I cheated on this one. I didn't make it entirely from scratch. I bought fresh pizza dough in a tub from the Whole Foods Market and the rest was fairly easy.
1 tub of fresh pizza dough
2 fresh tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
1 cup soft mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup ham slices, shredded
1/4 cup basil chiffonade (optional)
1/2 cup black olives, chopped (optional)
The pizza cook at Whole Foods recommended letting the dough rise before filling and baking. Lightly spray a bowl with cooking spray and flour the bowl. Take the dough out of the tub and put it in the floured bowl. Sprinkle the top lightly with flour and cover bowl with a cloth. Put the covered bowl in a warm draft free place to rise for one hour.
Preheat oven to 400˚F. Prepare a rimmed baking tray that measures 17x11 inches.
Put the tomatoes in a bowl and sprinkle with salt. Mix well. Pour tomatoes in a strainer and allow the tomatoes to drain for 10 minutes. Discard the water.
Uncover the bowl and take out the dough. Place it on a lightly floured bowl and roll it out to roughly 17x11 inches. Spray dough lightly with olive oil. Sprinkle with half of the grated mozzarella cheese.
Sprinkle with the drained tomatoes and the shredded ham. Top with the rest of the grated cheese. Then top with circles of the soft mozzarella cheese. If desired, top with chopped olives.
Bake 25-30 minutes until the crust turns a light golden brown. If desired, slice basil leaves thinly and sprinkle on top of the pizza.
Kitty corner from Lincoln Center between 66th and 67th Streets, is a little triangle across from the #1 subway station to the west and Barnes and Noble to the north. On Saturday there was a Farmers Market selling organic produce and other local products like honey and home-made jams. Pricey. But hey, if it salves your conscience and makes a buck at the same time, then it's the American Way.
Peppers
We are drawn to Chinatown, its smells and sights. For lunch, we tried the menu at the Pho Viet Huong restaurant on Mulberry Street. I ordered this pork and steamed egg dish. At $5.50 it's reasonable as New York goes. It was a little too sweet for my taste. And it was cold. Looks pretty, though!
Susan gave me these portobello mushrooms. However, since I'd never cooked those giants before (that's a dinner plate in the picture.), I searched on the internet for a recipe. On the Food Network website I found this one by Emeril Lagasse. It was for six mushrooms but I only had two. Oh well. No problem. So I adapted it. Here.
2 large portobello mushrooms
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons olive oil, plus more more drizzling
1 sweet Italian sausage (or use hot)
1/4 cup onion, chopped finely
1/4 cup sweet bell pepper, chopped finely (for color use yellow, red or orange)
1/4 cup celery, chopped finely
3 large cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon fresh parsley leaves, minced (optional)
1 teaspoon dried herbs, e.g. basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme
1 egg lightly beaten
salt and pepper to taste
balsamic vinegar (optional)
Preheat oven to 400˚F. Spray a baking tray with cooking spray. Set aside.
Slit the sausage casing and scrape out the meat into a small bowl. Set aside. Discard casing. In a medium bowl, combine onion, bell pepper, and celery. Set aside. Lightly rub mushrooms with 2 teaspoons olive oil. Put on prepared baking tray and set aside.
In a medium skillet with the heat turned to medium high, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil, until, as they say on America's Test Kitchen, the oil begins to shimmer. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Cook the sausage meat until no longer pink, breaking up the chunks with a wooden spoon. Add the onion mixture and cook until vegetables are tender. Add the bread crumbs. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat and cool slightly. Add cheese, parsley (if using), herbs, and egg. Mix thoroughly. [I used 3 egg yolks left over from baking a sponge cake.]
Spoon filling generously into each mushroom cap, making the top rounded. If desired, drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar on filled mushrooms. Bake 15-18 minutes until the tops are golden brown and the mushrooms are tender. Serve at once. Eat. All gone.
Most of the meals I make now are one-pot meals. They look like a lot of fuss but are incredibly easy to make, like this Skillet Lasagna. AJ and I invited Richard and John to dinner, our first guests! Also on the menu, Spinach Salad and Chocolate Sponge Cake with Strawberries. I adapted the Skillet Lasagna recipe from an America's Test Kitchen recipe, changing the diced tomatoes to seasoned, using ground turkey, and increasing the red pepper flakes to 1/4 teaspoon.
Skillet Lasagna
1 (28 ounce) can diced seasoned tomatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion minced
1 teaspoon salt
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 1/2 pounds ground turkey breast
8 ounces (10) curly-edged lasagna noodles, broken into 2 inch pieces
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 ounce (1/2 cup) Parmesan cheese, grated
salt and pepper to taste
8 ounces (1 cup) whole milk ricotta cheese
1/4 cup minced fresh basil for garnish
Pour tomatoes and juice into a quart measuring cup. Add enough water to equal 4 cups. This means to add the equivalent of 1/2 cup water.
Heat the oil in a 12-inch non-stick skillet until shimmering. Add the onions and salt and cook until the onions are soft and translucent, about 3-5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Add ground meat and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, to break up the large chunks. Cook until no longer pink, about 5 minutes.
Sprinkle the noodle pieces evenly over the top of the cooked meat. Pour on top of the noodles the diced tomatoes and tomato sauce. Cover and bring to a simmer. Occasionally push the wooden spoon on the bottom to loosen the meat and noodles. Reduce heat to medium-low and continue to cook until the noodles are tender, about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. The sauce should look watery after 15 minutes of cooking. If it doesn't, add 1/4 cup more water.
Remove from heat and stir in the Parmesan cheese. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Dot heaping tablespoons of ricotta all over the noodles. Cover and let stand off the heat for 5 minutes. Sprinkle with basil and serve, passing the extra Parmesan cheese.
Strawberry Spinach Salad
We ate the lasagna with a side of strawberry spinach salad tossed in balsamic vinaigrette. This recipe is from my sister Ardis, a kindred foodie!
1 bowl of washed baby spinach leaves
2 cups sliced strawberries
1/2 cup almond slivers
3/4 cup cranberry raisins
Balsamic vinaigrette
Combine ingredients except balsamic vinaigrette. Just before serving, add the vinaigrette.
Chocolate Sponge Cake
This recipe comes from the South Beach Diet cookbook so we didn't have to guilt ourselves out too much! It turned out a tad overmixed and the chocolate ribbons were sort of splotchy, but it tasted fine nevertheless.
7 egg whites
1/3 teaspoon cream of tartar
3/4 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled to lukewarm temperature
Preheat oven to 350˚F. Have ready a two-piece tube cake pan.
In a large bowl, whip the egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy. Add the sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until soft peaks form.
In another large bowl, combine egg yolks and vanilla. Use a slotted skimmer to gently combine the two mixtures. First, fold in 1/3 of the meringue mixture to the egg yolk mixture. Fold in the remaining meringue all at once. Do not over mix. Sift the cup of flour on top of the batter and gently fold in. Gently fold in the cooled butter. Spoon into the tube cake pan. Smooth the top and bake, 40-45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool in the pan upside down, about 40 minutes. My pan has little legs to rest on the counter-top. If your pan doesn't have them, stick the center tube over the neck of a thin bottle to elevate it off the counter top. When it is cooled, run a thin knife blade around the edges and the center tube to loosen the cake. Remove the center column by inserting a knife between the bottom and the cake.
Melt chocolate and shortening in a double boiler over hot but not boiling water. Stir until smooth. Cool slightly. Drizzle over cooled cake in a zig zag pattern.
Variation
2 cups strawberries, washed and sliced 2 tablespoons sugar
Toss strawberries and sugar together in a bowl. Let sit about 30 minutes to macerate. The strawberries will start to release their juices. Serve with slices of warm chocolate sponge cake.
Like everyone else, I depend on the offerings at the local supermarkets and I have to take it on faith that the food is hygienic and safe. Which brings up the salmonella scare. The purity of the food I cook and serve has become a concern. So I wrestled with my choices: of buying food at Big Organic, Michael Pollan's term in the Omnivore's Dilemma for chains like Whole Foods, or buying food at chain supermarkets like Associated. But is it tasty? Is food safer at Big Organic? Moreover, since moving to New York earlier this month I am still reeling from the shock of food prices here, of how easy it is to put down $90.00 for groceries that don't even last a week.
And then there's the fact I don't eat beef. Because the relative scarcity and expense of beef in Thailand, I got out of the habit of eating it. Pork and poultry are relatively less expensive because they are more popular. Here, pork is harder to find. If I want meat that has no antibiotics and is "humanely raised"(e.g. free range chickens) then I have choices. Either I pay $3.99 a pound for ground meat or $6.99 a pound for ground turkey breast. The qualms about my pocketbook outweighed my preferences, so in the end, I gave in and bought ground beef at Whole Foods at $3.99 per pound. I'll have to admit it wasn't bad. But was it safer to eat? That's something I'll probably never know!
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The kitchen
This is not the tiniest kitchen in which I've ever cooked a meal. The kitchen at Bancroft Hall, Teachers College, was smaller than most walk-in closets. Although it looks well-equipped, I'm still setting up this kitchen. For cooking I need proper knives and I needed Asian sauces and spices. I went to Chinatown yesterday and bought the spices and sauces that you now see arranged in a row above the stove top. For baking, I scoured two thrift shops and found cookie sheets, a tube pan, and a square cake pan, all like new. So watch this blog for more baking and cooking!
