Pizza

I wanted to share one of our family staples with you. We make pizza a couple of times each month, if not more.

Dough

If you have a kitchen aide mixer with a dough hook, pizza dough is very simple to make. I make it so frequently that I don’t use a cook book. Here’s the recipe:

Fill a measuring cup with 2 cups of warm water. Sprinkle in 1 tablespoon of yeast. Add this to your mixing bowl and add a good dose of olive oil (2-3 tablespoons or maybe a bit more). Add about 1 teaspoon salt. Attach the dough hook, and turn the mixer on. Begin adding flour. I use whole wheat flour, but I sometimes add a bit of white flour, too. Anyway, add flour until the dough comes together and cleans the sides of the bowl. It should feel sort of like a baby’s bottom. That’s really the best way I know how to describe it. Not too firm, but definitely not sticky. I’ll estimate that it will take about five cups. Once the dough comes together, lift it out of the bowl. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the bowl. Rub the dough in the olive oil and use it to coat the bowl. The oil coating the dough will keep it from drying out, and it will also prevent the dough from sticking to the bowl. Cover the bowl with a towel and let it rise in a warm place until it’s roughly doubled (maybe an hour?).

If my recipe is too loose for you, click here to get a pizza dough recipe from epicurious. You can also use Trader Joe’s pizza dough. If you are on a gluten-free diet, Namaste makes a good pizza crust.

Here’s the pizza dough in the bowl after letting it rise for an hour:

If you’re using a pizza stone, heat the oven to 500 degrees.

We use a pizza stone, and we love it. I’m going to share our process using a pizza stone. But, you could definitely build the pizzas on a cookie sheet. You’ll likely need to lower the temperature a bit if you’re using a cookie sheet so that the bottom doesn’t burn before the rest of the pizza is cooked.

I’ve adopted Charlie’s method of rolling out pizza crust. Use a large cutting board. Lay down a piece of parchment. Plop a piece of pizza dough on the parchment, then cover the dough with another piece of parchment. Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough. We’ve been making thin crust pizza, and this works very well. After you get the dough rolled out, remove the top layer of parchment. Using parchment on the bottom of the crust makes scooting the pizza into the oven very easy. Just leave the bottom layer of parchment on to cook the pizza.

You can build the pizza either on a cutting board or on a pizza peel. Our pizza peel was a splurge a couple of years ago, but we have gotten a ton of use out of it.

Toppings

olive oil
garlic or garlic salt
Trader Joe’s pizza sauce
pepperoni
mozzarella
blue cheese
goat cheese
anchovies
mushrooms
peppers
kalamata olives
potatoes (very thinly sliced)

In case you don’t know how to build a pizza, our general formula is to put down a layer of sauce or olive oil and garlic salt. Add the toppings, with the cheese going on last. The only exception is that if you’re using pepperoni, add the pepperoni last. This way, it gets nice and crispy on top of the pizza. Also, try to make sure that the toppings go to the edges of the pizza.

Our family’s favorite combinations include:

pizza sauce, pepperoni, mushrooms, olives and mozzarella
olive oil, thinly sliced garlic, anchovies and mozzarella (if you like garlic and anchovies, this is decadent!)
potato with blue cheese, mozzarella and rosemary

We usually make several smallish pizzas so that everyone has their pick of pizza. The children enjoy building their own pizzas.

This pizza is ready to slide on to the pizza stone.

After you have your pizza built, slide it onto the hot stone using the peel. Set the timer for 8 minutes. Sometimes it takes longer, but thin crust pizza cooks fairly quickly. You can count on it taking 8 to 10 minutes.

This is a meal that we’ve enjoyed making with company. People usually enjoy the process. But, with pizza, cooking is an event. Your friends will need to be game for rolling their sleeves up and pitching in. Otherwise, you’ll be distracted with cooking instead of enjoying your friends. But, if your friends are ready to help, it’s a fun shared activity.

Any other pizza chefs or connoisseurs out there? What’s your favorite combo? As always, I’m happy to answer questions if you have them.

The No Frills Kitchen

Loved this article on the no-frills kitchen in the New York Times by Mark Bittman.  Click here if you want to read it.  It flies in the face of the Wolf stove that still has the plastic in it because it’s never been used.  A Sub Zero fridge and a Viking stove will not actually make you a better cook.  I love Bittman’s  no-nonsense approach to getting an adequate kitchen set up and then using it.

More on Soup Night

I told you a bit about Soup Night a while back. But, I wanted to share a few more ideas that might make Soup Night more manageable.

When we lived at L’Abri, all meals were eaten in community. Their kitchens were set up for this. I’ve borrowed some ideas from L’Abri.

You can see the two pictures above of the L’Abri student kitchen. It’s small and cozy- and very, very efficient. Out of this small kitchen, about 20+ students are fed at least one meal on most days. Most of the students eat around the table in the kitchen, and there is another table just outside the kitchen where the rest of the people eat. L’Abri is on a tight budget. There are lots of meals centered around legumes and pasta. Lots of soup. Meat is a treat. But, there’s always plenty for everyone to have a decent meal. Charlie and I loved this- and we wanted to bring the L’Abri meal philosophy home with us.

So, I’ve adapted some of the L’Abri ideas to make feeding a crowd easier.

We took the doors off our cabinet where the dishes were stored. This allows people to get their own dishes. Charlie installed cup hooks underneath the cabinet so that the kids could get their own cups. In our house, the children drink everything from these small cups. They are short and squatty- so they don’t tip over easily. For Soup Night, I take my wooden silverware holder out of the drawer and place it on the counter with a stack of cloth napkins, and I’m almost done. Put out some wine glasses and fill a pitcher of water. I have a white hotel table cloth that I use for everything from Thanksgiving dinner to Soup Nights. It’s indestructible. I don’t fuss about red wine spills. When you go to someone’s house, do you really care if they have a spot on their table cloth?

I think that it’s really important to internalize that this is not entertaining. It’s hospitality. All I do to prep the house is make sure that the bathroom is reasonably clean. It’s about sharing a meal with neighbors. Let your kids’ messy rooms go. After the kids play in their rooms, they will be messy any way.

Another thing that I’ve learned is that you need to have a Plan B ready. One time, I was making this beautiful tortilla soup. I had bought, roasted and peeled all these beautiful chilis and make this beautiful sauce with pastured chicken stock. When I tasted it, the soup was blazing hot. I was sputtering- and I’m not a wimp with hot foods. Truly, it was inedible. So, I ran to Trader Joe’s and picked up all the stuff for a taco bar. Grilled some chicken; warmed up some canned black beans and tortillas- the rest was ready in about 20 minutes. Yesterday, I had four realtors at my house. It was either make soup and fly around like a witch with my kids, or outsource. I got home from the park about 15 minutes before everyone arrived and ordered pizza. I think that having a Plan B at the ready is important.

I know that others are doing this. My good friends John and Tommi (who’ve also spent time at L’Abri) do a Soup Night up in Portland. I’d love to hear what questions or suggestions people have.

Yogurt

Yogurt is so easy to make. We’re on a diet that requires that we use yogurt that’s been cultured for way longer than what you can get in the store. Thus, I’m making it about once a week right now.

What you need:

Mason jars
Milk
A bit of yogurt from the store with live active cultures. I use Strauss.

Stirring frequently, heat the milk to 180 degrees.

Still stirring frequently, bring the temperature down to 110 degrees (or a bit less). All the stirring helps to prevent a skin from forming on top of the milk.

Mix the yogurt (roughly 2 T to 1/4 c per quart) into your milk. Make sure that you get the yogurt thoroughly incorporated into the milk. I use a whisk, but very gently. If you use the whisk vigorously, you’ll have a lot of foam on top of the yogurt. Pour into sterilized jars, and secure sterilized lids . Keep at around 90-100 degrees for at least eight hours. I ferment mine in my dehydrator for about 24 hours. From what I understand, you can also use a gas oven. When the oven is off, the pilot light keeps the oven warm enough for culturing yogurt. Store in fridge.

You have to heat the milk to 180 to kill any bacteria in the milk. Because you’ll be leaving the milk at room temperature, you’ll be encouraging bacteria to grow- so you’ll want to make sure that you’re encouraging only good bacteria to grow. This is also why you need to sterilize your mason jars and lids before you pour the milk in.

Now the good part. My favorite ways to eat yogurt are:

- Add honey. Pour honey yogurt over fruit and nuts for a yummy, healthy breakfast. I eat this a lot at night as a dessert.

- Drain yogurt in coffee filters or a tea towel set inside a strainer to make thick greek yogurt. I use the left over whey in fermenting. Any way, use the drained yogurt with some seeded and chopped cucumbers, garlic, lemon juice and a bit of salt to make a great greek dip. I make this whenever I make lamb burgers. So, so good.

When life hands you apples . . .

Well, there are a lot of options when life hands you apples. Galette, sauce, pie, crumble, cobbler, cake- really, you can’t go wrong. This time, we made apple sauce.

A big thank you to my neighbor Julien, who started this whole adventure. His tree is so heavy with fruit right now that he called us to see if we would be interested in coming to pick apples. Yes! Absolutely!

The next day, we were planning to have my friends Leanne and Sarah over with their girls to play. I thought that it would be fun to make apple sauce. It’s so, so simple.

First, cut the apples into chunks. Any bad spots go into the compost. I leave the seeds, stems and skins on.

Next, throw the apples into a big pot on medium heat. You can use apple juice or water to help the apples begin to steam- then, they’ll begin to release their own juice to cook in.

Continue cooking on medium to low heat until the apples are very soft (actually, I was going to say mooshy- which is a way better word than soft).

Once the apples are cooked, use a food mill to remove the skins and seeds.

And here’s the finished product:

You can add cinnamon if you want. Also, with early apples like these, the sauce is a bit tart. More apple juice while cooking would have sweetened it up a bit. But, adding a little honey also works.

It’s a fun process and a yummy product. So much more fun to make when you have friends to help you with the work- and the eating!

Food Forward

Check out this new show called Food Forward. They’re still trying to get funding to air the first show. The clip features Joe Morris, the man I’ve been buying my beef from for the last three years. Shows people who are doing very, very cool things in the sustainable food movement.

Lactofermented Kraut

I got a new Harsch crock a while back, and I finally got around to using it yesterday.

My husband is going to be starting a new gut healing diet soon, and lactofermented vegetables are part of the program.

I’ve been making kraut for a few years, but this is the first time using my fancy new crock. So, into the recipe this time around (everything organic):

red cabbage
white cabbage
fennel
green onions
radishes
carrots
beets
beet greens
a bit of juice from my friend amy’s kraut (sort of an inoculant- but it’s not really needed)
fennel seed
celtic sea salt

So, the process is that you shred or thinly slice all the vegetables. Add salt until it’s relatively salty. You can add whey (from drained plain yogurt) or a bit of juice from a previous batch of kraut. This isn’t necessary, though. The salt will preserve the veggies until they are fermented- as long as they stay submerged in the brine. Pound the veggies with a meat tenderizing hammer, or just work them with your hands until they begin to release their juices.

Then, weigh the veggies down so that they stay beneath the brine. Up to this point, I’ve used a very clean glass jar filled with water as a weight. The Harsch crock comes with weighing stones- so, so convenient.

Then, you wait while it ferments (maybe a month). I’ve fermented in about a week before, but the Harsch takes a little longer- not sure why. It bubbles away. So very fun to witness. Food chemistry. When the veggies are done, you have lovely preserved veggies that are pleasantly sour and loaded with probiotics. And very nutritious. Here are some pictures:

This picture doesn’t show the lid. After you have the crock loaded, you put the lid on, and then fill the lip with water. It lets the carbon dioxide out as it ferments, but no air can get in.

After all the veggies are shredded, you add salt and pound with a mallet to get the veggies to start releasing their juices.

Above you can see the loaded and weighted crock. There wasn’t quite enough juice, so I added some boiled salt water to bring the brine level up.

A caveat with fermenting- everything has to be very, very clean. You’re encouraging bacteria to grow- and you want to make sure that it’s the right bacteria. So, I always wash all of my fermenting equipment with hot, soapy water as soon as I’m done with it- and again right before I use it. You can’t be too careful. The other fermenting rule: If in doubt, throw it out.

Now, I’m just waiting for the bubbling to begin.

Grilled Artichokes

On Friday, our artichokes were threatening to bloom, so I went out and harvested them. Depending on the size, I cut them in halves or quarters, then cooked them until tender in boiling water. When cooking artichokes, it’s a good idea to add lemon juice to the water to keep them from getting brown. Once they were tender, I drained them and threw them into a bowl with olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and salt. Then, they went onto the grill to give them some flavor. Not a long time- just long enough for them to get a smoky flavor and some grill marks.

We had company that evening, and there were several of us parked at the platter enjoying the artichokes with olive oil on our hands. Such a wonderfully yummy, messy finger food.

Kombucha

Yummy, bubbly goodness

Not exactly an appetizing image, but this is what the kombucha looks like with the scoby floating on top.

I love to make and drink kombucha. So yummy and refreshing. Here’s the recipe:

3 quarts water
1 c sugar
4 tea bags of organic black tea
½ cup kombucha from a previous batch
1 kombucha scoby

Boil the water. Stir in the sugar until it is dissolved, then add the tea bags. Leave the tea alone until it is luke warm to room temperature. Remove the tea bags. Drop in the scoby and ½ cup of kombucha. Cover with a cloth, and let it sit for about five days. I secure the cloth with a rubber band.

When it finishes, it should smell sort of sour and fruity/yeasty- best way that I can describe it. It will be mildly bubbly. The scoby will have brown gunk on it- and it will be attached to a new baby scoby. If something goes wrong, it will have mold on it. Black is not normal. A bad smell is not normal. As with all fermented foods “if in doubt, throw it out”.

What is a scoby? The word is an acronym for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. And white sugar? Really- a health food? Kombucha has so many health benefits. It contains a very potent detoxifying substance called glucuronic acid. In Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon claims that it is a “powerful aid to the body’s natural cleansing process, a boost to the immune system and a proven prophylactic against cancer and other degenative diseases”. You can make kombucha with honey or other sweeteners, but the highest levels of glucuronic acid are achieved when you use white sugar. Go figure.

A couple of caveats- I know of a case where someone felt mildly buzzed from kombucha. It’s a fermented food, so it might contain a bit of alcohol- I’m not really sure. Also, some people are allergic to kombucha, so you’ll want to try a small amount the first time you drink it.

And, as with all fermenting, make sure that the containers you use are super clean. It’s important to leave kombucha alone once you start the ferment. Put it on a shelf and leave it alone until it’s ready to be checked (five days).

Ginger Carrots

My apologies for the side ways picture. But, I wanted you to see how I weigh down the carrots with a second jar.

I made yummy fermented ginger carrots this week, and I thought I’d share. Here’s the recipe from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig:

4 c grated carrots, tightly packed
1 T freshly grated ginger
1 T sea salt
4 T Whey

In a bowl, mix all ingredients and pound with a wooden pounder or a meat hammer to release the juices. Place in a quart-sized, wide-mouth mason jar and press down firmly with a pounder or meat hammer until juices cover the carrots. The top of the carrots should be at least 1 inch below the top of the jar. (I set a clean jar filled with water on top to weigh down the carrots.) Cover with a cloth and leave at room temperature for three to five days before transferring to cold storage. Leave them out until they stop bubbling. Note: to ferment safely, you have to make sure that the carrots stay below the surface of the liquid the entire time. Also, make sure that the mason jar, as well as the jar you use as a weight are very clean.

Fermenting is a little intimidating at first. When I first started fermenting, I was was so concerned that I was going to make my family sick. There is a small amount of basic knowledge that you have to have to do it safely. But, once you get the hang of it, it’s quite fun. Plus you get all those fermented veggies, which are so wonderfully high in enzymes and probiotics.