Perfect Prompt Pizza Dough

We found this one in "Food and Wine", of all places.  If we have time, we prefer to make this over-night dough from 101 Cookbooks. But when we are pressed for time, this dough works out great in just 2 hrs, start to finish at the table.

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons lukewarm water (110°)
• 2 cups unbleached bread flour
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Steps

1. In a bowl, combine the yeast, 1/4 cup lukewarm water and 1/4 cup flour in a small bowl. Let it stand for 30 minutes.
2. Add the remaining 1-3/4 cup flour, 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons luke warm water, olive oil and salt. 
3. Mix the dough thoroughly.  I use the dough hook and the Kitchen-Aid on low speed for 1 minute, scraping the sides if I need to. 
4. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth, elastic and a bit tacky to the touch, 7 to 8 minutes. For this, I keep going on medium speed with Kitchen-Aid and the dough hook for 5-6 minutes.
5. Place in an oiled bowl and turn to cover with spray oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place (75°) until double in volume, 1 to 1-1/2 hours.
6. 30 minutes before you are ready, pre-heat the oven and pizza stone to 500 F.  Typical baking time is 12 minutes, more for heavier toppings.

Sausage Apple Pie

I saw this recipe in a related form over at Simply Recipes (see recipe link below). That version has a lot more cheese (3 cups more!) and a more "set" consistency. We were looking for a recipe to use up the last of a bag of Granny Smiths, then we used them up making Apple Crisp.

But I had the idea in my mind. I searched for something that was savory, but not "breakfast-y". I made this one up based on what we had - but there are some great versions out there.

• Amy's Apple Sausage Pie (many variants, but "apple pie filling"? Nope.)
• Apple and Sausage Pie from Simply Recipes (cheese-crazy)
• Sausage and Apple Pie in a Cheddar Cheese Crust from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

• 1 lb of sausage (pork, chicken, or turkey; ground or in casing)
• 1 onion, sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 3-5 apples (Granny Smith or Empire), sliced well
• 3/4 cup of good applesauce (if storebought, add cinnamon and nutmeg)
• 1/4 cup of cheese (feta, extra sharp cheddar, nothing mild)

Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. Slice or remove the sausage from the casing and saute till browned. Remove the sausage from the pan.
3. Reserve the juices and saute onions and garlic for 5 minutes. Remove and keep on reserving the juices!
4. Next comes the apple - if you use 3 apples, bulk it out with some potatoes (I had a leftover baked potato, I sliced it thin).
5. I mixed the sausage, onion/garlic, applesauce and apple/potato together. Add in cheese at this point. Taste it, add salt and pepper to taste.
6. Drape the pie crust over a 9-inch pie pan.
7. Place the filling inside the crust and "tamp down".
8. Bake for 40-45 minutes at 350 F.

Serves 6.

Applesauce Muffins

I am almost ashamed to say that these are from... gasp... Martha Stewart. I will say this, she does cuten-up food and can decorate like nobody's business. And, apparently, she can do muffin recipes. Or at least somebody on her staff can.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cups packed light-brown sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups store-bought applesauce
• 1 cup pecans, chopped

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
2. Measure flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cloves together into a medium bowl. Set aside.
3. Put 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, the granulated sugar, and 1/2 cup brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Cream on medium speed until smooth, about 3 minutes.
4. Mix in eggs, one at a time on medium speed.
5. On low speed, mix in applesauce and then flour mixture.
6. Stir in nuts by hand.
7. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each about three-quarters full.
8. Bake until a tester comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
9. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Makes 12 big or 15-18 medium size muffins (depending on how high you fill the cups)

Cast Iron Cornbread

Here’s a classic cornbread recipe from Homesick Texan's recipe blog. We like it because it is baked in a cast iron skillet which makes setup and cleanup super-easy (take that Jiffy mix!).

Homesick Texan notes, "Be sure and get the cast iron good and hot, as that’s what sears the batter and makes for a crispy, crunchy crust."

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of cornmeal (we like yellow)
• ½ cup sifted flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Put the oil in a small cast iron skillet and place it in the oven for a 5 minutes until it’s sizzling.
3. Mix together dry ingredients. Set aside.
4. Whisk egg and buttermilk. Mix with dry ingredients
5. Take cast iron skillet out of oven, and pour hot oil into batter, and mix.
6. Pour batter into cast iron skillet, bake in oven for 20-25 minutes. Cornbread should be brown on top and pulling away from the sides of the skillet.

"Focaccia of Doom"

This recipe is one of our oldest - it harkens back to the Burlington days in the mid-90s. We found a wonderful little trattoria there on Cherry Street - they had an olive oil dipping sauce that was salted and heavily garlicked. So good that we went home (burping all the while) and started looking for a focaccia to match it.

We found a version of this recipe in Nava Atlas' "Vegetariana", a very nice veg cookbook. We omitted some of the ingredients (the original called for slices of sun-dried tomatoes in the loaf, but we found that the tomato clashed with the garlic oil dip).

This is a great recipe because it takes about 1hr 20min from start the yeast to put it on the table. Pair this with some sauce-simmering and the meatballs, and it all works out to be ready at the same time (and without all the sweating).

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 tsp of dried yeast
• 1 Tbsp of brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp of olive oil
• 1/4 cup of minced sun-dried tomatoes (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• Dried rosemary
• Kosher salt
• Olive oil

Steps

1. In a 2 cup bowl, add 1 cup of blood-warm water. Sprinkle in the brown sugar, oil, and yeast. Stir very lightly, just get some of the yeast below the surface of the water. Let stand for 10 minutes until the yeast starts to foam.
2. Add the sun-dried tomatoes if you like (we usually skip this if we are going to dunk the bread in olive oil/garlic because it is too sweet).
3. In a large bowl, add the flours and salt. Mix well.
4. Slowly pour in the yeast slurry and mix.
5. Knead for 5 minutes, incorporating all of the flour, the dough will be "goldilocks" - so, not too sticky (add a bit more flour to the kneading area) and not too dry (it should hold together with some cracking). Alternatively, mix for 5 minutes on medium with a dough hook on your trusty stand mixer.
6. Form the dough into a ball, put it back into the bowl and cover for a 10 minutes rise time (I like being near the woodstove, but not on the ground - dog noses push in the towel).
7. Take the ball and roll it out into a round, about 12 inches across should make it about 1 inch high. Place this on a cookie sheet, cover with a towel and
8. Let rise 40 minutes in a warm place.
9. Preheat the oven to 400 during the 40 minute rise.
10. Uncover and bake for 2o-25 minutes, it should have a hollow "thunk" when it is ready.
11. Let cool for 5 minutes and serve with olive oil - we have two favorites:

• EVOO with balsamic vinegar (about 2 EVOO: 1 balsamic).
• EVOO with garlic (1 tbsp EVOO: 1 clove of good minced garlic)(never garlic in a jar)

Super No-Knead Bread Master Recipe

A few years ago a New York Times writer posted a recipe for "no-knead" bread that involved a long ferment with a minimum of yeast, a very wet dough, and a closed Dutch oven to make an airy, but crispy bread. The downside of this bread was the planning - about 24 hrs of lead time to get started. Not much to do, but we just aren't this organized. OK, I am not this organized :D

So, when I made the Potato Corn Chowder, I went looking for a variant that worked with less time. A faster ferment. Turns out it is pretty easy to do with 2/3 tsp of yeast instead of 1/4 tsp. A shorter rise (only 8 hrs for us, mixed it before we went out fencing and started baking it when we ran out of sun) makes a superior-to-any-store bread.

Now, if only I could get my sourdough starter under control...

Ingredients

• 3 cups of flour (use any combo of white, bread, and whole wheat)
• 2/3 tsp of instant yeast
• 1 1/4 tsp of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of blood warm water

Steps

1. Mix all the ingredients in the morning before you go out to hang fencing. I mixed the dry ingredients by hand and then added the warm water.
2. Cover with plastic wrap and leave it in a warm place - the house was cold (mid-50s), so I set the oven to "warm" for 5 minutes, then turned it off and placed the bowl in for 8 hours.
3. When we ran out of light, I came in, pulled the bowl out and turned the dough out onto the counter.
4. Shape the dough roughly into a ball and cover with a towel or plastic wrap again. Let proof for about an hour in a warm place again.
5. While the dough is proofing, heat the oven to 450°F. Put in your Dutch oven to heat.
6. When the dough has doubled in size, put it in the Dutch oven. You may have to pour it, pry it off the baking sheet, or just roll it in - the dough is very wet. Don't worry if it looks a mess.
7. Cover the pot with a lid and bake for 30 minutes. Remove lid and bake for another 15 minutes to let it brown.

Makes a 1 lb loaf.

THE Banana Muffin Recipe

I am always on the hunt for the perfect muffin recipe - a base recipe that you can add any base flavor and it still turns out great. I think it found it here - this base recipe uses bananas (and matches them against pecans and chocolate chips!) and makes a great earthy base to the bananas sweetness and moistness. This recipe has much less sugar than usual muffins call for, but remember that the chips and the bananas both give some sweetness.

Ingredients:

• 4 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup of chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup of chocolate chips

Steps:

1. Mix the mashed banana, sugar, egg and oil together. Set aside.
2. In a separate bowl, mix together flour baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
3. Mix wet and dry ingredients all together until just mixed. Lumpy is good.
4. Add pecans and chips - mix just enough to disperse them.
5. Pour into greased muffin tins, and bake in 350 degrees oven for approximately 20 minutes.

Variations:

1. Substitute 1 cup of pumpkin or squash puree for banana. Add cinnamon and nutmeg (1 t of each for our spicy household) to kick it up - skip chips and add raisins. Keep pecans.
2. Substitute 1 cup of applesauce for the banana and the oil. Add cinnamon (2 tsp) and skip the chips but add 1/2 cup of raisins instead.
3. Substitute 1 cup of grated zucchini for banana. Definitely keep the pecans, but add raisins, 1 tsp each of cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. Also possible to skip raisins and add the chocolate chips (zucch and choc - woohoo!).

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

This is an adapted version of 101 Cookbooks adapted version of a Peter Reinhart crust recipe :D I love the ancestry of these things.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
  
• 2 cups white flour
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  
• 1 teaspoon instant yeast
  
• 1/4 cup olive oil
  
• 1 3/4 cups water, ice cold
  

Steps:

1. Mix together the flour, salt, and instant yeast in the bowl of an electric mixer.
2. Add in the oil and the cold water until the flour is all absorbed.
3. With the dough hook, mix on medium speed for 5 to 7 minutes, or as long as it takes to create a smooth, sticky dough that clears the bowl of the little fragments.
4. Transfer the dough to a floured countertop. Cut the dough into 6 equal pieces and mold each into a ball. Rub each ball with olive oil and slip into sandwich bags. Refrigerate overnight.
5. When you are ready to make pizza (anytime in the next few days), remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator at least 1 hour before making the pizza. Keep them covered so they don't dry out.
6. Place a baking stone on a rack in the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees (you can go hotter, but I like the results I get at 450).
7. Uncover or unwrap the dough balls and dust them with flour. Working one at a time, gently press a dough round into a disk wide enough that you can bring it up onto your knuckles to thin out - you should be able to pull each round out to 12-inches or so. If the dough is being fussy and keeps springing back, let it rest for another 15-20 minutes.
8. Place the pulled-out dough on the prepared sheet pan.
   
9. Add your toppings and slide the topped pizza onto the baking stone.
10. Bake until the crust is crisp and nicely colored (about 14 minutes with a solid topping load).

Makes six 6-ounce pizza crusts.

Our Staple Zucchini Bread

Our garden (like most!) yields waaaayyyy too much zucchini for us to handle. We try adding it to everything, but there is only so much you can do with zucch. We used to grow a Seeds of Change variety, but then last year we switched to the Costata Romanesco zucchini (easy to find, we got ours from Baker Creek Seeds).

Costata has a really nice nutty texture and the flesh stays pretty crisp, so it is perfect for the zucchini bread the girls like.

• If I have it, I like to plump the raisins up beforehand in some orange juice and then cut the sugar some.
  
• Also, I can cut the oil in 1/2 with applesauce (1/2 c applesauce + 1/2 c oil).
  
• Finally, we like to cook this up in the bundt cake, makes it easier to control the portion size and it just looks fancier!
  

Ingredients:

- 3 large eggs

- 1 cup sugar (half brown and half white sugar)

- 1 cup oil (see note #2 above)

- 2 cups white flour

- 1/2 t baking powder

- 1 t salt

- 1 t baking soda

- 2 t cinnamon

- 1 t allspice

- 1 t cloves

- 1 t fresh nutmeg

- 1 cup plumped raisins

- 2 to 3 cups zucchini

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

1. Mix eggs, oil and sugar together till well blended.
   
2. Add flour, powder, salt, soda, and spices.
   
3. Mix the whole lot together till well blended.
   
4. Add raisins and zucchini and mix till just combined.
   
5. Pour into a greased bundt pan or a 9x5 or 8x8 or whatever pan you have lying about.
   
6. Bake for 1 hour or until the toothpick test comes out clean (less in wider lower pans, I would check at 50 minutes with an 8x8).
   

This is also a great base recipe for substitutions

1. Pureed pumpkin or squash for zucchini (might add some dry milk powder to balance).
   
2. Applesauce instead of zucchini (more spicing and less oil).
   
3. Carrot "cake-bread" might work here too.
   
4. Winter zucchini cake - we grate the zucchini in summer and freeze in 1 lb baggies. Make sure you drain the grated zucchini before adding it.
   

Rustic Potato Loaves

Found this in the Julia Child cookbook, "Baking with Julia" that Dorie Greenspan edited together. This works great on stretching flour and if the potatoes are yours, all the better. The loaves end up with a crust to die for and a moist, stretchy (not gummy) interior.

A real find from a cookbook with some seriously complex recipes - this one is no more complex than a simple sandwich loaf - even easier if you save potatoes from an earlier meal!

• 3 potatoes, cooked, mashed, cooled (with skins!!!)
  
• 2 tsps salt
  
• 1/2 cup reserved potato water, warm
  
• 2 1/4 tsps active dry yeast (or 1 packet)
  
• 2 Tbps olive oil
  
• 4 3/4 cups flour (I use unbleached King Arthur)

1. Dissolve the yeast in the warm potato water for 5 mins.
2. Then mix in the potato, salt and olive oil. (In the mixer, I use the mixing attachment here)
3. Gradually add in flour and knead (in the mixer, I use the dough hook here). It will look crumbly, but keep going, it comes together somehow. In the mixer this takes me about5 minutes.
4. Keep kneading for another 3-5 minutes - 5-7 minutes in the mixer. Tthe dough very sticky but don't add more than 1/2 cup of extra flour.
5. Knead the dough until smooth.
6. Place it in a covered bowl and proof for 30 mins. It will have risen noticeably, although it may not have doubled.
7. Pre-heat the oven 375 F and insert a baking stone or tile.
8. Cut the dough in half and work with just one half at a time.
9. Flatten and start rolling from one end until almost to the other end. Gently pull that end and dust its far edge with flour. Moisten and fold over to seal the edge.
10. Shape the new loaf into a football (American!).
11. Repeat with the other dough.
12. Places the loaves on a lightly floured sheet, seam side down, cover and proof for 30 minutes more.
13. When you are ready to bake the loaves, throw three ice cubes onto the oven and shut the door immediately.
14. Transfer the doughs onto the baking stone, seam side up.
15. Before you last shut the door, throw two more ice cubes in.
16. Bake the bread until the crust very brown, 45 - 50 mins, you should hear the hollow sound when you tape the loaves' bottom (or 200 F on an instant read thermometer).
17. Rest them 20 mins before slicing.

I don't have any pics of this, but someone Dutch does - here is her Flickr set of it, step-by-step.