Pizza Week, Entry 1

Hi Everyone!

It's me, your friendly neighborhood Silver Spooner, slowly chugging away at some more delicious SS recipies.  This week I have been luxuriating in my very own, brand new, big girl Kitchenaid.  I've had trysts with other mixers, I even briefly had an antique kitchenaid that gave its life making royal icing.  Poor Kitchenaid.  All that is behind me now.  The world is my oyster; by world I mean difficult recipes involving mixing things, and by oyster I mean I don't have to mix them by hand anymore, or worse, avoid them entirely.  So thank you, again to all who gave me a gift certificate to BB and B.  You made this part of my life possible.  Moving on. . . .

Pizza dough, you tricky temptress.  My father is a terrific pizza maker.  He would make us pizza pretty frequently, usually with store bought dough, or Naples pizza dough (Guilford People will know to which business I refer) when they were willing to part with it.  On a couple of amazing occassions, he made his own pizza dough, confidently, surely as if he had been doing it his whole life.  I was petrified to make pizza dough because I am not all that good with baking and I hate being precise.  As well, my father set the bar so high with his kitchen successes, and wasn't here to help me. 

With a deep breath I piled 1 and 1/4 cup flour, some salt, and 1/2 cup warm water mixed with yeast to my afore mentioned mixer and mixed.   A dough was born.  At first attempt, this dough was very sticky.  I coated my hands with flour and added a tad more flour to the mix before setting it under a bowl and allowing it to rise for three hours. 

Well folks, I wasn't sure this whole dough thing was going to work out, and I had 3 hours to agonize over it, so I had my husband pick up some pre-made dough at whole foods.   It ended up rising, kinda, so I rolled it out and made Sausage Pizza a la SS.  I crumbled a package of hot sausage into a saute pan and cooked it through, then combined it with 1/2 cup of romano cheese.  Separately, I cut 5 tomatoes into chunks and sprinkled them onto the dough. 

The SS instructs us to bake the crust for 15-20 minutes before adding the meat topping, so I popped my dough into a 425 oven and waited to see the result.  In the meantime I used the pre-made dough to whip up a quick Margarita Pizza.  The Whole foods dough was harder to roll out and much thicker than the Silver Spoon version. 

After 20 minutes I added the sausage topping to the SS crust and put it in the oven for another ten minutes.  It was just the way I like pizza, thin crust, ample topping, fresh tomatoes and a spicy zing from the sausage.  The Margarita went in the oven completely topped, because SS told me to do it like that.   In contrast that pizza was wetter and not my ideal preference of crust thickness. 

All in all, dough making was a success and I want to keep making dough until I master it.  That is why I will be chipping away at all the pizza recipes this week until they are done.  I already made 2 more pizzas, with 2 more SS doughs and they were pretty good.  So stay tuned, and hear about more dough making trials and pizza making tribulations! 

Dusting off the Old Spoon

Where to begin?  First of all, an apology for those left hungry for more Silver Spoon, between the wedding ceremony, thank you notes and wedded bliss I haven't had time for much blogging.   The cooking, oh, the cooking has been delicious and I have been desperate to tell you all about it.  So here goes nothing:


Tonight I made "Savory Crepes with Smoked Salmon," and "Sweetcorn and Radicchio Salad."  It was an easy cooking night (have I ever said that, maybe married life is changing me?!?).  It was a great way to ease back into the project.  


To start making the crepes I put together a simple batter of flour, eggs, milk and salt.  The only ingredient that made my eyes roll slightly was the butter.  The Silver Spoon demanded that I melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a double boiler and then cool it "almost completely."  Why am I melting it in the first place, shouldn't I just mostly melt it?  Anyway,  I dirtied three pans instead of one as I could have mostly melted it in the microwave,  and moved on.  Once the butter was mostly cooled (whatever that is) I combined it with the batter and mixed. 


SS then requested I rest the batter for an hour before crepe-ing it up.  This worked out perfectly well (who am I?) because I also purchased some delicious and short-seasoned fiddleheads; they required extensive cleaning.  Fiddleheads are fern sprouts and are extremely dirty.  Once they were triple washed and ready for cooking, I warmed up some olive oil and chopped garlic in a pan, once the garlic was browned I added the fiddleheads and a small amount of water.  I let them cook for about a half hour and turned my attention to the Sweetcorn Salad.  


To make the "Sweetcorn and Radicchio Salad," I combined radicchio, spinach and romaine in a salad bowl, adding a cup of canned corn, and a half cup of chopped ham.  The directions called for a simple dressing of lemon juice, olive oil and salt.    I added the dressing just in time to "crepe it up." 


To be the most successful I could be without a crepe pan, I chose a small saute pan and added a touch of vegetable oil.  SS instructed that I add 2 tablespoons of batter to a hot pan and tilt it so that the batter was evenly distributed.  My small saute pan was too large and all the crepes therefore were rectangular instead of circle but it worked really well.  I have to say, crepe flipping is much easier than pancake flipping.  I poured and flipped while my husband flaked the smoked salmon into the crepes and rolled them up.  The whole process took about 10 minutes.  Everything was done at once, and my husband and I sat down at a mostly clean dining room table and enjoyed a bistro style dinner.  


So, I leave you for now, an unusually cheerful, married domestic goddess who can crepe it with the best of them.  I can't wait to tell you how it went with the meatballs with lemon!