Homemade Pizza

Well, it's been quite a hiatus.  Chaos has reined in my household for the past month, and hopefully things are starting to calm down.  I'd love to say I'll get back to consistent, frequent blogging right away, but I'm not positive that will be the case.  For now, I'll do my best to continue sharing recipes with you.  I really appreciate you sticking around and continuing to check back - thanks for reading!

Whenever Anna gives me a recipe, I know it's going to be delicious.  (Remember her wild rice stuffed onions?)  She posted the recipe for this homemade pizza dough on her old blog.  I've made it twice now and I adore it.  It's a major savings over ordering pizza out, and best of all, you can top it exactly the way you like it.

I opted to top ours with slices of fresh mozzarella, pancetta, caramelized onions, and fresh spinach.  Delicious!

As Anna points out, if you don't have a mixer of some kind, the manual labor involved in this dough recipe is going to be excessive. You'll need a KA stand mixer or some other type of mixer with a dough hook.

Pizza Dough
from Anna

1 tsp. active dry yeast
2 tbsp. warm water +
2/3 c. water
1 c. AP flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1-1/2 tsp. kosher salt
olive oil

In the bowl of the mixer, combine the yeast and warm water.  Let it sit for 5-10 minutes - until the yeast has expanded (or "bloomed").
 
Add the additional water, both types of flour, and salt.  Combine and knead using the dough hook attachment for ten minutes.  While the dough is kneading, lightly oil a large mixing bowl and set aside.

Turn the dough out into the bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap.  Set in a warm place (I like my oven, turned off), and allow to rise for two hours.

Punch down the dough, then replace the wrap and allow to rise at least another two hours, up to overnight.  (Place bowl in the refrigerator if allowing an overnight rise).

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Turn the dough out onto a floured board and divide in half.  Roll and stretch each half into whatever shape you'd like your pizza to be.  I usually go with funky blob shapes, but if you want to go for a circle or square, have at it!

Top the dough with whatever you like.  Last week, we did sausage, goat cheese, and thawed frozen spinach.  The pictures show prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, carmelized onion, and fresh spinach.  The pizza on the left is Andrew's and also has homemade tomato sauce on it.

Bake pizzas on the bottom rack of the 400 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, until dough is browned and cheese is melted and bubbly. 

This pizza dough recipe is easy, healthful, and delicious.  If you've been reading TPF for a while, you may know that I haven't always been confident in my ability to bake with yeast.  This is a great recipe to use if you feel the same way.  Your mixer does a lot of the work, and the directions are straightforward and easy to follow, thanks to Anna. 

The best thing about this pizza is that I always have the ingredients on hand.  Flour and yeast are staples in my pantry, and the toppings can be as varied as your imagination can handle.  I've always got some sort of cheese in the fridge and various veggies to use up.  Add in whatever meat and herbs are on hand, and fantastic homemade pizza is a snap.

Chicken Noodle Soup with Garlic Rolls

Recently I talked about comfort foods - how they make us feel warm and happy, safe and loved.  Pretty much all soups fall under comfort food for me.  The king of the comfort soups though, has got to be Chicken Noodle.

When I roast a chicken, I almost always use the leftovers to make a big pot of chicken stock.  I freeze the stock in ice cube trays, then store the cubes in a zip-top bag, so that anytime I need a little chicken stock, I have it at hand.  Each ice cube is equivalent to two tablespoons of stock when thawed.  I also freeze it in gallon size zip-top bags.  I write the item's name and the date on a bag, ladle about 8 cups of stock in the bag, then compress to remove all excess air.  I lay the bag flat in my freezer so it will freeze into a thin "brick".  Then I "file" the bricks in the chest freezer in our garage.  Everything from butternut squash bisque to tomato sauce gets frozen this way.

Since the weather has been colder for a while now, I've roasted several chickens and made stock a few times.  I had plenty of frozen stock, so instead of freezing the latest batch, I stored it in the fridge in an old milk carton.

I don't really use a recipe when I make Chicken Noodle Soup, so each batch is a bit different from the last.  The recipe below is my best approximation of my most recent creation, which was extremely flavorful and packed with delicious herbs and vegetables.

Chicken Noodle Soup

1 medium yellow onion, diced

1/2 c. carrots, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

6 slices bacon, chopped

1 tbsp. dried parsley

1 tsp. dried tarragon

1 tsp. dried thyme

1 c. cooked chicken, shredded

8 c. chicken stock

egg noodles

Start by cooking the bacon in a large soup pot.  If it is extremely fatty, pour out some of the grease - you just want one or two tablespoons to remain.

Add onion and carrots to the pot.  Feel free to add the traditional celery as well - Andrew and I don't care for celery, so I usually skip it.  Allow them to caramelize in the bacon fat for a few minutes, then add the dried herbs.  Salt and pepper generously. Add the garlic to the pan and stir to incorporate it.

 

Add the chicken and the stock to the pot.  Use a long handled wooden spoon to scrape all the brown bits up off the bottom of the pot (this is called "deglazing" the pan).

Cover and simmer at least an hour, longer if you like.  About fifteen minutes prior to serving, bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the egg noodles.  Drain and set aside.

DO NOT add them to the soup pot.  If you do, your leftover soup will be full of bloated, soggy noodle bits.  Store soup and noodles separately until you are ready to eat them.

When you're ready to serve, have each person put the cooked egg noodles in their bowl.

 

You may prefer to use rice, dumplings, cheese tortellini, or, you may wish to copy Andrew's brilliant idea - stuffing!

 

Ladle hot soup over the starch of choice and serve with warm garlic toast.

Chicken Soup with Stuffing

Chicken Soup with Noodles

What goes better with soup than a delicious piece of bread?  I found these beautiful crusty rolls at the store, and imagine my surprise when I read the package - these are "Calabria Breads".  How fantastic!  My Nonnie's family is Calabrese, and I have never seen a bread named for that region, so I was a little geeked to see that.

Warm Garlic Toasts

2 crusty rolls
olive oil
one clove garlic, peeled

Slice the rolls in half and drizzle with olive oil.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Broil the rolls until they are toasted to your liking.  Remove from the oven and immediately rub with your raw garlic clove.

The garlic will melt into the breads, imparting deliciously subtle garlic flavor.  These rolls are the perfect accompaniment to soups, stews, and pasta dishes.

I have been making lots of soups this fall, and I will try to share more of them with you as soon as I can.  In the meantime, make yourself a big bowl of Chicken Noodle and cuddle up on the couch!

Apple-Smothered French Toast

Earlier this week, I was complaining to my friend Heather that I was "soooo hungry", which is typically a twice-a-day conversation for Heather and I, and she suggested I make myself French toast. I couldn't remember the last time I had French toast, and it sounded SO good right then. I had been planning to eat an apple as a snack, to hold myself over until lunch, but the lure of French toast was too strong. I opted to incorporate the apple into my dish, it just ended up being a little less healthy than I had planned! Apple-Smothered French Toast is an indulgence that is worth every single calorie.

Apple-Smothered French Toast

makes 1 big serving

2 pcs. whole wheat bread

1 egg

cinnamon

nutmeg

splash of milk

1 tbsp. maple syrup

1 apple, peeled and cut into slices

1/2 tbsp. butter

1/4 c. brown sugar

Start by cracking an egg into a plate with a lip.

Add several shakes of cinnamon and a shake of nutmeg. Squirt a little maple syrup on too.

Scramble it all together, and add a splash of milk.

Heat a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Spray the pan with nonstick cooking spray. Dunk your bread into the egg mixture, then flip it over to coat the second side. Plop it into the pan.

Cook until French toast is nice and brown on both sides.

Now, for the smothering! You will want to do this before you cook the French toast so the apples have time to cook down. Take a pretty red apple - I used Gala. Peel, core, and cut it into slices.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

Add the apples and brown sugar, stir to coat, then let cook over medium heat. Stir occasionally.

As the apples soften and the sugar cooks down, the juice from the apples mixed with the brown sugar will create a syrup.

Doesn't that look good?

Seafood Linguine

Andrew and I have been married since June 2008. Even though we now have a wedding anniversary to celebrate, I think it's fun to celebrate our "dating anniversary" too. There are so many sad days in life, don't you think it's nice to celebrate every happy occasion you can think of?

Monday marked six years that Andrew and I have been together. Instead of going out to dinner, we decided to make a dinner we both love - seafood linguine. We stalked the seafood section of our local grocery store, then put together a simple scampi sauce. The meal turned out beautifully, and the anniversary was pretty great too!

Seafood Linguine

1 medium onion, diced

5 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 lb. sea scallops

1/2 lb. large shrimp

2 cans minced clams

1-1/2 lbs. mussels

1 lb. linguine

1 c. white wine

1 bottle clam juice

olive oil

salt

red pepper flakes

To start, drizzle olive oil into a large saucepan. Saute onions, garlic, and red pepper over medium heat unti onions are soft. At the same time, put a large pot of salted water on to boil for your pasta.

Clean mussels by washing them and removing their beards and any loose barnacles. The nice lady at the seafood counter was kind enough to pack the mussels on ice for me, since I wasn't planning to use them until the next day.

Add wine, clam juice, and mussels to pan. Bring to a simmer and cover.

While the mussels are cooking, prepare the other seafood. Don't forget to put the pasta into your boiling water!

The sea scallops we bought were really big, so I cut each one into six small chunks.

I like canned clams. I LOVE fresh clams, but they are tough to get at a decent price here in Ohio, and honestly, it would take SO much work to get the same amount of fresh clams that you get in a can.

So anyway. Crack the two cans. Drain one. Add both cans of clams, one with juice, to the saucepan.

Andrew helped me peel and devein the shrimp. This is NOT a pretty process, so I did not photograph it for you. I'm trying to entice you with my food, not gross you out. I chopped the shrimp, then added the shrimp and scallops to the pan. These only need to cook for two or three minutes, until the shrimp turn pink and the scallops turn opaque white.

Drain the pasta whenever it's done cooking. If the timing isn't perfect, just let it sit in the colander for a moment while you finish prepping the seafood.

Pile your cooked pasta into the pan.

Get your husband, neighbor, local superhero, or weightlifting pal to lift up that super heavy pan and dump it into a large bowl. Make sure you scrape out all the onions, clams, and other yummy goodness.

Get your garlic bread ready. You can find my recipe here. If you're comfortable with the broiler, you can prep your bread in the two minutes that the shrimp and scallops are cooking and broil it while you are mixing the linguine and serving it.

All in all, it's a pretty simple recipe that yields fantastic results. If you're a seafood fan, this is one that's definitely worth adding to your list of "special occasion" menus.

Buttermilk Quick Bread

There are so many food blogs out there that it's hard to keep track of all the ones I want to read and all the recipes I want to make. Sometimes, a post catches my eye, and I end up making the recipe right away. I'll see some delicious looking chicken dish, already have chicken thawed for dinner, and decide to change my plans to accomodate this new recipe I've found. However, I had never gotten up out of my chair after reading a post and gone straight to the kitchen to make a recipe. Until today.

Buttermilk Quick Bread

2 c. all-purpose flour

2 tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 large egg whites

1-1/2 c. buttermilk

1/4 c. melted butter

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Combine the dry ingredients.

**Note** Part of the reason I wanted to make this recipe was because I discovered a container of powdered buttermilk in my pantry this weekend. If you are using powdered, add the powder to the dry ingredients, then add the water when you would add the liquid ingredients.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the liquids. Stir gently to combine - do not overmix! You just want everything to be incorporated, not beaten to death.

Here's where Stephanie tells you to pour the batter into a greased loaf pan. Oops! I didn't realize that I packed my loaf pan and sent it to my mom's house...in Connecticut. So here I am in Ohio, debating what to do. I ended up using an 8" x 8" pan, and it worked beautifully.

Bake for 45 minutes, unless you are dumb like me and have to use an 8" x 8", in which case, bake for 35 minutes.

I allowed mine to cool in the pan for about 20 minutes, then removed it to a baking rack per Stephanie's instructions. I'm sorry, but I couldn't let it cool completely before I tasted it. I would be ashamed, but let's face it, hot buttermilk bread is pretty irresistible.

I decided to cut the 8" x 8" square into two rectangular "loaves" and then slice.

So, today I discovered two great new things: a new blog to enjoy in Stephanie Cooks, and on that blog, a great new recipe! Stephanie found this one in the January/February 2009 issue of Cooking Light magazine.

If you have buttermilk powder on hand, this is the type of recipe you can pull together at the last minute when you need something for weekday breakfasts, a weekend brunch, or even to serve with chili. I love recipes that can be put together using only the contents of my pantry and everyday fridge items (eggs, butter). I honestly didn't find any fault with the buttermilk powder - some foodie purists might choose to disagree, but I thought this bread was luscious - buttery, not too crumbly, moist, and rich. *sigh* I think I need to be alone with the bread for a moment.

Okay, I'm back. ::wipes away drool:: I don't trust myself alone with this bread for another day...so I sent it to work with Andrew. Hope everyone enjoys it! And for the record, I did keep two pieces for myself. Okay fine, three.

This quick bread really was easy to put together - it took me all of five minutes to mix it once I had my ingredients assembled. Another five minutes was spent looking for my loaf pan, then about 30 seconds deciding screw the loaf pan, I'll just use an 8x8. Another 30 seconds was spent inhaling two slices once the bread came out of the oven. See, I told you...it's quick.