Still here

Just so people don't think I've abandoned the blog I thought I'd check in and let you know I'm alive. Visiting my daughters for a couple weeks and I'll try to get some pics and posts while I am away, but it wont be a regular as when I'm at home. I'll be doing a bacon, mushroom and pasta dish today. Should have some pics to share later.

Hope everyone is having a nice weekend.

Stone baked Pizza

Homemade Italian Pizza

pizza dough recipe

We'll start with the thought that you already made your pizza dough. If you have frozen your dough, take it up the day before and leave it in the fridge. An hour before you are going to bake your pizza you should take the dough from the fridge and prepare a spot on the counter top with some flour. Take your dough and press it down in the flour and then turn it over. Work the dough into a circle and spread it into a flat 10cm circle. Cover with plastic wrap and a tea towel and leave to warm and rise for 30 minutes. 

 

 

After the dough has had 30 minutes to rise, place your baking stone in the middle of the oven and turn the oven to 275C. If you don't have a baking stone, turn your largest baking pan upside down and put it in the middle of the oven. The reason for using a hot surface to bake your pizza is so that the Dough seals quickly and has a chance to raise before the toppings make your dough soggy. This is what will make it more like pizza your ordered instead of just plain old homemade stuff. The old way of putting your dough and pizza on a cold tray and then putting everything in the oven means you are starting with a tray that is room temperature and by the time the tray warms up the top of your pizza is done and has soaked through to the bottom... not good. lol

I use a Weber baking stone that is made to be durable enough to be able to use in a BBQ. 

Put a piece of parchment paper on your counter top and spread out a couple tablespoons of corn meal. this will help your pizza separate from the baking surface. How thick you want your pizza is up to your. I am using 1/4 of the recipe to make a single serving thin crust pizza. 

Once you have stretched out your dough cover it while you prepare your toppings. When your toppings are ready, uncover the dough and brush a thin layer of olive oil over it to keep it from drying out. Mozzarella cheese, peperoni, fresh mushrooms, bacon, chopped leak and some grated Parmesan cheese to top it off. 

Once your pizza is decorated the way you like slide it onto the baking stone and turn the oven down to 200C. Bake for 7 to 9 minutes depending on oven and crust thickness. You want your crust to be getting a little brown coloration and for the toppings to be down but not burned. Use a pizza peal to remove your pizza and let it stand on the counter for a couple minutes before using your pizza wheel to slice. (you don't want to burn your tongue on hot cheese!!)

For having company it can be fun to do several different pizzas and because they go fairly fast it can be a fun meal just to try several versions. Once you have done it a few times you will have the timing down so that the next pizza is ready to go in the oven just as the one before is finished. Let the kids help. They will enjoy the meal even more and it's good for kids to learn how to cook for themselves. 

Pizza dough

Homemade pizza dough

There are a few things that you have to get right if you want to make your own pizza and today I will talk about the foundation of the entire project, the dough. Making your own dough is actually fairly simple. The most important thing is to make it at least 1 day ahead of when you want to make your pizza. To get a really good pizza dough you want it to have a chance to ferment so that the flavor really comes through. 

Ingredients

1 package dry yeast

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tsp salt

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 teaspoons oregano 

Mix the lukewarm water, sugar and yeast in your mixing bowl. Let the yeast activate for 5-7 minutes. You will know it's ready to go when it gets a thin layer of foam on top. DO NOT USE TOO HOT OF WATER AND BURN YOUR YEAST.

Mix in the rest of the ingredients and turn the mixer on low. once the dough has started to come together turn it to medium and mix until you have a stick ball that separates from the sides of the bowl. If your dough is too sticky add extra flour 1 tablespoon at a time until you get the right consistency.

Grease a large bowl with butter or non stick spray (I use Pam, only thing I use Pam for) Cover the bowl with plastic and then with a tea towel and put in a warm place to rise. Let the dough rise for about 90 minutes or until double in size. 

 After 90 minutes my dough has risen and is ready to be refrigerated

Remove the towel and plastic and punch your dough down. Depending on what kind of pizza you like (ie: thin crust or chicago style) separate into pizza size portions and put into plastic bags, then refrigerate or freeze. The dough will keep for 4 days int he fridge and a month in the freezer. I make four packages because I like Italian style thin crust pizza. I'll talk more about making the pizza tomorrow.

  
 

make sure the bags are bigger than the dough or else they will rupture

Today I had grilled pork tenderloin and some vegetables. Very tasty. 

Grilled pork

BBQ is always the correct answer

12 months of the year using the BBQ is always the correct answer if you are looking for tasty and easy food. Remember when you are doing pork or chicken that it is important to add flavor. there is a reason they say everything tastes like chicken, because chicken doesn't taste like anything and spices rule. 

For pork you should try to marinade your meat at least an hour, a couple days doesn't hurt. You can even put your pork in a bag with marinade and freeze it down so that it is good and tasty when you take it up. 

Marinade

• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3 garlic cloves minced
• 1/2 Teaspoon chilli powder
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger powder
• 2 tablespoons grated orange peel
• dash of soya sauce
• 2 tablespoons ketchup
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• water to mix and cover all the meat

Put a plastic bag in a large bowl. Add  all the ingredients to the bag except the water and mix it up. Lay in your pork and then add water to cover. Seal the bag and shake well. Put the bag in the bowl and put it in the fridge. Go back and turn the bag over and shake now and then. Sometimes I like to add half a can of coca cola about 30 minutes before I take the meat out of the marinade.

Make sure the grill is hot when you start and place the meat on the grill. turn after about 1 minute and let it cook. Remember searing the meat keeps the moisture in. Make sure you don't over grill or your will dry your meat. Pork should be about as soft as the center of your palm when it's done.

Oven baked potato wedges recipe 
Dipping sauce

Grilled cheese

 Easy food can be tasty

Grilled cheese is an old school easy meal, but you dont have to go straight old school. You can add thin sliced meats like smoked ham, turkey or even pastrami. Today I went with bacon and tomato. Adding some meat makes it more of a meal.

Fry up your bacon first and when it's almost crispy lay it flat on a paper towel to drain the fat.

 Clean your frying pan and leave the heat on medium.

MY PERSONAL PREFERENCE IS BUTTER!!! If your doctor has told you to use low trans fat margarine you should so so, but if you are healthy butter is natural and tastes much better. Margarine can also turn your grilled cheese into a really greasy mess because it's made from vegetable oil.

Butter one side of each slice of bread. Turn two buttered sides against each other so you can put your cheese++ on the sandwich. Lift up your top slice and lay the buttered side down, with the toppings on and put the other slice of buttered bread on top with butter side up. Use a lid to cover your grilled cheese while they fry. This allows the heat to be kept and your cheese will melt. If you do it without a lid you risk toasting the grilled cheese and having cheese that has not melted.

Mix and match

Mixing and matching what can be cooked together can make meal planning a lot easier. Today the mix is potato wedges and chicken wings. They both go on the same tray in the oven and take the same amount for time.


The recipe for both is in previous posts.

Dipping Sauce

sour cream
Chili powder
Garlic powder
Ketchup
Soya
tomato paste

Still no sign of nice weather 

 

 

Bacon Pasta

Pasta rules!!

There is an unlimited amount of combinations you can have with pasta. It's an easy meal and can be amazingly tasty if you are willing to mix. Today I made bacon and mushroom pasta. It takes about 10 minutes to make and is absolutely delicious. 

Ingredients

100 grams lean bacon per person

100 grams fresh sliced mushrooms per person

1 small leak chopped

5 balls of Tagliatelle per person

a large spoon sour cream 34% 

fresh grated Parmesan 

Boil water and start bacon frying. You want the bacon to be fried, but NOT crispy. Remove the bacon to your cutting board and put the mushroom slices and leak into the bacon fat and fry it up. Cut the bacon into bite size pieces and put it back in the frying pan. Spice your mushroom and bacon mix with some salt pepper and garlic as they fry.

Put your pasta in the water and cook 30 seconds less than the recommended time. 

Use your spaghetti ladle  to lift the pasta from the pot to the frying pan and add a couple spoons of the water too the bacon and mushrooms. Add a large spoon of sour cream and mix everything and let it simmer for 2 minutes. Pour your dinner into a pasta bowl and top with fresh grated Parmesan Cheese.

 

 

Still waiting for warmer weather to come but at least it was a nice sunset today and that's never a bad thing. 

 

 

Refried beans

Love my Texmex

When I first traveled to LA in 1986 I had no idea what Texmex was and that's a shame. In LA I was introduced to a whole new world of flavors and Fell in love with it. I'm a real fan of hot and spicy so it was love at first taste. There was a great Burrito place that I spent a lot of time at on Sepulveda Boulevard. It was a cheap lunch and a very tasty one. They had a great beef and bean burrito. They also had a nice orange whip drink, but that's a whole different story. 

When I moved to Sweden in 1989 they were just starting to market Texmex, but it was impossible to get good refried beans. They sell a small can of something they call refried beans but there is nothing  in them that you should be putting in your body. It's like buying guacamole dip that contains no avocado, how is that even possible? A couple years ago a decided I needed to figure out how to make my own beans. I watched a couple youtube videos and read some recipes and started the testing process. Now I have a pressure cooker and it's down to a science. You can make them without a pressure cooker, but it takes A LOT LONGER. 

ingredients

800g Pinto beans

1 medium onion

2-3 cloves garlic(chopped)

1 tsp cumin (ground)

4 chicken bullion cubes

1-2 jalapenos (depends on your personal hot scale. I like two)

I use an 800g bag of beans and it makes about 2kgs of refried beans. The import thing is they are incredible easy to reheat after being frozen. I put them in plastic bags and they keep for a couple months in the freezer. 

Always start by hand sorting through your beans to make sure there are no small stones. The plants are kept in soil with a lot of small gravel to make them easy to irrigate and it's not uncommon to find a small stone mixed in with the beans. Nothing you want to be biting into so start with the sort. 

Once sorted put the beans in a bowl and cover with water a couple inches over the beans because they will absorb a lot of water. Let them soak over night with a cover.

Chop a medium size onion and fry it with a little butter. Put the kettle on to cook up water while you are letting the onion get slightly yellow and soft. Chop up 2 or 3 garlic cloves and add them and 4 chicken bullion cubes with a little of the water. Mix until the cubes have melted. Chop up a jalapeno and throw it into the pot. Grind up a teaspoon of cumin and add that. Then strain your beans and put them into your pot. Add enough boiling water to cover your beans plus a couple centimeters extra. Once again the beans will soak up water and you will be able to remove excess water later.

Bring the Beans to a boil on medium high and put the lid on. Once the pressure cooker seal closes, turn the heat down to low and let it cook for an hour. Take the pot off the heat and let it cool down and release the steam on it's own. This will help the beans cook the last little bit without risk of burning them. The beans should be soft and you should be able to mash them with your finger. This is a great time to taste test.

Strain the beans into a bowl saving the liquid. Put the beans back into the pot and mash the beans. The consistency is up to your own personal preference. Use the liquid you save to give the beans moisture. You don't want dry beans and there is so much flavor in the liquid. I like to use the liquid instead of water when cooking up my texmex beef to get full use of the amazing flavors. 

 

Tips

• portion your beans into small plastic bags for freezing
• you can reheat in microwave or in a pot. 
• You may need to add a little water when you reheat
• for a really good bean dip you can just add a little sour cream
• bean burrito is a great thing to serve to your vegetarian friends

Bacon wrapped Jalapeño chicken

Bacon wrapped Jalapeño chicken

An easy meal as always. Slice your chicken breast into strips. Spice with some chili, garlic, paprika or and grill spice you like. Then half your Jalapeño and remove the seeds. Put a half on each side of your chicken slice and then wrap with bacon. Use toothpicks to keep everything place. Grill on medium high heat until chicken is cooked though. Serve with rice and a nice sauce.

sauce suggestion

• sour cream
• BBQ mix spice
• ketchup
• garlic
• soya sauce
• chili

Grilled Sausage and oven baked potato wedges

BBQ season is great for the tasty food that can be made and for  the fact that it's not a lot of work to make the meals. Any kind of meat and you are half way there. Today it's a simple all beef chorizo sausage. The first thing I'll say about sausage is make sure you get sausage and NOT hot dogs. Hot dogs are the worst filth that is left when all the real meat has been used for other things. It's bleached into a massive pit of crud and then colored pink to make you think it's meat. IT'S NOT!! SO check to make sure what you are getting and if you can pick up some tasty sausages from your local deli.

Potato wedges are extremely easy to make. Cut your  potatoes and then rinse then in water. put a little oil in a large bowl and toss the wedges to get them covered in a light layer of oil. Then generously season with any mix you like on your wedges. You can go as simple as salt and pepper or try some Cajun or BBQ spice. Oven to 200C. Cover a pan with tin foil and lay the wedges on the foil. I use my pan with a rack but straight on foil works. After 20 minutes you turn them all over and after 40 you need to make sure your meat is ready to go because the wedges are done.

easy food rules!

The weather was really good today. Got to see and photograph both the sunrise and late in the evening a sunset. all in all a good day.

Today's sunset

Bacon makes everything taste better

Bacon double cheese burger

Well today was an easy day and I went with a classic. Less bread is always a good thing so I went with the double burger. I probably shouldn't be consuming all the process cheese, but it's so easy and actually tastes good. Maybe I'll do some real cheddar next time. 

Tips

•  Put the chopped onion on your patty before you put the cheese on to melt. It will help the burger keep it's act together when you're eating. 
• As always, a toasted bun keeps the burger from being soggy. 

A really rainy day turned nice towards twilight. 

 

Oven baked chicken wings

Buffalo wings

When I was 20 you could get wings for 10 cents a piece at any bar or pub. Popcorn shrimp were also 10 cents each as well. Those days are long gone. The chicken wing used to be scrap and thrown away but then one day, some very smart person, decided that it could be sold as a snack. In the beginning wings were fried and than put in a bowl of hot sauce. In the last 30 years they have figured out that all that fat is really bad for us so it was time to start baking wings instead. The good thing is baking wings is extremely easy. 

Start by putting a mix of your favorite spices in a plastic bag. Add the wings and shake them around to get spice on all the wings. I like to let them stand for an hour to make sure that the chicken absorbs as much flavor as possible. Heat the oven to 180 C. I have a pan with a rack that I like to use, but you can just put tinfoil in a pan and use that as well. Make sure the wings are spread out and put them on the middle rack in the oven. After 20 minutes turn all the wings over and turn the oven to 200 C and put the wings back in for another 20 minutes. 

Today I did a chili and ginger spice mix and then some Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce when the wings are almost done, just a little. You can serve with carrot and celery sticks or just some fresh baked bread. Easy food for sure! 

Chocolate Ice Cream

Today I'm getting in a batch of chocolate ice cream. Ice cream is always great, but home made is 1000 times better than what you buy in the store. MUCH less sugar and no chemicals. Instead of chemicals you use egg yolks to help thicken you ice cream. SO you end up with a dessert that you KNOW exactly what is in it and feel much better about eating it. I still haven't figured out how to do it calorie free, but you can't have everything.

I started making ice cream a few years ago. I bought one of those $25 ice cream machines where you have to put the bowl in the freezer for at least 24 hours ahead and you have to let your custard cool over night. The problem with that system is the bowl is getting cooler the entire time you are making your ice cream. so it may start at minus -17C, but after 45 minutes of churning the custard it just isn't cold enough. I was getting taste that I liked but the consistency was all wrong. So I made the big investment of buying an ice cream machine with a built in refrigeration compressor. Now I make ice cream all in one go. I can take the hot custard and put it straight into the machine and an hour later I have ice cream.

  

Ingredients

• 4 oz 60% baking chocolate
• 1/4 cup boiling water
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2-cup sugar
• 3 dl milk
• 5 dl cups cream(40%)
• Pinch of salt
• 3 egg yolks, whisked
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 1 Melt chocolate in a double boiler (you can use a makeshift double boiler by placing a metal bowl over a small saucepan of boiling water, just don’t let the bottom of the bowl touch the water). When melted, transfer to a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed saucepan, turn heat to medium low and add the boiling water, cocoa powder and half of the sugar. Whisk vigorously until there are no lumps. Remove from heat.

2 Add the milk, 2/3 of the cream and 1 dl of milk remaining sugar and the salt to the chocolate base, and whisk vigorously until fully incorporated, then use a rubber spatula to scrape the bottom and sides of the pan. When the chocolate base is smooth, turn heat to medium high, stirring occasionally, wait until the base starts to steam. Whisk the egg yolks in a medium sized bowl. Once the chocolate base has heated to point of being steamy, temper the eggs by slowly pouring some of the hot base into the eggs while whisking the eggs vigorously to prevent them from cooking. Once you've incorporated about half of the base with the eggs, pour the egg mixture back into the pan with the rest of the chocolate base and stir to combine.

3 Turn heat to medium, and heat the base until it reaches 76°C. At this point the base will have thickened slightly and will just be getting steamy again. Remove from heat. Stir in the remaining cold cream and the rest of the milk to prevent further cooking. Stir in the vanilla.

4 Chill ice cream base for several hours, preferably overnight, until completely chilled. If you are using a freezer bucket ice cream machine. Churn in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions. If you like soft ice cream, eat immediately. Otherwise put it in the freezer for a couple hours to firm up. Note that the ice cream may be quite hard when you first take it out of the freezer, so you may want to let it sit for a few minutes to soften before trying to scoop.

original recipe

Finally thick enough at -17C

 Ready for the Freezer

Burgers don't have to be complicated

 Lazy burgers

Not every meal has to be a lot of work to be tasty and enjoyable. Today I went with all beef frozen burgers. To make the meal a little more of a treat I picked up some fresh baked rolls instead of traditional hamburger buns. Every burger should be sculpted to the person who is going to eat them and you can really make the difference with little extra work. Today I had my standard French's mustard, Heinz 57(anything else is not ketchup), some onion, dill pickle and tomato slices, cheese slices and one of my favorites for burgers Blue cheese dressing. I'd call today a very lazy day because one of my favorite ingredients didn't make it to my burger. Bacon... mmm bacon!! next time

The whole blue cheese dressing thing actually started when I was in Hawaii. I was there for a few months and was on a tight budget. Wendy's had a $1 cheese burger which was not horrible, but kind of boring. One of the people I was in Hawaii with said that it was ok to take salad dressing with the burger because it was in the condiments section and not at the salad bar and suggested I give it a try. Well I can say that 30 years later I'm still having blue cheese dressing on my burgers. If you like blue cheese you should give it a try.

I'll make some real burgers during the summer and post a solid recipe and pictures then. 

Tips

I highly recommend that you toast your roll or bun so that the topping don't make your bread soggy.

The day started grey

 The first half of the day was cloudy, cold and misty, but it cleared up nicely and ended up a nice day.

Strip loin steak

 Strip Loin

Today I made one of my favorites, steak and potatoes and that's never a bad combo. Today I used a prime cut strip loin steak. When Grilling Strip loins you want to make sure that your steak is about an inch thick.

TIPS

1. It is really important to take your meat out at least half an hour before you are going to grill. If the meat is still cold it will cook fast on the outside and not get the even grilling that you want. 
2. Good cuts of steak should not be marinaded or rubbed. You pay the good money for the taste of the steak. All you want to do is brush on a very thin layer of vegetable oil and then put on a bit of salt and pepper just before you throw it on the grill. 
3. Make sure your grill is very hot before starting to cook. Place the steak on the grill and let it sear on the first side for about a minute and then flip it over. You want to do this so that you lock in the moisture in the meat. If you leave it on the first side too long there is nothing to keep the juices from being forced out of the meat. 
4. How well done the meat is depends on the individual, but I would recommend never cooking a Strip Loin past medium and if you can live with the red color the taste and tenderness of the steak is better if you grill it to a medium rare.

The day started nicely

 The day started with some really nice weather. The moon was still hanging in the air as the sun was coming up and the sky was perfectly clear. The clear sky gave way to some clouds and rain early in the day, but a little rain isn't going to get in the way of getting some BBQing in.

Time to watch the end of the baseball game and we'll see whats cooking tomorrow.

Grilled Chicken

Summer is a great time to get outside and use the BBQ. I like to experiment with rubs, marinades and glazes. Today I decided to go with a Glaze.

First I rubbed the chicken with a Texmex and Ginger mixture. Then you have to grill the chicken and just before it's done brush the glaze on to give it a nice edge. You dont want to add the glaze too early because the sugar from the honey WILL burn if you put it on from the start.

Glaze

Honey
French's Mustard
Garlic

Roast potatoes, sweet corn and grilled mushrooms round out this tasty meal.

There was a nice sunset to enjoy this evening as well.