Pizza Dough (not grilling dough)

dough

  • 3 3/4 bread flour
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 3/4  t + pinch sugar
  • 1 1/3 cups room temp water
  • olive oil for pans

Make 2 pizzas in the jelly roll pan

mix together first four ingredients. Add water and knead briefly into ball. Put towel on top and let rest for about 2.5 hours or so…

Home Roasted Cashews

cashews

At some point I learned that buying raw nuts and seeds and roasting them at home was easy and cheap. I don’t claim that these curried cashews are the best by any means, you have to play with how much salt, curry, tumeric and paprika you want to use. The method is what is consistent regardless of whether you are roasting nuts or seeds and adding seasoning or not.

Heat oven to 250º.

On a jelly roll pan spread cashews so they are not overlapping. Put into oven for 8 minutes. Take out of oven. Sprinkle a little olive oil, I mean just a little over nuts and then with a spatula, gently stir them around and around. Sprinkle your seasonings, in this case curry, tumeric, finely ground sea salt, pepper, paprika and then stir the nuts around, and around and around. I mean it, keep on stirring for about a full minute.

Put them back in the over and roast for another 10 minutes* or until they are a light brown. Remove and let cool.

*You have to keep an eye on the nuts and monitor them, they can cook at different rates and they tend to burn fairly quickly.

Soup’s On at Flood’s Cabin in Wilson

zukesFlood has beautiful zukes coming out of a water trough in her back yard so we scavenged around found garlic scapes, chives, parsley and we had a plan.

  • 3 or 4 medium zucchinis cut into large chunks
  • Olive oil and butter
  • 4-5 Garlic scapes roughly chopped or garlic cloves
  • rice wine vinegar or white wine
  • chopped parsley and a bunch of chives
  • some chopped basil if you have it or a teaspoon of dried
  • red pepper flakes
  • salt & pepper
  • drizzle cream or whole milk yogurt (optional)

This is a soup served warm or room temp.

Gently heat a combination of oil and butter that measures about 4 T in a heavy bottomed pan, add garlic and sautee lightly for a few minutes, then add zukes and turn up the heat to medium. Cook for 8 minutes and stir around, then add 1/8c rice wine vinegar mixed with + 1/8 c water or 1/4 cup wine.  Cook for 10- 15 minutes adding in parsley, chives, red peppers, salt and pepper. Stirring often. Add some basil.

Once everything is nice and soft, blitz it in a blender (be reasonable, don’t do it all at once or it’ll explode molten zuke all over you) and add what adds up to 2 cups water give or take to the consistency you want. You can add a little cream or yogurt to give it some creaminess.

Season with more salt or pepper. You can sprinkle with chopped chives or buttery garlic croutons.

Eat.

This recipe inspired by http://dishingupthedirt.com/

 

Cuke Soup

cukesoup2

It is vegan too. Which is weird for me, but I needed a recipe that didn’t have yogurt in it, because there was no yogurt in my fridge and I just had to process some of these cukes or they’d all go to the chicks.

Ingredients

  • 1 lb. cucumbers, peeled, seeded if necessary, roughly chopped
  • 1 Avocado cut into small pieces
  • ¼ C. Fresh Lime Juice (about 2 limes)
  • japaleno seeds removed, roughly chopped
  • cilantro
  • ¾ C. Water
  • 1 Tsp. Sea Salt
  • ½ Tsp. Black Pepper

Put the cucumbers, avocado, lime juice, cilantro, japaleno, water, salt, and pepper into a blender, process ingredients until smooth. Adjust seasoning and chill for at least an hour before serving.

Garnish with fresh, chopped tomato, red onion and cilantro, or not, depends on you… creme fraiche will de-veganize it which is my choice.

 

Weirdly good tasting healthy zucchini, walnut, raisin muffins

zucchini-mufins

An abundance of summer squash makes one research ways to use it up. I don’t normally create these things, but some unknown force made me do it.

  • 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • Scant 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 2 large eggs (1T ground flax mixed with 3T water sit for 5 min. + 1 egg)
  • 1/4 cup canola oil or organic shortening
  • 1/4 coconut oil
  • 2 cup finely shredded unpeeled zucchini
  • 3/4 cup chopped walnuts
  • 1/2 chopped raisins, currents or something like that

In a bowl, combine the first six ingredients. Combine the egg and oil; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in the zucchini, walnuts and currants.

Coat muffin cups with cooking spray or use paper liners; fill three-fourths full with batter. Bake at 350° for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. Yield: 12 muffins

Addendum to this recipe

Awesome news, this recipe works well with a winter squash like a pumpkin or any other better tasting winter squash…

muffins

Perfect Fruit Salad

fruitsaladI never make fruit salad, it get mushy and people tend to put too much stuff in them or they do something weird like put bananas in it. Gross. But something prompted me to make one this morning and it turned out to be the Perfect Fruit Salad. You will need a bowl and a knife and a large spoon.

  • Small cantaloupe
  • Strawberries
  • Papaya
  • lime juice

Cut the fruit up into small irregular sized pieces so that a) you can get all three types of fruit onto the fork or in the spoon, and b) so that you can fit that fork or spoonful into your mouth without feeling like you’re going to gag or choke.

Put all the fruit into the bowl, mix it up, squeeze a lime wedge into the bowl and mix. Taste. Eat. Yum.

Tsukune, or Mini Japanese Teriyaki Turkey Burgers, or Meat Candy*

tsukune1

My picture taking is going through a down cycle. Don’t let it discourage you from making these.

*My friend Michelle made these and told her husband and kids they were meat candy. They loved them.

I love these, they could be my most favorite food, at the moment. I could haiku about them, but I won’t. I eat these hot out of the pan, eat them with sushi rice and sauteed greens, or on top of a salad with a fried egg on top and sometimes I eat them in the morning for breakfast right out of the fridge.

Teriyaki Sauce

  • 1/2 c Soy Sauce
  • 1/2 C Mirin
  • 3 T powdered sugar (or super fine)

Bring ingredients to a boil, lower to simmer until it thickens a little about 15-20 minutes.

Tsukune

  • Smallish onion (white, yellow or red)
  • 1-2 Stalk(s) Celery
  • 1 clove garlic (optional)
  • 16 oz ground dark meat turkey
  • Salt & Pepper
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/4 panko (possibly more if needed)

Keep ground meat cold until you’re ready to use it. I put a stainless steel bowl in the refrigerator to chill it before I mix up the ingredients.

Put onion and celery into the food processor and blitz it to little pieces. Then to get rid of extra moisture it creates, I drain it in a very fine sieve or line a sieve with cheese cloth dump in the wet stuff and squeeze out the moisture.

Put all ingredients into the chilled bowl and mix well with hands. You want approximately 2” diameter patties. Do this by rolling a portion of ground mixture in hands then form little patties. Put on a plate, don’t stack. You can do this ahead and shill the patties.

Heat a layer of oil in cast iron flat bottom skillet (or what ever you have) and when just about smoking, add patties, cook for about 3-4 minutes, depending on heat of stove top to a nicely browned crust. Flip to other side. when cooked, dunk in teriyaki sauce and put on to warm platter until ready to eat. Pour any extra teriyaki sauce over them.

Consume.

French Heritage Heirloom Winter Squash Soup

soup

I think this soup is better than the one I published years ago. But maybe that is because this soup is sitting right in front of me now and I’m starving.

  • 6 cups Turkey/Chicken/Quail Stock, boiled
  • One large squash roasted
  • 1 head roasted garlic
  • 1 white onion carmelized
  • Salt & Pepper to taste
  • some chopped sage
  • 1 TBS maple syrup
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or to taste
  • juice of half a lemon
  • bourbon

I halved and roasted the big squash in a 350º oven that notoriously does not cook at the correct temperature, I roasted the garlic with a little olive oil and caramelized the onions in a little (ha!) olive oil. Then brought the stock to a boil, then added the next six ingredients and heated those up. Added Cayenne and lemon juice to taste. Then blitzed the whole lot in a kick ass Cuisinart Blender set on puree. Do it in batches or you’ll be covered in bright orange soup. Transfer back to a big pot and add bourbon to taste.

Serve.

Eat.

Note: you can mix in things like creme fraiche or sour cream. But that is your own decision.

 

 

Big Al’s fabulous nuts

nuts

Based on Leslie’s Hot & Spicy Toast Pecans

1 T sugar

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cayenne (or a little more if you like spice)

3/4 tsp each paprika, ground coriander, cumin, ginger

1/4 ground clove

1 egg white

3 cups pecans, or combo of nuts like cashews or almonds

Heat over to 275. LIghtly butter jelly roll pan or cookie sheet with sides (I mean, isn’t a cookie sheet with sides the definition of jelly roll pans?)

Combine all seasonings in a small bowl.

Beat the egg white until it is very light and frothy, then add the pecans and stir until covered. Stir in the spices, making sure they get evenly distributed.

Spread coated nuts on panin a single layer and bake for 15-20 minute. Use a metal spatula to turn and separate them. Return pan to the ove and roast for about 20 minutes. A broken nut is just golden inside.

Cool completely before storing in an airtight jar or in plastic bag in freezer.