Food Blog:
Cook In.
Eat Out.
Miss Tenacity.
New Mexico.
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Friday, January 23
Coffee Mouth
This is a weird condition that I inflict upon myself. Every day I drink coffee or tea. I like my coffee or tea hot. Not lukewarm, not cold, not sort of hot. Actually hot.
I sip it gently, and do a pretty good job of not burning my tongue or the roof of my mouth most of the time. But sometimes I do, and it usually doesn't heal completely before I do it again.
Thusly, over a few months, the burn gets worse and I can't eat or drink anything on the serious side of warm.
I have to stop drinking hot beverages long enough to really heal - but that sucks!
Someone else must have had this problem before, given how much coffee people drink.
*sigh*
Time posted: 14:09 [permalink]
Monday, January 19
Tomato sauce for pizza.
1 can crushed or pureed tomatoes. I like S&W brand the best.
glug olive oil
couple of shakes of oregano
couple of shakes of parsley
salt
pepper
Put everything in a small pan and simmer until thickened and softened. Try to let the steam eescape to thicken it, but it will bubble like crazy so either cover it or wear something that you don't mind getting covered with tomato spatters.
But it still won't be thick enough for your pizza without soggifying the whole thing, so dump what's in your pan into a VERY fine meshed sieve and let the red juices drain out for about 5 minutes. The juice should look like light red water, not like the sauce itself. If it does, your mesh is too big and you might want to just boil down the sauce more instead of draining off the water. Or use cheesecloth.
What's left should be a tiny bit thinner than 'traditional' tomato paste, and it will taste a helluva lot better. It will cover 2 regular sized pizzas (so you can save some for next time), or it will cover 1 pizza pretty thickly with a few bites left over for you to snack on while the pizza is baking. Yum!
Time posted: 13:20 [permalink]
Last night I made pizza again for the first time since Thanksgiving. I have figured out through trial & reading that HIGH temp is the key to pizza.
So I throw into the bread machine the recipe for pizza dough:
2 cups bread flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 package yeast
7/8 cup warm water (not hot)
80 minutes later, the dough is ready to play with. At this point the oven is turned on & all the way up, or even before the dough is ready. It needs about a half hour (yes!) to really warm up to the best temperature. The pizza stone is in the oven while it is preheating. Because of this, after 30 minutes, the inside temp of the oven is about 525 degrees. With a bigger stone I might be able to push it to 550. Somehow the stone absorbs and radiates heat so that you can push your over a little bit beyond what it is "supposed" to max out at. (Professional pizza restaurants with a huge pizza oven cook their pizzas at about 700-750 degrees for 2 minutes. Mine takes 5-6 minutes, still far shorter than the typical home time of 15-20 minutes at 425 degrees.)
This hot and fast baking method does amazing things to the crust. It gets crispy on the bottom, chewy throughout, and nicely browned.
Now, you play with the dough, kneading it a little and slowly stretching it out to its baking size, which is about 12" for medium crust, or 14" for thin. Once it is both stretched thin & strong from the kneading, you get it onto the peel, which is dusted with semolina. The grains act as little ball bearings, allowing you to shove the pizza fully loaded onto the baking stone, and then get it back off again when it is done.
Once on the peel, you put on your toppings. Your oven should be completely ready at this point, so work fast with the toppings to make sure the dough doesn't get soggy. To further prevent sogginess, lightly coat the surface of the dough with olive oil. This is a barrier that will keep the wet ingredients from seeping, to an extent.
Then, the food toppings. Tomato sauce (see next post), pepperoni, and mozz cheese in my case.
Off the peel with a slight jerk of the wrist and onto the stone, and then time it for 5 minutes. After 5 the cheese will be lightly browned and you could stop, or you can go for a more toasty dark brown cheese, about 6 minutes.
Zip the peel under the finished pizza and let it sit on the counter for a couple of minutes, then cut and enjoy.
Time posted: 13:08 [permalink]
Tuesday, January 13
Today is local beet day. Just to me and my immediate vicinity, and just because I said so. So there.
Beets as Superfood
Last night I made a soup for lunch today. I am in the process of using up stuff from both the fridge and my dry pantry stocks. My soup has some leftover beet greens, steamed; the water that they steamed 'in'; salt; pepper; honey; and orange marmalade. No added fat, which is pretty rare for me (I typically add at least a tiny bit of cream to my pureed soups).
The nutrition in it should be off the chart since the primary ingredient is the beet greens. Oh, and it is actually quite yummy, despite the weird color.
Time posted: 08:20 [permalink]
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CONTACT ME: tenacity -at- gmail.com
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