Recipes and the Kitchen – Page 4

Best ever pizza crust recipe and Wine Review: Colimoro Montepulciano D’abruzzo

Years ago, 11 to be exact, I married my amazing husband and began my experimentation in the kitchen. I have developed a large variety of go-to recipes over the years but none surpass my amazing pizza crust recipe. I experimented with SO MANY recipes before settling on this particular one. It’s so versatile and so forgiving. Plus it didn’t need to rise in the fridge, which is great since I once forgot I had a crust rising in the fridge and it kind of became it’s own entity that took forever to clean out. I don’t remember where I discovered this recipe. I haven’t used an actual recipe in years and years. I go by look now. I have a basic recipe that I change depending on our mood. We’ve added honey and different seasonings and it’s still been an amazingly well put together crust. So, without further ado, here is the recipe:

Easy Pizza Crust

2 ¼ tsps yeast
1 tb sugar
1 cup warm water
3 tbs olive oil
1 tsp salt
3-5 cups flour
Your choice of seasonings to taste (I use Italian seasoning, paprika, garlic and onion)

Pre-heat the oven to 420 degrees. In a medium sized bowl mix the yeast, sugar and water. Add seasonings to taste. Then add the salt and olive oil. Next add the flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Set aside to rise while the oven is pre-heating.

When the dough has risen spray your hands with cooking oil and shape the dough as desired, add toppings and cook for 20 minutes.

Note: I live in high altitude. A longer cooking time may be necessary in lower altitudes. Just keep an eye on it.

Our usual toppings are pepperoni (deli pepperoni and the regular old bagged kind you find in the store), olives, onion, bell pepper, meunster cheese and mozerella cheese. The taste is sublime. Love it!

A pizza baking experience would not be complete without at least one child demanding ingredients. Daughter demanded cheese, cheese and more cheese. Then, when all the cheese was gone she moved on to demanding pepperoni. I also have a few very loyal “please drop something tasty” dogs waiting in the wings.

Now, I usually just use a plain pizza sauce, no seasonings, on top. I figure the crust is seasoned well enough it doesn’t need added flavor. However, we had an amazing tomato harvest this year which has led to a LOT of canning. So, we made our own pizza sauce while the dough was rising. It was pretty amazing. I am going to share that recipe next week.

We usually sample a wine on Friday nights. It’s an enjoyable, relaxing time for us as a couple. But…I really wanted to fine a great wine to go with our pizza. So off to the liqour store where I asked the amazing wine guy what wine would go best with pizza.

That is how we ended up with this wine:

Colimoro Montepulciano D’abruzzo

Description: [from the wine makers website] Colimoro Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is bursting with aromas of dried cherries accented by a hint of spice. Medium in body, this is a fruit-forward wine balanced by moderate acidity and soft tannins. Aged in large Slavonian oak casks for 6 months, this is an easy-drinking wine best enjoyed young with everyday meals.

The back of the bottle explicitly says it pairs well with pizza.

Wine Review:

This wine has a really strong flavor in my opinion. It has a nice scent, very “winey” for lack of a better term. It is rather dry, and thus, bitter, but not bad. I enjoyed my first few sips. However, even though it is specifically to be paired with pizza and pasta I thought it over powered every flavor. We tried this first with the pizza and again, later, with some home made spaghetti. Still, too strong.

I did start out thinking this wine was pretty great. I had a few sips before I started eating and thought it had a pleasant flavor and that it was going to be a “whole bottle” kind of wine tasting. It wasn’t. I just had the one glass. I like to taste my pizza and this just didn’t afford me that luxury. Also, I felt it grew more bitter when paired with the food. So I had my 1 glass and was done, both times we tried this wine.

I think I’m going to find a nice chianti and try that with the pizza.

Home Made Spaghetti Sauce- my first time

It has been an amazing tomato harvest for us this year. I’m very happy. I am also learning how to preserve tomatoes now. Sauce, salsa and diced tomatoes are what I’m after. I haven’t canned before though, well aside from the salsa. I’d never made my own spaghetti sauce and so I took to the internet to figure it out. Two recipes really stood out to me. This one and This one. The first is a Sicilian style sauce with wine. As you may know, we love wine. I grabbed my favorite Merlot, as can be seen in This post, for it. The other was slow roasted in the oven. I had to try both. So I divided my tomatoes up and set to work. I mostly followed both recipes. I must admit, I have a hard time following recipes to the T. I have my own style.

First I went out and hunted down all the necessary herbs from the yard.

Oregano

Basil

Sage and Thyme

Washing and shredding herbs

Washed and shredded herbs

Next, I chopped my onions and garlic, for both versions. The kids were eager to help, as usual. Son was very excited about helping “skin” the garlic. Daughter washed the tomatoes. For the record, while I love the kids helping I do rewash stuff. Their version of washing is just spraying water all over my kitchen. GAH!

I added bell pepper to the roasted tomato sauce. I happen to love roasted bell peppers so it was an obvious addition for me!

And now, the tomatoes! I did not skin any of them. I was going to blend them anyway and was cool with the skin remaining. I harvested the seeds from the best tomatoes while I was cutting them up for the sauce. I simply put them in the strainer, washed them off and then left them to dry in a labeled coffee filter.

I did enjoy a good glass of Merlot, while also adding some Merlot to the Sicilian sauce. If you are interested in our review of this Merlot see Here.

I cooked the Sicilian sauce down a bit and then crushed everything up a bit. Well, the kids did, enthusiastically.

While the sauces were cooking low and slow the kids and I made fish and chips for dinner. Turns out Son is all talk about his love for fish as he refused to eat any until I convinced him it was chicken. This in spite of him helping me with the fish…. I did tell him after he’d eaten that it was fish. He’s caught onto me and when he asked if the pork I offered him at a later meal was chicken I asked him if he’d prefer I lie. He stated yes and ate the pork. It’s all good.

As an aside, doesn’t my kitchen remodel look amazing so far!

The kids were in bed before the sauces were ready to be blended and jarred. That was fine with me. I didn’t want to have to explain 9 million times to Son that I would not allow him to put the jars in the hot water because he’d likely burn his arm off. Oh how many times I’ve had that conversation already. If you are wondering why I simply don’t let him learn the hard way, I have. He just likes to ask the same question over and over and over and over and…………………..

So I added some lemon juice and sugar, popped the sauces in the blender, jarred them and put them in the hot water until they were ready. A LONG process but a satisfying one. The sauce from both is amazing!

First tomatoes and peppers- delicious salsa

There is so much beauty in a harvest. The colors, the smells, the flavors. My kitchen is a cacophony of natures amazing bounty. Peppers, tomatoes and herbs right now. I’m loving my harvest this year. The tomatoes, oh the tomatoes. So beautiful and so plentiful. The peppers have amazed me with their size, quantity and flavor. This is a partial tomato harvest and a full pepper harvest. I asked Daughter to pick the red peppers and she just went to town grabbing them all so…..I let her. I picked only the ripe tomatoes for this. So many tomatoes!

I can’t even name the varieties of tomatoes I have grown this year. Many were given to me unlabeled. The seeds I grew are San Marzano and Black Krim.

The kitchen is making me SOOO happy right now. The sink has been a godsend in prepping produce for canning. I don’t think I could have done much of this in the old kitchen. I certainly couldn’t fill up the necessary pot. I’ve had colanders full of produce being washed in the sink by my little angels who seem as excited by this process as I am.

I did look up salsa recipes and I did base my salsa off of a particular recipe, however, I didn’t follow the recipe practically at all. I’ve simply never canned my own salsa before and I was looking for a guide for doing it.

So, here are my peppers and onions getting washed Delicious!

The tomatoes receiving the same treatment.

So I removed the skin using the hot water method. I did it incorrectly though. Some of the tomatoes were perfect, as below. Some were left too long and were mushy. Those tomatoes I hand chopped, the nice ones were run through the food processor.

Chopping over cooked tomatoes here.

Salsa! It’s a bit watery but I’m ok with that. Cilantro was an easy grow for me so I had a plethora of that.

Hot water bath canning. I did not have the correct tools yet. My mother had a bunch of canning stuff and I did retrieve it from her later. The gloves worked great for this though. You can find them Here. Husband bought the gloves for our pig roast (see here) but they have been hanging out with my pot holders and I enjoy them quite a bit in the kitchen.

As for taste, perfect. Not too hot, very flavorful. I’m very happy with how this worked out.

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Pig Roast Fun

August 8th was a big day for us. It started early, well to be honest we just never went to bed. We got the pig ready Friday night and Saturday at 1a.m. it was on the grate cooking. Ok, let me start from the beginning.

We cooked our pig in a sort of makeshift grill made from cinder blocks and expanded metal. A roof was fashioned from metal sheeting and 2×4’s. Holes were drilled in certain blocks to fit rebar supports.

We ordered our pig from a butcher fairly close to where we live. They went and picked up the pig and butchered it. Unfortunately they did not cut it right, gave us the wrong pig (our pig went to someone else and the pig we ended up with was even bigger than expected) and then laughed and blamed the whole thing on us. As if we are responsible for them writing “split” instead of “splayed” and giving us the wrong pig. We won’t use them again. So it started rough. We salted the pig up and waited for Husband’s family to come assist in pig surgery. We could not have the pig split like that, it wouldn’t flip well at all. So wire was used to sew it up.

We used hardwood coal to keep the temperature in the pig around 260 degrees.

There was no wind when we started the pig and getting the coals going was difficult. It came up fierce in the morning though and the coals were burning hot and fast. Everything else was also blowing away. I tried to get some sleep and woke up around 8 with Daughter’s foot in my face. We went out and visited the Pig and brought Husband breakfast. All was good until the turkeys arrived. They were biting us, trying to get on the table and eat the food and generally testing our limits. We ended up holding a fly swatter and whacking them until they gave up and went away, temporarily.

PIG IN THE MORNING — This is after 8 hours of cooking.

Then Husband went to bed and I babysat the pig. I tried to watch a movie but……

I gave up.

After 14 hours of cooking the pig was done. Everything was set up and we awaited guests. The party was wonderful. However, we have TONS of left overs. We will be eating pig for the rest of our lives I think.

Oh, here is the pig being consumed by guests. The legs came off on the last flipping.

Daughter had a grand time once she decided she was ok with eating Pig. It took some doing. She felt like they were friends and wouldn’t eat it to begin with.

We had some rain and quite a bit of wind which graced us with a lovely rainbow and a beautiful sunset.

Zucchini Tian- An amazing way to use squash

My husband and I stopped at Safeway to pick up a few things on Monday. A few things turned into me spending our entire lunch in the produce aisle picking over the vegetables. I had no real idea how I was going to cook anything, just that I wanted to try it all. Husband just shook his head as I loaded up our basket and told him I’d look online for recipes later. That is why I love Pinterest. I find some of the best recipes and ideas there.

Zuchini Tian — This is one of my favorite finds now.

This Recipe from feastingathome.com is absolutely amazing. I’d never made anything like this before and I didn’t have high expectations. The recipe was easy to follow and thanks to my nifty Mandoline,
prep was quick. Just make sure you wear these gloves. I’ve harmed myself pretty severely with the mandoline before. We made it in our fairly new cast iron skilletas suggested and it worked pretty well. I think I might slowly transition all of my cooking pots and pans to cast iron. The cast iron dutch oven I have is a dream! I also really love just going from the stove top to the oven.

I used 2 small yellow squash, 1 zuchinni, 1 super large black krim tomato, 1 yellow onion and parsley picked from the new planter box. My quantities didn’t match with the recipe exactly. I don’t tend to be great about following recipes to the T. Still, turned out amazingly well!

The squash was served with grilled pork tenderloin and wine, of course. I got distracted looking at all the peppers I have growing and the pork got overcooked. It was pretty darn dry actually. My husband should be sainted for eating all of the food I forget I’m cooking.

We are all about making enough dinner to have leftovers for lunch at work. This packed up beautifully and reheated really well. I did under cook the squash slightly so it would not be too soggy when microwaved. I will be doing this again for sure!

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