recipes – Page 32 – The Kitchen Illiterate

Pizza Chronicles, Part 3: Whole Wheat Crust and Turkey Meatballs

Whole Wheat Crusted Pizza

Apparently, it is my kitchen mission to mix and toss and stretch and top until I find the perfect home kitchen pizza dough. This, my friends, is the best I’ve tried so far. The crust was the closest to crispy its been yet, and any shortcomings are surely the fault of the pan on which I cooked said pizza, and not the crust itself. This time around I gave that dough a full 24-hour fermentation period. I let the oven heat for over 45 minutes, at 500F. I finally managed to stretch a pizza dough without ending up with huge gaping holes in random places. I think, yes, I believe I’m finally getting the hang of this!

The topping on this best-yet pizza dough was none too shabby, either. Fontina cheese, fresh mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, and some leftover turkey meatballs (from the meatball trauma of weeks ago)–man, this thing was deeelicious. After taking it out of the oven I sprinkled some coarsely ground sea salt and dried oregano over the thing, to loud and resounding applause from Miss Crystal. I had originally thought to add capers, and decided not to, but I’m thinking that would have been a nice idea.

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Astypalaian Biscuits, sort of

Last week I found this random recipe for Greek Saffron biscuits. I am new the world of saffron, but I love Greek food, and these sounded pretty good. Apparently, they are these religious holiday-related biscuits that are only made on this Greek Island called Astypalaia. The ladies of the island of course harvest local saffron, and they make these only once a year or something, and they’re special. They also are supposed to take something like seven hours. I do not have seven hours of baking patience, especially not these days. So I decided to modify a little. Call it sacreligious if you will. This version is probably not the way they are supposed to be, but they were still good. Ignore the fact that they are shaped a little like poo.

These are meant to be baked for five hours at a low temperature, until all the moisture has been baked right out of them and they are presumably rock hard. This seems to make them last longer or something? I don’t really like rock hard biscuits. I baked them for less time. I also couldn’t find whole-fat cottage cheese at the hippy mart, because it’s the freaking hippy mart. How many times to I have to say it: They have nothing I need, ever, at the hippy mart. The only change I might make to this in the future would be to add a ton more salt, because I like things salty. But as they are these are very unique savory biscuit treats.

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The Frozen Bananoid Disaster of Aught-Seven

Frozen Bananoid, kind of

Last week I got the inclination to re-create one of my favorite childhood treats–Frozen Chocolate-covered Bananas. My favorite children’s cookbook calls them Frozen Bananoids, which, aww, isn’t that cute. I should probably have consulted said favorite children’s cookbook yesterday, when I finally got around to actually making this favorite delectable treat. I left out a crucial ingredient and ended up with a banana disaster.

Disaster may be too strong a word, really. No one was harmed, and the frozen banana things are edible, even if they do look a little weird. I just feel like a bit of a dumbass for screwing up a recipe I made a million times when I was ten.

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Super Spicy Shrimp and Red Onion Pasta

UPDATE: I re-made this dish in 2010, after I learned a few more things about cooking. Don’t forget to check out the much better version.

In my quest to eat more healthier things, I ran an epicurious search for foods not filled with butter. It didn’t come up with a lot, but a recipe for Spiced Shrimp and Red Onion Saute caught my eye. It looked fast, it didn’t require a ton of ingredients (other than spices, which I already have), and it looked relatively light. Plus, I love shrimp. I decided this would be an excellent Tuesday night meal, served over pasta, and with a little spinach thrown in, for greenery and extra vitamin purposes.

Well, it was very fast, and I’m assuming pretty healthy, but it was also so spicy I could hardly eat it. I also think I needed to add more shrimp, more spinach, and less onion, all of which alterations may happen in the future, because overall I think this was a pretty good dinner. Below, the recipe as followed, with my parenthetical alterations.

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Sesame Chicken; or, Drunken Garlic Chicken Mishaps

Sesame Chicken and Broccoli

There are many reasons I should not be allowed to cook after a few or five beers, and Saturday night’s dinner involved several of them. I tend not to read recipes very well, and then I tend to immediately forget what I just read. Thus, what was meant to be Garlic Chicken didn’t actually have any, um, garlic in it. Yeah, I don’t know how that happened.

It did, however, turn out pretty darned well, and if I hadn’t already told Mr. X I was making Garlic Chicken, I could have gotten away with pretending I had been planning to make Sesame Chicken all along. The chicken was nice and tender and the broccoli wasn’t too mushy, and I amazingly managed to cook the rice perfectly, even though I didn’t pay any attention to how long I was actually cooking it. Maybe drunken cooking isn’t really so terrible, after all.

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Avocado Baby

One thing I miss the most about California is ripe, delicious avocados. Sure, you can get avocados here in Massachussetts, but they are invariably rock hard, stringy, and tasteless. When you do find the occasional good looking avocado, it’s insanely expensive. I’ve resigned myself to a lack of avocados in my life, which has been sad, because one of my favorite snacks in the world is avocado with soy sauce.

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Warm Potato and Chicken Sausage Salad

I had been planning to make this all week, and for one reason or another it just didn’t happen. Which is ridiculous, because it was ridiculously easy and took maybe about twenty minutes. It’s also pretty healthy: I found the recipe in Eating Well. I think in the future I might cut back on the vinegar, but Mr. X thought it was perfect as is, so what do I know? The arugula adds a great peppery sharpness, and the chicken sausage I found, Al Fresco Roasted Garlic Chicken Sausage, was super excellent and juicy. I suspect there will be more warm potato salads in my future.

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Artichoke Tapenade and Chicken Pizza (or, Not-Quite-Homemade Pizza)

Artichoke Tapenade and Chicken Pizza

I debated whether to even put this up here, because I didn’t actually make anything you see in that picture above (oh, except the chicken, which was leftover from a roast I made a week ago). I bought the pizza dough, and the tapenade, and the cheese, at Trader Joe’s, because I was feeling a little lazy. I decided to write about it, though, in the spirit of a review, and because it was such a good combination of ingredients that I had to share.

I am an unapologetic lover of Trader Joe’s. When I first discovered it, in my college years, I was immediately addicted. They have great prices on staples, like olive oil, and luxury stuffs, like champagne vinegar and truffle oil. When I didn’t have time to cook, their frozen dinners were much better than anything I could find at the local supermarket. They had all kinds of meats and cheeses that were otherwise hard to find, and I could get a big canister of delicious dark roasted coffee for $3.99! Despite the fact that coffee is now $5.99, and that I have to beg Mr. X to drive me or walk seven loooong city blocks during my work day to get there, I still love Trader Joe’s. I went yesterday because I needed coffee, and was completely tempted by the vision of an interesting pizza dinner that floated into my head when I caught sight of the Artichoke Roasted Red Pepper Tapenade.

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Campanelle with Spicy Tomato Sauce, Trout, and Haricots Verts

It took me a long time to figure out what to call this particular pasta dish. I told Mr. X I was making trout pasta for dinner, and the look on his face made it very clear that “trout pasta” would not be an appropriate name. But if it were to appear on a restaurant menu, how could it be made clear that the trout is actually in the pasta sauce, not served on the side or anything? I’m not sure that my choice is perfect, but I guess the name of it isn’t that important, either. Because it was really super good! Way better than even I was expecting, and certainly better than “trout pasta” might connote.

I spent all day trying to think of what to do with the trout fillet I picked up at the hippy mart Monday. I’m not usually a big fan of just eating a piece of fish on its on, but I’m trying to get more of it into my diet, since it’s supposed to be healthy or something. I even thought for a minute about putting it on pizza, but I feel like I’ve been making lots of pizzas lately. Eventually, I figured it would just flake it into some pasta sauce and hope for the best.

But what kind of pasta sauce? I’ve seen recipes for trout topped with pesto, or salsa, and I’ve cooked other fish mixed into cream sauces, but none of that seemed right. Plus, I didn’t want to make a trip to the market again. So after rooting around in my larder (ha, I’ve always wanted to use that word) I came up with a hodge-podge of randomness, and crossed my fingers.

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Veggie Riot Stir-fry

I have never been that interested in Chinese food. I’ve stir-fried things before, but it was always just a random conglomeration of ingredients, with no specific sauce, and usually served over pasta. Chinese cooking seemed to rely on an entirely different collection of methods and ingredients that held no particular appeal to me at all.

Until I bought a new wok. I’m not really sure what the power of this wok is. I’ve owned woks in the past, and never felt compelled to toss together Kung Pao Chicken or Beef with Broccoli. This wok, though, immediately sent me to various Chinese cooking websites (not having a single Chinese cookbook in the vicinity of my kitchen) to learn to put together an actual Chinese-style stir-fry. I searched and read and took a trip to the hippy mart, and eventually ended up with this: a crazy mix of delicious vegetables and a soy garlic stir-fry sauce. I ended up with something that actually resembles Chinese food!

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