Grilled Pizza

I can't believe I haven't posted about grilled pizza yet!!  Oh. My. Goodness.  It might not be a new concept, but it sure is delicious.  My mom pulled this recipe from Fine Cooking, issue 66, last summer, and we turned every Friday into a grilled pizza and movie night, until it got too cold to grill (although this was at the top of my "must eat while home on break" list for spring break).  Since the weather is warmer now, we've gone back to grilling pizza every weekend again.  Unfortunately I missed this week's grilled pizza to go see 'Brave'....totally worth it though.  I definitely recommend going to see it!  A little bit of a tear-jerker, but it was worth the $10.50 I paid. 

This recipe seems intimidating (initially the idea didn't fly with my dad) but honestly it's not any harder than baking a pizza.  And if you break up the prep and clean-up work, it goes all that much faster.

Dough on the grill in the first step

Some small changes to the actual recipe:

*I substitute about 6 ounces of whole wheat flour instead of APF.  The first time we made grilled pizza, we found the dough very, very, very sticky, and elastic--aka, it wouldn't hold its shape.  I found that by substituting even just a little WWF this helps with the stickiness and elasticity.  It also makes the pizza a little more substantial and filling.

*The roasted red pepper sauce is good, but it's a little acidic for my mom's taste, so after the first 4 or so times we made it, we just reverted to "normal" pizza sauce--a can of crushed tomatoes, cooked with a little sauteed garlic, red pepper flakes, and a combination of different herbs.

*My dad also started doing what he calls his "funky pizzas."  Usually these are sauceless pizzas that just have a little olive oil, herbs, and salt.  Essentially they're flat breads, but shhhhh don't tell him I gave them a name.

Friday's night pizza entailed an artichoke and chicken pizza...the fam is getting tired of the same old pepperoni/cheese/sausage/herb toppings, so we're trying to expand our horizons.  I've had some ideas--like a Mexican one, with chipotle rubbed chicken, cheddar, some grilled poblanos...or a seafood pizza at the beach, with leftover shrimp (or even fish), sauteed spinach and feta....instant yum.  The more inspirations the better, so let me know if you have ideas!  :)



Finished product! This pizza has pepperoni, fresh oregano, and mozzarella.



Stir Fry

You know your mom likes ginger when...you look in the vegetable drawer, and every other veggie is--you guessed it--a bag of ginger. 

Last week's dinner was stir fry.

All the vegetables chopped up and ready to stir fry

It was fairly easy to put together after coming home from work...lots of chopping and prep work of course, but that just meant I was reunited with my favorite Cutco knife again.  I was shooting for something fun and different to cook...when mom tells me to menu-plan for the week, I usually revert to the same old dishes.  Bad habit.

I pulled this recipe from an older (but much beloved) Fine Cooking Magazine--issue #58.  Here's the link for the recipe.  It's basically a "create your own" recipe, so you can pick and choose your veggies and meat. 

I chose shrimp for my protein, and veggies I used bok choy, shiitake mushrooms, broccoli, scallions, and ginger (hence the comment at the beginning of my post).  The author also said to choose a sauce; I used the sesame soy one. 

I've never cooked a stir fry before.  They're definitely fast-paced!  This one came together very nicely though.  I did find I needed to cook my shrimp a little longer than the recommended 20-ish seconds before removing them from heat.  Other than that, everything was smooth sailing.  With just a pot of cooked rice, this was definitely a dinner I'd do again.  I think it'd also be a good one to keep in mind for college life.  Obviously I don't have to use shrimp (since that can be a little spendy on my wallet) but chicken would be a yummy (cough, cough: cheap...) substitute, too. 

I've never cooked with bok choy before, either.  An interesting vegetable...it's like it's half spinach, and half celery or something.  According to Wikipedia (bad resource I know...), it's of the same species as the turnip, and can also be called Chinese cabbage, but this name also includes Napa cabbage. 

Hello again!

Dear readers (although I think you are few and far between),

Boy, has it been a year!  You might have guessed that I was college-bound these past 12 months, and you would've guessed correctly.  Home for the summer, and working full-time (lemme just say, 40 hours a week takes some adjustment) but trying to cook nonetheless. That's one thing I discovered I missed a lot in college--cooking. Not just the art of creating a meal or dessert, but making it a family affair by involving everyone. I also discovered that cooking is very much my own little 'niche', my way of both relaxing and focusing on a task at the same time.

This coming school year I have a better opportunity to cook and blog, as I will have my own kitchen.  I'm very excited about this, because it's a brand-spanking new kitchen.  I think this will also add an interesting twist to my blog approach--how to cook on a budget, while maintaining my high-standards (or so I consider them) tastebuds. 

Anyway, so moving on to the real subject--food!  If you have any suggestions on how to eat well--while on a budget--let me know! 

More cake...

Well here I go again, ignoring my poor little blog!  haha  Anyway, it's been very busy which is why I haven't had much time to cook, and thus no blog posts! 

Recently I made a chocolate cake.  Very easy recipe found here from the Fine Cooking magazine.  No quips or problems at all with this recipe!  :) 

I'm afraid my photography skills don't do the cake justice.  But it tasted amazing, if I do say so myself.  ;)

Cooking ideas...

Sorry for not posting!  It's been busy with work and studies.  :)

Instead of blogging about what I've cooked, I decided to make a 'to-do' list of things I'd like to cook.  {Not like I need yet another to-do list, but these recipes looked yummy}.

I found this Chicken Gyros with Cucumber Salsa and Tsatsiki on the Gourmet Magazine website.  Doesn't it sound scrumptious?  I love gyros, but I've only had it with lamb. 

While browsing the Gourmet magazine website, I also came across these frozen delights--Lemon Ice Cream Sandwiches with Blueberry Swirl, which I thought sounded like a fun and different dessert.  The only thing I might do differently is make my own ice cream, instead of using it 'ready-made.' 

Back to my favorite Fine Cooking magazine, I found this recipe for Oreo cookies.  I told my mom the other night that I wanted some Oreo cookies next time she went grocery shopping, but then I thought "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if I could make those?!"  Soooo I found a recipe!  These are definitely a priority.  :) 

One last recipe:  Pop-tarts.  Anyone out there had any luck with these?  I've seen them here on Fine Cooking, as well as on the Food Network website here, and of course Alton Brown has a video clip from his show Good Eats here.  I'm thinking I'll go with A.B.'s recipe. 

More Adventures with Ice Cream and Cupcakes...

This Sunday my mom announced she wanted some sort of dessert to go with our lovely turkey dinner Dad roasted.  I listed several options--a cake, pie, torte, cookies...but we finally decided on ice cream. 

I chose the Hazelnut and Chocolate Chunk ice cream option from the Fine Cooking magazine.  It's hard to believe the last time I made ice cream was over a month ago!  Check it out here.  Very easy, except I think the hardest part was waiting for the ice cream to finish churning! 

Also a couple of side-notes.  I used a 4-oz. bar of Girardelli chocolate.  The family thought this was too much (I don't understand how you can ever have too much chocolate, though!), so next time I'll only use about half as much.  This recipe also calls to infuse the milk/cream/sugar mixture with the nuts.  I did this, and afterwards I saved the hazelnuts.  I plan on making oatmeal within the next day or two and stirring in some of the nuts--I mean, you can't go wrong with hazelnuts cooked in sugar and cream!  haha  Next time I make this recipe, I'll probably leave some of the nuts in the mixture simply because everyone agreed it would have been even better with some extra crunch.

Finally, I have 5 egg white sitting in the fridge, since the ice cream recipe only uses yolks.  Any ideas what to do with them?

And no pictures, due to the fact the entire batch of ice cream was eaten immediately following dinner.

Now on to the cupcakes.  My friend came over last Saturday and we made dessert for the family dinner.  We chose bright, cheerful colors because it was pouring down rain/extremely windy/chance of tornados.  Very depressing weather.  Anyway. 

Our sunflower cupcakes.  :)

We used Abigail Johnson Dodge's chocolate cupcake recipe and made a simple buttercream recipe for the frosting.



All 12 cupcakes.



Dear me.  I haven't posted in a while, have I?  It's been rather hectic, between trying to finish my last 2 classes and starting a second PT job.  And I really haven't had time to cook--last week I wasn't home for dinner AT ALL.  *sigh* Oh well.  I'm working on that.

So two weekends ago (flasback time!) I made cake pops with a friend (we also made blondies and pancakes).  I got this book out of the library for inspiration (all of the designs are really cute!!).  You basically make a cake, crumble the cake all up (horrifying, really, ruining a perfectly good cake that way), then mix in frosting (which acts as 'glue'), then roll it into one- or two-bite sized pieces of cake.  Then you cover the cake with melted candy coating.  We chose to use a ganache (after we figured out why it kept seizing up) instead, but it didn't give us that pretty, smooth finish.  It tasted better, though!  :)  We also decided to go with a homemade cake and frosting recipe, instead of a box-recipe. 



Ta-da!  Our lovely cake pops.  :)



And this week I did have time to bake a cake.  I don't normally bake cakes, but I thought "I can handle cookies, brownies, and cupcakes, so a cake can't be that hard...".  I made this Butter Cake with Browned Butter Frosting, from the Land 'O Lakes website.  The recipe was very easy, but my cake seemed a little flat around the edges...of course, I don't think that was helped any by the fact I almost forgot to add the baking soda...

Now on to the frosting.  I browned the butter in a small pan (I did have to let it cook more than 5-6 minutes...more like 8-ish), then let it cool.  After beating in the sugar and vanilla, I tasted it.  I was really surprised to taste--caramel!  It tasted like caramel frosting to me.  Very surprising.