50years50recipes

July 4, 2012 · 10:26 am

DIY Pizza

I’m from New York and my husband is from Chicago which should mean we don’t speak the same language when it comes to pizza, but we do. That’s because we don’t debate thin crust vs. deep dish we take our pizza discussions straight out to the grill. Grilled pizza seems to be something everyone can agree on.

I first learned about grilling pizza from Lou Ekus about 20 years ago. Lou can grill or smoke just about anything – pig, peach or pizza. He and his wife Leslie were the owners of Holy Smokes, our favorite BBQ restaurant which was located in a deconsecrated church in Hatfield where the wait was often long but always worth every bite (unfortunately the restaurant burned to the ground five years ago). Grilling pizza was simple Lou explained, you simply divide the grill in two. The coal side was for cooking the pizza dough and the non-coal side for melting the cheese.

My friend Allison gave me a fool-proof pizza dough recipe that I’ve adapted slightly. Add a big salad and plenty of nibbles because people have to take turns and you have a fantastic DIY dinner. Last night the kids invited their friends Richard and Clay over and here are some of the results:

Clay building his pizza

Clay had come out to the cape with us a few weeks ago so we knew there would be some post-cooking addition of hot sauce (his consumption of hot sauce and soy sauce are legendary) to whatever pizza he built. Luckily for Clay our neighbor Joyce had just sent over a jar of her home-made hot sauce.

Clay’s older brother Richard turned out to be a man of contrasts. Shredded mozzarella and fresh mozzarella, red sauce and pesto, pepperoni and chicken sausage.

Russell tried peppers for the first time, which surprised me. Pizza as a conveyance for unloved foods? Hmmmm….. That is however one of the things I most love most about a DIY dinner – people can be as picky or not about what they make and eat and it’s not a big deal. It also works because you can accommodate a variety of dietary needs with little fuss. In our family we have cheese eaters and non-cheese eaters so there is always regular mozzarella and soy mozzarella. Last night the cheese eaters actually hit the trifecta with shredded mozzarella, fresh locally made mozzarella, as well as fresh goat cheese.

Russell’s pizza with peppers

Isabelle listened to Russell’s advice of “add lots of sauce” and created a very juicy pizza.

Sauce-y and delicious

It was stretching it to make DIY pizzas on one grill for six people. Fortunately we had a giant salad and plenty of fruit to nibble on as we waited our turn. Isabelle made the dough for us, but you could also buy it as many grocery stores carry decent pizza dough in their prepared food or freezer sections. The rest requires little prep, mostly putting things in bowls for people to choose from. Here’s what I put out last night:

Red Sauce

Pesto

Sautéed Onions

Black Olives

Green Peppers

Garlic Chicken Sausage

Pepperoni

Goat Cheese

Shredded Mozzarella

Fresh Mozzarella

Soy Mozzarella

You could add just about anything you like or have at hand. Need some inspiration? Take a peek at one of our favorite pizzeria’s list of toppings (scroll to the bottom).

Pizza Dough

1 cup warm water

1 package yeast (you can use slightly less if you make the dough well in advance and give it plenty of time to rise)

1 Tablespoon honey

1 pound flour – I mix white with whole wheat, plus extra for kneading

3-4 Tablespoons olive oil, divided

1-2 teaspoons salt

Put honey in warm water and sprinkle yeast over it to proof. Mix flour, salt, and 2-3 Tablespoons of the olive oil together. When the yeast has proofed (gotten all foam-y) dump into the flour mix and combine. When you have a mass of shaggy dough take out and start kneading. Keep going for about ten minutes. Oil the bowl you mixed the dough in, roll the dough ball to coat lightly with olive oil, and cover with a tea towel. Let rise until double.

To make pizzas punch dough down and grab a fist size piece. Roll out thinly. Grill on one side. You will know it’s cooked when you see crazy bubbles all over the top. We call it moon bread, though if it looked like the surface of the moon there would be craters not bubbles. Then you can do one of two things. If there are just a few of you and you can arrange to have all the toppings next to the grill you can flip the half-cooked dough to the non-coal side of the grill and add your toppings right there. Cover until the cheese has melted and the other side of the dough has cooked. If you have a bigger crowd you may want to cook the dough on both sides then place it on a cookie sheet* and give it to people to top as they wish. When the toppings are complete slide it back onto the grill (non-coal side), cover and cook until cheese has melted.

Crazy big bubbles

For the four of us I usually make a single batch of dough. I double it as we invite more people over. You can always freeze the dough or use any that is leftover to make calzones for the next day’s lunch. To make a calzone roll out the dough a smidge thicker than for pizza and top half with sauce, cheese, and anything else you might want to stuff inside. Make sure to leave a 1/2″ edge to the dough that doesn’t get any sauce on it. Fold the dough in half and squeeze the seam shut. Let rise for 15 minutes or so. Bake in a 400ºF oven for 17-26 minutes (depending on how much stuff you put in there) or until the dough is brown and looking cooked. Calzones are a perfect lunch to eat on the go because they are self-contained.

Shawn building a pizza

* A cookie sheets really are better than jelly roll pans like the one above since you can slide a pizza off a cookie sheet, but you need to negotiate the lip of a jelly roll pan.

P.S. One time our DIY meal was so successful we ran out of dough (embarrassing) and ended up using some tortillas instead. All things are possible when faced with a hungry crowd asking for more. The lesson learned was you can never have too much dough.

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Tagged as Allison, grilled pizza, Lou Ekus, make-your-own-pizza, pizza dough recipe

June 28, 2012 · 3:56 pm

Molten Chocolate Death on a Spoon

Upfront disclaimers:

1. If you are not given a spoon you may start licking this straight out of the cup. Not very dignified, but you might not be able to help yourself. Ask my friend Diane.

2. Eating this dessert may make you groan out loud. In public.

3. If your body is unaccustomed to lots of caffeine you will probably not be able to go to sleep until 2 am unless you were smart enough to eat this at 4:30 in the afternoon. I know because I’m clearly not very smart and I eat it after dinner, which in turn keeps me up way past my bedtime.

Molten Chocolate Death with a spoon

Why am I even bothering to give you a recipe that needs disclaimers? Because this molten chocolate death in a cup is awesome and once in a while you just need a dessert so delicious that your knees buckle. This is that recipe.

When I first moved back to the happy valley I would occasionally work for the Lisa Ekus Group prepping food for their media trainings. I would slice and dice then drop off several recipes in various stages of preparation so that that week’s author could practice talking and cooking at the same time (harder than it looks) while making their favorite dishes (even complicated ones) in three minutes or less. My favorite part of the job was getting to try so many fantastic recipes as well as the cookbooks I was able to add to my collection.

Molten Chocolate Death

The recipe originally came from Mon Cheri Cooking School in California (they’ve since closed), and called for a white chocolate espresso sauce. Since I’m not found of white chocolate I’ve eliminated the sauce and no one has ever complained they didn’t get any. If you want that recipe send me an email and I’ll forward it to you.

3/4 cup espresso (if you don’t drink espresso use 2 Tablespoons instant espresso powder dissolved in 3/4 cup hot water)

1/4 cup kaluha

8 Tablespoons Dutch process cocoa

10 Tablespoons sweet butter, plus more for greasing cups

1 cup sugar

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

8 frozen ganache balls*

Preheat oven to 325ºF and grease 8 small custard cups with butter. Place on a jelly roll pan and set aside. In a medium saucepan heat espresso, kaluha, cocoa, and butter, whisking a bit. This mixture will smell heavenly but don’t be tempted to lick the whisk yet. Pour the hot liquid into a bowl and whisk in the sugar, stirring for about a minute. Add the flour, salt, baking soda and whisk some more. Plop in the egg and vanilla and when you’ve whisked everything is a velvety smoothness pour evenly into the prepared custard cups and slip into the oven for 6-9 minutes or until the edges of the cakes are just starting to set. At this moment you may lick the whisk. Pull the tray out, plunk a ganache ball into the center of each cake and return the tray to the oven for another 6-9 minutes. You don’t want to over cook these, but you want the cake batter to be cooked and the ganache melted and oozy in its chocolatey-ness. I suggest you look at the pictures below.

Prepped custard cups

Uncooked batter

Adding frozen ganache balls

Just baked molten chocolate death

* Frozen Ganache Balls

Basically you have two choices here. You can make an enormous quantity of chocolate ganache, let it firm up, then roll all of it into balls which you store in your freezer. Or you simply steal eight balls worth of ganache when you’re making truffles or glazing a cake.

What is ganache you ask? Heavy cream and really good chocolate plus maybe a bit of flavoring. How could you go wrong?

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate

7 ounces heavy cream (1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup)

1 Tablespoon cognac, honey or espresso (optional)

Put the cream on the stove to boil in a small pan. Chop the chocolate very fine and dump into a shallow dish. Pour boiling cream over chocolate and let sit for a minute or two. Add flavorings (or not) and stir gently with a spatula until the mixture looks like velvet but doesn’t have too many air bubbles. Put in fridge to solidify and lick your spatula. When the ganache has firmed up scoop out large marble size chunks and roll into balls. Freeze. You will be messy, but you get to lick your hands this time.

Solid ganache

: Marble size ganache ball

Ganache balls ready to freeze

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Tagged as chocolate ganache, lava cake, lisa ekus, molten chocolate death

June 26, 2012 · 4:28 pm

It’s Back!

It’s that time of year.

I found the Holy Trinity of Fruit – strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries at the farmer’s market today. Get all three while you can at a farmer stand near you. I think I need to make some angel food cake or perhaps roll a ball of ice cream*.

*Last week on Cape Cod we enjoyed lobster and home made ice cream which we made in our ice cream ball. There is no paddle so the ice cream can be a little soft, but it is divine and a whole lot of fun to make. Simply load up your ingredients, screw on the lid, add ice and rock salt to the other end and toss around. We made coffee, but for the Holy Trinity I would make vanilla.

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Tagged as blueberries, cape cod, holy trinity of fruit, ice cream ball, raspberries, strawberries

May 15, 2012 · 6:00 am

Glitter with a Kiss

Most people do not know this about me but I have a secret passion for things that glitter and shine. It’s not overt, like my friend Olivia who has her own tiara she wears when she’s at home (which I admire her for). For the most part my penchant for glitter has been something only my closest friends and family knew about, well until now that is. Some of you know that one of my guilty pleasures is watching Dancing with the Stars. For my birthday this year Shawn and the kids made me my own set of vote-at-home glittery paddles, and after six years of watching the show I can predict the judges scores 96% of the time, even if I don’t always agree with them. I may not be able to rumba but I do know which paddle you’ll use Len Goodman!

"home made dancing with the stars paddles"

My own glittery paddles that I vote at home with for Dancing with the Stars

So when I was asked to help with the food for The Academy at Charlemont‘s semi formal this year I decided to add a little sparkle by building another Hershey’s Kiss Chandelier. About twenty-five years ago I had made a chandelier out of Kisses for an Aids benefit auction. The winning bidder donated the chandelier to a local hospice house and when it had been stripped of kisses they gave me back the forms, which have languished in our barn ever since. The Academy is very small so rather than have a senior prom which would consist of 17 kids and their dates, the entire school is invited to “Semi”. Each year the juniors are in charge of decorations and food with the knowledge that A) they will never have to do it again and B) next year’s juniors will do it for them. Normally the refreshments consist of bowls of candy, a few platters of cookies from a box store along with a never-ending supply of punch. While the bottomless bowls of punch seemed like a good idea, the only thing I bought at the local box store were three gigantic bags of milk chocolate kisses.

Fruit kabobs stuck into watermelon bases that read “Yay class of 2012”

Parents of 11th graders were willing to contribute platters of delicious home-made food for semi, while a small band of us made over 100 fruit kabobs from watermelons, cantaloupes, honeydew, red & green grapes, and blueberries. The kabobs turned out to be as popular and as thirst quenching as the punch.

Hershey’s Kiss Chandelier

The glittery Hershey’s Kiss Chandelier was a recreation of one I had made many years ago. As with many of my projects I didn’t have pictures of the finished product since I typically run so close to my deadlines. My memory was a bit vague about how long the strands of kisses should be or how the kisses had been arranged but I did remember each strand was anchored with a small plastic pearl. I bought some spray paint to spruce up the form and Isabelle invited a few intrepid friends over (thanks Arcadia and Richard) to pull the little white kiss papers out of ten pounds of Hershey kisses. The three of them took turns drilling holes in each de-papered kiss. Then the threading began.

Pulling the papers prior to drilling

Drilling holes, one kiss at a time

For one afternoon Stephen’s mom Heidi came over and helped me wire on glass chandelier pieces that I’d been hoarding for a day when I might need them. Since I anticipated the chandelier being denuded during the dance I didn’t want it to lose all its sparkle before the dance ended.

Base with a few real crystals

On the day of the semi I strung kisses along with Vickie and Jackie, two other 11th grade moms. With just a few hours until the dance started the chandelier got packed into my car and off I went to the dance site to set it all up.

Things got a little dodgy when we realized the chain cutters Shawn had given me were unable to cut the chain we’d brought to string the two levels together with. Either we didn’t have his superhuman strength or we needed a slightly more formidable set of cutters. My two helpers Richard and Patrick were real troopers as we duck taped, sticky puttied, and basically jerry-rigged the chandelier onto a beam (we weren’t allowed to screw in an eye bolt either so we had to use a clamp instead). Finally the chandelier was up and looking very sparkly indeed. A little crocked perhaps, but sparkly nonetheless.

A little crocked from this angle

The dance was wonderful, and I didn’t come home with a single kiss except the one on my cheek from Isabelle.

Thanks again to everyone who helped put the chandelier and all the food together. It was a deliciously rocking semi!

Green Pea Jelape

I am not sure what May flowers we’ll be seeing after a mere two days of April showers this month. The lack of rain has been truly astonishing. Things are so dry our town clerk Lynn Sibley put out a robo-call to let everyone know that not only had spring burnings been prohibited but the fire department and town selectman didn’t even want us firing up our grills to cook dinner. Despite the lack of precipitation somehow the landscape has still managed to green up. Week by week the yard, trees, and garden have gotten greener and greener.

Being surrounded by all of this green has made me crave green, and one of the greenest foods I know is Green Pea Jelape. That wasn’t its original name. I’m sure it had a dignified, lovely, even appetizing sounding name when it was featured in an article in Food and Wine magazine a few decades ago. The problem is that at an Easter dinner long ago my brother Jay dug into a bowl and asked, “What is this awesome stuff–green pea jelape?” I couldn’t think of its name after hearing that. If you can come up with a better name (or know the actual title from that long ago F&W article) leave me a message below.

While I associate this appetizer with spring, it actually can be made at any time of year since it uses frozen peas. And while I can’t recall its name I do remember that in the original version the recipe called for pancetta, which at the time was a new ingredient to me. In the ensuing years I’ve substituted bacon for the pancetta and when I’m serving vegetarian friends I leave out the meat completely and flavored the dip with mint instead. The recipe calls for you to let the peas defrost, though if you forget to do this step simply give them a quick saute to quickly thaw them after you’ve cooked the bacon and shallots but before you dump them into the food processor. The finished dish will be a brighter green if you don’t need to cook them, but it will be delicious either way.

Personally I like this dish served as a dip, but some ladies at my church use it as a filling for tea sandwiches. It’s quite tasty when spread between two slices of buttered, crustless white bread (thanks Sue and Olivia). Drought or no, spring or no, vegetarian or meat eater I’m sure you’ll enjoy.

Green Pea Jelape

4 slices bacon or pancetta, cut into small pieces

1-2 largish shallots, minced

1-2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 pound frozen peas, defrosted

1/2 cup chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

Saute the bacon until it starts to brown and crisp, drain on a paper towel and set aside. Wipe out the pan, add the shallots and olive oil and saute until soft. Toss the shallots, bacon, peas and chicken stock in a small food processor and zap until everything is pulverized. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve with crackers.

Mint Green Pea Jelape

Use the recipe above but omit the bacon and substitute vegetable stock for the chicken stock. Before adding to the food processor add the leaves from 4-7 sprigs of fresh mint.

If crackers aren’t in your cupboards you could always serve this with some lightly toasted slivers of baguette.