I wasn't really in the mood to make pizza. My homemade pizza attempts in years past have been disappointing. But I had mozzarella cheese and some Italian sausage to use up, and making the pizza ended up being pretty fun!
The crust recipe is easy and turned out well. You have to allow an hour for the dough to rise, so it takes a bit of planning ahead. I cut the recipe in half and made one big pizza on a cookie sheet. It turned out nice; looked very rustic and hearty.
Like the previous recipe (biscuits), I found working with the dough to be very satisfying. Makes you feel like you're REALLY a cook! Punching down the dough, using a rolling pin...YEAH!
Things I would do differently next time:
Spray the cookie sheet with cooking spray or lightly oil it. My crust stuck to the cookie sheet.
Use tomato sauce instead of crushed tomatoes. The juice from the crushed tomatoes made the top of the crust a bit soggy, and the tomato flavor was a little weak.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Pork Chop Casserole page 85
Remember a while back I said I lost my notes?? Well, I found them...at least some of them! So here's another blast from the past. I made this sometime back in October, I think...here we go:
This dish looks pretty cooking on the stovetop...pork chops topped with onion slices, tomato slices, and green pepper rings on a bed of rice. It smells good as it's cooking, too. Reminds me of a tip I read in a decades-old women's magazine: put an onion in some oil in a frying pan and turn on the heat when your husband gets home. He'll smell "dinner cooking" and it will make him happy! Really? Would he REALLY be fooled by this? And for how long...wouldn't he eventually peer into the kitchen and say, hey, Mrs. B, why are you frying an onion? But I digress.
Anyhoo, my family liked this. I thought the pork chops came out a little bland, even though I generously salted and peppered them. The rice was really tasty, though. Add a green veg and you've got a satisfying meal.
This dish looks pretty cooking on the stovetop...pork chops topped with onion slices, tomato slices, and green pepper rings on a bed of rice. It smells good as it's cooking, too. Reminds me of a tip I read in a decades-old women's magazine: put an onion in some oil in a frying pan and turn on the heat when your husband gets home. He'll smell "dinner cooking" and it will make him happy! Really? Would he REALLY be fooled by this? And for how long...wouldn't he eventually peer into the kitchen and say, hey, Mrs. B, why are you frying an onion? But I digress.
Anyhoo, my family liked this. I thought the pork chops came out a little bland, even though I generously salted and peppered them. The rice was really tasty, though. Add a green veg and you've got a satisfying meal.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Southern Biscuits p. 37
OK, it's been a while! But last night I was cooking a dinner of slow-cooker pork loin, microwaved sweet potatoes, and frozen chopped spinach when I decided it needed something more...biscuits! If I had had a tube of ready-to-bake biscuits in the fridge, we wouldn't be here today typing, but here we are!
The biscuits were fun and easy to make. I have a pastry blender (that I hardly ever fish out of the drawer) and that makes it easy to cut the dry ingredients into the shortening...ok, I didn't have shortening so I used butter; I figure that made them even better. You gotta love a recipe with only 6 ingredients. And kneading the dough and cutting it into rounds...very satisfying!
I made the mistake of cutting the recipe in half. Didn't want to make 20 biscuits for the 3 of us...but I only ended up with 4 1/2 biscuits! So don't worry. You won't end up with a huge quantity if you make the whole recipe. I figure the recipe as written will yield about 9 2-inch biscuits.
They are best hot out of the oven! I had one left over today which I microwaved for 12 seconds, split and enjoyed with butter, jam and a cup of tea. Ahhhh.
The biscuits were fun and easy to make. I have a pastry blender (that I hardly ever fish out of the drawer) and that makes it easy to cut the dry ingredients into the shortening...ok, I didn't have shortening so I used butter; I figure that made them even better. You gotta love a recipe with only 6 ingredients. And kneading the dough and cutting it into rounds...very satisfying!
I made the mistake of cutting the recipe in half. Didn't want to make 20 biscuits for the 3 of us...but I only ended up with 4 1/2 biscuits! So don't worry. You won't end up with a huge quantity if you make the whole recipe. I figure the recipe as written will yield about 9 2-inch biscuits.
They are best hot out of the oven! I had one left over today which I microwaved for 12 seconds, split and enjoyed with butter, jam and a cup of tea. Ahhhh.
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