Realized I've changed my Facebook address, come visit:
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Pizza at home

I wanted to start making bread about 18 months ago, but it seemed
pretty complicated. I found this pizza recipe on the inter-tubes
and seemed like a great way to start "baking" without feeling too
risky. Besides: home-made pizza in under an hour!

Quick-rise pizza dough
40 min prep time, 12 min cook time

1 package quick yeast
1 cup hot tap water
2 TB vegetable oil
1 TB honey
2.5 cups flour

* Mix yeast, water, oil and honey together
* Let set 5 min, yeast should begin to froth
* Add flour, stir in completely. You may need to flour your hands and
knead for a minute.
* Set dough to rise, 15-20 min
* During rise, prepare all ingredients for quick deployment
* Pre-heat oven to 450° while making pizzas (see below)
* Flour hands and rolling surfaces
* Split dough into 2 balls
* By hand or with roller, roll out two 10" rounds - thinner if you like
* Place rounds on baking sheet (see below)
* Top with ingredients (quickly, so the sauce doesn't make the dough too wet)
* Bake 12-15 minutes, until crust is golden and cheese is melted

Instead of cooking on a cold baking sheet, you could go the
fancy restaurant route. Say you've got a pizza stone pre-heating
in the oven (you should give the stone a full 30 min to get up
towards 450°, even if the oven reaches the correct temperature
faster), you can make the pizza and slide it onto the stone for
baking. It takes some practice to get these steps down, but
consider:

* Sprinkle baking sheet or pizza peel with corn meal
* Place 1 pizza round on corn meal
* Top the pizza with ingredients (quickly, so the sauce doesn't make
the dough too wet)
* Shove the pizza round into the oven and yank the sheet/peel out
from underneath so that the pizza slides off onto the center of
the baking stone. One quick, continuous motion to "flick" the pizza
off your delivery surface.
* Bake 10-12 minutes, until crust is golden and cheese is melted
(should bake a little faster with the hot stone)
* Prepare 2nd pizza towards the end of the 1st's baking cycle, repeat 

 

pizza stone, a tablet that you put in your oven to use as the baking surface for your bread/pizza/cookies/stuff. It gives a crispier crust than cooking on a cold baking sheet:
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=pizza+stone&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
 

*Not* catering on a sailboat...

Don't know if we'll get to go this weekend, weather's getting iffy.

But, I think fondly back to the first event (Oct'09), and got out a picture of the loveliest bread that I ever made for the 2nd event (May'10).

Sunday is for lunch prep

Didn't feel like I had a ton of stuff to work with in the 'fridge today, even though I have broccoli, jalapeno and bell peppers, a small pumpkin, cilantro, and some roma tomatoes from the Thursday's Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) veggie box. In fact, I was bored with the 'fridge on Saturday and actually went out for lunch (sushi) then Rebecca came home and we had an unplanned evening meal out (yakitori). That's a crazy restaurant-oriented day! Anyhoo, I went to the San Mateo Downtown Farmer's Market (FM) in the sprinkly rain at 1:30pm and bought *cough* little tiny bits of a few insignificant things. *cough*

So, prepping meals for the first half of the week can be done in a couple-four hours on a Sunday evening. Lovely Wife will need lunch and dinner on some days. For dinner, she may or may not have access to a microwave, so they need to be cold/room temp meals. I made 2 copies of each of the following for the wife and I to take for "brown bagging":

- Lettuce salad with smoked tuna (from the FM. so, so good) and hard-boiled egg with cherry tomatoes (FM) and dressing. (cold to room-temp)
- Caprese salad: yellow heirloom tomato (FM) rounds with mozzarella and basil (FM). Side of braised green beans (FM) with a touch of couscous. Actually quite pretty looking (room-temp)
-  Seared portabello with basil and havarti with a side of couscous and zucchini and a slice of baked polenta
- Falafel (FM! they've got everything!) and veggies (a little green beans, a little zucchini, a little couscous - basically the leftovers from the 2 previous meals), plus a really nice tahini yogurt sauce: (1/2 cup yogurt, 3 tablespoons(!) tahini, mashed roasted garlic, splash of lemon juice, hint of cumin)

On deck: I've prepped some brown rice and bought samosas (FM!) to make a couple of Indian dishes for mid-week (I figure I'll make a broccoli and chickpea curry, and a cilantro.... something...). Plus, I'm thinking about a pumpkin and roasted pepper soup...

Finally: I was reading a cookbook this weekend that I got from the library (the picture on the cover stopped me in my tracks). And: OH! MY! GOD! All things in life are now secondary to making Giant Ravioli with Ricotta and Basted Egg. You put make 5 inch across raviolis. You stuff them with cheese and spinach and an egg yolk. You lightly boil them and the sunnyside egg *INSIDE THE RAVIOLI* makes the sauce for you. Examples and pictures and wow! ZOMG, how much do I want to make giant raviolis? Next weekend, I think....

Roughing it at lunch!

Well, not really. I roasted a Cornish game hen (salt, pepper, oregano), baked some polenta (turned out *really* good - nice and fluffy inside with a firm, lightly toasty skin), and made chard with fennel and almonds. Quartered the bird so I could send a portion to work with Rebecca and bring an extra to Yahoo for Mary.

I'm quite pleased with all 3 dishes!

Carmel Oct 9-10

Camping the night of the 9th, 2 shows on the 10th.

Facebook event, feel free to reply here or there:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=111420242250474

http://www.pacrep.org/

We have our tickets already.

Join us for camping on the night of the 9th, lunch and an afternoon show, dinner and an evening show, or all of the above!

Campground info:

http://saddlemountain.tripod.com/saddlemountaincamping/index.html

http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=0,0,738493872370038&fb=1&hnear=27625+Schulte+Rd.+Carmel,+CA+93923&gl=us&daddr=27625+Schulte+Rd,+Carmel-By-The-Sea,+CA+93923&geocode=1433426538400175072,36.525090,-121.839873&ei=abC5SsKtF4fGsQOimrEr&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=directions-to&resnum=1