Pizza Addiction

When push comes to shove, pizza is my favorite food. It is simply the perfect fusion of cheese, bread and everything else you could possibly imagine, even fruit (Hello, Hawai'ian pizza!). Sometimes I feel as though I need to go to a Pizza Whores Anonymous meeting just to unburden myself of this knowledge. Instead, I'll blog about it. :)

Today is a Just Me Day, the kids are at their dad's and I could make myself anything I wanted: risotto, vegetable biryani, pad thai, any one of the countless dishes my kids would not eat if I paid them $20 per bite. But no. Today, I have decreed that it is Pizza, Beer and Chocolate Day.

The chocolate: Lindt & Ghirardelli

The beer: Saranac's 12 Beers of Summer

The Summer Ale is crisp and refreshing.

Here is the Amber Wheat beer.

Mmmm, frosty.

I had to crop out the hairbrush on the table next to this beer. See?

Now THAT'S "Keeping it real," just like some other mom-blogger out there.

The pizza: my favorite sun-dried tomato, kalamata olive & artichoke pizza topped with feta, mozzarella, parmigiano reggiano, aged asiago and provolone.

Look at the sun dried tomato and the artichoke, crisping up on the edges. See the shapes of the feta chunks pushing up the blanket of melted, browned cheese.

Yum.
Seriously, YUM.

I don't have an adorable, weepy-eyed bassett hound like some other people, but I do have an obnoxious, evil-eyed orange tabby.

Just "Keepin' it Real, folks."

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Grown-up Mac and Cheese

Mac and cheese just might be the epitome of comfort food, and by "mac and cheese," I don't mean some boxed crap with a cheese sauce made from a fluorescent orange powder of unknown provenance - Velveeta, whether in block form or dehydrated into a powder is not cheese. No, I mean a real, baked in the oven, stick to your ribs, look-Mom-I-made-a-cheese-sauce-from-a-roux, luscious, creamy, totally decadent mac and cheese.

Be a pretentious fool if you want to be and call it pasta e formaggio. This is mac and cheese for grown-ups... and discerning kids. My kids love this stuff now that I have finally weaned them off the boxed variety. Now when they request mac and cheese, this is what they want, from the non-orange cheese sauce to the crunchy crumb topping.

Grown-up Mac and Cheese

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces elbow macaroni
• butter
  
• 2 vidalia onions
• 1 shallot
• salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup white wine
  
• 1 clove garlic
  
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 cups milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 small vidalia onion
• 2 t whole grain mustard
• hot sauce (I've been using Cholula lately)
  
• 1 package (5.2 ounces) Boursin cheese with shallot and chive
• 8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (you should have about 2 cups tightly packed cheese)
  
• 1/4 cup shredded parmigianno cheese
• 1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs
• extra shredded cheddar for topping
  
• paprika
  

Directions:

1. Coat a 2- to 2 1/2-quart baking dish with cooking spray.
   


2. Heat oven to 350°.
   


3. Cook the macaroni in boiling salted water, under-cooking slightly, otherwise the end result of the casserole will yield mushy, overcooked pasta. Not good. So, if the pasta is supposed to cook for 8 minutes, I'll cook it for about 6 and a half minutes.
   


4. Drain and rinse the macaroni with cold water; set aside and let drain some more.
   


5. Cut the vidalias in half and slice into thin strips. Slice the shallot thinly.


6. In a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of butter over medium-high heat. Toss in the sliced onions and shallots, and cook for 3 minutes, stirring to coat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and let cook slowly until nicely browned, slightly caramelized.
   


7. Pour in the white wine and let cook down. Add the chopped garlic and season with salt and pepper. Once the liquid has all been absorbed, remove from the heat and set aside.
   


8. Peel a small vidalia onion and cut in half, removing the root.
   


9. Pour the milk and cream into a microwave safe bowl or measuring cup. Add the bay leaf and the halved onion and scald in the microwave) about 2-3 minutes on high). Remove the onion and bay leaf.
   


10. In a large saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter over medium-low heat. Add the flour and stir until well blended and bubbly. Season with a bit of salt and pepper, and them pour in the milk and cream mixture, whisking constantly.
    


11. Cook, stirring, until thickened. Add the mustard and hot sauce, stirring well and tasting to check the seasoning.
    


12. Fold in the boursin cheese, and cheddar. Cook, stirring, until cheeses have melted.
    


13. Dump the drained macaroni into the prepared baking dish. Add the caramelized onions and mix well.
    


14. Pour in the cheese sauce and stir to make sure everything is evenly distributed and coated.
    


15. Sprinkle the bread crumbs over the casserole and top with grated cheddar and parm. Sprinkle with paprika.
    


16. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the cheese sauce is bubbly and topping is lightly browned.
    

Notes:

• About the onion and shallot mixture, take your time cooking it down. We want them browned and slightly sticky with that warm sweet taste of caramel, not blackened and crispy with that awful, ashy taste of carbon.

See? Creamy and delicious.

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Bruschetta

I rented Julie and Julia recently, which is lovely little movie and about as far as I go on the chick-flick meter. Honestly, I like this movie mostly for the food, although I can relate to Julie Powell to an extent. She said at one point that she felt lost and likened it to the sensation of drowning.

Now, unlike Julie, I didn't feel that way around my 30th birthday - 30 was a good year for me: I was happily married, pregnant with my first child, had a cute little house near the water, yes life was shiny and wonderful for me at age 30. Once I neared 40, however, it was a different story: marriage in tatters, one child in a grave, no prospect for employment after 10 years spent at home as a stay at home mom. Indeed. I am floundering and beyond lost. My life has been circling the drain since my husband left me in 2006. Cooking tasty food is almost the only outlet I have that gives me any pleasure anymore.

I rented the movie recently because I wanted to be inspired again. Those two women, Julie Powell and Julia Child also faced down some angsty life moments, but they seemed to conquer them. I guess I wanted reassurance that it could happen.

Ok, tangent over, now to the real point: When I was watching the movie, I was struck again by how absolutely luscious the food looked. That one scene near the beginning where Julie and her husband are eating a plate full of bruschetta had me salivating from the start. So yesterday, I whipped up my own version.

In case you've never seen the movie, you can see the marvelously mouth-watering bruschetta at the 1-minute mark in the trailer below.

Bruschetta

Ingredients:

• rustic artisan bread - ciabatta, rustic Italian, French- something with a crusty exterior, but still soft inside.
  
• 1 garlic clove, cut in half
  
• 1 heirloom tomato or a beefsteak/vine-ripened, hothouse tomato if it isn't quite tomato season yet
  
• fresh basil - 8 large leaves
  
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• salt & pepper
• shredded parmigianno
  

Directions:

1. Chop the tomato and put in a bowl.
   


2. Drizzle with about 1 T olive oil and 2 t balsamic vinegar.
   


3. Tear up 8 large leaves of fresh basil and toss in with the tomatoes
   


4. Season with salt and pepper, and toss with a fork.
   


5. Set aside to marinate for about an hour.
   


6. After the tomato mixture has sat for about an hour, heat a skillet or heavy griddle over medium-high heat.
   


7. Cut the bread into thick slices.
   


8. Rub each side with half of a cut garlic clove.
   


9. Pour some olive oil into a small bowl and with a pastry brush, smear the olive oil onto both sides of the bread.
   


10. Place the oil-saturated bread in the hot skillet and toast until golden brown on each side, turning once.
    


11. Remove from heat, plate, and top with the tomato-basil mixture, and sprinkle with freshly grated parm.
    


12. Eat immediately while the bread is still toasty.
    

Notes:

• In the movie, they used a variety of heirloom tomatoes- yellow, orange and red. Once my local Farmer's Market is in full swing with more fresh tomatoes, I'll be making this again with a wider variety of tomatoes.
  


• Susan Spungen, food stylist for the movie, gives the recipe for the movie version in an article in The Atlantic.
  
  My version differs only in the addition of the balsamic vinegar to the marinating tomatoes and the grated cheese on top.
  


• If you want to cut a few calories, you can toast the slices of bread in the oven until browned instead of basically frying them in a skillet or on a griddle, but why would you want to do that? ;-)
  


• I used to be skeptical about the whole rub a cut garlic clove on the bread thing until yesterday when I realized that I could actually taste the garlic. I had no garlic in the tomato mixture at all and was using regular olive oil, not the kind infused with garlic. There was a definite hint of garlic in the final product -subtle and perfect, so I am totally sold on that.
  

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Key Lime Bars

It has been hot lately, very summery, and I was craving that wonderful combination of sweet and tart. I have 7 gorgeous lemons in a basket on my counter, ready to be squeezed for lemonade, lemon curd, or lemon bars. Lemon wasn't quite what I craved though, so I reached for bottle of key lime juice in my fridge.

I know that you purists out there might be rolling your eyes and gagging at the thought of bottled key lime juice but in my defense, I have never seen fresh key limes up here in central New York, so... a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do for that distinctively tart sensation. I can't haul myself down south to pick some up, so I'm afraid that my next best bet is bottled juice.

Then, I thought, what to make? I didn't really feel like pie, so I thought I'd try making key lime bars using my standard recipe for lemon bars. These are exceptionally tart, which I happen to like. I don't care for lemon/lime bars which are too sweet - what makes them a refreshing treat to me is their eye-opening tartness.

Key Lime Bars

Ingredients:

For the shortbread base:

• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup confectioner’s sugar (or 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

For the custard:

• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup key lime juice
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
  

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
   


2. In a food processor process the butter, confectioner's sugar, flour and salt until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs and can hold together when pressed up against the side of the food processor bowl.
   


3. Sprinkle the crumb mixture into a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan and press down onto the bottom of the pan as evenly as possible. If necessary, flatten it with the flat blade of a sturdy spatula, smoothing it out.
   


4. Bake the shortbread crust about 20 minutes, until it starts to turn golden.
   


5. While the shortbread is baking, prepare the custard.
   


6. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs and granulated sugar. Stir in key lime juice and flour, mixing very well with a whisk.
   


7. Pour the custard mixture over the hot shortbread.
   


8. Reduce the oven temperature to 300°F and bake until it is set, about 30 minutes.
   


9. Let it cool completely in the pan, then sift some confectioner sugar over bars before cutting and serving.
   

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Kimchi Fried Rice

Comfort foods come in all different forms: dark chocolatey brownies, succulent roast chicken, assorted finger foods and piping-hot pizza.

Comfort foods can be sweet, salty, savory, sour or spicy, depending on my mood.

Comfort foods can be as elaborate as a Sauerbraten dinner from a $35 piece of meat that took me 3 days to prepare, or a spicy noodle dish that uses a block of 29¢ ramen and requires a mere 10 minutes to fix.

Comfort foods can present a pretty picture plated and garnished meticulously, whereas others never see a serving dish because I devour them straight out of the saucepan, right off of a wooden spoon.

In a previous entry, I spoke of Mandu, my favorite street vendor food from my time in Korea. Another one of my all-time favorite comfort meals stems from my year spent in Seoul: kimchi bokkeumbap, or Kimchi Fried Rice. The perfect late-night meal to stave off a hangover after 8 hours spent partying in Itaewon or the ideal warming dish to push off the chill of the harsh winds blowing down off the mountains on a wintry weekend evening.

Don't be scared by fermented kimchi's pungent fragrance, frying the kimchi mellows the flavor and the smell, making Kimchi Fried Rice blend well with all sorts of ingredients - leftover chicken, fried tofu strips, mushrooms, julienned carrots, fresh baby bok choy, bell pepper strips, even a drained can of albacore, but this recipe below is fantastic just as it is.

Kimchi Fried Rice

Ingredients:

• canola or peanut oil
• 1 cup fermented kimchi,* cut into bite-sized pieces
  
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 1 t sugar
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 t sesame oil
• 2 cups cooked rice
• 1 egg
  
• sesame seeds
• nori strips
  

Directions:

1. Heat some canola oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the chopped up kimchi. Saute for about 5 minutes.
   


2. Add the chopped onion and green onion and continue to saute for another 5 minutes.
   


3. Add the sugar and salt and stir very well.
   


4. Add 1 cup of the cold, cooked rice,* (See Notes) and stir well. Once it is all nicely coated, add the other cup of rice and cook for another 5 minutes.
   


5. Add a drizzle (1 t or so) of dark sesame oil, stirring well.
   


6. At this point, you can push the rice and kimchi to the sides and add a beaten egg to the center and scramble well.
   


7. Once the egg is cooked through, push the rice and vegetables back in, mixing it all together, cooking for another 2 minutes.
   


8. Serve in a bowl and garnish with toasted sesame seeds and nori strips.
   

Notes:

• All Kimchis are not the same. If you have a limited variety of kimchis available to you in your grocery store, you've got it easy: chances are the only kind they have for you is the fermented kimchi made from bok choy, which is just what this recipe calls for.
  
  If you live near a Korean grocery like I do, you may find yourself staring in shock at all the different jars of kimchi - all labeled in Korean, of course - and you might be at a loss over which one to choose. For Kimchi Fried Rice, be sure to ask for the fermented, sour kimchi instead of the fresh kimchi. I have found that the flavor of the fermented kimchi just tastes better in this recipe.
  
  


• For best results for your fried rice dishes, whether it is Nasi Goreng from Indonesia, Thai Basil Fried Rice or Kimchi Fried Rice, you need to use cold, cooked rice. Leftover rice is the best, though sometimes I make up a batch and cool it in the fridge for an hour before making the fried rice. There is something about the hot rice that can turn the dish into a sticky, glutinous mess.
  


• Sometimes I will cook the beaten egg into a crepe-like pancake in a separate pan first, let it cool and then cut into strips and use that as an additional garnish. In Korea, it was common to have kimchi fried rice served on top of a fried egg.
  

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Roast Chicken with Lemon and Herbs

Every so often I like to plan a big meal: a big piece of roasted meat, potatoes, and an assortment of vegetables. One of our favorites, and the easiest, is this roasted chicken stuffed with lemon and herbs. I like to buy the largest chicken I can find, and big bunches of thyme and rosemary when I make this.

The incredible lemon and herb-heavy smell that fills the house after this chicken has been in the oven for about an hour is amazing. Even people with no appetite will find themselves salivating. When I make this, the cat is never very far from the kitchen the entire time, and I have learned never to walk away from the chicken when it is sitting on the counter to rest before carving.

The bonus with this recipe, in addition to the plentiful cooked white meat ready for other recipes, is that I use the carcass to make stock, which freezes well and tastes better than anything from a can or a bouillon cube. Sometimes I am pressed for time, because I have just spent an afternoon slaving over a hot stove making a big meal and then another hour or so cleaning up and putting away all of the leftovers. On those nights, I don't always feel like dealing with a big pot of stock until 10 pm, so I just put the cooled carcass in a large ziplock freezer bag, and stick it in the freezer until I am ready to make the stock.

The only drawback to this recipe is that, considering our current limited stage of genetic engineering, chickens still have only 2 wings and 2 drumsticks. My odd kids prefer the dark meat and have been known to battle, greasy-fingered, over a drumstick or a stray bit of dark meat on the platter. As frightening as the thought of some Frankenchicken may be, it would save me some arguments.

Roast Chicken with Lemon and Herbs

Ingredients:

• 1 whole roaster chicken, 5-7 pounds
• 4 T butter
• 1 T whole grain mustard (I like Maille)
• several sprigs of fresh thyme
• several sprigs of fresh rosemary
• 1 lemon
• 1 onion, quartered
• 4 cloves whole, peeled garlic
• more fresh thyme and rosemary
  

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
   


2. Line a roasting pan with foil.


3. Soften the butter in a bowl and add chopped fresh rosemary (just the leaves) and thyme (leaves and stalks) along with 1 T mustard, mix well and set aside.


4. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze out half the juice, reserving it.


5. Rinse the chicken well and don't forget to remove the bags of chicken guts and necks from inside. Trust me, you don't want to roast those. Pat the bird dry and set it, breast side up, in the roasting rack.


6. Cut a few slits in the skin of the breast meat. Pour the juice from the 1/2 lemon over the chicken. Take a few bunches of the herbs and stuff them in the slits under the skin. Sometimes I even cut slits in the meat and force the herbs into the breast meat.


7. Rub the chicken down with the butter mixture.


8. Stuff the chicken with more bunches of herbs, the cloves of garlic, one quartered onion, the squeezed-out lemon half and the unsqueezed lemon half.
   


9. With your handy roll of cooking twine, truss the bird so that nothing pops out of the cavity. Some people also truss up the wings, but I rarely do.


10. Tent with foil and roast in a preheated oven.
    


11. After one hour, take it out and baste with the juices, then remove the foil and put it back in the oven to roast for another hour or so until the juices run clear (not pink) when you poke it with something sharp. Ideally, you can use a meat thermometer in the thigh. It's done when it reads 180.
    
    The total roasting time depends on weight and it goes something like 20 minutes per pound plus an extra 20 minutes. How scientific, no? My 7 pound bird roasted for a good two and a half hours, and a 3 pound bird was done in an hour and a half.
    


12. Move to a carving board to rest 15 minutes before slicing. Serve when ready.
    

Notes:

• On occasion, I have added quartered potatoes, onions and garlic to the bottom of the roasting pan to cook in the accumulated juices of the chicken. While it is as tasty as hell, the end result is often absolutely swimming in grease.


• Lately, when I make the oven-roasted vegetables with this dish, I lay them in a single layer, wrapped in foil and placed on a cookie sheet. That slips onto the rack in the bottom of the oven. I put them in the oven after I check the chicken, one hour into the roasting.
  

For the potatoes:

Ingredients:

• 6 medium red potatoes, scrubbed and quartered
• 2 shallots, quartered
• 1 onion, cut into eighths
• fresh thyme
• fresh rosemary
• fresh sage
• 2 T olive oil
• 1 T whole grain mustard
• 2 cloves whole, peeled garlic

Directions:

1. Line a cookie sheet with a long piece of foil.


2. Wash and cut the potatoes, put in a big bowl with the shallots, onion and whole garlic.
   


3. Add the olive oil and 1 T of mustard, mix well.


4. Put the vegetables on the foil-lined cookie sheet in a single layer. Cover with another piece of foil and seal it up to make a packet.
   


5. Place in oven and cook for an hour. After an hour, remove the top sheet of foil and let cook another 30 minutes.

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My Favorite Things

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens;
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens;
Brown paper packages tied up with strings;
These are a few of my favorite things."

OK, so those are not necessarily my favorite things, but these are a few of my (current) favorite things:

Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Coffee

I am not as coffee-snob as others out there: I will drink day-old coffee out of desperation (even re-heated *gasp*), and I use an automatic drip coffee maker in addition to my french press instead of a coffee gourmand-approved Chemex pot. However, I buy whole beans to grind up fresh and store them in an air-tight canister on the counter, never in the freezer, and I am tempted to hunt down a local roaster to get my beans roasted for me.

I've tried a lot of different beans, and have settled on a distinct favorite, Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. The simple act of opening the canister holding these lovely beans releases a rush of complex scents that promise one of the best cups of coffee you will ever have.

I actively proselytize the merits of this bean, and have occasionally run into some smartass who makes the comment, "Ethiopia? They have coffee in Ethiopia?" Ok, they may not have a Starbucks on every corner in Addis Ababa, but according to legend, to first person to discover the peculiar benefits of the coffee beans was a 9th century AD Ethiopian shepherd who noticed his sheep acting strangle after chowing down on some funky red berries. Apparently not the cautious type, he tried a few and became the first person to experience that somewhat manic thrill of the caffeine buzz.

Although this story is most likely apocryphal - for starters I can't believe that people waited that long to sample those berries. I mean, we'd been drinking wine and beer for centuries already, how could the ancients have avoided trying just about every berry or plant they came across - most people do believe that the coffee plant originated in this part of the world.

So much for Juan Valdez and his donkey.

Chocolate-covered Espresso Beans

If you are ever in need of a fairly quick caffeine and chocolate-induced high, grab some of these. Now you may see the chocolate and coffee pairing and say, "Oh, mocha. How nice," but this is about as far away from that standard anemic mocha as you can get. This is a gorgeous symbiosis of flavor that absolutely explodes in your mouth with each satisfied crunch.

I am not a fan of mocha, in fact. I don't like most flavored coffees. I always got the impression that they took lower quality beans and tried to mask the flaws by painting over them with chemical analogues of other flavors - hazelnut, blueberry, French vanilla. Usually, I find them cloyingly sweet, completely overpowering the coffee essence, though that is probably the point.

With these chocolate-covered beans, you get a burst of coffee and chocolate every time.

Chocolate-covered Cacao Nibs

I remember in one scene from the movie "Chocolat," how raw cacao nibs supposedly brought a husband's hidden passion boiling to the surface. I thought to myself, "Man, I have to try those sometime." I priced them out on the internet and found that you're really paying for that rawness. Quite by accident, I found these chocolate-covered cacao nibs in the natural foods section of Wegman's.

I tore into the bag as soon as I got home. About 5 minutes later, I looked into the depths of that empty bag, stunned, wanting just one more, even a crumb. Those mis-shapen, crunchy bits of pure chocolate fusion blew my taste buds.

Oh, plus, they're chock-full of antioxidants as Dr. Oz would say!

Ha! No one eats chocolate for the antioxidants. It's not as though it were a forkful of broccoli. "Oh," you sigh, "If I MUST." Hell no. We eat this stuff because it tastes so goddamn good.

These are no exception.

Maple Sugar Candy

I live in a maple syrup-producing state, so why is it so difficult to find maple sugar candy and granulated maple sugar? I can understand the expense: they boil down 40 gallons of sap for just 1 gallon of syrup, and then even further to extract the sugar. There is more demand for the syrup than the sugar, so I get why I might not be able to find large bags of it in the grocery store next to Domino's granulated white sugar, but still, it should not be completely unattainable.

I can usually only ever find the candy at the local orchard stores, and even then, a tiny bag of 6 candies or so costs about $3.50. I have never seen maple butter or jars of granulated maple sugar there.

One time I made a maple-walnut apple pie by crushing up 10 maple sugar candies and mixing them in with the apples and ground walnuts. It was a wee bit expensive, and in my kids eyes, would have been a tragedy if the pie hadn't tasted so good. Still, next time, I'd like to have a jar of the real stuff.

Pink Himalayan Salt

I know, this is the big trend right now, this and cooking on those large slabs of this pink salt, but when I saw the little jar of these pink crystals, I could not help myself.

I mean, I don't even like the color pink, but these just look so cool in my sea salt grinder. Plus, I get a kick out of knowing that I am eating something whose age can be counted on a geological time-line.

Besides, did I mention that it is pink?



I can't leave without including the song.

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