Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

Pizza is so cheap and ubiquitous that most people never bother making pizza dough from scratch. Once you start making your own dough, you'll realize how much better it tastes! When I first starting making homemade dough (and after much trial and error) I used this recipe from Tyler Florence. It's my good-to, never-fail recipe when I want all white flour pizza dough. But, more often I use a whole wheat/white flour mix. This recipe is fantastic. Super tasty and you can add more or less whole wheat to your liking. I don't recommend using all whole wheat, though. The crust comes out too dense and you loose the chewiness. Adding the white flour will keep your crust light. That said (written), if you do decide to use all whole wheat you will need to add 4 tsp of gluten, which will add a bit of chewy and will help the dough rise.

You will need:



1 tsp white sugar
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees)
1 package active dry yeast
1 T olive oil
1 tsp Kosher salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups bread flour

(I only use King Arthur flours. If you use another brand you may need to adjust your flour quantities just a bit. But...King Arthur really is superior!)

In a large mixer bowl (I use my KitchenAid) add the water, sugar, and yeast. The sugar feeds the yeast (little burpee guys). Add a bit more sugar if you like a sweeter crust. After the mixture is foamy--about 10 minutes--add the oil and salt.



Mix gently and then add the whole wheat flour and 1 cup of the bread flour.



Use the dough hook attachment and mix until dough starts to come together.



At this point you can either turn out the dough onto a surface floured with the remaining bread flour or you can, like I do, leave it in the mixer and slowly add the remaining flour with the mixer on medium speed. You'll need to stop it now and then to scrape the dough off of the hook.



If kneading by hand, keep it up until all of the flour is absorbed and the dough becomes smooth. About ten minutes or so. If you are using the mixer, mix for at least six minutes. Dough should be smooth and elastic.



Place the dough in an oiled bowl, turn to coat, and loosely cover with a damp towel. Let it stand in a warm place until doubled, about an hour. I turn on the oven to 400 degrees and put the bowl at the back of the stove with one half of the towel over the back burner.



After it rises...



punch it down and turn it out onto a floured surface.



This dough is so great. You can divide it into 2 and have two great, thick, large crusts. Or you can divide it into 3 and have thinner crusts, but still nice size pizzas. I divide it into 4 and have individual pizzas for each family member. The dough is thin, but not the flat thin you get at a pizza parlor--the one that makes you think you are eating cardboard or paper. Form the pieces into little balls and leave them alone for about 45 minutes or until doubled.



Preheat the oven to 425. You can use a rolling pin to form your crusts, but I just stretch and pull at them until flat. I like the look of homemade pizza crust, not perfectly round.



Top with anything you like! Bake on a greased pizza pan or cookie sheet for about 12 minutes.. My pizza pan is blackened and malformed owing to years of being spread with pulled pork and cooked on the grill, so I just use a cookie sheet lined with parchment and greased with a bit of olive oil. Works great, but still every year I ask Santa for a pizza stone. For some reason, he always forgets to bring me one. :)


Tinker Bell likes tomato sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni and green peppers on her pizza.



Bubba, Goose, and I like BBQ sauce (thinned with a bit of pineapple juice), BBQ chicken, bacon, and pineapple on our pizzas.



Even in smaller, individual size crusts the dough is chewy, not too dense, and thick enough to let you taste it. Give it a try and you won't be sorry!

German Chocolate Cake

I found this recipe for German Chocolate Cake in my very first issue of Food Network Magazine. My very favorite magazine and now our family's favorite cake! One thing I discovered in making this recipe is that I am no good at making jelly rolls. Every time I make it the cake just flops into three sad, broken layers, but it still tastes amazing. :) This time I made the cake for our 16th wedding anniversary and since I wanted to post pictures of it, I added one teaspoon of baking powder so that the cake would rise a bit. Then I used two 8-inch round pans and made an actual layered cake.



Look at how pretty their jelly roll cake turned out! Good thing this cake is fabulous no matter how it is baked. One note, though...this recipe uses a lot of bowls, measuring cups, pots, pans, ingredients, and counter space. That's why I only make it on special occasions.



You will need:

1 cup evaporated milk
2 1/4 cups white sugar
3 large egg yolks
3 large eggs
2 1/2 sticks butter (Smart Balance!)
3 tsp vanilla
1 2/3 cups sweetened, toasted coconut
1 cup chopped pecans (optional--I don't use them)
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ounce finely chopped German chocolate
1/3 cup strong, hot coffee
1/3 cup buttermilk

See, lots of ingredients.

If you can't find toasted coconut you can do it yourself. Spread out the coconut on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 5 minutes, then remove, toss, and put it back in the oven for 5 more minutes. Then toss it again and see if it is toasted to your liking. You can always give it a couple more minutes. Then just leave the oven on at 350.



While the coconut is toasting, add the evaporated milk, 1 cup sugar, 1 stick of the butter (cubed), and the 3 egg yolks to a pot.



Whisk constantly over medium heat until it is thick and creamy. It will take about 10 minutes.



Remove from heat and add one tsp of vanilla and the coconut. Pecans, too, if you are using them. Unfortunately, my youngest has braces and can't have nuts. Mix together and set aside to cool completely.



Try not to taste it while it cools. Seriously, it is so good that you won't be able to stop "tasting." I put the frosting in another room because it is just too darn tempting!

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl and set aside. Whisk the cocoa and chocolate in another, smaller bowl. Add the hot coffee mixture to the chocolates and whisk until smooth. I measure 1/3 cup of hot water in a 2-cup measuring cup and add one full single-serving envelope of instant coffee, then mix. You get a nice strong coffee flavor. Then add the buttermilk and vanilla to the chocolate/coffee mixture.





Set both bowls to the side.



Beat together the remaining (1 1/2 sticks) softened butter and 1 1/4 cups sugar in a large mixer bowl on high speed until light and fluffy. It should take about 4 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and add the 3 whole eggs, one at a time, until combined. Add one third of the flour mixture and beat just until combined.



Then add one half of the chocolate mixture and beat on low until combined.



Add another third of the flour, combine, add the rest of the chocolate mix, combine, and end with the rest of the flour. Your final mixture will be a light chocolate color and very fluffy.



I greased two 8-inch round pans with cooking spray and evenly divided the cake mix between them. Bake for about 20 minutes, checking them after 18 minutes. I used a toothpick to check for doneness. (The dark coloring on the edges of my cake is from the cooking spray.)



When the cakes are completely cool spread about 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of frosting on the bottom round, top with second cake, then dump all of the remaining frosting on top. I spread it just to the edges and then let it slide down however it likes. There is enough frosting to completely cover the cakes, but I like the way it looks with the natural drips.





This cake is worth every dirty pan, pot, cookie sheet, mixing bowl, measuring cup, and teaspoon. Absolutely delicious!!

The Lazy Puff

I'm taking a quick break from food blogging because today is my 16th wedding anniversary and I have been in the kitchen all morning/afternoon. I did take some pictures of a German Chocolate Cake and I'll post them this weekend. Until then...the many sleeping poses of our lazy chocolate lab dog, Bear.








What a mess. :)

Ina Garten's East Hampton Clam Chowder

I've always wanted to try my hand at making clam chowder and finally decided to tackle the soup after reading one of Ina Garten's cookbooks. Her recipe sounded lighter than the thick, heavily creamy recipes I have found elsewhere. I did change some things, though. I added just half of her recommended butter because I did not buy enough clam juice. I got two bottles, 8 oz each, then came home and found that the recipe called for a full quart. Oh well. I LOVE how this soup turned out! It was rich, but not too rich. Creamy, but not overly so. It is definitely more of a gourmet soup than the thick, white stuff you get from a can. My picky eater, Goose, did not like it at all. She had a PB&J. My clam chowder lover, Tinker Bell, liked it but still prefers the white canned stuff. My hubby had three bowls!

I've added a link to Miss Barefoot's recipe so I will detail how I did it and what I changed. That way you can compare the two recipes and then tailor the soup to your taste.

Ingredients:

2 bottles of clam juice
1 (10 oz) can of baby clams (use fresh if you can, about a cup and a half)
5 small potatoes, chopped into small pieces
3/4 cup diced carrots (about a handful of baby carrots)
1 onion, chopped
4 slices bacon (I used low sodium)
1/2 cup sliced celery (I forgot to put that in the picture)
2 bay leaves
salt (I used Kosher)
pepper (to taste)
6 T butter
1/4 cup flour
1 cup skim milk
1 cup half & half



Ina's recipe does not call for bacon, but after reading the reviews on Food Network I followed the reviewers' advice that the bacon would give the recipe much needed flavor. And my mom told me to add it. :) I used a pair of kitchen shears and cut up four slices of bacon and cooked them over medium high heat until brown and crispy.



Then I removed the bacon, leaving the fat in the pot...



and added the onion. I cooked it until it was soft and had a little bit of color.



I threw the bacon back into the pot and added the rest of the chopped veggies.



I added 2T of the butter to the pot and cooked the veggies over medium low heat for about ten minutes.

While they were cooking I drained the clams, but reserved the juice. You might want to skip ahead here...baby clams may be the ugliest creatures ever.



I actually called my mom and asked her if they were supposed to be that ugly. She assured me that I had not gotten a bad batch. She also suggested chopping them up a bit since clams tend to be chewy and Tinker Bell has braces. It makes it hard for the poor angel to chew sometimes. So, I put them in my mini food processor and gave them a few pulses. (I was glad I did. There was clam in every bite!) Put them in a bowl and stick them in the fridge. You won't need them until a few minutes before you are ready to serve the soup.

After the veggies were almost tender, I added the bay leaves, the two bottles of clam juice, and the juice from the can of clams. Bring it to a boil and simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes.



After about 15 minutes, melt the remaining 4T of butter in a pan and whisk in the 1/4 cup of flour.



Whisk constantly while cooking over low heat for 3 minutes. Then whisk in one cup of your soup broth.



Add that mixture to your pot of soup.



Simmer until the soup thickens up a bit. Then stir in the skim milk and half & half. I also added about 2 tsp of Kosher salt and a few shakes of pepper. Try adding one tsp of salt, taste, and then add more if necessary. I thought the clam juice would be saltier, but it really wasn't salty at all. The soup definitely needed the added salt.



At this point Miss Ina adds her clams, heats through, and serves. I was not ready to serve it yet, so I left out the clams, turned the burner to low, covered the pot, and left it alone (except for the occasional stir) for a couple of hours. Ten minutes before we were ready to eat, I added the clams and cranked up the heat to a 5, or about medium. When it was as hot as we wanted it, we ate!




This chowder is buttery and absolutely delicious. The kind of clam chowder you get in a nice seafood restaurant. It is not at all like the stuff from the can. We ate this soup with a few oyster crackers and salads.

Organic Vegetable/Fruit Garden

After paying $1.69 for one green pepper earlier this year, we decided to plant our very own vegetable garden. And then we thought, why not make it organic! Orlando's city dump makes their own compost, processes it to remove non-organic materials, runs it through a machine to make it fluffy, and gives it away for free. We took our truck into town and filled up the bed with free compost. That was on 18 April. The very next day we started planting seeds and plants. Never having done this before, we weren't sure how to do the seeds. The instructions on the packets were ridiculously complicated. We figured that since we live in Florida, they don't really apply to us anyway. Seed inside for 4-6 weeks? Whatever. We made a line in the compost with our fingers, dumped in the entire packet, threw a little dirt on top, and then watered every day. Well, every day until the rainy season started.

18 April 2009






19 April



Tomato plants in the back, green beans in the back and side right, broccoli on the left in front of the tomatoes, then carrots to the right of that, then cucumbers next to the green beans, butternut squash plant in the front on the left (next to a cucumber plant that died), and finally the whole front down to the green beans is pumpkins. But not baking pumpkins. Nope! I went for the pumpkins with the cute jack-o-lanterns on the envelopes. What can I say, it was our first time with a garden and I was excited. :)


22 April-- the broccoli sprouts



27 April-- everything has sprouted



How cute is that garden? We all went out there every day and talked to it. Oooed and ahhed over it. So. Darn. Cute.

06 May-- we begin to think we overplanted



01 June-- yep, we overplanted





Does anyone want a jack-o-lantern? Or ten??





But then, how cute is this squash?



I seriously want to kiss the little guy. Adorable!


Our orange tree is looking great. Come January we will start boxing them up to send to family.




As for the garden...I'll post more when we start harvesting our bounty. I'm wondering why I bought 8 tomato plants when I'm allergic to them, but I'm sure our neighbors will be excited. We do have a Saturday morning farmer's market on Main Street in our little town. I can just see myself pulling up with a truck bed full of pumpkins. Jeez.