese than recommended, increasing that to about 3 cups. What can I say? I love cheese.
When I make this recipe again, I will likely change up the cheese a bit. Something in me feels that a blue cheese or a havarti would be delicious. Should it be so, I will let y'all know.
Bonus: my father, who is not especially fond of squash, loved this macaroni and cheese. This indicates to me that it is a perfect way to hide vegetables for picky children. The squash provides that great orange color that the "blue box" macaroni and cheese has, while also adding all the health benefits of squash. Awesome!
I hope this post wasn't too rambly for y'all. Have a great week.
Oh, oh, PS: vote for D's essay! This bleg with continue for months, folks.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
pizza pizza
I know, I know, I've been away. And no one reads a blog that doesn't have new content. I'm sorry.
Part of the reason I haven't posted is that I really haven't been making much of anything original. I mostly have been tweaking other people's recipes. What I'm giving you here is one of these tweakings. Is tweakings even a word? No matter.
I am an avid reader of the thepioneerwoman.com. This is partly because her recipes are simple, delicious and full of step-by-step photos, and partly because I find her quirky and often hilarious. Point being, I used her pizza dough recipe (tweaked!) when making my pizza.
Anyway, here's a link to a pizza recipe on her site. It includes a whole pizza, soup to nuts. But you can make the dough and put whatever you want on top. I made the dough a little differently though - first, I substituted half of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour. I figured I'd try to make the pizza as healthy as possible (right before I smothered it in cheese). Also, I probably ended up baking the pizzas for closer to 15 to 18 minutes. This is possibly because of the wheat flour change - I don't know, I'm not a scientist.
Finally, we get to the recipe (and really, can you even call it a recipe??).
Ingredients
Pizza dough by the Pioneer Woman
Sauce
2 tsp. olive oil
1 can of whole roma tomatoes
1 small can of tomato paste
1 tablespoon of honey
a chiffonade of 4 or 5 basil leaves
Toppings
1 can of artichoke hearts (not the marinated kind, although I'm sure that would be delicious), drained and sliced
20 or so greek olives, pitted and diced
1 or 2 cooked chicken breasts, sliced into thin bite-sized pieces
About 3 cups (I know, I know) of good cheese - I used half mozzarella and half Peccorino Romano, shredded
Follow the PWs instructions for the pizza crust. And while it's rising, you can make the sauce and get your toppings together.
I find that I like pizza sauce that's really thick and super-concentrated. I want it to taste like I bit into a cooked tomato. Also, I don't like tomato seeds in my pizza sauce. So to get them out, simply take each whole tomato out of the can and squeeze it like a stress ball over a large bowl. I suggest poking a whole in it first and wearing an apron - they squirt when you squeeze.
Put each squeezed tomato into a pot in which you've already got the gently heated olive oil (medium heat should do). Then, pour the juice from the can and from the squeezed tomatoes through a sieve into your pot. Finally, use a potato masher to pulverize the tomatoes.
Add about 2 tablespoons of the tomato paste. You may need to add more, depending on how thick you like your sauce. Now just let it concentrate itself, but give it a few stirs here and there. It'll cook down quite a bit. When it's nice and thick, add the honey and the basil. You can season it with salt and pepper, if you want. But I didn't because there's quite a bit of salt in the rest of the ingredients. Now, the honey is important. With all that tomato in there, you've got a lot of acid. The honey really has a job to do here, beyond creating a sweet(ish) sauce. It cuts that acid quite a bit.
The rest is easy - get your pizza dough pressed into a cookie sheet or pizza pan. Get your oven super-hot. Spread about a half-cup to three-quarters of a cup of the sauce on the dough. Sprinkle the cheese on liberally. Sprinkle the rest of your toppings on, liberally. Bake. Enjoy.
PW's recipe makes enough dough for two pizzas. Make yourself an old standby - pepperoni or plain cheese is always a crowd-pleaser.
It's good to be back.
One more thing, please do vote for my brother's essay on Anthony Bourdain's website (see Tuesday's post). Thanks so much!
Part of the reason I haven't posted is that I really haven't been making much of anything original. I mostly have been tweaking other people's recipes. What I'm giving you here is one of these tweakings. Is tweakings even a word? No matter.
I am an avid reader of the thepioneerwoman.com. This is partly because her recipes are simple, delicious and full of step-by-step photos, and partly because I find her quirky and often hilarious. Point being, I used her pizza dough recipe (tweaked!) when making my pizza.
Anyway, here's a link to a pizza recipe on her site. It includes a whole pizza, soup to nuts. But you can make the dough and put whatever you want on top. I made the dough a little differently though - first, I substituted half of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour. I figured I'd try to make the pizza as healthy as possible (right before I smothered it in cheese). Also, I probably ended up baking the pizzas for closer to 15 to 18 minutes. This is possibly because of the wheat flour change - I don't know, I'm not a scientist.
Finally, we get to the recipe (and really, can you even call it a recipe??).
Ingredients
Pizza dough by the Pioneer Woman
Sauce
2 tsp. olive oil
1 can of whole roma tomatoes
1 small can of tomato paste
1 tablespoon of honey
a chiffonade of 4 or 5 basil leaves
Toppings
1 can of artichoke hearts (not the marinated kind, although I'm sure that would be delicious), drained and sliced
20 or so greek olives, pitted and diced
1 or 2 cooked chicken breasts, sliced into thin bite-sized pieces
About 3 cups (I know, I know) of good cheese - I used half mozzarella and half Peccorino Romano, shredded
Follow the PWs instructions for the pizza crust. And while it's rising, you can make the sauce and get your toppings together.
I find that I like pizza sauce that's really thick and super-concentrated. I want it to taste like I bit into a cooked tomato. Also, I don't like tomato seeds in my pizza sauce. So to get them out, simply take each whole tomato out of the can and squeeze it like a stress ball over a large bowl. I suggest poking a whole in it first and wearing an apron - they squirt when you squeeze.
Put each squeezed tomato into a pot in which you've already got the gently heated olive oil (medium heat should do). Then, pour the juice from the can and from the squeezed tomatoes through a sieve into your pot. Finally, use a potato masher to pulverize the tomatoes.
Add about 2 tablespoons of the tomato paste. You may need to add more, depending on how thick you like your sauce. Now just let it concentrate itself, but give it a few stirs here and there. It'll cook down quite a bit. When it's nice and thick, add the honey and the basil. You can season it with salt and pepper, if you want. But I didn't because there's quite a bit of salt in the rest of the ingredients. Now, the honey is important. With all that tomato in there, you've got a lot of acid. The honey really has a job to do here, beyond creating a sweet(ish) sauce. It cuts that acid quite a bit.
The rest is easy - get your pizza dough pressed into a cookie sheet or pizza pan. Get your oven super-hot. Spread about a half-cup to three-quarters of a cup of the sauce on the dough. Sprinkle the cheese on liberally. Sprinkle the rest of your toppings on, liberally. Bake. Enjoy.
PW's recipe makes enough dough for two pizzas. Make yourself an old standby - pepperoni or plain cheese is always a crowd-pleaser.
It's good to be back.
One more thing, please do vote for my brother's essay on Anthony Bourdain's website (see Tuesday's post). Thanks so much!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Guest Post - Sausage Sandwich
During the few months’ hiatus where she travelled the world in search of bigger and better recipes to share with you it seems Catherine-Anne was pinned under a large rock whilst sampling roast grubs in the Himalayas. It has fallen to me, her loyal and not-at-all-money-grubbing brother to keep PFE alive until she gets back from the shaman’s hut with her newly grown arm.
Today’s recipe is classic summer man-food. Sausage and onion sandwiches with provolone cheese (roast beef optional but recommended).
Ingredients
2 Italian Pork Sausages per sandwich
1 crusty but soft Italian or French roll for each sandwich, sliced lengthwise but leave a hinge on one side
1 - 2 large sweet onions (a brown one will do if you can't find sweet), sliced
2 slices provolone per sandwich
Beer, a Bud Bomber to cook with and a 6-pack of something with flavor for drinking
1lb of thin sliced roast beef
1 Tbsp Olive or Peanut Oil
1 Pat (tbsp) of butter
Open the Bomber and pour it into a standard size medium pot.
Open a good beer and pour it into a standard size human mouth.
Bring the beer to a boil and place the sausages in there, add water to cover or more beer if you have another Bomber handy. Cook for 10 minutes, set aside when done.
Drink more beer.
In a pan heat the oil and the butter until it sizzles, throw in the onion and toss it in the fat mixture. Cook on medium low heat, stirring often, until the onions start to soften and brown.
Drink more beer.
Pour a bit of beer into the pan to appease the kitchen gods.
Cut the now boiled sausages in half lengthwise, move the onions to the outer edge of the pan or take them out completely and place the sausage halves flat side down in the pan. Cook over high heat for a minute or so to get them a bit textured on the outside.
Drink.
Lay the sausages on the bread. I find that three halves lay best but...who wants to eat an odd number of sausage pieces? Put the fourth one on.
Place the cooked onions on top of the sausage.
Take a drink.
Top the onions with cheese.
Close the sandwich and wait 45 seconds to let the heat do its thing to the cheese.
Devour with more beer.
Here’s the optional part with the roast beef:
Heat up the roast beef with the sausages in the pan, place the beef on top of the cheese slices. Consume as above.
You’re welcome. Enjoy your summer. I’ll be back with more soon. In the meantime, vote for my essay on Anthony Bourdain's website where I answer the question, "what does it mean to cook food well?"
Today’s recipe is classic summer man-food. Sausage and onion sandwiches with provolone cheese (roast beef optional but recommended).
Ingredients
2 Italian Pork Sausages per sandwich
1 crusty but soft Italian or French roll for each sandwich, sliced lengthwise but leave a hinge on one side
1 - 2 large sweet onions (a brown one will do if you can't find sweet), sliced
2 slices provolone per sandwich
Beer, a Bud Bomber to cook with and a 6-pack of something with flavor for drinking
1lb of thin sliced roast beef
1 Tbsp Olive or Peanut Oil
1 Pat (tbsp) of butter
Open the Bomber and pour it into a standard size medium pot.
Open a good beer and pour it into a standard size human mouth.
Bring the beer to a boil and place the sausages in there, add water to cover or more beer if you have another Bomber handy. Cook for 10 minutes, set aside when done.
Drink more beer.
In a pan heat the oil and the butter until it sizzles, throw in the onion and toss it in the fat mixture. Cook on medium low heat, stirring often, until the onions start to soften and brown.
Drink more beer.
Pour a bit of beer into the pan to appease the kitchen gods.
Cut the now boiled sausages in half lengthwise, move the onions to the outer edge of the pan or take them out completely and place the sausage halves flat side down in the pan. Cook over high heat for a minute or so to get them a bit textured on the outside.
Drink.
Lay the sausages on the bread. I find that three halves lay best but...who wants to eat an odd number of sausage pieces? Put the fourth one on.
Place the cooked onions on top of the sausage.
Take a drink.
Top the onions with cheese.
Close the sandwich and wait 45 seconds to let the heat do its thing to the cheese.
Devour with more beer.
Here’s the optional part with the roast beef:
Heat up the roast beef with the sausages in the pan, place the beef on top of the cheese slices. Consume as above.
You’re welcome. Enjoy your summer. I’ll be back with more soon. In the meantime, vote for my essay on Anthony Bourdain's website where I answer the question, "what does it mean to cook food well?"
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