Homemade pizza

Where did I write down the dough? It was just flour, water and yeast, but specifics are good to be able to repeat... Once baked, the crust was crisp and cracker-like. Not too doughy, so perfect.

Made this one night when the fridge was bare (eating down the fresh stuff in advance of going out of town), so toppings were catch-as-catch-can leftovers bits. A bit of canned pizza sauce formed the base. Ricotta cheese and grated romano did an OK stand-in for mozzarella. Roasted earlier in the oven fresh tomato, red onion and garlic got piled on with chopped nicoise olives and anchovies. The anchovies turned out to be a bit much. The rest was a good melange.

Minestone with Barley, Sage and White Beans

Slightly tweaked from Jan/Feb 2007 Cooking Light magazine; there it is termed "Hearty" and soiled with bacon.

1 t olive oil
2 c finely chopped onion (about 1 med)
1/2 c finely chopped celery (about 1 stalk)
1/4 c chopped carrot (about 1 med)
1/4 c sliced green onions
1 T chopped, fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 T chopped fresh sage
1/2 t chopped fresh thyme
2 garlic cloves, minced (I may have bumped up the garlic by 1 or 2 cloves)
1 1/4 c. chopped radicchio (1 small head)
2 c. water (I may have added more as the soup was quite bulky)
1/4 t salt
1/4 t freshly ground black pepper
2 and 1/2 containers of No-Chicken broth
1 (16 oz.) can of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 1/2 c peeled potato (about 1 med), cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 c uncooked pearl barley
2 c greens beans (I used Trader Joe's frozen haricots verts)

Heat oil in a Dutch oven over med-high heat. Add onion, celery, carrot, green onions, parsley, sage, thyme and garlic. Saute 5 minutes. Add radicchio, water, salt, pepper, broth and beans. Bring to a boil. Stir in potato, barley and frozen green beans (if using fresh, add green beans in the last 5 minutes just before serving). Reduce heat and let simmer for 20-25 minutes.

Yield: 8 servings.

This is a vegan soup if it weren't for the generous topping of picorino romano we ate it with! Optional, but the pr tastes destined for it.

Quiche crust

Again, I offer this posting as proof more than document, as I can't find the recipe I used for my first ever crust. It was mega butter and came out rich and flaky. I just happened to fill it with a spinach quiche and herbes de Provence. And it was the first time I got to use this pan, so I was feeling very fancy about myself.

Apple Cider Cake with Buttercream Frosting

This one I followed by the letter from the recipe on Epicurious. I didn't have the right size cake pans, so I made 4 mini cakes to create 2 small layer cakes. The cake itself was delicious: moist and subtle in apple and sweetness. I will make again, though maybe try to lighten it up by substituting some/all of the butter. All told, it was A LOT of butter.. the frosting was WAY too much. A lighter, cream cheese frosting would have been a better match.

Tomato Provencal

Part of the month-long experiment with anchovies. Can't put my hands on the recipe right now (retro posting), but tomatoes were gutted and salted and left upside-down for 20 minutes before they were stuffed with a mixture of whole-wheat breadcrumbs (alas, not homemade), olive oil, minced anchovies (just a few for 6 tomatoes), and parsley. Then they are drizzled with a little more o.o. and baked for 25-30 min. at 400.

Orange Muffins

3/4 cup canola oil
(>)1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup orange juice
(2 tablespoons grated orange rind- I omitted because I didn't have any oranges)

Combine oil, sugar and eggs. Mix well. Add remaining ingredients. Blend. Pour into muffin pan sprayed with canola oil. Bake at 350° for 10 to 15 minutes.


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This recipe was slightly tweaked from one I found online. The muffins turned out light and fluffy and with a good crumb. They were even better the next day. There must a scientific reason for this that has to do with using oil instead of butter. (?)

Morning Glory Muffins

2 c. grated carrots
1/2 c. diced, peeled apple
1/2 c. raisins, soaked in hot water
1/2 c. chopped walnuts or pecans
1/2 c. flaked coconut (sweetened)
>1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. canola oil
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/3 c. flour
1/2 c. wheat germ
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt

Combine carrots through coconut and set aside. Beat sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla. Add carrot mixture and mix well. Combine dry ingredients in another bowl. Add sugar mixture and combine until flour is moistened. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Yields: 9.

2 Pasta Skillets in One Day

Top: Whole wheat pasta, garlic, capers, shallot, cherry tomatoes, purple kale and olive oil.
Bottom: Whole wheat pasta, garlic, toasted pine nuts, parsley, cherry tomatoes, minced anchovy and olive oil.

Quick and easy. Pre-cook and drain pasta. Pre-toast pine nuts, if using, in a separate cast-iron skillet. In a larger cast-iron skillet, warm olive oil (about 1/4 c for this much pasta, which ended up serving 2 people with a little left over) and saute garlic and shallot until glassy. Add rest of ingredients, including pasta, and toss until greens are wilted and all else is cooked through.

Curried Everything

This is my new favorite spice blend, for nuts and beyond. With the leftover curry I had mixed up and sitting in a jar on the counter since my day of Xmas gift baking, I’ve been inclined to sprinkle it on roasted cauliflower (I think the big florets I oiled up in evoo and put covered in a casserole pan in 375 took about an hour by the time they were brown and melt-in-your-mouth soft). And, in a case where the sequel is really better than the original, I cut up 3 baking potatoes and salted and oiled them up on a baking sheet and sprinkled with said magic curry with abandon- noting my previously error with curry fries by being too dainty with the garam masala. I think it was about 10 minutes on each side in the same 375 oven that got them brown.

Please pardon the solipsistic nature of this post, but it is nice to see a little repetition and recombination amount to edible gold.

Mushroom, Broccoli and Tempeh Stir Fry in Garlic Brown Sauce

In recovery from the decadence of the last month and eager to use up some produce in the fridge, I made a stir fry with a more or less classic Chinese brown sauce that created a good vehicle for tempeh, another mystical ingredient I hadn't had much success cooking with to date.

1/2 c soy sauce, reduced sodium
1/2 c vegetable broth, Imagine No-Chicken broth is my favorite from a carton
1/3 c rice wine
1 T turbinado sugar
1/4 t white pepper
1 T sesame oil
2 T arrowroot powder
1/4 c water
1 1/2 T fresh, minced garlic
1 1/2 T fresh, minced ginger
1 8 oz. package of tempeh
6 oz. mushrooms
1 1/2 c broccoli (I used frozen florets in this trial, not a big flavor difference over the fresh and what I had on hand)
1/4 c sesame seeds
2 T canola oil

Combine soy sauce, vegetable broth, rice wine, sugar, pepper and sesame oil in a shallow bowl. Slice tempeh into 1/2 inch thick strips and add to bowl, allowing the tempeh to marinate while everything else is being prepared.

Toast the sesame seeds in a dry pan on the stove, stirring constantly to prevent burning. After about 5 minutes they start to brown and become fragrant. Remove from heat and set aside.

Mince garlic and ginger. Slice mushrooms and broccoli if using fresh.

Dissolve 2 tablespoons of arrowroot powder (or cornstarch) into 1/4 cup of water. Stir and set aside.

Heat 2 tablespoons of canola oil in a wok. Add garlic and ginger. Cook and stir for a few minutes until fragrant and then add mushrooms and broccoli. Cook and stir until mushrooms release their juices and start to brown. Add tempeh and soy sauce mixture. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring frequently, for about 5 more minutes or until tempeh is cooked through. Add arrowroot mixture and stir over low heat until sauce thickens, about 2 minutes.

Serve with rice and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.

Makes 5 servings.

--This will be a good sauce for tofu too.

Birthday Dinner for 11

Except for a sauteed radicchio experiment that went south, the birthday dinner went smoothly. Courses ended up timed well with some advanced preparations and then "holding." And I even got to enjoy our guests! Among the olives, nuts and figgy brie appetizers, I made a white bean pate, which will double as sandwich spread for my lunches this week. Then we had a creamy curried parsnip soup- rich and delicately flavored. I'll be making this one again, though now that my season of heavy cream has concluded, soy milk will be substituted. Then a salad of roasted beets, toasted pecans, goat cheese and mesclun greens. I loved the presentation of the lentil ragout in puff pastry. It was worth running out to buy a few extra ramekins to make sure everyone had one on their plates beside the maple-glazed baby carrots.

Between dinner and dessert there was much talking and drinking of wine. We had picked up a few different French reds from Sam's and particularly liked the Chateau Cassas 2004 Bordeaux.

Around 11 we popped the champagne and dug into the cake, a mega-dense chocolate raspberry truffle cake from Letizia's.

With the success of our 3rd annual birthday dinner I kind of wish my summer occasion were rolled into the holiday season as well.

((--recipes forthcoming. much freelance work to return to for now.. though i'm eager to distract myself with some cooking experiments involving leftover mushrooms, kale and cauliflower. perhaps tomorrow. must kick things back up to pre-holiday speed.))