Tag Archives: lunch

Only Tuesday – again

days on end, in the kitchen, Wee Bairn Leave a comment

I found a stick of butter I didn’t know I had hiding in the very back of the freezer, and as I held its frozen self in my hand I realized that everything was going to be ok. It wasn’t the end of the world after all – it was only Tuesday. I laughed a little to myself, then burst into tears and when I was done crying I couldn’t remember what I needed the butter for in the first place.

Welcome to cooking with a woman entering her 30th hormonal week of pregnancy. I am growing and slowing and laughing and crying all at the same time. It is taking me longer to get up our stairs and I am completely winded when I finally reach the top. My appetite is enormous and while the rest of the world seems to be enjoying their spring greens, I am plotting how to inconspicuously add potatoes to the menu.

Comfort food – that’s what I want. I imagine it must sound insane to those of you not in the throws of prenatal life, but I just want pasta for dinner. Pasta and sausage – preferably with a side of potatoes and bread and butter, please. I would drink heavy cream if I thought for one minute that I could get away with it and pour gravy on my oatmeal. Maybe it’s because I spent the first few months not being able to stomach anything but grapefruit slices and sour candy. Who knows!  The problem to be solved is how to cook hearty, but healthy. How to mix Spring green with my cravings for Winter heaviness, in short – how to eat potatoes more often and yet not gain several hundred pounds in the process.

I think I may have found at least one solution, one of my family’s favorite meals that we lovingly called “Poverty Dinner”. There really is nothing ‘poor’ about it other than being inexpensive and easy to make. It’s a tasty, filling sort of one dish meal that worked perfectly with the first greens that braved the uncertain glory of Spring.

 

Poverty Dinner

4 potatoes, washed and cubed

1/2 lb lean ground beef

1/2 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

several good handfuls of washed greens; spinach, baby kale, swiss chard, etc.

2-3 Tablespoons of oil or butter for cooking

salt and pepper

 

Potatoes and ground beef, comfort food at its finest, mixed with vitamin-packed greens fresh from the garden or market, making a simple meal that can be cooked up after a day in an office or in the field.

I like to use my big cast iron skillet for this. Heat the frying pan over medium heat and then add the oil and the potatoes then cover. Let the potatoes cook for a little while before adding the garlic and onions so that they don’t get too overdone by the time the potatoes are tender. Once the potatoes are feeling a little giving, break up the ground beef into the pan and stir well. Keep an eye on it to make sure that the ground beef gets cooked thoroughly. Another way to do this, although it changes the ‘one-dish’ nature of the meal, is to let the potatoes cook all the way and then remove them to cook the beef. Either way, you may need to add a little bit of water to the pan to keep the beef moist while it’s frying. If you’ve kept everything together, return the cover and let the potatoes finish cooking. Otherwise, return everything to the pan and reheat.

Now – here’s the super healthy part you’ve been so patiently waiting for. Once your potatoes, onions and beef are completely cooked, heap the greens on top. There will be a little bit of water clinging to them from washing which will help steam them. Cover and reduce the heat to low. In a few minutes the greens will have wilted and steamed and completed your meal. Season with salt and pepper as you desire and you’re ready to go!

Enjoy!

Cooking with Quinoa

in the kitchen, Will Cook For Food Leave a comment

There has been a lot of talk about Quinoa. It first appeared as a food that would put those who ate it in the “Health Nut” camp but has recently become more of a mainstream curiosity.

Quinoa (pronounced ‘Keen-wah’) is a funny little food – at first glance people are tempted to call it a “grain” when indeed it is a “seed”. A very small seed and prominent member of the Goosefoot species of plants. I’m sure most of you have fought valiant battles against quinoa relatives who love to pop up in the fertile soil of your garden year after year. Back home we called them ‘ironweeds’ or ‘pigweeds’ or even ‘lambs’ quarters’ and when young they actually make a tasty and nutritious substitute for spinach at the dinner table – but that’s beside the point.

Quinoa is an ancient food from Peru and surrounding areas. The Incas considered it to be a sacred crop which caused their new Spanish neighbors to hold quinoa in distain. It was even outlawed for a time and the natives were forced to grow the more European wheat. What the Spanish didn’t know and what we are now finding out is that the Incas had good reason to hold their quinoa dear. Though it be tiny and a relative of plaguing weeds, quinoa has an impressive resume. Full of fiber, magnesium, iron, calcium, as well as being a complete protein in its own right, quinoa is gluten free and easy to digest. It’s also a smart plant, having a built-in defense system which causes it to be distasteful and even gastrically upsetting when eaten before the outer coating has been removed. The crop is easier to protect from critters that would sneak in and steal it before harvest. Most quinoa sold in the grocery stores has already been processed to remove the coating so when you purchase it (which I sincerely hope you do!!) it’s ready to be cooked and enjoyed.

How do we enjoy it, you ask? I have read that it can be considered ‘an acceptable substitute for rice’, but other than giving you a good idea of the broad range uses, I don’t think it does quinoa justice. I have found it to be so much more than ‘acceptable’ and so much more than a ‘substitute’!

My mom taught me to cook quinoa with a basic ratio of two parts liquid to one part quinoa and I have never had that fail me. Adding one cup of quinoa to two cups of slightly salted boiling water or stock, letting it cook until the water has boiled down to the level of the quinoa (8-10 minutes) and then putting the heat to low and covering it to ‘steam’ for 10 or so minutes more will give you a delightful, 2 cups (roughly) of cooked quinoa to serve plain as a side dish or to use in another recipe. The portions I just described will serve about 4 people.

Cooked quinoa is tender but still has a nice texture to it. It isn’t lumpy or soupy or mushy but can be ‘fluffed’ with a fork and the seeds will be separate. Another way you can tell is that the slim white ‘tail’ on each seed becomes loose, giving them an artsy look, as if they are wearing hats adorned with long feathers.

Once you have the basic recipe down and are ready to have some fun with it, there is certainly fun to be had! My latest quinoa craving has been satisfied by adding sautéed onions and chopped raw kale to the quinoa as it is cooking. So easy, so healthy, so very delicious. Another favorite method in my house is to start out by sautéing fat slices of sweet leeks in a bit of olive oil before adding chicken stock and then the quinoa. Oh. My. Word.

Add quinoa to soups instead of noodles or rice, use plain cooked quinoa in casseroles and and quiches. You can even cool it and sprinkle the seeds on salads. Your possibilities boarder on being endless and you will certainly not be doing any harm to incorporate this amazing food into your diet!  So go forth and enjoy…

 

Not Your Mother’s Tuna Salad

in the kitchen, where the wind lives, Will Cook For Food Leave a comment

 

I don’t make tuna salad like anyone else I have ever known, not even my own mother. I don’t remember having tuna salad sandwiches much growing up, probably because my small herd of younger brothers considered it to be a ‘Girl Food’ and disliked tuna in general unless it was thoroughly hidden in a thick casserole of egg noodles, creamy white sauce and cheese.

I moved from my family’s home to my husband’s without a lot of thought thrown towards cold salad sandwiches, I was more intent on trying to impress my dearly beloved with good roasts and fluffy pancakes. One day, early on in the marriage, he requested tuna salad for dinner. Thinking back on it now, I do believe it was the first food he asked for as a married man and I remember my wifely heart sinking a little.

“Tuna salad – really?” I didn’t even remember how to make a tuna salad.

“Oh yeah, tuna salad. With pickles and artichokes…” My husband licked his lips and wandered out of the kitchen, leaving me in dumb bewilderment. Pickles and artichokes? In a tuna salad? But how? What’s an artichoke?

Let me remind my dear reader that this was slightly before the Great Revelation that he didn’t really care for Butter – something which he very neatly announced at dinner one evening and nearly made me choke on my own life’s breath – so I wasn’t yet *fully* acquainted with my new husband’s eating preferences. There’s so much adjusting that goes on in those first few months, it’s a little dizzying and love truly makes the dance worth while.

I got out my mixing bowls, some cans of tuna and anything else in the cupboard I thought seemed appropriate. In the very back I found a can of quartered artichoke hearts, and hidden in the far reaches of the refrigerator I found a half-eaten jar of pickles, some mayo and then I had at it.

Fifteen nerve-wracking minutes later (give or take a few) and I was serving Alex the strangest tuna salad that ever was seen on this or any other planet and let me tell you what – it was awesome. I’ve been making tuna salad a’la Alex for over a year now, almost monthly as it is one of his most favorite things to eat, and we’ve tweaked the recipe into a true Gaylor Family Heirloom.  Are you brave enough to try it?

 

Tuna Salad with Pickles and Artichokes

2 cans of white tuna (packed in water) – drained

2 spears kosher dill pickles, chopped into small pieces

1/4 cup finely diced onion

4-5 quarters of canned artichoke hearts, chopped

1/2- 2/3 cup mayonnaise  (make sure to use the real stuff – no Miracle Whip!)

1 teaspoon lemon pepper seasoning  (generic, salt-less blend available at the grocery store)

*anything else*

This includes (but is surely not limited to):

Chopped tomato, diced celery, chopped sweet pepper, chopped olives or avocado chunks. Instead of the seasoning, you could use a tablespoon or more of your favorite salad dressing – Italian, Caesar, French, Balsamic… the sky’s the limit. We’ve tried about every combination of additions and find it hard to make something that isn’t tasty.

Dump ALL of your ingredients into a bowl and mix them together well. I usually add the mayonnaise last because depending on what else we’ve tossed in I might need a little more or less. We are not ones to like our tuna salad on the sloppy side, so I tend to go light on the mayo, but that’s just us.

There are about as many methods of consuming this food as there are of preparing it. We like to eat it late at night, squeezing too much between two slices of homemade bread – what a mess! Or we eat it on top of a green salad, or stuffed in a hollowed-out tomato, or scoop generous bites of it up with crackers while watching movies. It’s an easy, satisfying sort of meal that I would never have truly appreciated had it not been for my husband’s rather odd request. So there you go!  I suppose there isn’t anything “too strange” to try, at least in the kitchen…

 

Tomato Pie

in the kitchen, Will Cook For Food 5 Comments

Actually, it’s more of a *tart*, but I have a deep-seated fear of alliterations so Tomato Pie it is.

a tart by any other name would be delicious

Our tomato plants have showered us with a delightful crop of little baby tomatoes. They aren’t midget tomatoes of the cherry variety, they are just very small, terribly adorable, perfectly proportioned infantile tomatoes. I’m not sure if they are supposed to be this minute, or if it is a freak of nature (I’ve been watching a lot of Doctor Who lately and everything is subject to being eyed as the precursor to an alien invasion) but we’re happy to have them!

Time to make tomato pie. I know, I go from describing them in all their cuteness to, “let’s eat it!” in about five seconds flat. What can I say – you have to strike while the iron’s hot.

My family has been making this dish, or versions of this dish for years and it never ceases to charm and amaze. Halfway between a gourmet pizza and a tomato tart rustique – this pie is the farm wife’s gateway to simple elegance and hunger-defeating practicality.

 

Tomato Pie

*makes 2 single crust pies

for the crust:

2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup chilled butter, shortening or lard

7-8 Tablespoons ice water

 

for the filling:

4-5 medium sized tomatoes or 7-8 baby ones sliced

1 teaspoon olive oil

fresh basil, oregano, parsley chopped finely

cheese of your choice to top – I like mozzarella or cheddar

Oven preheated to 375 degrees

 

Firstly, let us make the crust. I am not a pastry expert, far from it in fact, but I can get by if need be. This is a very simple crust recipe, courtesy of my Joy of Cooking cookbook, and I find that as long as I don’t treat it like bread dough and knead the daylights out of it, it turns out just fine.

Sift together the salt and flour into a bowl then chop up whatever fat you are using and add it to the flour mix. If you have a pastry blender, now is the time to use it. Cut in the fat until the flour resembles damp sand. If you don’t have a pastry blender, or are one of these rustic people who like to do everything by hand, go ahead and use your fingers to do the job. I am one of those rustics and love to use my finger tips to spread the fat through the flour – makes me feel a little bit like Julia Child.

So – the fat is cut in, well done. Now, sprinkle the ice water over the flour and gently mix it in. If you need a little bit more water, that’s ok – but only add it by the teaspoon – you don’t want this dough to get soppy. Once the dough forms a ball that sticks together, Stop Mixing. Don’t over mix the crust, it gets tough at the drop of a hat. It’s not like a little chewiness is going to kill anybody, but we’re going for flaky. Split the dough in half and then roll each half out into a circular shape, about 9 inches in diameter. If you need to lightly flour the surface, that’s fine. Don’t over work it, try to roll it out as simply as you can. Mine stayed together pretty well without a lot of extra flour. Once the dough has been rolled out, lay it in a lightly greased pie plate. I’m not real picky about getting it up over the edges, since it’s really a tart and all, I just smoosh it into place to make a shell of sorts.


Now for the topping. This is the easy part! Brush the bottom of the crusts with some of the olive oil and then lay down your sliced tomatoes in one or two layers. Then sprinkle the herbs over the tomatoes, then sprinkle the cheese. How hard was that? Once the crust is done it’s just a lot of sprinkling. Drizzle any remaining oil over the top and then put those pies in the oven.

 

They should bake about 15-20 minutes, or until the crust has browned around the edges and the cheese has melted. Remove from the oven and serve.

Delicious!

 

 

 

 

company’s comin’ Potato Salad

in the kitchen 4 Comments

Our short little table was adorned with a patchwork of vintage linens and a clearance April Cornell table cloth. Spare chairs were summoned from the far corners of our fair home and the entire dining/living room had been rearranged in a an attempt to make room for company.

Our guest list had only two names on it, but that is reason enough for a little bit of grandeur here on Park Street, and I worried about the table legs which always seem to be in the way of ours. We did our best to cool the place down for the evening and I sweated away in our room-sized oven of a kitchen, cooking away.

I love entertaining – I always stress and fuss way too much and practically drive myself and the surrounding husband crazy in my effort to have everything ‘just so’. Under it all, however, is this deliciously deep satisfaction at having people come to our home and enjoy themselves.  It isn’t grand, it isn’t showy and the table legs definitely get in the way, but it’s ours and we love it, and I love to welcome people into it and give them good food.

The menu was braised chicken breast sandwiches with tomato, mayo and garden-fresh lettuce, a huge fruit salad (served in a carved-out watermelon because we *ARE* that stinking cute) and a potato salad, with ice cream for dessert.

This potato salad is one that I loosely translated from my husband’s dear grandma’s salad. While we were in Maine visiting YiaYia and Papoo, she served us a potato salad that I ate an embarrassingly large amount of. It was incredible and when I asked her how she made it, she shrugged and said, “A little of this and a little of that!” She did go into the details that I was craving and I tried my best to remember it. Ever since then I have been itching at the chance to make one and try my hand at it.

They say never to make something for the first time for company, but really, what do ‘they’ know?  Never having been one for listening to the random voices of the universe, I dived in and made my first potato salad as a married woman, YiaYia’s spoken recipe in the back of my head leading me onward – - -


Potato Salad

4 red potatoes, boiled

5 green onions, diced

1/2 sweet red pepper, diced

2 tablespoons fresh chopped dill

1 tablespoon fresh chopped mint

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1/2 cup mayo

salt and pepper to taste

The simplicity of this salad is its perfection. As I said before, this is not her exact recipe, but I’d never heard of using mint in a potato salad and it was awesome.  Also, she used red potatoes, which keep their shape well and have an excellent texture. I liked the waxiness of them. The bit of vinegar (her suggestion) cuts the mayo and brightens the salad.

YUM.

The potatoes got chopped into small bite-sized pieces and then mixed with the rest of the ingredients. I made it ahead of time to let the flavors meld together and I think next time I will make it even further ahead, like over night.

My-oh-my was it good!

We had a delightful evening with our guests, everything went swimmingly – everyone enjoyed their meal and didn’t knock their knees too badly. I’d say it was a success!

use the cheese- change the world

in the kitchen, Will Cook For Food Leave a comment

I hate it when people say, “Oh, we’re just eating at home…” as if that were something to apologize for. I believe that the most important meals are prepared and eaten in one’s own home. When you thoughtfully create food for those you love, you are adding something to the world around you and  giving it the fuel it needs to be a better place. I think every home chef holds to the belief that a good meal could change the world. Choosing local ingredients, getting fresh food from neighboring farms, slowing down and actually cooking your own meals for your family – these are all things that decide the way we eat and therefore, how we live.

It is important to give yourself good ingredients to work with, but then you have to enlist your senses to help you create meals that truly please you to eat them. What kinds of foods do you *honestly* like? What scents tempt you? What textures are able to involve you in a meal rather than just give you something to put in your belly? WHat flavors entice you? These are all things to be thought of when you get out your frying pan and mixing bowl. You have to be thoughtful, a little fearless, a little daring and make good food happen.
Something that I hear all too often is, “Oh, I don’t like such and such.” Even I have my list (short though it is) of things I’ve convinced myself I don’t like. Instead of making such final judgments, maybe we should be more open, work on it a bit more, try a new approach. Turn the food upside down and look at it like that for a little while.
This week I decided to do just that with a food that I, as well as many people I’ve known have said they didn’t like – Goat cheese. I love goats – I admire the fact that they can provide us with dairy products, meat, fiber, plus they’re personable critters to boot, I just have never been able to truly enjoy a slice of goat cheese that wasn’t feta mixed in some strongly flavored salad. We have a couple of goat farms in the area that make a variety of artisan cheeses and sell them at the farm stand down the road, so I picked up a creamy white wedge of semi-hard cheese, headed home and began experimenting.
This is the recipe I ended up with. Talk about a senses-pleasing, world-changing dish!

 

 

Sensational Goat Cheese and Summer Squash Fritters
For this recipe you will need:
1/2 cup unseasoned bread crumbs
2 cups of shredded zucchini and/or yellow crooked neck squash
1/2 cup of shredded, semi-hard goat cheese
2 beaten eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon herbal seasoning of your choice – I used a basic Italian blend.
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
olive oil for frying

Makes 6 fritters

 

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and stir until everything is well blended. It is going to be somewhat of a damp mix. This can be made ahead the night or morning before you plan on cooking them, if you want. Once everything is mixed together, put a frying pan on medium-high heat and once it’s thoroughly hot, add some olive oil. Spoon the fritters into the hot pan and flatten them a bit with a spatula. Cook the fritters for three to five minutes before flipping them. They should be dark golden brown. Fry them on their backs for another few minutes and then they’re done and ready to enjoy.
The zucchini is plentiful this time of year and mild enough to let the cheese’s flavor really shine through, all the while providing a strong sort of ‘foundation’ – they aren’t overly cheesy, aren’t overly ‘squashy’, just delicious. My husband and I ate the whole batch over the course of a day, and I do believe I will be making them again soon.
Don’t give up on a food you don’t think you like. Take up the challenge and *make* it something you enjoy.
Perhaps the world you will end up changing is your own…

Super Salsa

in the kitchen, passionate life, Will Cook For Food 4 Comments

Why does salsa always get sent to stand with the junk food on the dark side?

I object.

Salsa is the unsung Hero of snack foods. It quietly lives amidst the chips and weezie-cheeze of the land and yet salsa itself, when done correctly – could probably save the world from an impending disaster.

Just saying.

Salsa is like – Captain America.

Captain America, AKA, Captain Salsa

Make your own salsa at home and you concoct a food so potent, so powerful and infused with health that you might just find yourself in a super hero costume. (Hopefully one that fits you and doesn’t make you look like a ballerina on steroids… you know, cuz that’s weird.)

…before eating homemade salsa…. after eating homemade salsa

Let’s break this down.

Super Awesome Radically Healthy Save The World Salsa

 2 cups diced raw tomatoes – go ahead and ask any ketchup bottle in the store just how healthy tomatoes are. Lycopene has proven itself to the Health Pros as being a definite Good Guy in the war on cancer. *This* is awesome. If ketchup is good for you due to lycopene, imagine the slap of wellness you’ll get from eating fresh, raw tomatoes?! I can hear the scurry of little cancer cell feet now…

1 medium sized mango, peeled and diced. My husband loves mangos in his salsa, and what do you know – there’s good reason to love them. That’s one smart man! Mangos are nutritional powerhouses, full of vitamins and  boast a great deal of fiber. Yum.

1 medium onion, diced. Onions make you cry – but so do a lot of good things, like tetnus shots and getting married. In fact, it’s the good thing in onions that *makes* you cry – sulfur and various sulfur compounds. They contain a lot of flavonoids (which, at first sounds like something robotic and scary that should be on the Bad Side, but once you get to know them a little bit, they’re OK.) and help your gut produce the army of bacteria it needs to keep your colon up and running. Think of Captain America in his brightly colored suit, leading the charge against the bad guys and you sitting there in the theater, moved to tears… that’s like onions in salsa.

1/2 cup chopped, fresh cilantro. Cilantro, often treated as a mere garnish, is truly quite the heroic herb, its chemical compounds actually binding to heavy metals in your body and dragging them out, kicking and screaming if need be, thus saving your life every time you eat it. Wow. I think we need a little more cilantro love going around, don’t you? How about a national Cilantro Day -or a super hero devoted to the Cilantro cause… any volunteers?

Now for the cast of side kicks.

Don’t underestimate the influence of a good side kick, just because the movie isn’t *named* after them, or their costume isn’t the coolest, the Hero wouldn’t be able to do his job were it not for his faithful back up.

2 Tblsp fresh lemon juice – kicks up the flavor a notch and adds another dose of potent antioxidants, cleanses your gut (and who doesn’t need a good gut cleanse now and again) and boosts your immune system. It enables you to be ready for the battle when it comes… and it will come.

1 tsp minced garlic. Who can say enough about the goodness of garlic? I certainly can’t. It’s awesome. Eat it. Trust me. Be healthy.

1 Tblsp  mint leaves, chopped

“Do I detect a hint of minty freshness?”
Donkey – he put the ‘kick’ in side-kick

Mint is good for you – let’s face it – after all those onions, mint is going to be good for the world *around* you. Like the best of side-kicks, mint takes some of the brashness away from the main man; improving digestion, making your breath a little sweeter, relieving some of the nausea experienced after spending two hours looking through 3D glasses at the theater – what more could one want?

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper. Please… no ashes.

There you go- the plot is simple. Evil lurks in the form of unpronounceable food additives and the stuff they put in the water (you know they put stuff in the water). The junk is building, hope is fading, hunger is growing… and then

SUPER SALSA

comes to the rescue. Not only does it smash through your taste buds like a guy in spandex trying to save the world, but the goodness just keeps going as it fights the free radicals and heavy metals ravishing your system, then replenishes your natural defenses and leaves you with a sense of fullness and health.

…he’s going to go get salsa now… even heros need a hero

faster than a speeding bullet…salsa

Maple Pear Chicken Salad

days on end, Great Chicken Challenge, in the kitchen 4 Comments

I need someone to name these recipes for me because I stink at it…

I made this up for the Man today, and it was hit so I thought I would share it with y’all.

Maple Pear Chicken Salad

1 8oz boneless, skinless chicken breast cut into three or four pieces

1/2 sweet red pepper, chopped

1 tsp minced garlic

1 bartlett pear, peeled, cored and sliced thinly

3 Tbsp pure maple syrup

1-3 tsp butter or olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

lettuce for the bed

This is a terribly quick and simple meal to make up since I fixed it while getting my bread ready to rise for the day, doing dishes and had entered the final countdown before Alex had to get ready for work.

In a frying pan, over medium heat, I put the sliced pear, maple syrup, butter, garlic and half of the red pepper. Once those things had started to simmer together, I added the chicken pieces and covered the whole bit, then let it cook ten minutes or so while I chopped the lettuce and set the table.

Since stove settings very, make sure the chicken has cooked all the way through. If it starts to get a little dry, add a few tablespoons of water or broth, but if it’s covered, it should stay moist enough.

I put some chicken and a helping of the hot ‘sauce’ on the lettuce that I tossed with the rest of the pepper, it wilted it a little and – viola! Lunch was served…

Sweet, salty, mapley, garlicky – absolutely packed with flavor, we have a winner.

Yum.

I know this meal isn’t in the Great Chicken Challenge- but it certainly could be. It fits all the criteria – easy, cheap, tasty and happily healthy.

Served 2 people; 20 minutes to make

Per serving:

280 calories (under 300 – yay!)

cost roughly $2.25 cents

This would be delicious with spinach instead of romaine or iceberg lettuce, or adorned with some chopped walnuts… be creative – it’s your meal, Enjoy!

finally, a post about pizza

in the kitchen 8 Comments

Well, my threats weren’t so idle after all.

I’ve been threatening to make pizza for weeks now, and last night I finally did it. I made pizza.

Ta-Da!

How exciting. I love a good pizza pie, be it decorated with a garden of veggies or a simple smattering of greasy pepperoni. I like it hot and stringy *almost* as much as I like it cold and stiff the next morning. Yes, I am that “eating pizza for breakfast” person, and I’m not ashamed of it. I’ve enjoyed pizza with warm root beer and I’ve had it with a few sips of expensive red wine and I must say that it is one of those perfect foods that can hold its own in any meal-time situation.

Pizza has presented itself to me in many different outfits over the years, I’ve had BBQ pulled pork pizza, loaded baked potato pizza, white pizza, red pizza (this is starting to sound like a cheesy Dr. Seuss book…) bacon and red onion pizza, pizza with tomato sauce and pizza with seasoned sour cream – and I’ve loved them all. Funny, I never thought about it until just this moment – I really love pizza! Strange coming from the person who started life as a bizarre girl who would never eat the pizza served at class parties… what was wrong with me? Thank God we grow and change… I can’t say time has erased my tendency to be a bit bizarre, but I have grown into a more normal love of all things PIZZA.

Here they are, looking all good and ready to eat. I made two smallish sort of pies, one sausage and onion, the other topped with three cheeses; ricotta, parmesan and mozzarella.

Baking them was quite the trick in my little oven. The recipe said to preheat the oven to 475 degrees. That’s pretty hot and I honestly wondered if there was any chance the oven would simply combust from the pressure – but it didn’t. I had to improvise a little in order to bake them since I don’t have a stone, nor a baking sheet that is ‘useable’. My little baking tray, the only one we could find that fit in the funny oven, has been systematically destroyed over the last six months. I’m not sure how or why, but it’s warped and bucked and the finish is peeling off.

Strange.

So, I’ve been wrapping it in foil when I need a cookie sheet, and that seems to work pretty well. It did a more than satisfactory job baking these pizzas!

Pizza Dough

2 teaspoons dry yeast

3/4 cup warm water

2 1/4 cups flour (I used half whole wheat and half all purpose)

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 Tablespoon olive oil

I doubled the recipe and after it had been kneaded up and proofed, I split it and put half in the fridge for another day. It worked *fabulously*. I know it seems like a little thing, but it thrilled me to death to have the dough already worked up in the fridge, waiting for me to just roll it out and top it. Perfect!

The yeast gets proofed in 1/4 cup of the warm water until it has dissolved and started to bubble a bit. Then, sift together the flour and salt. Now you’re going to add all the rest of the ingredients, including the proofed yeast, to the flour and start mixing. The dough is going to seem dry at first – I checked and double checked my recipe – but that’s how it is supposed to be. Dump it out on your kneading surface and start kneading. It will quickly become a smooth, rather firm dough. Now you can form it however you like and add your toppings.

** This is the fun part, I might add. The part where my husband comes wandering into the kitchen from the living room where he has been working out (oh my), admires my handiwork then grabs a hunk of the dough and proceeds to try to ‘throw’ it like a professional pizza maker. Hilarity ensues. Have you ever seen the I Love Lucy episode when she tries to make pizzas? It was kind of like that.

Toppings

The sky really is the limit, folks. You can top your pizza with just about anything you desire – but I don’t have to tell you that! We did sausage and onions and cheese – but there’s no end to options. Any veggie under the sun would be a welcomed addition, as well as bacon, ham, pulled pork, chicken… you get the idea. I *insisted* that we buy a little ball of fresh mozzarella at the store so we could use it on our pizzas and boy was it worth it! I say that like it was wicked expensive, but it really wasn’t. It *tastes* wicked expensive!

For the sauce, I simply pureed some of the chunky spaghetti sauce I had made earlier in the week. I know they sell pizza sauce in the store ready made too, and you could probable get a pretty decent tasting one. OR – *or* just use some sliced tomatoes and fresh herbs – it will sauce itself right up and be *Rustic* which is awesome.

The pies bake at 475 degrees for 10-15 minutes and then they are ready to eat – YAY!

It took me a while to get around to it, but Pizza has been made.