Homemade Pizza Night

It has

become

a Friday

night

tradition

around

here to

make

homemade

pizzas for

a quick

and

usually

late

dinner.

By Friday evening I am usually feeling a little creatively wiped out. Throughout the week cooking up new recipes is fun and exciting, but by the end of the week I need a little relief. Disappointed by all the take out pizzas we had been receiving, and at such an enormous expense, we decided it was high time to revive the family tradition I had as a child for Friday night homemade pizza. I had been baking up all sorts of breads over the last few years, from wonderful crusty French breads, to German styled soft pretzels, so the pizza dough came easy. Into a cup of hot water went one packet of yeast, one cup of flour, and a half teaspoon of salt. A mix of parsley, oregano, and basil gets added in on the first mix up too- about a teaspoonful combined. This mixture runs through on the bread setting of the Kitchen Aid for about three minutes. Then I add another two cups of flour along with two tablespoons of good quality olive oil and let it spin for eight minutes. The dough is rolled out on a lightly floured baking stone and coated generously with whatever pasta sauce I have made that week. Pepperoni or sausage gets liberally applied, along with lots of mushrooms. Oh, how I wish we had found another Morel this week! The whole pie gets topped off with tons of mozzarella cheese, placed in a hot 425 degree oven for twenty five minutes, and set to cool for another five to ten minutes on the stone where it finishes baking. This is so simple to make and tastes so much better than anything we have had out at a restaurant. It is also so nice to have one meal out of seven a given, and because I have been doing this for months now, I can make this dinner almost without thinking. Improvising becomes interesting and we often substitute chicken or bacon for the meat, and use all types of cheese when we are out of mozzarella. The same dough recipe can be used to make a calzone by placing the toppings on only one half of the rolled out dough and folding the pie in two. Pinching the ends keeps it together and you know it is done when the juices begin to flow out the sides and there comes that wonderful hollow rapping sound when tapped. My three year old recently made pizzas with her friends and she came home and said that they had "no flavor". At three, we have a pizza connoisseur. I think that is wonderful!

Dueling Wooden Spoons

Something
funny

happens

in a

marriage

when the

other

spouse

learns

to hold

their own

in the

kitchen.

Now I know what you're thinking...good for that Kristin, her husband has learned how to cook! I would be remiss to allow anyone to think that, for the fact is that when I met my husband he could run rings around me when it came to the culinary circle. As a matter of fact, there was a time in my twenties and better part of my thirties that if I had asked you to dinner, I would not have been offended if you showed up with carry out. I grew up with a mother who is a fantastic cook- it did not rub off. Unless there is such a thing as delayed rub off. When I made spaghetti back then, I had no idea what "al dente" meant and my sauce was a warmed can of tomato sauce. Let's be clear- I do not mean pasta sauce, I'm talking little red can of Contadina. I was pathetic and I am not ashamed to admit it. Little by little, however, over the last five years or so something extraordinary has happened. I am like Little Chef from Ratatouille, Anyone Can Cook. It started falling together when I began reading cookbooks. I noticed something akin to chemistry happening in my mind, but instead of Elemental Tables and metric measurements, it was lists of ingredients and ratios. The how and the why of foods was beginning to make sense to me. We did something daring last Thanksgiving. My husband and I decided to stay home and cook everything ourselves for our children. We casually planned and talked over the menu only a few days beforehand. It was a first in our marriage when we showed up together in the kitchen the next morning. The usual routine is one or the other- never both. We split up the dishes between the two of us, but I caught both of us looking over to see what and how the other was preparing. Comments and suggestions were made back and forth and were politely being met with an "um hmmmm..." Good grief, I had thought to myself, we've become each other's cooking back seat driver. How did this happen? When we sat down to the table that early evening, a valuable lesson had been learned by all. Shut up and let the other person cook. The meal was out of this world- every last dish. Since Thanksgiving, we've found ourselves in the kitchen together a few more times. These occasions have mainly been times when we have had friends and family over for big breakfasts, or brunch. We cook so much on these occasions that brunch is really the only way we can get it all on the table. The first hour or so leaves me concerned there may be bloodshed. We no longer try to mentor one another but we now fight to be in the same spot. There are three battlefields- the oven, the sink, and the stove top- in that order. And I have to preface something here. We have one of my father-in-law's first ever designed kitchens, and it is laid out beautifully. If we were attempting this feat in our old galley kitchen in Florida there would have been major injuries all around. We have no lack of space, we just seem to want to occupy the same space- or at least our food does. At the end of each and every day I find myself thinking over the culinary delights of the past sixteen hours. The foods prepared never fail to amaze me. We hardly ever eat out anymore. When we do, with very few exceptions, I find myself thinking of what could have been. So sad, I know, but our kitchen is turning out some truly divine food. If only I could turn out a truly divine kitchen clean up person I might never eat out again!

The Impostor

I have
been on
a baking

spree the

last six

months.

Maybe longer, I have lost track. I have been getting

nostalgic now that I have children of my own and have been baking and cooking a lot of the recipes I remember my mom making as a child. The three cookbooks that I remember my own mom looking for guidance from the most were James Beard on Bread, Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, and Betty Crocker's Cooky Book. Now in my own kitchen, I have an absolute love affair with Beard on Bread, and my copy of Better Homes and Gardens has become indispensable when I am trying out something new and just need some general direction. But the absence of Crocker's Cooky Book was gnawing at me. Of all the three, my mother's copy was the most well worn. We had it out on the kitchen counter a lot. She has mentioned sending it to me a few times always to follow up with the comment that it was probably too worn out to be usable. I could stand it no longer. But I couldn't locate it for sale, which I soon determined because "cookie" was "cooky" on the front cover. Once the title was deciphered, I immediately found a facsimile copy at a good price and waited what seemed like an eternity until it showed up in it's brown mailer. I was giddy with delight. The new version was EXACTLY the same as the old. Not one slight change had been made. What to make first? While the children were napping I was conjuring. How is it that I settled on chocolate chip cookies? I have made the Nestle Toll House recipe so many times that I no longer need an even quick glance at the recipe printed on the back of the package of chips. But the chocolate chip cookie is still my favorite. I was just looking over the nice little story about how it was cookie of the decade in the forties when it occurred to me that my chocolate chip cookies, though good, were not as good as my mom's. So I went over the ingredients and this is where I found a surprise. Betty Crocker called for shortening instead of butter. My gag reflex immediately began. I cannot help this as I am a product of the anti-fat in cooking years. I was thinking to myself that this cannot be when I had a flashback of that good old shortening can on the kitchen counter of my childhood. I, like my mother, pull all my ingredients out of the cupboards before I begin the recipe. Holy cripes had I consumed a large amount of shortening as a kid. This realization was shocking- and humorous too as I have better than good cholesterol levels. My mom's chocolate chip cookies never fell. They maintained their nice little domes and the texture while biting into one is something there are no words to describe. All I can say is that it has just the right amount of resilience and then it's like sinking into one of those memory foam beds. It's the fat solids in shortening. Even if you use vegetable shortening, it still does the trick. This recipe also called for about 1/4 cup more of flour to soften the cookie even further. I would bet dollars to donuts my mom adds that 1/4 cup extra. All these years I had been making the Impostor Cookie, at least the Impostor to my childhood cookie. But why then the use of butter on the Nestle Toll House package? That cute little history bit had given me the clue. The World War was raging and there had been rationing on items such as butter. Now it all made sense. When Betty Crocker published her book she simply used the 40's era recipe instead of the original Toll House recipe. People say you cannot beat the Toll House recipe in terms of texture and taste. Well, I have news for them. In this case, the shortening wins.

Tasha's Gingerbread

It's a rainy day here in the Ohio River Valley, a perfect day for warm bread fresh from the oven.

Tasha Tudor's "receipt" for gingerbread is a near perfect rendition. One of my favorite cold weather treats, I was eager to try Tasha's version. She is about as famous for her holiday gingerbread as she is for the wonderful character cookies she made from the Tree bread version of her recipe. Without further ado, here is the recipe I made this morning based loosely on her version from The Tasha Tudor Cookbook. How my recipe differs is that I nearly double the spices and leave out the raisins. I also use a darker molasses for a deeper color to the bread. My pan was a deeper version that what Tasha calls for so I added 15 minutes to the bake time and watched it closely the last portion of the baking. Lastly, I used nearly all organic ingredients.

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened (you may microwave for 30 seconds)
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg beaten
1 cup medium molasses (dark amber in color)
2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup hot water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Spray a 9x9x2 inch baking pan liberally with non-stick oil, being especially careful to coat the bottom of the pan. You may wish to dust the bottom with a bit of flour as this recipe may stick due to the longer baking time.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar with a wooden spoon. Add the egg and the molasses. Sift all the dry ingredients together and add them to the batter mixing well by hand. Add the hot water and hand blend until smooth.

Pour into baking pan and bake for 50 minutes paying close attention to the progress the last 15 minutes. The bread should be well done on the rim of the pan pulling away slightly from the edges. The center will appear nearly done and should rise about 1 to 2 inches. Insert a toothpick if uncertain as to center progress. At this stage of a clean toothpick but the center not quite complete, I baked for another 5 minutes to attain crustiness on the outer edges and thorough baking in the center.

Remove from oven and slide a blunt knife around edges to loosen bread. Turn out on to parchment paper and wrap in warm towel to cool a bit. Eat warm with a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar on top if you wish.

I hope you enjoy it!

A Holiday Jumpstart

If the season's first pumpkin pies come out of the oven before Halloween, I know I'm in trouble.

This season I must be in real trouble because they came out almost a week early. The afternoon I get the bug to make pumpkin pies is officially the day I have ushered in the upcoming Holiday Season. What triggers it is sometimes difficult to detect, but it is usually a combination of cooler weather and some external marketing ploy. Cool weather in combination with a rainy grey day is certain pumpkin pie making stimulus, but there are others. A visit to the Fresh Market when the Fall displays are up will get me every time, as will the timely arrival of the November issues of a few magazines. It seems a different periodical is the culprit every year and this year it was La Vie Claire. A pumpkin pie was just mentioned to have genuine Vermont maple syrup and it sent me running for The Mystic Pie Company website. It turned out to be the very best pumpkin pie I have ever made, and I have made a lot of pumpkin pies. The one periodical I read religiously is British Country Living- thank God it is meant for a European audience and the American custom of Thanksgiving is luckily not observed in the English Isles. This one would most definitely be the one to send me into a mania. The fact that British Country Living's arrival is a month late here, however, would be beneficial. Needless to say, when the Holiday Fever hits me, it hits hard, and more so now that we live at Hawks Run. It is not so much our property that is conducive to the holidays, but the entire southern region of Ohio known as the Ohio River Valley. This is a region of incredibly good cooks who have at their hands an incredibly great array of locally produced foods. Some years it is recipes for sweet potato dishes that I particularly find worthy, others it is recipes for stuffing, and still others might be variations on fall themed desserts. All I know is that when that first pumpkin pie comes out of the oven my culinary senses go into overdrive and I can't get enough of everything holiday. Halloween was barely a week ago and we have already accomplished the first banana bread, chocolate cookies, autumn cupcakes, corned beef casserole, taffy apples, and of course, the pies. The corned beef casserole is a maternal family tradition on that first cold day of Fall. This year it was enhanced with Portobello mushrooms and Italian cheeses instead of the usual plain buttons and cheddar. It was amazingly tasty. We varied the taffy apples this season as well using only the largest Honey crisps we could find. I thought for sure that I was going to need to see a dentist after that indulgence. Today was Autumn cupcakes in honor of my husband's birthday. These are a sinful concoction of rich butter cream fudge batter and cream cheese icing. The icing is dyed yellow, orange, and red then dolloped out in three drops on the cupcake top. My daughter delights in making the three colors swirl together to mimic Fall leaves. We have at least eight weeks to go in this Holiday Season and I think it is going to be a busy one for our oven. It may also require a daily extended hike outdoors in order to work off all the extra calories. Well worth it!