Refrigerator dough pizza

Am I the last person on the Internet to discover refrigerator dough? Because this super easy bread dough has rocked my world since my neighbor introduced me to it a few weeks ago. It is called refrigerator dough because you can make it and keep it at the ready in the fridge for up to two weeks. Or so they tell me. It hasn't lasted more than a few days at my house and I've been making it pretty regularly. The dough itself takes just a few minutes to make and requires no kneading. If you have a mixer with a dough hook it is even easier.

I'm not entirely sold on this dough for a loaf of bread, it does make a nice crusty loaf but there are other simple recipes that yield a better crumb. Still, I'm here to tell you that this dough makes absolutely incredible pizza. And if you make a practice out of keeping a supply in the refrigerator you can have a gorgeous, homemade pizza ready for the table in about thirty minutes. On those nights when you just don't know what to cook it is a real lifesaver.


You will need:
1 1/2 Tablespoons Active Dry Yeast
1 12 Tablespoons Kosher salt
3  Cups Water
4 1/2 Cups Unbleached All Purpose Flour
2 Cups Whole Wheat Flour


Dissolve the yeast and salt in 3 cups of lukewarm water (about 100 degrees).  Add the flour and stir or mix thoroughly with dough hook. Do not knead the dough, which will be very wet. Cover loosely in a 5 quart bowl and let sit at room temperature for about 2 hours. After that time, move the dough to the refrigerator. If you intend to use the dough on the same day you make it, make sure that you plan ahead so that the dough can chill for a few more hours to make it easier to work with. And as I said: the dough will keep in the fridge for up to two weeks. 

When you take it out of the fridge it will look like this:

To make your pizza, remove the amount of dough that you will need for the number and size pizzas you will be preparing. One batch of dough normally yields about five medium-sized, thick-crusted pizzas for our family. Then, pre-heat your oven (and baking stones if you are using them) to 400 degrees. Next, lightly flour your work space and loosely shape the pizzas. The dough won't be very elastic when you first remove it from the refrigerator so you will need to shape it once more before assembly. Now, prepare the toppings for your pizzas. I'll confess that I have not once made a traditional pizza with this dough. Since it is the height of summer here in Virginia and my garden is in full swing I usually just forage for toppings -- or send the kids out and see what they come back with!! Fresh ingredients make all the difference.

Once the oven has reached cooking temperature, move your dough to whatever cooking surface you will be using. Make sure to lightly cover it with corn flour first and don't forget to shape the dough one final time now that it is softer and more elastic. Then simply add your ingredients, maybe drizzle with a little olive oil and a sprinkle of Kosher salt, a bit of Parmesan cheese, and then place it on the center rack of the oven. The pizza will be ready when the cheese is slightly brown and bubbly.

For this blog post I prepared two small pizzas, one with thinly sliced salami, finely chopped, fresh basil, lemon thyme, Monterey pepper jack, mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. The other pizza was a simple tomato, basil and the same combination of cheese. Both were yummy!

If you try this pizza dough, I hope you get as much enjoyment out of it as my family has!

Savory green beans

Any idea what this young guy has in his mouth? If you guessed a green bean you would be right! Green beans are in season and we are eating our fair share. All of us, including the young 'uns love green beans. And what's not to love. You can eat them raw, fresh from the vine, and if you prefer yours cooked, there are endless ways to cook them.

I discovered this recipe earlier this summer when I flipped to the Summer section of my Simply in Season cookbook. This recipe is so delicious that I've made it about six times, with some minor adjustments, since our green beans have come in. If you like vinegary-tart, mildly sweet flavors then you will love this one.

You will need:

About 1lb of green beans, any variety
2 Tablespoons of sugar
4 Tablespoons of white vinegar (apple cider vinegar also works)
1 Red Onion
1/2 cup water (from cooking pot -- see below)
2 Teaspoons cornstarch
Lemon Thyme to taste

First, cook your beans in boiling water until desired tenderness. I like mine still quite crunchy. Meanwhile, thinly slice the onion and saute until soft with a very small amount of oil or butter. When the onion is fully soft, add the sugar and vinegar and cook until the sugar is completely dissolved. Add a generous portion of lemon thyme now if you desire. Then, take 1/2 cup of water used to cook the beans and add the cornstarch, mixing until dissolved. (Note: I'm a pinch and dash kind of a cook but cornstarch is one of those ingredients, I learned, that is best measured. Otherwise your family might suffer some seriously gooey, sticky beans!)  Add this mixture to the onions and cook while stirring until the whole deal thickens up. Finally, drain your beans and transfer them to the onion mixture and stir.

The original recipe calls for the beans to be tossed with crumbled bacon. I have made it with and without the bacon but usually end up omitting it in the interest of less time spent in front of a hot stove. But if you have it on hand and have an air-conditioned kitchen then definitely give it a try.

Frozen banana treats

Frozen bananas are the perfect antidote for hot summer days when you've been outside working too hard or playing too hard. They are also perfect for balmy summer evenings when you welcome neighbors to sit a spell on the front porch and chat. Or after you've tucked the kids into bed for a night and feel your sweet tooth calling. Actually, they are perfect just about any time. With just a little bit of planning, frozen bananas are a quick, healthy snack that appeals to just about everyone. And, if you can stand a little bit of a mess, making these treats can be a fun activity for the kids.

You will need:

2-3 bananas
6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
popsicle sticks
desired toppings (grated coconut, ground peanuts, sprinkles, chopped fruit, granola, etc.)

Melt the chocolate chips with the vegetable oil in the microwave and stir well. Allow to cool a bit so that it is easier to work with. Then, peel the bananas into the desired size and insert a popsicle stick into each part. I sometimes use tooth picks and they work equally well but the bananas have to be cut a bit smaller.  Now, roll each piece in the chocolate then quickly sprinkle with whatever toppings you have chosen. Place on a cookie sheet covered with tin foil or parchment paper and freeze.

These can be served when the chocolate sets or stored in a covered container in the freezer for up to a week. Mine don't normally make it that long!

Eating from the garden

I've barely had time to slap a hotdog or two on the grill this week let alone plan and cook anything more elaborate. Luckily though, it's June and the beginning of the season of abundance in the garden. For us that means we can eat a wonderful meal without a lot of cooking. After becoming a student of permaculture a few years back, the kids and I have spent a lot of time transforming our small city plot into a dynamic, growing system, and although it is far from perfect, I'm still routinely stunned by how much food our small plot yields each year. Besides the simply wonderful feeling you get from harvesting what you have watched grow just a few steps from your door, gardening can be a fun way to incorporate the small people in your life into the mealtime process. I've also  been amused to see the kids take a break from playing to run over and grab a handful of something from the garden and chomp on it with a gusto that you'd never see if I were to carefully prepare and serve it for dinner.

Tonight, when I would have been cooking dinner, I was instead watching my boys harvest the garden peas. After the fun work of shelling them, the peas were quickly steamed and tossed with some bow-tie pasta, leftover roasted chicken from a neighbor's farm, the last of the pesto frozen from last year's garden, a few leaves of fresh basil harvested from the herb garden, and some crumbled locally made feta cheese. I also served fresh applemint tea from the garden, a tossed green salad made from heirloom Amish Deer Tongue lettuce, and a crusty loaf of bread. Altogether it was both simple and delicious. I forgot to take pictures of the meal itself but here are a few from the preparation:

Coconut cream pork with apples

In 2007 my family switched from store-bought meat to buying in bulk directly from the farm once a year. That first season when we unloaded the coolers full of meat into our newly purchased chest freezer, I looked down on all the bundles neatly wrapped in butcher paper with a mixture of satisfaction and uneasiness. I was going to have to cook all that meat. Not only that but I had never cooked most of the cuts before. I didn't even know what some of those cuts were! One such cut was simply labeled: Ham. Now I know what a ham is, but this piece of meat was not cured and it looked nothing like the ham that my mother traditionally served up every Christmas. It looked more like a big steak. After lots and lots of trial and error, I finally developed this recipe and it has won a spot in the family cookbook because I've found that everyone, even our pickiest eater, will eat it.

I'm including a picture of the meat, pre-cooking, so that you can see what I'm working with. I'd love to know if anyone else has successful recipes for this cut. Every other thing I've tried has come out dry.

 For this recipe you will need:

2-3lb pork
1 large yellow onion, coarsely cut
4-5 crisp apples (I used Granny Smith), cut into small cubes
Lemon pepper
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
vegetable oil
1/2- 3/4 cup coconut cream/milk
3-4 slices bacon
1 Tablespoon light brown sugar (optional)
red pepper flakes

To begin, rinse the pork and pat dry. Rub lemon pepper well into both sides of the meat (I used about 3 Tablespoons), then place it in the middle of a glass 9x13 baking dish.  In a heavy skillet saute the onions in a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil until they are tender. Add the cubed apples and the cinnamon and cook for five minutes.

 

While the apples are cooking, place the bacon in strips over the top of the meat in the baking dish. I used un-cured bacon so I first tossed it with kosher salt and black pepper.

Spoon the onion and apple mixture over the meat, covering it completely. Spoon the coconut milk over the apples. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes and a bit of kosher salt if your lemon pepper doesn't already have salt in it (mine didn't).

Cook uncovered in the oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

After the first 45 minutes, use a spatula to move the apples and onions to the sides of the pan so that the bacon has a chance to brown up a bit.  While you have the oven open, sprinkle the the brown sugar over the meat and the apples. 

When the meat is done, remove the dish from the oven, place the meat on a large cutting board, trim and discard fat, then cut into small pieces. Finally, mix the meat with the apples and onion mixture. The resulting dish will be a nice mixture of sweet and peppery.

Serve with garlic fried rice.

Curried minced pork with vegetables, Thai-style

Once upon a time I was misguided enough to think I could learn to speak Thai. Luckily, my very perceptive friend and teacher guessed that the way to access my language center was through my stomach.  Our lessons therefore always started at the market and ended in a communal meal in the shared kitchen of the women's dormitory where I was living. This is very appropriate because in Thailand it really is all about the food. Eating is a very social activity. I left with an extra ten pounds and a notebook full of recipes, including this one.

This meal has become standard fall-back fare at my house. If I haven't planned ahead and need to come up with a quick, satisfying meal that everyone will eat, this dish tops the list. It is also simple enough and tasty enough that I will prepare it for guests when I don't want to be preoccupied by a complicated menu.

An essential ingredient to this one-dish meal is Prik Khing curry paste. I'm lucky enough to have a great local Asian food store that carries a wide assortment of Thai curry pastes, but I have noticed that the ethnic food section of our grocery store also carries a small selection (but with a heftier price tag). For this dish you will only use about a tablespoon of curry paste but the rest will keep well in a ziplock bag in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks. I have also frozen it, spooning it directly from the freezer to the wok.

In addition to the curry paste, you will need:
1.5 lbs ground pork (or beef) (or so)
vegetable oil
1 large red onion, coarsely chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 quarter size slices ginger, minced
1/4 cup soy sauce
2-3 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Large bell pepper (red adds a nice color), sliced
green beans (a couple handfuls), sliced lengthwise
** Optional: Thai basil, 2 cups (or so) cubed pineapple

To prepare:
Cook ground meat, mincing as you go. Set aside when fully cooked.
Add a tablespoon or so of the vegetable oil to your wok. When it is very hot, add the onion and cook until tender. Add the garlic and ginger and cook until the ginger is golden brown. Add about a tablespoon of the curry paste and mix well, frying it with the onion for about a minute. Add the sugar, soy sauce and vinegar. Return the ground meat to the wok and mix well. Add the pepper and green beans, cook until they are tender but still retain some of their crunch. Remove from heat.

If you have Thai basil and some cubed pineapple, toss this with the ground meat and vegetables.

Don't be afraid to add more sugar, soy sauce and vinegar to your taste. The final dish should be a nice balance of sweet, salty, spicy and sour.

Serve over steamed jasmine rice.

A note about spicy foods: sugar counteracts the heat of spicy ingredients in Thai food. If you find that you've added too much curry paste, go ahead and slowly add in small measurements of sugar until the heat is more easily tolerated.

Stir fried Thai noodles

There are many, many ways to cook Pad Thai. As with most Thai foods, you can add any number of ingredients that balance out the four main tastes: sweet, sour, salty, spicy. I prefer an adaptation of the very basic recipe that I found in Real Thai, by Nancie McDermott, which relies on simple ingredients that I usually have in my kitchen. It takes very little time to prepare and everyone at our table loves it.

You will need:
1/2 - 3/4 lb rice stick noodles
vegetable oil
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
12 (or so) shrimp
2 eggs
3 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons sugar

dry-roasted peanuts
bean sprouts
one bunch green onions, chopped
2 limes

First, soak the noodles in a large bowl of hot water for about twenty minutes. While the noodles are softening, start preparing the rest of your ingredients. Mince the garlic, clean, peel and devein the shrimp.

Next, heat about a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil in your wok. Once it is hot, add the garlic and fry until it is a very light brown. Then, add the shrimp and cook until it all pieces are pink. Turn the heat off and carefully remove the garlic and shrimp with a slotted metal spoon and set aside.

Next cook your egg. Heat the remaining oil in the wok and add the two eggs. You can either gently beat them before adding to the pan or, just crack the eggs right in the wok as I do. Let them fry for a few seconds then, using your metal spoon, lightly scramble the egg until it is a golden yellow. Remove the egg from the pan and set aside with the garlic and shrimp.

By this time your noodles should be nice and soft. Drain them in a colander and let sit to remove excess water while you heat another tablespoon or so of oil in the wok. Once the oil is hot add the noodles. Fry them evenly by using two utensils to spread the noodles in a layer over the entire cooking surface of the wok, then lump them together in the center and repeat until they are curled and very soft.

Now, add a handful or two (or three) of the bean sprouts and the green onion and cook for a minute until soft.

Then, add the fish sauce and sugar. (Taste the noodles at this point and decide if you should adjust the flavors more to your taste. More of any combination of ingredients can be added now.) Add the garlic, shrimp and egg and mix thoroughly. At this point you want to be careful of hungry boys or you will find them eating directly from the pan.

Before serving, add a few more, uncooked bean sprouts for texture and a half-cup or so coarsely ground peanuts. Garnish with lime wedges. Serve.

Perfect rice

It took me a long time to master the art of cooking rice. Years ago I would buy small bags of rice at the grocery store, fret over the measurements, try to figure out how to cook the right amount or to cook the amount left in the bag, and then find myself confronted by a soggy, gelatinous mess. Then I moved to the Philippines, where rice is a breakfast, lunch, dinner kind of thing. After attempting a few times to make the rice for our household meals, I was tenderly taken aside and asked not to keep trying. Lucky for me, we soon hired a local woman to help with the household chores (washing the clothes in the river also was not my strong suit). Baby, as she was called, taught me the trick to cooking rice, each individual grain perfectly fluffy every single time. Now I will share the trick with you. It is so simple and will make your life so much easier that you will thank me for it any time you want to quickly throw on a pot of rice but don't want to sweat over getting the measurements right.

Here's what you will need: rice, any sized pot with a snug fitting lid, and water.

First, pour whatever amount of rice into the pot that you estimate will suit your needs. Remember, 1 cup uncooked rice = about 3 cups cooked.

Then, rinse your rice (what? you don't do this? if you saw where that rice was before it was poured into that sack you would probably change your mind, but until then: just trust me. Rinse!).  Next, shake the pot so that the rice is level on the bottom. Now, locate your middle finger. Actually, locate the line of the first knuckle of your middle finger on the palm side of your hand. Got it? Rest your finger tip gently on top of the rice and add water until it reaches that line on your finger. See? Not a measuring cup in sight!

With water and rice in the pot you are ready to cook. Place your pot on the stove, uncovered, and bring to a boil. Once the water is boiling immediately cover the pot and lower the heat to the lowest flame. After 20-25 minutes turn the heat off and let it steam for a few more minutes.

Don't worry so much about over-cooking your rice. A few minutes extra and you might get lucky and end up with the crust at the bottom that is highly prized among rice eaters for it's wonderful nutty taste!

I almost exclusively cook with Jasmine rice but this method can be used with any variety of white rice.