Pizza! Beef Stew! Takeout! (Last Week's Meal Plan)

Meal plan for the week of October 19th!

Sunday - pizza night, kale salad
Monday - beef stew (made Sunday)
Tuesday - takeout
Wednesday - sausage, greens (washed the greens on Sunday, added potato wedges because I had time to make them Tuesday night)
Thursday - tomato soup (made Sunday), roasted delicata squash (made Sunday), broiled zucchini and cheesy garlic bread
Friday - beans and egg sandwiches (slow cooker beans, Adam made the egg sandos)



Sunday was pizza night: I used the crust from Vegetarian Cooking for everyone that I make with 50% white whole wheat flour, but instead of making two thin crust pizzas I just put the whole blob of dough on a sheet pan and made a focaccia style pie with red sauce, mozz, and parm. Also kale salad. Delicious, but thick crust pizza doesn't reheat very well.



Beef stew: I made it on Sunday afternoon, we ate it over farro on Monday. Tasty. Provided lunches for most of the week. Here is a picture of Sad Josie Pondering Stew. She had a rough day.



Takeout! Adam had to go to North Carolina for work, so while he enjoyed BBQ (and then had to work overnight, poor guy), Josie and I ordered take out from the South American joint around the corner. I say South American because the menu is vaguely Brazilian, but also Salvadorean and Mexican. ANYWAY that horchata was so on point. I want to be drinking more of it right. now. Chipotle Milanesa (essentially a fried chicken) sandwich, YUM, Josie coveted but I foisted the mediocre tostones off on her instead (mean mommy!). Coxinhas (croquettes with chicken and cheese) were delicious but sat heavily in my tummy. Good beef empanada, meh vegetable side ordered out of guilt. I want to try the tamales.



Sausages, greens, and potato wedges: exactly what it sounds like. I made the potato wedges the night before and Adam just reheated them, plus TJ's chicken sausages and some sauteed broccoli raab. A solid and reliable meal.



Tomato soup, roasted delicata squash (surprising toddler hit!), broiled zucchini (sorry, mommy, still not interested in green foods). Last minute addition of cheesy garlic bread was appreciated by all. Tomato soup was approximately: 1 onion, sweated in butter, a couple garlic cloves, diced red pepper, and a can of tomatoes. Simmered for ten mins and blitzed with the immersion blender. Seasoned it with some Bragg's aminos, salt and pepper. It was fine, but if I had any cream it could have used a lick to round out the acidity some. I always forget how much red pepper comes forward in a soup.



Friday beans and egg sandos! True confessions: this was my second egg sandwich that day. I regret nothing.




On Sunday I also made this pasta "pie" in a greased springform pan: leftovers, layered into the pan with shredded mozz and topped with parm, baked at 375 till brown on top (like 20-30 mins). Fun to eat!

Deep Dish

So I made a ridiculous deep dish pizza for dinner tonight. And now I'm in something of a pizza coma. So. much. gooeyness. I'm all for a thin crust, Neapolitan style, artisan pie (in fact, I usually do thin crust when it's homemade pizza night), but deep dish is like comfort food made pizza. Probably because it's a cheesy bread bomb and hits all the right buttons. I'm not going to share the recipe here because I followed Nick's instructions pretty much exactly (by way of CI).

Two notes, though: my sauce took twice as long to thicken up and it was still a little liquidy. Don't be like me, simmer your sauce until there's no standing liquid left or it'll sog your pizza a bit. Also, if you use a spring form pan (it was the only 9" pan I had), it's ok to take the sides off after cooking if you want, but you'll have to put them back on to contain the gooeyness once you're ready to cut into the pizza.

Happy Sunday, folks.

Area Four

Adam and I finally ventured into the all! new! Kendall Square today after a shopping blitz at the Cambridgeside Galleria. Incidentally, that's my new strategy for shopping, which I loathe: what do I need? Go in fast, get it, pay, and leave. No dilly dallying. Don't make eye contact with the tweenagers. I was in and out of Sephora in less than 6 minutes, but I got the mascara I needed, word.

But back to Kendall. There are all sorts of new restaurants over there and I haven't been able to check any of them out yet, but we both had pretty good weeks at work so out we went for celebratory pizza at Area Four. We split an appetizer special - big long crouton with fresh ricotta and broccoli rabe and chili garlic oil. The broccoli rabe was cold, like fridge cold, and I wished it had been at least room temp, but the flavor was good. The pizzas were great - piping hot and savory as all get out. Adam got the putanesca, not shy with the anchovies, and my clam and bacon was indulgently rich. Yum.

Jam on it! If it is pizza.

Speaking of cleaning out the jam cabinet, have you considered jam on pizza? Like instead of sauce? My friend Miranda suggested it (she's been using fig jam) and dudes IT IS BRILLIANT. The pizza above is apricot-rosemary jam with mascarpone and then lightly dressed arugula once it was out of the oven. I recommend this combination, but I'm also curious: what other jam/cheese/other toppings combo would you guys put together? I was thinking tomato jam plus cheddar would be pretty rad, or a berry jam plus goat cheese, maybe. What do you guys think?

Eggplant and Oregano Pizza

So, speaking of pizza... I always make more than one, because once I've got the oven all heated up it seems silly not to. I wanted to use eggplant, and I had a huge bunch of oregano in the fridge from last week's CSA. I cubed the eggplant and sauteed it in a little olive oil, then tossed it with about a tablespoon of oregano. Spread the crust with some more olive oil and a bit of mozzarella, and ta-da! Eggplant pizza. Yum.

Sorrel Pesto

This year I planted sorrel in the garden. I tried to start it from seed, but my seedlings were so tiny when I set them out I was sure they weren't going to make it, so I bought a couple of heartier specimens at an early spring farmer's market. The woman I bought them from warned me that it's perennial, which made me a tiny bit nervous because I had never tasted it before, though I was intrigued by the descriptions I had read about it being aggressively tart and tangy. Wikipedia describes it as similar to kiwifruit or like sour strawberries, but I think it's more like tart lemony spinach.



I finally harvested a big bunch of leaves over the weekend and I thought about making soup or maybe saucing some salmon with it, but I had defrosted some pizza dough from a new recipe I had tried (it was really tough to work with, so I won't recommend it here) and I've been thinking about potato pizza so I figured there's potato in sorrel soup, I bet that would make a mighty fine pizza. Indeed it did, my friends. Indeed it did.

Sorrel Pesto
makes about a cup

I didn't have any pine nuts and I didn't feel like using walnuts, so this is really more of a sorrel puree. If you have nuts, feel free to toast a couple tablespoons and include them in your pesto.

1 large bunch sorrel, center ribs removed, roughly chopped (you should have almost 3 cups)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped
1/3 cup grated pecorino romano or parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and process until you get a consistency you like. Adjust seasoning.

For the pizza: 
your favorite pizza dough, enough to make a ten inch pie

1/3 - 1/2 cup sorrel pesto

one red skinned potato, washed and sliced very thin on a mandoline (hold in cold water while you prep the rest of the ingredients)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 ounce goat cheese

Preheat the oven as high as it can go with a pizza stone if you have one. Stretch the dough, top it with the pesto, then the potatoes and goat cheese. Use your finger to spread a little olive oil on each potato slice (you will probably have extra potato slices). Bake the pizza until the crust is crisp and the potatoes are getting a little brown around the edges, 10-15 minutes depending on your oven.

Stone Soup Farm CSA: Week Twelve

Whew, you guys, what a week! I know I'm several days late with the CSA post but it was my last week at work so I was there rather late most evenings. I'm all done now, and getting ready for my next adventure. Thank you all so, so much for your support and encouragement! My week off starts with Adam's (30th!) birthday party tomorrow, so I've spent most of today cooking and shopping to prepare for it; I've got a brisket in the oven and another one in the slow cooker. I know this is a crazy amount of meat, but Adam's a popular dude and dangit, I'm going to want leftovers, so I'm cooking a lot of meat. In other news, my house currently smells AWESOME.

This week's veggies are: tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, pattypan squash, basil, lettuce, swiss chard, onions, garlic, edamame and some carrots that I think sat in the ground a bit too long because they were really quite woody, unfortunately.

I made classic basil pesto with, um, the basil and put it on a pizza with sliced tomato.



Alright, I know, a little slapdash and rushed, but fear not! I'll be back soon with hot sauce, breakfast pastries, ice cream, and cake! Have a great weekend, everyone!

PS: Michael Ruhlman is doing a Week Twelve Roundup over on his blog - interesting stuff!

Pizza: Pear, Walnut, Blue Cheese, Arugula

Before we left for Texas I was doing some fridge cleaning out. Most of the time for me that means pizza. You know I love to re-appropriate leftovers, and I think a pie is an awfully nice way to use your leftover bits and bobs. In fact, I think it's high time I added a "pizza" category to my index of recipes.

The thing is, we don't tend to eat a lot of spaghetti with red sauce, and I don't often buy mozzarella unless I am specifically planning to make pizza... so our pizza almost always ends up sort of "fancy." In this house, we call it sosh (pronounced like the first syllable of social*) pizza. Adam has this thing about The Outsiders, and by thing, I mean he often describes things as sosh. Maybe it's because he grew up near Tulsa. Except we're not Greasers, and it's not 1965, and this is not a novel, it is cooking.

So my point is, we rarely eat pizza margherita, more often than not we eat pizza entirely without red sauce. For this particular incarnation, I used sliced bosc pears, cambozola (a triple cream blue, like a brie with funk), and walnuts, and I piled some arugula on top for the last minute of cooking. Even if Ponyboy  and Soda would think me too posh, I thought it was awfully good.

*I had the darndest time trying to figure out how you write this out phonetically. Sowsh? Sewsh? S.E. Hinton goes with Soc, but I thought it looked like sock that way. Wordsmiths, a little help?

Pizza with Pears, Blue Cheese and Arugula
serves 2 with leftovers for lunch

I par-baked the crust this time because I didn't want the walnuts to burn. I liked the way it worked out, and I'll try it again for future pizzas.

your favorite pizza dough, enough for one thin 14 inch round
1 bosc pear, thinly sliced
a handful of walnuts, chopped
3-4 ounces Cambozola or other blue cheese, sliced
2 big handfuls baby arugula
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Preheat your oven as high as it will go (mine goes to 500) with a pizza stone or upside down cookie sheet in the center. Give it at least a 15-20 minute pre-heat.

On a peel, a piece of parchment, or another upside down cookie sheet, stretch the dough to a 12-14 inch circle. Or a non-circle. No judgement here.

Slide the round onto the pre-heated stone and par-bake for 3-5 minutes, just until set. Carefully remove the partially baked crust onto the peel or cookie sheet. Top with cheese, pears, and walnuts, then put the pizza back in the oven and bake for another 8-10 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

Meanwhile toss the arugula with the olive oil and lemon juice.

When the pizza is nearly brown enough for you, open the oven and carefully add the arugula to the pizza. Let it go for another 30 seconds to a minute, until the arugula is getting wilty. Remove from oven.

Let stand a few minutes so you don't burn your mouth on the molten cheese.

Asparagus Pesto

So after I made all that pickled asparagus, trimmed down to fit in pint jars, I was faced with a gallon bag of asparagus ends that I was too stubborn to throw out feed to the worms. Some of them were woody and inedible, but there was an inch or two on each that was perfectly good, if I could only figure out how to use it.

The very next day in the New York Times (kismet! fate! serendipity!), Mark Bittman's Minimalist column suggested asparagus pesto. It turned out to be an absolutely perfect way to use up not-so-pretty bits and bobs of asparagus. We ate it that first day as a sauce for seared scallops, but the next day I used it on another leftovers pizza and it really shone: the garlic mellowed out and the asparagus flavor deepened in the heat of the oven. We had half an onion in the fridge, so I sliced that very thinly and sprinkled it on top. We also had an open package of turkey bacon, so I cooked up a couple of strips until they were almost done, then sliced those up and layered them in with the onion. Ten minutes or so in a super hot oven and dinner was ready to go.

Asparagus Pesto
adapted to use what I had from the New York Times

the end pieces of four bunches of asparagus, woody ends removed (or one bunch of asparagus, woody ends removed, cut in 1-2 inch lengths)
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
a handful of pine nuts (about 1/4 cup)
3/4 cup freshly grated parmesan (I bet pecorino romano would be good in this, too)
1/4-1/2 cup olive oil
zest and juice of half a lemon
freshly ground black pepper

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the asparagus until tender, but not mushy, 5-8 minutes. Drain, reserving some cooking liquid.

Put the pine nuts and garlic in a food processor and pulse to combine and chop the nuts. Add asparagus, cheese, and lemon zest, and pulse to start the process. Add the lemon juice and a few tablespoons of olive oil, pulse a few times again and taste the pesto. It will probably need more olive oil, add it now and pulse again. Add some black pepper, a few turns of the grinder, and (wait for it!) pulse again. If the pesto still seems dry, add olive oil or some of the reserved cooking liquid. Continue in this manner, tasting and adding oil or pepper (or lemon juice?) until you reach the consistency and flavor you like.

Use as a sauce for fish or pasta, or on pizza. Asparagus pesto keeps for a day or two in the fridge.

Leftovers Pizza

Do you eat your leftovers as leftovers? Sometimes we do that here, especially if dinner transports or reheats easily for lunch the next day. Sometimes, though, you get stuck with bits and bobs and pieces of things that might not make sense alone, plain, reheated. When that happens, it's nice to turn them into something else. Tonight we took some leftover mashed sweet potatoes and fried them into loose patties with leftover braised leeks. They were structurally unsound, but tasty and here's the kicker: it wasn't exactly the same thing we ate yesterday.

One of my favorite ways to jazz up leftovers is to throw them on a pizza crust. The opening photo features leftover roasted root vegetables that had gone with a chicken, and some leftover Acorn Squash with Chili Lime Vinaigrette. I mashed up some goat cheese with some leftover vinaigrette, plopped it on the crust, topped with the chopped vegetables, and voila! Pizza! Drizzled with a little olive oil it and alongside a glass of wine it made a mighty fine dinner, and I felt awfully thrifty.

Occasionally you may find yourself with a seemingly bizarre mix of flavors, but you just have to pretend you run a fancy artisan pizza place and trust your instincts that weird combinations will in fact be delicious. Take this leftovers pizza from earlier this week: tomato sauce, extra from some pasta. emmental cheese, some sauteed kale that was just hanging out in the fridge. A little pepper jack for good measure. And one sliced hot dog, because there was only one, we were out of buns, and why not? It's been tasty before. When this came out of the oven, we ate it with mustard and sauerkraut. Heck yes we did.

What's the weirdest leftovers pizza you've ever made?

Speaking of leftovers - for a brilliant treatise on the subject of leftovers, you should check out this post on Simmer Till Done that includes many uses for the onions from that giant batch of french onion soup you just made.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
adapted from Deborah Madison
The key to leftovers pizza (which then becomes leftover leftovers pizza the next morning... heh) is having a reliable crust. I find this one an absolute dream to work with; I use 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 3 cups of all purpose, but you can use as little as 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour in this dough, just increase the AP flour to 3 1/2 cups. Just make sure the total you use is 4 cups of flour. This dough also keeps well in the freezer for about a month, just make sure to take it out the day before you want to use it and let it thaw in the fridge.

1 1/2 cup warm water
2 tsp yeast,
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup to 1 cup whole wheat flour
3 cups to 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

In a large bowl, add the yeast to the warm water. Allow to sit for ten minutes; if the yeast begins to foam, continue - if it hasn't started to foam after 10 minutes start over with new yeast.

Add the salt, olive oil and whole wheat flour, and start mixing, then add the white flour. Mix until a shaggy dough forms. Turn out onto a lightly floured countertop and knead until smooth (5-10 minutes, generally). You may need to add additional flour to the counter to keep it from sticking.

Coat the original bowl with a little bit of olive oil, then add the ball of dough. Turn the dough to coat it with oil so the surface has enough moisture to expand during rising. Cover with a clean towel and allow to rise until doubled, 40-60 minutes.

Divide the dough in two, shape each piece into a ball, then put the pieces on the counter and cover with a towel. Let rest for another 20-30 minutes. At this point, I put one of the balls of dough into a quart size freezer bag and stash it in the freezer for use later on. Or you could just make two pizzas...

While the dough is resting, start pre-heating your oven and pizza stone (or another upside down cookie sheet) to the highest temperature possible, mine goes to 500 but yours may only go as high as 450. Either way, crank it up. A super hot oven is crucial to good pizza at home.

Take the ball of dough and begin shaping it into a circle on a floured counter or pizza peel (back of a cookie sheet also works). You should be able to get about a 14 inch circle of about 1/4 inch thickness. Cover again with a towel and let it rest for 5-10 minutes.

Add the leftovers of your choice (don't be overzealous, too much sauce/cheese can overwhelm a dough, leaving it soggy), and slide the pizza off the peel/cookie sheet onto the stone/cookie sheet. Bake for 8-15 minutes. I start checking mine at 8 - really thin crusts cook very quickly - but if your crust is thick or you used a lot of toppings it may take up to 15 minutes to properly brown.

Remove from the oven (careful, it's VERY hot) and allow to cook for a couple of minutes before slicing so the cheese has a chance to set back up again. Unless you didn't use cheese (hey, it could happen) in which case, dig in!

Green Tomato and Egg Pizza

Our CSA farm has been hit pretty hard by the absolute crap weather we've had this year. His cornfield drowned, his arugula is full of holes and hold the phone: we haven't even gotten any zucchini yet. Whoa.

But that's not even the worst of it. The worst of it is the paltry selection of tomatoes. Many farmers here are harvesting the much anticipated summer super star early and green just so they can keep them from rotting on the vine. Maybe you've heard of it: the dreaded late blight attacking most of the tomatoes here in the northeast and withering the stalks, leaves and fruits into dry brown skeletons of sludge. It's really, really depressing so I'm not going to dwell on it. I'll just say hey, if you need to harvest early or you find green tomatoes at the market, don't fret! Make pizza. (Or you could fry 'em up and eat them southern style.)

Green Tomato Pizza
Serves 2 as a light dinner or one hungry person

I used stored dough from my ABin5 bucket (the olive oil/pizza dough recipe with a little whole wheat flour replacing about a cup of the all purpose). I also didn't really stretch it thin enough, but I really like doughy crust. You can use your favorite pizza dough recipe; here's a good one, and store-bought is fine, too.

Pizza dough (or a generous pound of stored dough)
1 medium green tomato per 10-inch pizza, sliced
1 egg per 10-inch pizza
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese*
olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, more if you like garlic an awful lot (I do!)
salt
pepper
Parmesan cheese
cornmeal for sprinkling, or parchment paper

Preheat your oven to its highest setting (mine is 500 but it runs at about 550 if you give it a long enough pre-heat) with a pizza stone or upside down cookie sheet on the middle rack. You'll want to give it at least 20 minutes to heat up. If using stored dough, take it out of the fridge and give it some time to rest at room temperature; you can do the rest of your prep work while it rests.

Chop the garlic roughly, then using a little bit of salt for friction, smash and mash it against the cutting board with the flat of your knife to make a rough paste. You could also use a mortar and pestle here. Put the garlic in a small bowl and add couple tablespoons of olive oil. Set aside.

Spread a thin layer of cornmeal on a pizza peel or the back of a cookie sheet (or use a sheet of parchment paper, crust will not get as crispy, but that's ok with me). Flour your hands, then pat your dough flat and stretch it into a thin round, tossing it gently on your knuckles at first then stretching more vigorously until it reaches the diameter you want. Place the round of dough on the peel, and working quickly, spread the garlicky oil over the pizza, leaving a thin border. Sprinkle the feta over the garlic oil. Add the tomato slices, forming a ring in the center. At this point, if you want a fully-set egg yolk, crack an egg into the center of the tomato ring. (If not, wait until the pizza is 3/4-cooked, then crack the egg onto the hot pie and let it finish in the oven. ) Grate some Parmesan cheese over the whole shebang, and sprinkle with some black pepper.

Slide the pizza off the peel/cookie sheet onto the stone in the oven and cook for 10-15 minutes depending on the heat of your oven. The egg will be fully set (unless you waited), the tomatoes starting to shrivel and the crust puffed and brown around the edges.

*This is not a super cheesey pizza, so feel free to increase the feta to 1/2 a cup or add a meltier cheese (monterey jack, or mozzarella perhaps) under or on top of the tomatoes.