Weekend in Columbus

I'm back! My Monday absence can be attributed to a long weekend at home, a rare occasion that I was very excited to indulge in. I hadn't been home in almost 5 months! That may be the longest I've ever gone. And may I just stop for a second to say - is it REALLY November? Really?! I feel like it should be just a couple weeks after Labor Day. I'm so not ready for the onslaught of Christmas candy/gifts/trees/paraphernalia/tv ads/stuff in the mail that's about to happen.

Back to my weekend at home...first order of business - Jeni's. Obviously. That's a "trio" of heirloom pumpkin five spice, spicebush apple butter, and brown butter almond brittle.



Some flowers...and some foliage. Isn't that red leaf so bright and pretty that it almost looks fake?



A stop at my favorite pizza place, Rubino's. This place seriously has not changed since 1954. Not in a cute, vintage way - in a serious, time warp way. Linoleum floors, a few booths and tables, a pinball machine, fluorescent lighting...it's kind of the restaurant version of an old basement rec room. But I don't care, it's my hands down favorite pizza.


$6 for a small pepperoni. The crust is so thin and crispy, almost like a cracker, with a little cornmeal on the bottom. Not too much sauce or cheese, and mini pepperonis. I could have easily eaten that whole thing myself. We split one to share while watching football so it was just a mid-day snack.



A fire and some furry friends. Lots of quality time with my furry friends.


And a delicious Sunday night dinner. A side of brussels sprout hash and an apple crisp for dessert.


And a new recipe - whole wheat pasta with roasted eggplant, pepper, and garlic.



Ahh, what a great weekend.

Stromboli

Have I told you how much I make pizza? I make it a lot. Sometimes as much as once a week. On average, about three times a month. The dough is so easy, it makes great leftovers for lunch, and it's a good way to use up bits and pieces of things in the fridge like leftover veggies or different kinds of cheese.

Like all recipes I get really comfortable with, it was time to play around a little with this one. Stromboli apparently started in Philadelphia, but how does anyone really know these things... All you need to know is that it's pretty much a pizza rolled up. It's a baked roll of dough traditionally filled with pepperoni (or other Italian cured meat), cheese, peppers, onions, and olives. But my inner Kevin McAllister wanted it plain. Ok, not plain cheese, but just cheese and pepperoni.

I'll give you the pizza dough recipe here again, instead of just linking to it, because seriously - if you haven't tried making this dough yet you need to. It's from Smitten Kitchen.

1 1/2 cups flour (can replace up to half of this with whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water (may need up to 1 or 2 tablespoons more)
1 tablespoon olive oil
cornmeal
1 egg (not for dough, for eggwash to brush on dough)
pepperoni, cheese, or whatever you want for filling

Stir dry ingredients, including yeast, in a large bowl. Add water and olive oil, stirring mixture into as close to a ball as you can. Dump all clumps and floury bits onto a lightly floured surface and knead everything into a homogeneous ball.

Knead it for just a minute or two. Lightly oil the bowl where you had mixed it, dump the dough in, turn it over so all sides are coated, cover it in plastic wrap and leave it undisturbed for an hour or two, until it has doubled in size.

Dump it back on the floured counter, and gently press the air out of the dough with the palm of your hands. Fold the piece into an approximate ball shape, and let it sit under that plastic wrap for 20 more minutes. ( If you want 2 strombolis - or pizzas - just double the recipe and cut the dough into 2 equal parts here.)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll out the dough until about 1/4 inches thin, and approximately 8" x 13". I didn't roll it out as thin as I do to make a regular pizza, but close. Layer whatever ingredients you want for your stromboli onto the dough, leaving about an inch border on all sides.



When you roll out the dough it doesn't have to be a perfect rectangle, but try not to make it a totally irregular shape so it's easy to roll up. Brush eggwash along one of the borders (I put it on the long side at the top of the photo). Start rolling with the side opposite the eggwash. Roll evenly but not too tight. Seal the end with the eggwash.



Bake on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal for 20 minutes. That's a mini baking sheet, the stromboli isn't really that big. Remove from oven, brush more eggwash over the top and sprinkle some grated cheese on top - parmesan, asiago, mozzarella, whatever - and bake for 5 more minutes. You could even put it under the broiler for a minute to get it extra crispy on top.



As you can see, mine busted open. It doesn't really matter, it all gets sliced up anyway. Not sure if I rolled it a little too tightly, or if there was an air pocket in there. Let it cool for a couple minutes then slice it up.



Perfect for an appetizer. Dip the slices in a little marinara sauce...delish. Maybe next time I'll add more than pepperoni and provolone. Or maybe not.

Pizza, Pizza!

I'm not one to toot my own horn, but...I think I'm getting pretty good at making pizza. I feel like I've really gotten to know the dough from the Smitten Kitchen recipe, what it should feel like and look like, and how it cooks on different racks in the oven. So at this point I like experimenting with different toppings. Yesterday I went to the farmers market in Streeterville and found some new fun ingredients.

I saw these red Tropea onions at Nichols Farm, they looked so pretty and I knew I had seen them on a menu at a restaurant recently (can't remember which one).



I just googled Tropea onions and learned that they're native to the village of Tropea in Calabria, Italy (southern Italy). They're a little sweeter, so I thought they should be paired with something spicy. For this pizza I did some light tomato sauce, a soft pecorino cheese, and spicy capicola.



I put this one on the bottom rack of the oven so it got very crispy. The onions and capicola were perfect.

For the other pizza, I wanted to use these cute little tomatoes also from Nichols.



This one was pretty traditional - tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella, and tomatoes. The tomatoes were small enough that only 10-12 minutes in the oven (at a very high temperature) was long enough to roast them. Then I added fresh basil after it was cooked.



So good. When I first started making homemade pizza dough I never thought of it as a quick weeknight meal, but it really is. Making the dough is very easy, yes you have to let it sit for 1-2 hours but in that time you get your toppings ready and make a side salad, read a book, watch tv, vacuum, chase kids around the house, whatever. And then the pizza only has to cook for 10-12 minutes. Yum!

More Homemade Pizza

It's been a busy weekend, and it's not even over yet! I have a few things to write about, and just looking back over my posts from the last week or so I realized there haven't been too many about cooking. I'm watching the Italy vs. New Zealand match, so I think I'll make this post about the homemade pizza I made a couple nights ago.

I was reading a post on Smitten Kitchen about shaved asparagus pizza that looked so good, and I noticed a link to a simple pizza dough within the post. Even though I was very happy with the last pizza dough recipe I tried, I thought I should try this one too. And while this recipe calls for regular all-purpose flour, I bought 00 flour at Fox & Obel I've been wanting to use for pizza dough.



So what is 00 flour? Italian flour is measured by how coarse the grain is - Tipo 2 is the coarsest, while Tipo 00 is the finest. Tipo 00 is used for Neapolitan pizzas. While I'll never come close to achieving the real deal without a wood-burning oven, I thought why not at least try out the flour. So here is Smitten Kitchen's recipe:

1 1/2 cups flour (can replace up to half of this with whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water (may need up to 1 or 2 tablespoons more)
1 tablespoon olive oil
cornmeal

Stir dry ingredients, including yeast, in a large bowl. Add water and olive oil, stirring mixture into as close to a ball as you can. Dump all clumps and floury bits onto a lightly floured surface and knead everything into a homogeneous ball.

Knead it for just a minute or two. Lightly oil the bowl where you had mixed it, dump the dough in, turn it over so all sides are coated, cover it in plastic wrap and leave it undisturbed for an hour or two, until it has doubled in size.

Before resting:


After:


Dump it back on the floured counter, and gently press the air out of the dough with the palm of your hands. Fold the piece into an approximate ball shape, and let it sit under that plastic wrap for 20 more minutes. I doubled the recipe, so at this point I cut the dough in half to make two pizzas.



Sprinkle a pizza stone or baking sheet with cornmeal and preheat your oven to its top temperature (mine went up to 550). Roll out the pizza - I used my hands to press it out until it was about this big:



And then I used a rolling pin the rest of the way.



Add your toppings:




And bake for about 10-12 minutes. I made one pizza with fresh ricotta, roasted cauliflower, and bread crumbs:



And the other with just a little sauce, grated pecorino brigante (a very soft pecorino), and coppa. After cooking I topped it off with some baby arugula and cream of balsamic - a bottle of syrupy reduced balsamic vinegar which I found at Whole Foods. The drops kind of look like bugs on the arugula.




They were both really, really good. The crusts on both were light and crispy, even more crispy on the coppa pizza because that one cooked on the bottom rack right above the heat. I changed several elements from the last pizza dough recipe - the flour, the oven temperature, and the rolling pin method. It's hard to say which made the difference, but I thought this dough was crispier. And I am just now realizing I still haven't written my recipe for roasted cauliflower. I'll do so this week.

I should make a note that the cauliflower pizza was inspired by Grandaisy Bakery's cauliflower pizza which is my favoritest favorite best most wonderful pizza ever. And yes, that is a grammatically correct way to describe your favorite pizza.

Pizza Party

I usually buy pizza dough from Whole Foods, mostly because I usually don't think about dinner more than a day in advance - which is necessary for pizza dough, because it has to sit overnight. But I figured it was about time to be a big girl and learn how to make it myself. Who better to consult on pizza dough than my friend Seth, who made his television debut with Mama's pie on the Today Show last September. Why is it called Mama's? Well, that's another story for another day. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is the video of the Today Show pizza segment:

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And Here is Seth's recipe for pizza dough:

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour, chilled
4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon yeast
1/8 cup olive oil
7/8 cup water, ice cold

Stir together flour, salt, and yeast. Create well in center of dry ingredients and add cold water, incorporating the dry ingredients until the water is absorbed (a minute or two).




Add olive oil and stir until absorbed. Knead the dough by hand for about 5 minutes (not too long or the dough won’t rise enough). At this point, the dough should be sticky, but not wet. Shape the dough into a ball and coat with olive oil or olive oil spray. Store in airtight container (e.g., a Ziplock bag) in refrigerator overnight.



Overnight? But what to do with all that time? Go to a Cubs game!



Remove dough and place on floured surface, dust with flour, spray with olive oil spray, and cover with plastic wrap.
Let rise for 2 hours.



Stretch/form dough by hand so that the pizza has a very thin crust (approx. 1/8 thick) but keep the crust edge much thicker (at least ½ inch thick).



Coat bottom of pizza with a thin layer of olive oil, sprinkle generously with corn meal, then flip to prepare toppings.



Cook pizza, preferably on a pizza stone, at 500 degrees for 10-15 minutes. The crust edges should be browned and crispy. If using a wood or coal burning oven, cook for 5 minutes, or until crust edge is browned and crispy.



After it finished cooking, I added some arugula on top.



Good job, me! The only thing I did slightly differently was instead of coating one side of the dough with olive oil and corn meal and then flipping, i sprinkled corn meal on the baking sheet and just put the dough right on there once it was stretched out. The dough was really easy to work with, and the end result was very tasty. And FYI - I used active dry yeast. I know there are lots of different kinds out there. Yay for homemade pizza!

Easter, Jersey Style

I'm back in Chicago after a long Easter weekend in the great state of New Jersey. We had beautiful, warm, sunny weather the whole weekend and spent lots of time outside which was wonderful. Let's start with Friday night. We went to see Wilco at the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair, just a mile or two from Peter's house which was so wonderfully convenient. No cameras allowed, but I got a picture in with my iPhone. The venue was small but the picture doesn't really show how close we actually were.



Of course, a concert must be followed by pizza. We stopped at Villa Victoria Pizza on the way home, nothing too special but just a great New York style pizza place. And with New York style pizza comes...garlic knots. Oh garlic knots, I've missed you. Garlic knots are pretty much just garlic bread but in roll/knot style. Almost every pizza place in New York has them and they fall somewhere between three and six for a dollar. A greasy bag is a good sign...



And a peek inside the bag...mmmmm.



So what do you think we did Saturday night? More pizza, of course! Peter's favorite pizza in the world is from Star Tavern in Orange, NJ. I think every time we've come home to Jersey we've gone to Star. It's really excellent pizza. Not my favorite in the world (another post, another day), but it definitely ranks high. It's very thin crust pizza (the best kind!) with great sauce, not too much cheese, and simple toppings. Here's what the New York Times had to say about it in 1992:

"...the 46-year-old Star Tavern in Orange, N.J., is locally renowned for superior, light-crusted pizzas with all kinds of toppings. It's a big barn of a place with an elongated bar, two overhead televisions blaring hockey games, and a 100-inch-television screen that descends for special sports events."

Not much has changed in 18 years, except some new flat screen tvs. Was 1992 really 18 years ago? Jeez.



For us, a night at Star always starts with a pitcher of Sierra Nevada.



Next up, a mixed salad and we really went crazy this time and got mussels marinara as well.




And finally, the pizza. We ordered three pies for five of us - plain, sausage, and mushroom. The sausage is my favorite. It's crumbled into very small pieces and they don't put too much on. That's cheese on the top there, and sausage on the bottom.



Happiness is a plain slice with crushed red pepper.



And finally, Easter lunch. The main course was a Honeybaked Ham. Honeybaked Ham is, well...heaven. I made a Barefoot Contessa potato salad to go with it, and there were also a couple other sides - mac and cheese, and green beans with almonds. This potato salad is made without mayo so it's light and refreshing. Here's Ina's recipe:



3 pounds small white boiling potatoes
Kosher salt
2 tablespoons good dry white wine
2 tablespoons chicken stock
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Freshly ground black pepper
2/3 cup good olive oil
1/4 cup red onion, finely diced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Place the potatoes and 2 tablespoons salt in a large pot of water. Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, until the potatoes are barely tender when pierced with a knife. Drain the potatoes in a colander, then place the colander with the potatoes over the empty pot off the heat and cover with a clean, dry kitchen towel. Leave the potatoes to steam for 15 to 20 minutes, until tender but firm.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the wine, chicken stock, lemon juice, garlic, mustard, 2 teaspoons salt and 3/4 teaspoon pepper. Slowly whisk in the olive oil to make an emulsion. Set aside.

When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, cut them into quarters or halves, depending on their size. Place the cut potatoes in a large bowl and pour enough dressing over them to moisten. (As the salad sits, you may need to add more dressing.) Add the onion, tarragon and parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss well, cover, and refrigerate for a few hours to allow the flavors to blend. Serve cold or at room temperature.

The store didn't have boiling potatoes so I used red skinned potatoes, which are substantially bigger so I had to boil them a bit longer (about 25 minutes). And I didn't use parsley, I didn't want to buy a big bunch and have most of it go to waste so I just skipped it. It turned out well though, I made it the day before so on Easter morning I refreshed it with a bit more olive oil, lemon juice, chicken stock, salt and pepper.

One more thing - the whoopie pies and cake made it on the plane, but I don't think I would make the whoopie pies to travel again. I wrapped them individually and kept them wrapped until I served them and it made them kind of moist and dense. They're better served fresh, but were still good. All in all, a great weekend!