pizza – Peaceful Reader

February; Weekend Cooking

We went out of town this weekend to attend a Bluegrass Festival in Des Moines. I do love to travel and going anywhere requires finding a few good restaurants to try. On this trip our main foodie experience was Gusto’s Pizza near downtown. This place does not have just your average pizzas plus they do gluten-free crusts for any of their pizzas. I didn’t snap any photos because I was too busy eating. With names like Buffalo Springfield, Vincent Van Goat, Francesco, and the Fromage A’Trois it was very hard to make a choice. With all the menu choices we somehow missed the special of the day which was a spicy Thai pizza.

{Gusto’s Pizza-just NOT the pizza we ordered}

After much deliberation we voted to get the Francesca which featured an Alfredo sauce, mozzarella, Roma tomato, artichokes, cremini mushrooms, and spinach. It was divine. We ate almost the whole thing. There is one lonely piece waiting for me in the refrigerator for lunch or dinner. Groovy Girl got to design her own small pizza; shrimp, fresh basil, Roma tomatoes, and extra mozzarella. She was in pizza heaven and she had a wonderful cream soda to make her smile.

My friend and I both tried 2 different salads from the menu as well. Mine was the Fromage Bleu featuring apples, spiced walnuts, mixed greens, red onion and balsamic vinaigrette. I wished for more bleu cheese crumbled on top-after all the name features bleu! My friend ordered the quinoa continental and it was by far the winner! A small amount of quinoa mixed with mixed greens, goat cheese, roasted butternut squash, dried cranberries, and balsamic vinaigrette. I am going to re-create this salad at home! All in all it was an amazing trip to Des Moines. Oh, and the Bluegrass Festival; it was fantastic as well.

We made it safely back yesterday afternoon just in time for Groovy Girl’s school fundraiser. Last night at about my bedtime I realized I needed to make something for our church potluck. I whipped this vegan curry dish (from allrecipes.com) in about 40 minutes and it was a huge hit. The bowl was scraped clean. Surprising as it was pretty spicy. No leftovers. I’ll have to make more. It’s been a good food weekend for me!

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads weekly foodie meme. Click her link to find many other food-related posts.

Weekend Cooking; Fresh pizza dough

I made pizza this weekend and it turned out fantastic. The dough was triple light and airy because I rolled it out early and let it sit on the pizza stones in the oven for 3 hours while I went to another event.
When I came home and pulled the stones out of the oven to decorate the pizzas and let the oven heat up the dough was this puffy, airy mass. I poured some red sauce on and set it in the middle of the table.

One of our little guests, Jackson, took a break from petting Sadie the rabbit to help me put topics on the pizza. YES, mother, he washed his hands thoroughly before adding straight cheese and a few tiny mini sausages to the kid’s pie. He liked helping so much he topped the adult pie as well with sautéed mushrooms, black olives, fresh spinach, and plenty of cheese! I didn’t want to seem like a dweeb as we made these pizzas but they were picture-worthy. Thank you to Jackson for you pie decorating abilities.

Here is the dough recipe I used

Pizza dough
adapted from Rodale’s Basic Natural food’s cookbook

2 cups warm water
2 T. local honey
2 full T. of yeast
3 T. vegetable oil
5-6 cups unbleached flour-can use a mix of white and whole wheat

In a large bowl combine warm water, honey, and yeast and let proof. (Proofing means let it get active, it will be bubbly) Then add oil and enough flour to make a firm dough. Turn dough onto floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic., adding flour as need. Place dough in a well-oiled bowl, and turn over to coat. Cover bowl with a damp warm towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch down dough, knead briefly in bowl and let rise again. Then divide dough into two balls. Form each ball into a flat circle and roll out into a circle. I use my Pampered Chef silicone mat for this and it makes it so easy to lift up the dough flip it and turn it over.

We used most of the dough up last night but the rest is going to be turned into a calzone for tomorrow’s lunch box main dish for Groovy Girl! I’m off to create that with her now. This holiday time make some dough and have an easy pizza party. I had all my ingredients prepped and in lidded containers so I could just whip them out and let Jackson go to town. It made for a very easy entertaining trick.

Have a holly jolly week!

This is loosely linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme. Click her link to find many other food-related posts.

Hanging in the City; NYC.

We’ve driven cross country to visit my in-laws for two weeks. For something completely different we took the bus from DC to New York today. It was College Boy’s last vacation request before he leaves his home roost and heads to the great West.

We walked a lot today; from Madison Square Gardens through Times Square and Broadway trekking all the way over to Central Park West (through the park) and to our hotel, The Milburn.

Tomorrow we will head to Greenwich Village for lunch at Lupa owned by Mario B., which will be our only sit down meal for the most part. We ate at a Pizzaria for dinner close to the hotel. We stopped at a grocery store to pick up bagels, cream cheese and fruit for breakfast in our room. The hotel is old but refurbished and has a lovely but tiny kitchenette in the corner.

It is exciting to be in the city. I was lucky enough to come several times while I was a teenager but my kids have never been. It was fun to watch College Boy melt right in with the crowds while Groovy Girl was left hanging with her mouth open for many sites including the huge billboards and lights in Times Square.

Also it is Freezing here so the weather is pretty much the same as Iowa.

What's for dinner?

I dislike that question from my children. Don’t you? I want them to like what ever is set before them. Really I do. They rarely do. It is one way for them to take ownership of their little corner of the world. “But Mom….remember I don’t like onions [insert food of choice, rotates on a daily basis]”and said in a somewhat whiny voice. It’s okay, whatever I make is good for you and you’re going to eat it, said with a smile is my general response.

(Two Lodge skillets with pizza dough)

Pizza is one universal food they can agree on. Teenage boy has said he could eat it every night of the week without fail. His second choice of daily meals: buttered pasta. I know, right. So lacking in imagination. What happened to my boy who loved veggies, and tofu, and ate what I put down on the table ‘cuz he loved me!

I woke up this morning with pizza on my mind, even though I’ve cut WAYYY back on bread/gluten items. Over the winter I’d read an article in MS’s Living magazine about making pizza in a cast iron skillet. I didn’t make it then but it’s been jiggling in the back of my mind ever since. Today was the day.

(The big pizza got a sprinkling of black olives and sauteed portebellos)

I didn’t have a chance to make the dough this morning because I’ve been religiously going through my yoga routine first thing and then I had to get to my husband’s performing arts camp to help out. That was alright though as I thought when I bring Groovy Girl home she and I can make the dough and it can have half a day to sit. Not the best but okay. I can be flexible. I regretted this later as the dough was very sticky.

(Just out of the oven)

I used the Mel’s Kitchen Cafe dough I’ve used the last 5-7 times I’ve made pizza. How many times does one use someone else’s recipe before it becomes their own? Maybe never! I then googled pizza in cast iron skillet thinking I would come up with Martha’s article but nope I got King Arthur’s recipe instead. I like KA products and as I read through the recipe it sounded good. The skillets were slick. The pizza slides right out I added a garlic olive oil drizzle to the pan before I pressed the dough. The kids loved it, especially the thick Chicago-style crust. It was a little two deep dish for me and I limited myself to one slice but the flavor was great. Making the little one for Groovy Girl without the mushrooms and olives was perfect. She likes crust and red sauce with just a dusting of cheese. Using the skillet made it less of a production, which makes me think I could whip out a little one for her for lunch.

Weekend Cooking; Shaking things up with a new pizza recipe

(Our zucchini pizza straight out of the oven)

My husband has been very tied up this week both at work and directing a high school production of Little Women; The Musical. He was called in to save the play when the directer originally hired for the position up and quit. She deserted right after she’d picked the play and cast it! Then zip, gone! Our son is a student at the school and they’ve asked handsome husband to direct before but it’s never worked out. This time he said yes.

What does all that have to do with my cooking week? Our schedule has been off. He and my son, who he sweet talked into playing an old man, have been busy with rehearsals making this week an easy cooking week, filled with leftovers and warmed up pasta. I did make patty melts one night with some brat burgers I found at Hansen’s, my around-the-corner dairy/local food selling utopia. Last night we had a classic go-to comfort food dinner of refried bean burritos adding in roasted cubed eggplant to spice it up.

Earlier in the week I’d clicked on one of Janssen’s posts at Everyday Reading to see her menu line-up and found a recipe for zucchini pizza she shared from Perry’s Plate. I love making pizza and find it far superior to any pie purchased over the counter. Yes, I am a pizza snob, even shredding my own mozzarella. I have two round stones, a great pizza wheel and a recipe for dough from an old Rodale cookbook that I’ve used for years.

After reading the zucchini recipe I knew I had to try it. It is my new favorite! My husband and I ate all of it-I saved out one square to share with my amazing library volunteer. She and I love trading recipes and this will be good for her to try. My kids hated it though so it is not necessarily kid-friendly. Luckily the dough makes two pies and the second one I just tossed sauce and cheese on top and they ate it and smiled big pizza-smiles. What they did love though was smell of the kitchen during the pie-making and baking process! What a great tradition to pass on.

Enjoy!

Other baking news:

Perry’s Plate (at the Tasty Kitchen) has a gluten-free apple, ginger, and spice scones which uses almond flour. I’m going to make these soon just to experiment with gluten-free.

I signed up to bake whoopie pies for our church bazaar-something Christmas-y. Maybe a peppermint/chocolate combo.

Weekend Cooking is a weekly meme hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Click there for many more food-related posts.