I can haz pizza? BBQ Chicken Pizza with Bacon and Caramelized Onions

So, I love pizza. I love my cookin, and I think I have finally made a couple of good pies.

I use Fresh & Easy ready-made pizza dough, and pre-cooked chicken, simply to make the work a little easier. I used some bacon for flavoring.

That'll do pig...that'll do.

In the bacon grease (but not using all of it), I fried some red onion.

I piled the pizza with a mix of bbq sauce and arrabiata sauce (spicy marinara), chicken, bacon, red onions, mozarella cheese, garlic powder and oregano, and it came out looking like this.

To finish it off, I added a little bit more bbq sauce at the end for a little more flavor and to keep it from getting dry. It worked out very well.

Anything I would have done differently? Made more.

Cheers.

Cooking Tips!!!

More cooking tips from “Cooking Light” in an article called “The 25 Most Common Cooking Mistakes“

It’s a good article – I don’t do a whole lot of baking, but I would add a couple small things: changing a recipe isn’t bad, just understand it could change the consistency and flavor. Maybe the onions are too strong for you, so you add them in the beginning instead of the end – if you change the way you cut garlic, it can also have an effect on the flavor. Experimentation is ok – make sure you are in a safe place to do it.

Cheers.

Chicken Soup for My Souls

It looks like I haven’t made anything in a while, and that simply isn’t true: I just haven’t made anything good. I made an interesting pasta Wednesday or Thursday night, but I forgot to take pictures. Sorry.

Anyway, I made chicken soup a while back. I guess it is chicken soup. I used chicken sausage, boneless, skinless chicken thighs, red potatoes, garlic, red onion, tomato sauce and paste, chicken stock, and zucchinni.

The beginning stages of soup are important. You really want a good flavor base so I cut up the sausage and thighs and browned them in my dutch oven, then set them aside.

I deglazed with the vegetables, the white wine and the chicken stock, adding the zucchini at the end.This is what I got in the bowl.

Add sourdough bread and a Blue Moon and you have a wonderful meal.

So why add the zucchini at the end? Zucchini is really soft, and will fade to nothingness if left to cook too long, so I saved it until the end.

Did I mention the bread and beer? Heaven. I love the stuff together, and when it was miserable and cold towards the end of January, this was awesome.

Cheers.

What’s you got in yer kitchen, oy?

So, I know that everyone is wondering, “Dave, why?” I don’t have an answer.

But some of you are also wondering, “Dave, what have you got in your kitchen?”

Well, like many people, I bought what I thought would be helpful, beautiful, and cool. My first purchase was a set of Global knives because Anthony Bourdain of “Kitchen Confidential” fame said they were good knives, and he seemed like a no b.s. kind of guy. I bought three of them; an 8-inch Cook’s Knife, a 5-1/2 inch vegetable knife, and a 4-inch paring knife. I also bought a MinoSharp Sharpener, which is supposed to be for Global knives. It dulled it the first time I used it, but then I was a little more careful and became happy with the edge I got. I also have a bread knife made by Henckels. I bought a cheap knife roll just to keep them all together and keep them from banging against each other, and I bought a steel to help keep the edge. The steel and bread knife are basic, simply because I didn’t think I needed anything fancy.

My feelings on it all? I don’t really need the paring knife or the vegetable knife. The chef’s knife is good, and I wish I just bought that. I use my bread knife a lot, (especially when I cut my finger) and I love it. It does the job, all for about $10. The Global knife set was on sale, so I think that is why I bought them all. The steel was on sale, too. I wouldn’t (and no one should) pay $35 for a steel. You are really only paying for a different handle. Otherwise, everything else is the same as your $10 steel. I use the steel religiously, (Our Honer, which art in Heaven, 5-Strokes Descending order Technique be thy name); I cut away from me at a shallow angle 5 times, then toward me 5 times, then 4 towards and 4 away, then 3, then 2, then 1. I also use a wooden spoons and silicon spatulas while cooking, only because I worry about my stuff getting all scratched up.

What else? As for cookware, I have a ten-inch non-stick skillet made by Faberware, and a ten-inch cast-iron Lodge Logic skillet that I use for lots. The non-stick is for eggs, bacon, french toast, stuff like that. I have made hash, fajitas, fish, steak, grilled-cheese sandwiches and even cornbread in the cast iron skillet. It does great at lots and lots of things. I also have a cast-iron grill pan that I have used to roast chickens in; just cover the pan in foil, leave the chicken on top, and flip it half-way through cooking and you are good.

I also have a 5-quart enamel covered cast iron Dutch oven. Whew! That has been used for: making soup, making pasta sauces, making my own version of arroz con pollo, used as a roasting apparatus for chickens and rib roasts, browning lamb shanks, and for peach-blueberry cobbler. I like the heft and the ability to stay really, really hot. I would love to use this to make a big soup, bring it out to the table, have a warm loaf of bread ready to go.

As far as special devices, only a few. A coffee grinder, a blender, a hand blender, and my slow-cooker. The slow-cooker is beautiful! A Cuisinart 4-Quart Slow Cooker that is great. I have made a pork loin roast with potatoes and red onions used for tacos (sorry, no pictures), braised lamb shanks, and the absolute best steel-cut oatmeal. The oatmeal takes three hours to make, but whenever I make it, it is usually something I set in the evening, do laundry, or go out, then put away for the next morning before I go to bed. It is really good, especially on these recent cold mornings. Well, California cold, anyway. I also have a big stock pot, and I find that useful for making pasta noodles; you could go smaller. No problem.

Any other purchases I would like to make? Well, these are kind of vanity purchases, but a magnetic knife bar that attaches to your wall and you hang your knives on would be one. Speaking of knives, I would like a boning knife. I was breaking down a chicken the other day, and a boning knife would have made the work a bit easier. I would also like a bread machine. That sounds a bit like vanity, but I would like to make my own bread, such as sandwich bread, ciabattas, french baguette, sourdough bread, that kind of thing.

I need a lot more skill to make good bread, but I might try over the Valentine’s Day weekend to see if I can pull it off.

So, what should you spend your money on to get started?

1. A good chef’s knife, for starters. You can do most anything with this.

2. A good cast-iron skillet – good for stove top and oven use which is really helpful. A dutch oven is really helpful – in fact, you could probably use that in place of a cast-iron skillet.

3. A non-stick skillet would be good too. Make sure you use wood or silicone utensils in your non-stick and enamel covered stuff. If you baby them, they will last forever.

4. A blender: you can get by without a hand blender by pouring batches into your blender.

5. Lastly, I would recommend the slow-cooker. You could probably find one cheaper than the one I got, and it would do the job just as well. My slow-cooker has a timer that automatically switches to warming when the timer goes off, so you don’t have to worry about burning the food. Many Crock-Pots have this feature, so that shouldn’t be hard to find.

So, a good chef’s knife, a dutch oven, a non-stick skillet, and a slow-cooker. What can you make in these? Eggs and bacon, soup, lamb shanks, french fries, fried chicken, pasta, fish, mussels, polenta (Dutch Oven), slow-roasted pork for tacos, fajitas, chile rellenos, pasta sauce, soups and stews…you are only limited by your imagination. Cast iron is vital, in my opinion, for really good fajitas. You really want high heat to sear your vegetables, that way they have that awesome, lovely smell to them. There are so many things you could do with these things. As you go along, you may find that the particular kind of cooking you do favors a different approach, and, therefore, different equipment. Check out sales, and restaurant supply places.

Getting cooking and enjoy the experience!

Cheers.

The French Laundry

I have to, have to, have to go to this place. It is the best. What I am trying to say is that there isn’t anything better than this.

Ever.

Something fishy – Steamed Mussels and Pan-fried Salmon

I haven’t done a whole lot with fish, and very little with shellfish, but I have wanted to try mussels and bread for a long time now. So I found a recipe on my new favorite website, Delish and followed this recipe to the “T”. This recipe is for Steamed Mussels in Tomato Broth.

Here are the results.

I liked it, but here is how I would have changed it: instead of diced tomatoes, I would like to try tomato sauce. We used bread to soak up the broth, but it made the bread really soggy. Having a thicker sauce might be nicer. Also, maybe a bit more in the way of seasoning. Maybe more garlic, but other than that, pretty good.

Pan-fried Salmon

The salmon was next. I used a McCormacks Seafood Seasoning rub, and just cooked it in a cast iron skillet, until it was awesome. To the plate, I added a au gratin style potato dish I made, with milk, parmesan, and bacon.

Pretty damn good.

To drink, was Blue Moon, a wonderful beer, and, as Benjamin Franklin said, proof that God loves us.

Cheers.

French Toast…haw, haw, haw!!!

So, using my wonderful Challah bread, I made French Toast for the second time. This is the time that I cut my finger, but it is getting better.

So, the recipe I used was by Alton Brown, he of “Good Eats” fame. The recipe was found on Food Network’s website, and simply called French Toast.

This batch wasn’t as good as the last one. I think the bread was a little too thick, and I didn’t add any cinnamon or vanilla this time, but it had eggs, butter, good bread, more butter, and real maple syrup.

Getting all good and ready

Takes the custard and sets it…

So, here is how I adapted the recipe. I added some cinnamon, about 1/8 of a teaspoon, and about a quarter to a half-teaspoon of vanilla. I didn’t really measure, because those were flavor agents, rather than making the custard. It did add a bit more liquid.

Anyway, it came out great. I liked it. This batch was ok. The reason I went with this recipe, even though it was a bit more work intensive, is because Alton explained that what you are making is a custard, because of the eggs and milk, and you want a slightly crisp outside, but a soft inside. To get that, you start it on the stove, and finish it in the oven.

It’s not the food, it’s what the food represents…

I found this article on Roger Ebert’s blog. He had emergency surgery and can barely talk if at all, and can’t eat or drink. In his blog post, Nil by mouth, he describes what it is that food and dining, and joining people in eating that is so appealing to him.

I love it. I love Roger Ebert as a human being, and I love the last line of his post, that says, “You don’t realize it, but we’re at dinner right now.”

Cheers

First good bread – Challah

It was good and spongy

I love bread, but I am not good at making it. I have tried making it a couple of times and I think I know what my errors were.

1. Too big. I should have split the dough into two loaves, not one. It would have tasted a lot better, been less dense, and fluffier.

2. Ingredient temperatures: I should have used water at the correct temperature to activate the yeast, and the other ingredients, like eggs, should have been at room temperature.

3. Kneading: there is a trick to figuring out (if you are doing it by hand) when to stop kneading. If you can take a piece of dough and stretch it to act as a window pane, it is kneaded correctly.

4. Proofing and rising: I am not sure why people want you to bash the bread down. Aren’t you trying to get the bread to be fluffy, and to rise? Plus, rising should happen somewhere warm with some moisture, but not super-moist.

So, with some trepidation, I attempted doing a Jewish Challah bread. I found the recipe at www.delish.com, and it is simply called Challah.

It started off feeling pretty good when I was pulling it apart, it wanted to go back together, which is a good sign.

The top looks like a chicken.

Bread

It made really good french toast, as well, the first french toast I ever made.

So, I am pretty happy with my efforts. I think the things that helped were paying attention to temperatures, using a digital thermometer for water temperature, and being consistent with methods.

Kitchen Safety and You: How to Not Cut Your Fingers, stupid.

What part are you still curious about?

*Sigh*

If you want to avoid cutting your fingers, get your fingers out of the way of your knife. That should be easy, but I think we also have to include this; whenever you are trying to shortcut a process you have done a million times, that is the moment when you are most likely to do something stupid.

I was cutting bread for French toast, and was running out of counter space, so rather than move some things, pull out a cutting board, and do it the right way, I decided to cut the bread over a bowl, and hold the bread with my free hand. As the loaf got shorter, my grip became more pronounced, and my fingers curled under the loaf until, right at the end, I felt a sting.

Stupid.

I couldn’t play guitar very well for church on Sunday, had to modify my grip, and was reminded by a smart little sting every time I accidentally touched middle-finger to string, that I am lucky I didn’t cut myself a lot more severly.

So here is some advice.

1. Mise en place: what does it mean? Everything in its place. Does the oven have to be preheated? If you start chopping fine vegetables that are subject to oxidation, you need to think about how long they will be exposed to air. Are you breading and frying? That means a dish for flour or bread crumbs, and then frying, so the pan has to be hot, and something to let them rest on and give up any excess oil. Is all that ready? If you are wok-frying, everything had better be ready to go from the time the first ingredient goes in the pan. Blenders ready? Boiling water and ice-bath for blanching vegetables? Walk through your recipe and see what you will need to do. And clear off enough counter space!!!

2. Use sharp knives; I know this sounds counterintuitive, but sharper knives use finesse, not power, to do the cutting. The more power you have to use, the less control you have.

3. Make cutting, chopping, and the like as comfortable as possible. If the counter is too tall, use the dining room table, rather than stepping up on something.

4. If using a cutting board, keep it from moving. Put a silicone mat underneath, a damp towel, or buy one with rubber edges. If it, like other kitchen utensils, is made of wood, don’t put it in the dishwasher, or it will warp and mess up your cutting surface.

5. Use the curl technique: make a “c” with your non-cutting hand, and let your curled fingers hold the food, keeping your fingers curled, using your knuckles to guide the knife to the food. Don’t rush it. Feel the knife glide; cooking requires some muscle at times, but the point at which you are trying to cube, dice, mince or rough chop is not one of them. Let the knife move, not the food, keeping your fingers safely out of the way. This works regardless of what your are cutting, including bread, just use a bit of your fingernails. If the item is moving around too much, you brobably need a shaprper knife. Or, just use a spatula, knife, fork, or some other utensil to hold the food. If you cut a spatula, that isn’t nearly as bad as cutting a finger.

Cooking requires sharp knives, blenders, hot pans and ovens, pressure, muscle, but more than that, it requires thinking. Please do so.

Cheers.