Small-Batch Pizza Gein

Dough (makes a top and bottom crust)
1-1/3 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 C. fresh grated parmesan cheese
1 egg, beaten
1/4 C. shortening
1/3 C. water

Don't the eggs make it all pretty?

Filling
1/8th lb. (eg 2 oz.) each, each, each!!!: prosciutto, provalone cheese, italian hard salami, pepperoni
1/4 lb. shredded mozzarella cheese
salt and pepper to taste (use sparingly)
4 eggs, lightly beaten

To make the dough: Combine the flour and the shortening with a fork.  Add in the parmesan, pepper, and water.  Lastly stir in the egg, adding a little bit more water if  you need to for consistency.  The dough should be like a good biscuit dough, but slightly tougher.  Turn it out onto a floured surface, and knead it until smooth and elastic, about 2-3 minutes, adding more flour as necessary to keep it from sticking.  Set it aside to let it rest while you make the filling.

To make the filling: slice all your meats and the provalone cheese into small bites.  Combine them with the eggs, salt and pepper, and the mozzarella cheese in a large bowl. 

Use a 5-inch by 9-inch glass baking dish.  Divide your dough into half.  Roll out the first half to fit the bottom and sides of the dish.  (The dough is fairly workable, so you can press it up the sides of the dish some if it doesn't fit exactly on the first try.)  Pour your filling into this.  Then, you have one of two choices for your top crust.

Option 1: Roll out the second half of the dough the same way you did the bottom crust.  Lay it on top of the filling, crimp the edges of the top and bottom together as you would a pie crust, and cut 3-4 generous slits widthwise in the top to allow steam to escape.  Brush with beaten egg white if desired.

Option 2: Roll out the second half of the dough.  Cut into strips and make a lattice.  Nestle some eggs that you previously boiled and dyed down into the lattices at stategic points.  Brush with beaten egg white if desired.

Either way, bake it all at 350F for about 45 minutes-1 hour, or until the crust is golden brown, the filling is bubbly, and it looks set.  (Remember, there's uncooked eggs in there.)  Let it cool somewhat before attempting to slice it.  This should serve at least 4-6 generous helpings!
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Pizza Gein is one of my favorite all-time foods.  It's traditionally an Easter food, and I think it is definitely worth its own holiday.  As a kid, it was fun to get a piece with a boiled egg in it.  So colorful!  As an adult, making Pizza Gein gives me an excuse to dye eggs.  Oh snap!

For the original, immense batch size, click here.

An App Fit for a Princess

Dear The World:

There is a Betty Crocker app.  Yes, there's an app for that.  And by "that" I mean 13 enormous megabytes of "search by ingredient", "find coupons" and "step-by-step instructions".  It's like a cookbook in my purse.  You know, for those days when  you need to cook something but inspiration fails you, but not enough for you to give in and eat out, because you still have standards and principles, and eating out just because you can't think of anything to cook is akin to buying the train line because you ran low on gas on your way home from work.  I may later regret those 13 enormous megabytes (I think, more than the Angry Birds game I can now play on my phone OMG ANGRY BIRDS) but right now I'm rejoicing.  (I'm not exaggerating when I say that the first thing out of my mouth after the cell phone salesman said my new phone could do apps was "ANGRY BIRDS!!!!"  He downloaded it for me right in the store.  I felt like Princess Conner.)

"Bamboo Sunshades" added to Other Projects page

So I finally got around to adding my most recent efforts to the "Other Projects" section.  It's a funny and serious look at life in South Jersey...and if you use the "wise guy" accent in your mind when you read this book I will be displeased.  It is my personal goal to educate as much of the world as I have access to about the fact that North Jersey (near NYC) and South Jersey (near Philadelphia...or not, depending on how far south you go) have almost completely different accents, and that people from South Jersey do not like, after having put their flavor of Jersey accent to use when answering the question "So, where are you from?" being answered back with, "Oh, so you're from Joisey, eh?"  People from South Jersey do not say "eh," they do not pronounce it "Joisey", and they do not like being compared to Newark.

Creamy Carrot Bolognese Sauce / A Fishy Mystery

I want to say again that I am so thankful that I have readers for this blog.  It really gives me a great deal of joy to chronicle my own and others' food adventures here and know that they will be enjoyed and appreciated. 

My latest adventure is another new take on a recipe from The Northend Italian Cookbook.  (I recently discovered, the 4th edition.  It's not like it was a big secret, I just usually don't take the time to read the dozens of pages of forwards and dedications and introductions and summaries that seem to accompany all published books, including even cookbooks and books of knitting patterns.)  The original recipe was for a Bolognese sauce, which is the authentic version of what we all usually think of when we picture the "meat sauce" part of "spaghetti with meat sauce".  Now, let me state for the record once again that I do not think that eating meat is intrinsically evil, especially if the animal in question was humanely raised and humanely led out of this life so that we could enjoy and benefit from it.  But, I think it is an uncontestable statement to say that we should all probably eat less meat for a variety of reasons, not the least of which because we are making ourselves FAT and are giving ourselves heart conditions and colon cancer.  So, I modified this recipe to be a good "weekday/meat free" alternative, but you could use the meat of your choice in place of the substitute I offer, which is....carrots. 

I know.  I'm a card-carrying member of the nut club in your minds now, right?  Carrots?  Carrots?  Yes, carrots.  "Why carrots?" you may ask.  Because...and here is another personal revelation...I think meat substitutes are nasty.  They start life almost flavorless (not taking into account their own natural flavors, which are usually odd, to say the least) and with a variety of textures to appall.  So I tend to avoid them in my cooking and in my eating.  So, since I've lately been exploring ways of cooking and eating less meat without sacrificing my favorite foods and flavors, I've been exploring vegetable options to replace the texture and role that the meat portion of some of my favorite recipes.  The eggplant experiment in my personal experience, wildly successful.  For further support of eggplant, I offer you this example: I once cooked some fried eggplant for a former boyfriend, who came across it later and ate it, totally unaware, he told me afterwards, that it was not the fish I had meant to cook.  So, with that in mind, I bring you:

Creamy Carrot Bolognese Sauce
4 large carrots, peeled and cubed*
1 small onion, chopped the Italian way (into slivers rather than cubes)
1 28oz (850mL) can ground or crushed tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 sprigs fresh parsley, minced
salt and pepper to taste, red pepper flakes or cayenne to taste
2/3 C. white wine (I used the aformentioned muscato)
cooking oil (olive oil, if you have it)
1/2 C. (120 mL)
about 1lb (450g) hot cooked pasta (I actually put it over cooked split peas with flavorful success, but I admit that this is a little more experimental than most people are willing to be when it comes to their Italian staples)

Heat the oil in a saucepot over medium heat.  Add in the carrots and let them sizzle and cook for about 5 minutes.  You can actually chop the rest of the things that need to be chopped while this is happening and cut your total preparation/cooking time down.  Anyhow, after the carrots have had their time in the saucepot hot tub alone, toss in the onions and garlic and let them sizzle with the carrots for another 2-3 minutes.  Add in the wine.  Let it reduce, another 2-3 minutes.  Add in the crushed tomatoes, parsley, and the seasonings.  My canned tomatoes came with some added salt, so I actually didn't put in any additional salt at all and that was just right.  Put the cover on the saucepot, reduce the heat to medium-low (a fastish simmer) and let it cook, stirring it every so often, for about 15 minutes.  You can use this time to find your pasta in the cabinet (emphasis find if you live in a place with limited cabinet space in the kitchen) and get it cooked and drained.  At the very end of the cooking time, remove the sauce from the heat and add in the cream, stirring it to blend.  The end!  Serve it over your pasta.  It's good just the way it is, although some parmesan is never amiss with most Italian dishes.  This makes a good bit of sauce.  I made a full batch and set some aside to use for eggplant parmesan.
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*Cubing carrots is not as hard as it sounds.  After you get them peeled, instead of cutting them from end to end into disks, cut each individual carrot into 2-3 sections, making your cuts where the carrot obviously changes sizes as it tapers from the big end to the small end.  Then, cut each section in half.  Cut each half into 3 strips longways.  Holding all the strips together, cut from end to end.  These are not perfect cubes, mind you.  This is not the haute cuisine cordon blue mirepoix carrot cutting method.  This is just the simplest way to get carrots into cube-like pieces.

Parmesan Patties in Onion Cream Sauce

1 lb hot cooked pasta

Patties
1 lb ground turkey
1 C. parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
2 eggs

Mix all together.  (If you want, you can cook all of them with this dish, but what I did was save about 2/3rds of the mixture in the freezer as premade meatballs.  So you may want to double the sauce recipe (or more) if you want to serve all the patties at once.)  Heat 3TB (1/2 a stick of butter) in a large skillet.  Fry the patties on both sides over medium to medium-low heat (so they don't brown too fast and do get cooked all the way through).  Set aside.  DO NOT DISCARD THE BUTTER IN THE PAN.

Sauce
1 large onion, chopped into slivers (ie, stop chopping them one step before you get cubes)
1/2 C. cream
salt and pepper to taste
the rest of the stick of butter

Scrape the browned bits off the bottom of the pan.  Melt the butter in it.  Saute the onions in the pan until they are soft.  Reduce the heat to low.  Add in the cream and stir to mix well.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Pour the sauce over the turkey patties to comingle the flavors --or-- Serve each plate individually with pasta, patties, then a generous helping of sauce.
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This is my own take on a recipe from The Northend Italian Cookbook, "Saporite de Manzo".  I felt it deserved a rename because my version differs in some of the ingredients and quantities and also does NOT have any balsamic vinegar, and therefore probably tastes a lot different.

I really wanted to add some white wine to the sauce-- I had even bought some muscato at the liquor store-- but the cheap corkscrew I bought literally broke off in the bottle.  It was a hot mess.  I had to dig most of the cork out crumb by crumb with: a steak knife, my bare hands, and a long knitting needle.  The rest came out stuck to the bottom of the corkscrew or ended up in my wine.  Ugh.  So, needless to say, my wine-adding plans were scuttled when the corkscrew broke off in my wine bottle, since making a sauce is a time-sensitive operation that doesn't really allow for 30 minutes of cork-mining and I therefore had to set that project aside and finish making my dinner.  If you want to add wine, what you would do is: after you've removed the cooked patties from the cooking pan, add in the wine (about 1/4 C.) and let it bubble and moil about while you scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan.  Then, once all that's done with, add in the additional butter and continue with the recipe as written.  However, the oniony sauce as it is was pretty good, especially mixed with the flavor of the parmesan cheese in the patties.

When I made my pasta, I actually cooked a half pound of pasta and a half pound of frozen peas together.  I think it was yummy, but you could go with plain pasta, too.

Talking Trash

I may or may not have solved my food trash problem. 

After doing some research, I discovered that there is a way to avoid putting, shall we say, unnecessary food directly into the trash.  Yes, now I have one more reason for my neighbors to think I'm crazy.  There's a trash bin on my patio that I regularly talk to, water, and put food scraps in.  I like to think of its occupants as the hamster for people not responsible enough to have a hamster.  Yes, oh yes.  I now have a worm bin.  I got the doings from a couple of local stores and the worms from my aunt's backyard. 

Now let me tell you, I am currently thankful that my neighborhood apparently has had a run on worm bins.  Otherwise I would have gotten even more weird looks than I already did when I went to the customer service desk at a hardware chain and said I needed peat moss "because I have worms."  While the guy behind the counter mentally filed that one away, the manager for the garden section stepped up, fortunately for us all, and that's when I learned about the other worm owners in my area.

Anyway, the worms are now installed, and I have even named three of the five or so that I am hoping are still alive and reproducing in there.  (Wormeo, Juliet, and Tina after Tina the Llama from "Napeoleon Dynamite".  Why?  Because part of my worm ownership learning curve involved standing over their trash bin and commanding them to eat all the good food I was providing them with.)  Hopefully they will actually eat the food, I will feel a lack of guilt about disposing of things like onion skins, and less trash will go in my trashcan.  Hopefully.  Otherwise I may have started a small-scale composting operation, which will probably be even unpopular with the neighbors than my current practice of going out several times a day to talk to a plastic trashcan.

Some Italian Mystery Ingredients, Revealed

This is not a recipe post as such, but a suggestion post.  I recently tried some recipes out of The Northend Italian Cookbook, which Grandmom gave me with high recommendations, and they were delicious.  Now, that cookbook is relatively current, and I feel bad about potentially defrauding the author, Maria DeMino Buonopane, who looks like a very nice woman based on her author photograph on the back.  So, I'm not going to include those exact recipes here.  However, I did discover by trying out those recipes the answers to some culinary mysteries and, since I have been eating those culinary mysteries from Grandmom's kitchen my whole life I don't feel that it's unethical to reproduce those here.

Mystery #1: Why does Grandmom's tomato sauce taste so good, and so different from, jarred sauce?

The first thing that jumps to your mind (as it did to mine) was a matter of freshness, seasoning, and ingredient choice.  However, the ingredients used (and not used) in the pasta sauce I buy are almost identical (as far as I knew) to the homemade variety.  In addition, jarred sauce avoids the metalic taste from traditional canning.  Still, it just wasn't the same.  Through happy accident, I discovered mystery ingredient number 1, and The Northend Italian Cookbook revealed the second mystery ingredient.

Tomato Sauce Mystery Ingredient #1: rendered meat fat.

If you brown your sausages, meatballs, porkchops (yes, porkchops) or whatever meat you plan on putting in your tomato sauce in your sauce pot first, set them aside, and then proceed to make the sauce, your sauce will have this delicious meaty quality.  (You will still need to add some olive oil after you remove the meat from the pan so you can saute your onions and garlic-- just not as much.)  After you've got the sauce looking like a sauce, add the meat back in and cook everything all together the way you would a meat-free sauce-- about 1 hour on a low simmer. 

Tomato Sauce Mystery Ingredient #2: fresh mint!

I haven't tried this in a meat sauce like the one I describe above,  but in a meat-free red sauce, the fresh mint in delicious.  Instead of the pepperiness of fresh basil (also good) you get a milder zip, as well as the sweetening qualities of mint.  I think this is why commercial tomato sauce typically has added sugar.  But it just can't compare.

Mystery #2: When I saute garlic for a dish, it just doesn't have as much garlicky goodness as when Grandmom does it.

Mystery Step: Frizzle the garlic in a ton of oil.  Half-burn it.  We're cooking Italian, right?  If you want less garlic, go eat a taco.  For a sauce I don't know if I would recommend doing it this way.  However, for something that has garlic as a main flavor (for example the broccoli rabe recipe I posted recently), don't be shy on the number of cloves you use, and once you've minced your garlic, heat about 3-5 TB. oil in a pan until it's hot!!!! and then throw in your garlic.  Push it around in the pan a few times to keep it from actually burning, but it should turn a deep golden brown and even puff up a little.  Basically you're deep-frying garlic on a very small scale.  But the result is an oil full of a bold, nutty garlic flavor, perfect for dipping bread in, pouring over fresh cooked greens, or tossing into pasta with some parmesan cheese.