Conquering Homemade Pizza

I feel triumphant in my kitchen this evening. I have conquered a major nemesis: homemade pizza.
Loyal blog viewers will remember my first post was about trying to make a pizza at home with very mixed results, although at least better than some of my previous trials in which the pizza never made it to our plates. This time, I faced my fear of the pizza stone and I'm never looking back! Here's how I did it.

First, I set my oven to 475 and waited for it to actually beep at me when it came up to temperature (sometimes with other things I have cheated when impatient.)
I used Trader Joe's Garlic and Herb dough for the crust. (Ok, so this part wasn't homemade. Maybe that will be my next adventure.) I should have read the package that says to leave it out of the fridge for 20 minutes before handling... whoops... but since I made two smaller pizzas with it (a method to help me control getting the pizza off and on the stone), by the second one, the dough was much easier to work with. I'll know better next time.
I assembled the pizza on the pizza peel, which was dusted with corn meal before placing the crust on it. This helps the dough slide off the peel, and also adds just a bit of texture to the finished crust bottom as well. I checked my ability to slide the crust around on the peel a bit before adding the toppings.
For the sauce, I used an 8 ounce can of plain tomato sauce and added a good pinch of sugar and kosher salt, plus dried basil and oregano. For toppings I used some onion and chicken sausage.
The result was fantastic. It had a very crispy crust on the bottom, but still chewy around the edges and was not at all greasy. Our local pizza joint may have just lost some business.

Grill Eats

We've had a streak of warm weather this week, which has lead to an increase in our outdoor cooking for the season. We have a charcoal grill, which Erik swears by and has no interest and moving to propane. I agree with him 90% of the time. I love the charcoal smell, and the decrease in flame-ups you get cooking over charcoal. Occasionally, though, there are those times when I'd like to take 5 minutes to heat up a grill, rather than 25 minutes (we use a chimney starter and natural briquettes, no lighter fluid near what I will ingest, thank you), but early in the season like this, it is a pleasure.
One of our all-time favorite meat choices for the grill is beef sirloin tips. Usually, I marinate them in some teriyaki sauce for a couple hours prior to grilling. They are always flavorful and tender, but still with a bit of chewy texture in your mouth. Whenever they are on sale and the weather is good, I gotta grab 'em!
For vegetables on the grill, our recent favorite is summer squash and zucchini. I discovered this method and combination last year and love the simple, fresh taste and texture of it. I was inspired one evening by a silly Reynold's Wrap commercial about putting veggies in a foil pouch for grilling instead of cooking veggies indoors while your partner is outside on the grill. It was a goofy commercial, but had a good point! It's so nice on a hot day not to have to do any indoor cooking. This method can of course be used by many kinds of veggies and potatoes.
For my summer squash and zucchini, I cut them into about 1 inch pieces- you don't want them too thin so they can retain their shape and keep just a tad of bite to them (not crunchy, but not mushy). I place them on a piece of foil, then drizzle with olive oil, dot some pads of butter around, add salt, pepper and whatever fresh herbs I have on had that will work- this time it was Thyme and Parsley- and then make a packet with another piece of foil crinkled around the edges. We had these on the grill for about 25 minutes- off the direct heat, but with the cover of the grill on. This timing will obviously vary depending on how big your pieces of veggie are and how hot your grill is.
This was a fabulous meal and I look forward to having it several more times this grilling season!

Blueberry Waffles

The age-old question on Sunday morning: Pancakes or Waffles? Tough call. This is of course, assuming you went with a savory eggs/bacon/hash browns type of breakfast on Saturday ;)
This time I went with waffles. But I wasn't going to be satisfied with just some waffle and syrup on my plate, and I knew that I happened to have an opened bag of blueberries in my freezer. What else could be concluded then to make a blueberry sauce topping! I gave Erik the taste of preparing the waffles (he knows our waffle maker timing better than I do, actually) while I started on the sauce.
The blueberries had, admittedly, been opened for some time in the freezer and therefore had a good amount of ice crystals around them. With this starting condition I decided not to add any water to the pan when I started, figuring there would be enough moisture already. I put the blueberries in a small sauce pan, added some brown sugar and honey and let it come up to a simmer. After a few minutes of simmering, the berries were nice and soft, with the right amount of sweetness, but the sauce was too liquidy for my taste. I made a small amount of cornstarch and water slurry and added that to the simmering mixture. This tightened it right up and had the viscosity I was looking for. It was gorgeous on the waffle, and I also decided it needed a bit of whipped cream to finish it off.

BBQ Sauce Salmon

I don't remember where I got the idea to do this for salmon, but I know I've been making it for several years and when salmon is on sale and looking good in the case, I often go back to it. All it is is a salmon filet with some bottled BBQ sauce slathered on it. I put it in the toaster oven (skin side down) at about 350 for maybe 20 minutes (depending on the size of the piece of fish) until it's just opaque in the center. Usually, the skin will stick just a bit to the pan, which I do on purpose because then you can slide a spatula in between the fish meat and the skin, taking the meat off the skin in one piece for serving. This is a preference of mine, the skin is edible (as long as the scales have been removed), but in this preparation, it doesn't really crisp up and I just find it chewy and unappealing. If skin's your thing though- go for it!
This preparation is simple, fast, makes little mess (especially with a foil lined toaster oven pan) and of course, tasty. Some may argue that the BBQ sauce overpowers the fish, but if you don't lather it on too thick, I rather enjoy the tangy, sweet flavor addition and think the salmon can still hold it's own.

Danke, Schnitzel

I saw these gorgeous boneless sirloin pork cutlets in the meat case and immediately a voice inside my head said "pound them thin and bread them!" Yes, these thoughts do pop into my head while perusing a meat selection.
For the breading, I did a standard dredge in flour then egg wash (egg with a bit of water, beaten) then breadcrumbs method, but I decided to season the flour with Old Bay (a classic seafood seasoning mix, but really a great all-around seasoning- I love it in a rib dry-rub) and Kosher salt. Simply heat some oil in a pan and cook until the coating is golden brown and the pork is cooked through (medium to medium high heat- you don't want the breadcrumbs to burn before the pork is cooked)
The flavor of the resulting bread coating was fabulous. The breading also keeps the pork juicy, and the pounding tenderized it- so you could practically cut it with a fork. Mmmmmm.... Schnitzel.

Apricot Mustard Chicken?

A friend of mine gave me this recipe for Apricot Mustard Chicken which is basically some dijon mustard mixed with apricot jam and spread on some chicken before you bake it. You can also add some fresh ginger if you have it (but I didn't), and of course salt the chicken as well. I wasn't sure how this was actually going to turn out (the flavor combination of sweet and tangy, although pretty classic, sometimes worries me until I get he ratios right), but having tried it twice now, I can say, it works well. What I like about it is that it can work with any cut pieces of chicken- so it's a great way to utilize the cheap cuts like the bone-in chicken breasts and the leg/thigh portions, which you can get for around $1 a pound. To prep the chicken, if it is a skin-on piece, I usually poke the skin a bit to allow for some fat drainage and for the sauce to go in. This makes for a crispier skin as well, rather than a limp, fatty skin in your final product. To help that process I also start the chicken covered with foil, but about 20 minutes before it's done, take the foil off. Cheap, easy and yummy- can't get much better than that!