Ratatouille

(ratatouille with Bulgar)

Joe and I are the type of people who go to a grocery store and buy veggies that look good. Well, lately lots of veggies have been looking good, and I found myself alone with WAY too many veggies. Luckily, Audrey from Food from Books blogged about Ratatouille last week. Her post was the inspiration for what to do with my cornucopia of produce.



You can find Audrey's post here.

The recipe for this delicious ratatouille can be found here. The only change I made was I tripled the recipe and increased the mint. I love mint in savory dishes. Tomorrow I'll be making a tart with some of the ratatouille and I'll probably try the gratin recipe from Fine cooking too because I made so much. One note about this recipe. It takes a very long time to make. Next time I make this I'll roast some of my veggies in the oven to save time.

Chicken with dates, spicy sausage and bulgur

There are many reasons why I love my job, but one is our growing cookbook collection. It seems like every week there's one or two new additions. One book we have that is absolutely beautiful is Turquoise: A Chef's Travels in Turkey by Greg and Lucy Malouf. If you haven't looked at this book, go to your local library and get it. The recipes are inspiring as are the stunning pictures. By the time I had looked at it from back to front (I'm a pastry chef; I always start at the back); I was on expedia looking at airfare to Turkey (slight exaggeration). In all seriousness though, this book is worth looking at.

Some people love pizza, others chocolate, but me; I love Bulgur. The hot side uses it at Sofra, and I'm particularly obsessed fond of our carrot kibbeh. The more bulgur recipes I look for, the more I'm inspired to use it. I have found breads, puddings, cakes and loads of savory dishes. While discussing my bulgur obsession with Christy (of The perfect bite); she suggested I make the Clay Pot Chicken with Dates, sucuk and bulgur from Turquoise. She had made it, and highly recommended the dish. As always Christy was right. The dish has warmth of spices, and the comfort of home. Here's my adaptation of the recipe:

2 oz butter

1 Tbsp evoo

2 red onions, but into thick rings

1 clove garlic, sliced

2 long red peppers, seeded and cut into rings

2 long green peppers, seeded and cut into rings

1 long green chile, seeded and diced (they call for 2, but all I could find was jalapeno)

1 heaped tsp ground cumin

1 level tsp ground cinnamon

Generous splash of sherry

2 large vine-ripened tomatoes, seeded and diced

2 oz fine bulgur, washed

1 ½ C chicken stock

1 cinnamon stick

(2 star anise-didn't have on hand so didn't use)

Few sprigs thyme

2 pounds of chicken breast on bone (they call for 2 1# chickens)

Sea salt

Black pepper

1 Tbsp olive oil

2 oz spicy sausage (they call for sucuk-a Turkish sausage)

8 dates seeded and cut into quarters (they call for 4 medjool dates, but my grocery store didn't have them)

Preheat oven to 400. Put 1 tbsp of olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the chicken and lightly brown the meat all over. Add the sausage and cook till it's golden on all sides. Remove the meat and pour out any excess fat (or leave it if you want). Add the butter and evoo to the pan.



Gently sweat the onions, garlic, peppers and chilies with the cumin and cinnamon for about 5 minutes or until the veggies soften. Add the sherry, tomatoes, bulgur, chicken stock, cinnamon stick, star anise and thyme and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Add the chicken and sausage to the vegetable mixture and tuck in the dates.



Cover the pan and cook in the oven for 20 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning and serve immediately.

Pizza Chronicles 2009 Part 1

If there's one thing Joe and I agree on for dinner its pizza. While making pizza last night we realized how much value we get from making it together and an idea was born. This year, we're going to chronicle our pizza experiences. I'm sure there will be some interesting doughs, toppings, take-out places and restaurants involved. Even more fun will be us working together on this. We'll share our thoughts on the pizza "du jour" and any insights (or weight gain) will be noted.

Our first pizza of 2009: Eggplant, caramelized onion, chicken, chorizo and whole roasted smashed garlic clove pizza with shredded mozzarella cheese and Trader Joe's pizza sauce.

Michelle on the dough:

My current favorite pizza dough is from Nick Malgieri's How to Bake. His recipe for Neapolitan pizza is quick to make and with a proof time of about an hour it's becoming one of my go-to recipes. Aside from the ease of making this dough it has great flavor and it produces a pizza that is crispy with a nice crust around the edge.

Here's an abbreviated version of that recipe (makes 2 12" pizzas):

1 ¼ Cups Warm Tap Water (about 110 degrees)

2 ½ tsp (1 envelope) active yeast (I like SAF yeast)

Put the warm water in a bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the water; let it soften for 3-4 minutes.

While yeast is softening, in a large bowl combine:

3 Cups AP Flour (we only use King Arthurs)

2 tsp salt

Mix them together. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Once the yeast has softened whisk the yeast and the water together, then whisk in:

1 tbsp Olive Oil (use the good stuff)

Once you have the oil, water and yeast mixed pour them into the well in the flour. With a spatula mix the flour water together as far as you can (it may start to form a soft, sticky dough; if it doesn't take your hands and kneed it a few times in the bowl to get everything incorporated). Turn the dough onto a lightly flour surface and kneed it till the dough is smooth and no longer very sticky. It should take about 5 minutes. Be careful not to overknead because the dough will be tough. Form the dough into a ball.

Put the dough in a bowl with about 1 tbsp of olive oil in it. Place the dough into the bowl, and move it around so all the dough is covered with oil. Make sure the top of your ball is facing upwards and wrap the bowl with plastic wrap. Allow the dough to double in size (about 1 hour).

Once your dough has fully proofed, take it and divide it in half. This recipe makes 2 medium pizzas, so I often freeze half the dough. Take the dough you will be using and form it into a ball. Let it rest for about 10-15 minutes with a towel covering it, then stretch it to approximately the size of your pizza stone (or pan). We don't have a pizza peel, so we take our stone out of the oven, put our dough on it; and then quickly put the toppings on before putting it back in the oven.

Joe on the toppings:

On this pizza we used Trader Joes Pizza Sauce. Although we never use gravy from a can for pasta, we've found that for pizza Trader Joe's sauce works great. This sauce has a good consistency for pizza, and when used judiciously, still allows for a very crispy crust. We use a small amount, not covering the whole crust, leaving it streaky before the other toppings go on. The next topping to go on were four cloves of whole roasted garlic that we smashed. They were roasted in the skin, and peeled right before application. Also added were caramelized onion (low and slow till caramelized in a pan), broiled chicken breast (roasted bone in and cut into strips), a couple small pieces of chorizo, and shredded Mozzarella. For Mozzarella we prefer fresh, but store bought grated is good in a pinch, or to save a little cash. The final topping and our favorite right now, was roasted eggplant. We simply cut the eggplant the long way into sections and then crosswise just over half an inch thick. We then oil and salt them and roast in a 400 degree oven until just before done (they'll start to brown and be soft, but not mushy). When the pizza comes out, they will have the slightest amount of crisp on the outside, but be creamy in the middle. Roasting them first gets them to perfect doneness, and also decreases their moisture content, allowing the pizza to be crispy.

The verdict:

You'll know your pizza is done when the edges are brown, cheese is melted and it smells so good you can't stop opening the oven door to check on it. We've made several variations of this pizza and it's so good. When we take our pizza out of the oven we slide it onto a cooling rack so that the crust will stay crispy. We've found that if we put it on the cutting board right away the steam will get trapped and the crust will get soggy.

With our pizza tonight we had a bottle of Michel-Schlumberger 2003 Syrah from Dry Creek. Though the wine was very nice it was a bit too hot and peppery to pair with the pizza. The flavors were competing a bit too much, and the pizza overpowered the wine. Our glass before the pizza was lovely, but with the pizza it just tasted hot. Next time we drink that bottle we'll pair it with a lightly seasoned pork tenderloin so we can enjoy the flavors of the wine more.

1 Ostrich Egg, 6 friends and a whole lot of wine

1 ostrich egg, 6 friends and a whole lot of wine equals a whole lot of food and good time had by all.

Last week Mike and LT became the proud parents of a very big Ostrich egg's days were numbered.

Mike told Joe about the egg over the weekend and they immediately "hatched" a plan of attack.



Take said egg, take drill/knife; make countless egg dishes. That folks, is exactly what happened.




We arrived at Mike and LT's with dessert, wine and some "sides" for the egg. Mike just about bought out the grocery store with items that might go well egg. With ingredients combined we had the makings of 3 very delicious frittatas, as well as hash browns and some roasted cauliflower.


But first, how to crack the egg. When we arrived, LT plugged her drill charger into the wall "just incase we needed it." After reviewing a YouTube video, and 5 people giving advice; Mike decided to go the old fashion way; knife and mallet please.

The egg contained an enormous amount of egg substance. Apparently, one ostrich egg is the equivalent of 2 dozen chicken eggs. We had a lot of egg to work with.



Our first frittata contained tomatoes, basil and mozzarella. After cooking it on the stovetop till almost set; we topped it off with some more mozzarella and some delicious pancetta. It turned out great.










The next frittata was vegetarian (but certainly NOT vegan). It contained broccoli, peppers, onions, mushrooms, goat cheese and a little mozzarella. Before we put it under the broiler we added some cheddar cheese to the top. The resulting frittata was loaded with veggies and 3 cheeses.



Though we were all getting full, the wine was starting to kick in so we decided to make one more. The last frittata contained bacon, potatoes, goat cheese, green onions, tomatoes and thyme. It was delicious as well. After eating that, we were all full.



But then there was dessert:

Before:



After:



(Clearly we found room for dessert, though we forgot about the ice cream)


We drank 3 bottles of wine, but I only got the names of two. Both were from Schweiger Vineyards (where Joe works). We had Mr. Pink (an amazing Rose) and 2004 Cab (great as always).



Cheers!


Thanks to Mike for buying such an interesting ingredient, and for sharing it with us.