Party.... Pizza Party!

Oh hi friends! The Golden Globes were last weekend, and nothing says Golden Globe fanciness like a pizza party! Johnny found a great recipe in a magazine for home made dough (recipe courtesy of Pizza A Casa), so I went for it, even though baking freaks me out. I hate measuring! Stop telling me what to do, recipe! Oh wait, that's kind of what I'm trying to do here. Ah hypocrisy.

Four delectable pizzas were made: Spicy turkey sausage and provolone, pepperoni and fresh mozzarella, pancetta with shredded jack/cheddar, and black olive, asparagus, and carmelized onions. Yup. Delicious-town. All pizzas pictured here - not sure why I didn't take a picture of the veggie pizza after it was baked, but oh wells. You get the idea, right?

Start with the dough first, because you need to give it time to rise. In a large bowl mix 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour (don't sift), 1 1/2 cups water, 1 packet active dry yeast, 1 tablespoon EVOO, and one teaspoon sea salt. Combine with a wooden spoon or flour covered hands. Once the dough comes together, turn it out onto a floured surface and knead into

a ball. Place the ball into a clean bowl, cover with saran wrap, and let rise for at least an hour in a warm corner of your kitchen. Plenty of time to prepare your toppings!

Since we are going all homemade - all the way here, you gots to make your own sauce! Or at least fancy up some tomato sauce that you may already have in your pantry. I used a 15 ounce can of tomato puree, so go with that or whatever you have on hand. Add a little red wine, onion and garlic powder, red pepper flakes (a pinch!), dried oregano (couple pinches), and S & P. Simmer the sauce over low heat whilst you prepare your other ingredients and be sure to keep tasting for seasonings.

For the spicy turkey sausage and provolone: Cook three spicy italian turkey sausages in a pan over medium heat. I find that the outside cooks faster (and burns) than the inside, so after the sausages begin to brown, add a few tablespoons of water to the pan. This will steam your snausages to help cook the insides. The water will evaporate and then they will continue to brown. Remove from the pan, let cool a bit, then slice into bite sized slices. I used sandwich slices of provolone and just ripped them up, but if you find shredded provolone, use that. Set aside until you're ready to assemble.

For the veggie pizza: slice one yellow or red onion. Drop a few tablespoons of butter and a one count of EVOO into a frying pan and caramelize those onions over low heat. Add some wine after they begin to color, the sugars in the wine will help your caramelization and add deliciousness. Set onions aside in a bowl to cool. Chop your bunch of asparagus into bite sized pieces (I used the tips only), then add a touch more EVOO to your onion pan, some red pepper flake, and the asparagus pieces. S&P those suckers and cook for 2-3 minutes ONLY. They will get bright green, then immediately remove them from the heat. You want them to still have bite, even after you've baked the pizza. No one likes mushy asparagus. NO ONE. For the olives I used canned (drained) black olives, but you could slice up kalamata olives if you prefer. Set these ingredients aside until you're ready to assemble.

Which is now! Everything else goes on to the pizzas in raw/uncooked form. Go get your dough and rolling pin! Flour the rolling pin and board/counter top well. Turn the dough out onto the surface and divide it into four even pieces using a knife....or the OXO pastry scraper, pictured below! OXO doesn't pay me, but they should ;) Seriously, go buy one right now, they are fantastic for cutting dough/pastry evenly, and I use mine nightly to transfer chopped vegetables from the board to the pan. Do it! Oh and preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Roll each piece of dough out to circle size, approximately 12-14 inches. As you can see, mine are more oval-ish. As long as you get them into pizza shape you're good. Place your rolled out dough on a pizza baking sheet or a cookie sheet (I had to bake these two at a time). Okay time to assemble!

For the spicy turkey sausage and provolone: drop a few spoonfuls of your sauce onto the dough and spread evenly. Spread the provolone around the sauce, then top with your spicy turkey sausage. Sprinkle a small handful of grated parmesan and that guy is ready for the oven!

Veggie pizza: ladle out some sauce onto your rolled out dough and spread evenly. Evenly place some of your black olives and asparagus, then top everything with the caramelized onions. I made this pizza mostly cheese free at the request of the mister (he does not tolerate lactose), so the crust and the top of the pizza was lightly dusted with grated parmesan. Drizzle the top with EVOO and you're ready to go!

Pepperoni and fresh mozz: I got thinly sliced Boar's Head pepperoni from the deli counter and I think you should too. The mozzarella comes in water, so drain it and tear or slice the cheese up. After you've sauced your dough, place the pepperoni slices on the sauce and dot the mozzarella pieces all around. The mozz will melt really well, so don't put too much on or your pizza will be mushy and wet. Hit the crust with some parm and boosh. Ready.

Pancetta and cheddar/jack: I also got the pancetta at the deli counter, thinly sliced. For those of you who live under a culinary rock, pancetta is "Italian bacon": it is pork belly that is cured (not smoked like American bacon), usually with peppercorns. So again, start with your sauce, then evenly distribute your shredded cheese on top of the sauce. Lay your slices of pancetta around on top of the cheese: you want the pancetta to crisp up, so it's super important that it's on top of the cheese. Sprinkle the parm around the crust and your final 'za is ready for baking!

Like I said, I could only bake two pizzas at a time, and I switched them around on the racks halfway through to cook evenly. They took around ten minutes each, so set your timer for eight minutes and keep a weather eye out for burnage. When the pizzas are done, let them rest and cool down a bit before cutting. Tear some fresh basil and add to the sausage pizza and the pancetta pizza (or any of them really). Serve with a lovely salad and some wine and you're golden! Let me know how the dough works for you and if you have any other topping ideas.

Smoochies,

D

Double Duty Dinner!

Hello, dear readers! Happy New Year! Holy crap, where did 2010 go? Ah, such is life. My resolution this year is to post more often...we'll see how that goes ;)

My first SND of the year was quite accidental, and actually began with a Saturday Night Dinner. The Mister and I had terrible colds last week, just awful. Super rad way to start the year. We barely left the house all weekend, and on Saturday I decided I needed some good ol' comfort food: grilled cheese sammies and cream of tomato soup. The grilled cheese was to be the star of the show: I used Thomas Keller's method out of his Ad Hoc cookbook (more on that in a bit). I was all set to use Campbell's Tomato soup, but the Mister thought that would be too easy and that I should try the homemade. "Bah", said I. Homemade tomato soup tastes like a bowl full of marinara sauce 99% of the time. But okay, I'm game. I looked through my cherished cookbooks, and found a good recipe in Ina Garten's Back to Basics. "Okaaaaay", said I. I'll give 'er a go, but to avoid the skins and seeds, I'll use canned crushed tomatoes. Ina purees her soup in a food mill, which would take care of skins and seeds, but I do not have such equipment. So here's what you do, and it didn't turn out too shabby!

Okay, start with two red onions. Chop them up, but don't worry about chopping too finely - you're going to hand blender or blend the soup later. Pour a four count of olive oil into a stock pot and heat it over medium heat. Add your chopped onions and stir, adding just a little salt and pepper. Peel and chop two carrots and add those to the onions. Sweat the vegetables for fifteen minutes or so without browning. A little color is fine, but you don't want to burn anything. Add five cloves of chopped garlic, then half a cup or so of white wine. Cook the alcohol off, then add two 28 ounce cans of crushed tomatoes, 3 cups of chicken stock, one tablespoon of tomato paste , 1 1/2 ounces of sugar, 1 tablespoon of salt, and some freshly ground black pepper. Stir that deliciousness well, bring to a boil, and turn the heat down to simmer for forty minutes. Stir occasionally, and add more chicken stock if you think it's reducing too much (if it's looking too thick).

After forty or so minutes, get out my favorite kitchen appliance: The hand blender! The boat motor! Seriously, you haven't gotten one yet? C'MON. Do it. Blend the soup until it's nicely pureed, then turn the heat down to low, and add 3/4 cup of heavy cream - I used lactose free 2% milk because the Mister does not tolerate lactose, and it turned out just fine.

Now for the grilled cheese! Thomas Keller says you should use brioche, but of course Ralph's didn't have any, so I used some roasted garlic bread that was made that day and DELICIOUS. It had whole cloves of roasted garlic in it and was really really good. Okay, so thinly slice some Gruyere cheese and make as many sandwiches as you have cheese to make them with. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and melt two tablespoons of butter in a large pan until it's almost browned. Add as many sandwiches to the pan that will fit, but don't overcrowd that shit. You know better than that. Cook for two minutes, then flip. The bread will be nicely browned, but the cheese won't be melted yet. Don't fret! It's going into the oven! Put the sandwiches on a sheet pan, spread a little more room temperature butter on top (oh yeah!) and pop into the oven. Finish off the rest of your sandwiches in the pan (add more butter if needed), and into the oven! They really only need a few minutes in the oven to finish the cooking, so keep a weather eye out. When they're done, cut them in two and serve with the tomato soup!

Now, I thought the grilled cheese were FANTASTIC and the tomato soup was good, but it I wasn't blown away. The Mister and Sethy assured me that the soup was great (aw shucks) but I wasn't convinced, and even after sending Sethy home with a serving to go, I was still left with quite a bit. Hmmmm I thought, what to do? I can't make more grilled cheese or I'll blow up to huge proportions and my Wii Fit will never let me hear the end of it!

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon. Still hadn't left the house and pondering SND. "What if", the Mister asked, "you turn that tomato soup into some kick ass meat sauce for spaghetti?" Genius! That's why I married that guy ;) Here's what you do:

Pour a three count of olive oil in a large sauce pan over medium heat. Add four cloves of chopped garlic with a good pinch of red pepper flake. Cook for about one minute and do not let the garlic burn. Add a half of a pound of ground pork and half of a pound to ground beef with some S & P. Stir, stir, and break down the ground meats so that they're very fine. You don't want big chunks of meat here. Brown the meat, then add a half cup of white or red wine - I used white because that's what I was drinking (Sterling for my momma!). Next add one tablespoon of tomato paste, then ladle in your leftover tomato soup. Keep an eye on how much you put in - this is a meat sauce, so you don't want too much of the soup, or it will just be marinara with meat. If the sauce is looking too meaty, add some more soup. Turn your heat to low and simmer whilst you heat a large pot for your spaghetti. Add some chopped fresh basil and parsley to your sauce. Be sure to salt your pasta water and cook the noodles to al dente. I used one pound of spaghetti and when it was done I added it straight to the sauce. Go for it!

I added some grated Parmesan and freshly ground pepper to my serving, but if your loved one does not tolerate lactose, you may omit the cheese. And enjoy! Double duty dinners sound faintly 30-minute-meal-esque (don't get me wrong Rachael, however thirty minute meals do not belong in SNDs), but if you find yourself in such a situation, go for it! It's SND!

All the best,

D