Pizza!!

I made pizza for the first time! It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it was...




Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups warm water (105F)
4 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 tablespoons of olive oil
2 1/2 teaspoon of granulated sugar
2 1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of yeast
1/2 cup cornmeal

Directions:
In a large bowl, dissolve sugar and salt in water. Add oil and flour and mix thoroughly for about a minute. Press out onto a lightly floured surface. Sprinkle yeast evenly over dough and knead for 12 minutes.

Divide dough into portions: 6 oz. for Calzones, 18 oz. for 12 inch, 25 oz. for 15 inch. Roll each portion into a ball. You want a dough ball without visible seams except the bottom. Place dough balls in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to proof for 1−2 hours at room temperature to use the same day, or store in refrigerator to use the next day.

Place dough ball on lightly floured surface, and lightly flour the top. Use fingertips to evenly flatten out the dough ball. Work from the edges to the center press dough into a 12" circle. Place both hands within the shell edge and stretch with fingertips and palms maintaining an even pressure. Or, use a lightly floured rolling pin to stretch to desired shape.

Sprinkle cornmeal or semolina on pizza peel (a wooden paddle with a handle to slide the pizza in the oven) or a cutting board. The cornmeal allows the pizza to slide onto the stone easily. After topping the pizza, when you are ready to cook it. Shake the peel or cutting board to make sure none of the dough is sticking. Carefully slide the pizza into the oven.

Bake in a 500 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, until crust is golden.
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Baked Ratatouille

This ratatouille recipe is a perfectly light summer main course served with rice, or comforting side dish to meat in the colder months. It's extremely simple to make and yet can be made into a beautiful presentation piece.

This recipe will serve A LOT. (Check my notes at the bottom to hear some more about it). Photos to come soon!!


Ingredients:
1 small eggplant
2 medium yellow squash
4-5 plum tomatoes
1 medium-large zucchini

Herb Sauce: the measurements here are just GUIDELINES. you may use dried herbs, and therefore the herbs, if fresh, should be finely chopped.
olive oil (2 T)
tomato paste (1-2 cans)
parsley (3-4 T)
oregano (1-2 T)
basil (1-2 T)
4 large cloves of garlic
ground black pepper (to taste)
HOT paprika or red pepper flakes (to taste)
salt (to taste, i did not add any)

Special tools:
A special kitchen tool that you might want to invest in, especially when making this dish is a mandoline. (Yes, what the blog is named after). If you already own one, you know just how useful and time saving it is. Mandolines may be found at just about any kitchen store.

Directions:
Take all the herb sauce ingredients and put them into a food processor. Do not attempt to thin out the sauce with water. The vegetables will let out a lot of water when baked.

If you do not have a food processor, finely chop the garlic and herbs and mix thoroughly with the rest of the herb sauce ingredients.

Use the mandoline, or a knife to thinly slice all the vegetables into rounds.

In a pyrex, casserole dish, or just about any oven safe pan, thinly spread the sauce on the bottom. Arrange the vegetable slices however you wish.

I alternated 2 slices of different vegetables into a pretty pattern. You do not have to do this. This method also takes up a lot of space and I ended up using TWO medium sized pyrex to use up all the vegetables.

Spread the rest of the sauce on top of the vegetables. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake for about an hour at 375 F.

Enjoy!



Notes:
This dish is very versatile, and I'd expect anyone to tailor it to their liking and convenience of ingredients. One prepared, the ratatouille goes great with or on just about anything you can think of.

This is also a really CHEAP dish. The vegetables cost about 9 bucks in total, and the rest of the ingredients i had lying around my house. It'll probably end up being 3-4 very filling meals for 2 people.

It's also super healthy!!

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Stuffed Peppers in Tomato Sauce

This is a super tasty, super easy dish to make. Serve with rice.


Meat Filling:
1 lb. ground beef or pork
salt
1 T. or more, spices to taste (i used cinnamon, oregano, allspice, etc)
2 t milk
ground black pepper
1 egg
1 white bread bun

Pepper and Sauce:
2 onions
sugar
6 bell peppers
5-6 T. canola oil
1 liter beef stock
5 pieces of whole allspice (powder may be used too)
1/3 to 1/2 can of tomato paste (120 g)
2 T. flour
3 bay leaves (whole)
5 black peppercorn
2 t. milk


Directions:

Wash and remove pepper core and seeds while being careful to keep the pepper whole. In a bowl, tear up pieces of the bun and soak it in the 2 teaspoons of milk. Add the remainder of the meat filling ingredients. Fill the peppers with this mix.

Chop the onions and cook them until clear in a large and relatively deep pan with the canola oil. Add the peppers and cook them on all sides.

Add the bay leaves and peppercorn to the pan. Pour in beef stock and add tomato paste.

In a separate bowl mix the 2 teaspoons of milk and 2 tablespoons of flour. Add this mixture to the pan.

Slowly bring the contents of the pan to a boil. Simmer until meat is thoroughly cooked.

You may thicken thicken the sauce with milk or sweeten with sugar.
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Ham & Onion Potato Dumplings

These dumplings are a traditional Czech dish that is much, much, MUCH more scrumptious than it looks in the photo above. The dumplings pair excellently with sauerkraut, purple cabbage, sausage, etc.

The recipe below is by weight, so you will need a scale or a conversion.



Filling:
1 large white onion
1, 1 cm thick slice of boneless ham
vegetable oil

Dumpling dough:
800 g Yukon potatoes
50 g potato starch (this is easily found in kosher sections of grocery stores, look for Manischewitz brand, or natural/health food sections by Bob's Red Mill brand)
150 g semolina flour (Look for Bob's Red Mill brand again)
100 g all-purpose flour
2 large eggs




Filling Directions:
Chop the onion and ham. Pour enough oil into a pan to thinly cover the bottom. Heat up the pan until a piece of onion will sizzle when dropped into the oil. Add the ham and onion. Cook on medium-low heat until the onion is clear. Keep moving occasionally.


Dumpling Dough Directions:
Boil the potatoes in a pot until cooked through. Make sure you DO NOT peel the potatoes before boiling them; they will absorb too much water. Once fully cooked, peel the potatoes.

Grate the peeled potatoes through a medium-coarse sized grater into a large bowl. Add the potato starch, semolina flour and all purpose flour. Kneed this with your hands. Add the eggs. Kneed with your hands until relatively smooth but well mixed. The dough is allowed to have chunks of potato in it-- really it's a matter of preference, but I prefer there to be no chunks because it makes the dough more workable and the dumplings cook better.

The dough should not be too wet. If it sticks to a clean, wet hand, you might want to add some more all-purpose flour.


Making the dumplings:
Boil a large post of water. This is how the dumplings will be cooked.

Roll a medium amount of dough into a ball, then press it out into a disk with your palms. The disk should be a little larger than your palm if you are a 'small' woman. Add a small spoonful of filling and pinch the dough close. Roll the ball in your hands so that it has been properly sealed.

Do this with the rest of the dough and filling.



The dumplings then may be cooked in the boiling water. They should begin to float and will be ready about 5 minutes after they first float. Cooking time will vary depending on the size of the dumplings. Be careful to make sure that the dumplings are not sticking to the bottom of the pot, or to one another.

Take the cooked dumplings out, strain, and eat hot.

Note: It is important to use the dough while it is fresh and just made.


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back to business

So it's definitely been a while since I've blogged here; but, I'm back.

I have a bunch of Czech dishes to share, and a cookbook that I hope I'll eventually put out with a bunch of recipes that I've accumulated and stocked up over the years.

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