Sunday dinner (10/7): homemade pizza edition.

Option #1: pesto, mozzarella, fennel, caramelized onion, bacon
The pesto was made from leaves I gathered in my backyard basil patch. I also snipped the fennel for these pizzas from the accidental fennel jungle that grew next to our tomatoes.

Option #2: ricotta, mozzarella, oregano, garlic, mushroom, bell pepper, tomato
Minced garlic and fresh oregano were mixed into the ricotta—along with some salt and pepper—before spreading it on the dough. The bell pepper and tomatoes were fresh from our garden.

Dessert: peach-custard pie (Martha Stewart Living, June 2011)
A great and fairly simple pie one could probably make with pears or apples. I wish the peaches I used were a bit more ripe; it would’ve made the pie easier to eat.

Sunday grilling (19/6): kebabs two ways edition.

1. Flank Steak Kebabs with Peanut Sauce (Everyday Food, June 2011)
The peanut sauce on these wasn’t my favorite, since it was coconut milk based, and I don’t actually like the taste of coconut. >_> I figured that the peanut butter would take over, and I was mostly right, but there was just enough coconut taste to make the sauce kinda meh for me. The kebabs were pretty standard.

2. Mozzarella-Stuffed Turkey and Tomato Kebabs (Everyday Food, June 2011)
I made a fail substitution on these by using chicken breast instead of turkey. The chicken just wasn’t big enough to wrap the mozzarella completely, which resulted in it melting and leaking out on the grill. :( But it was heavenly in the few pieces it managed to hang onto.

3. Salad
Along with lettuce from our garden, this also included our first cucumbers!

4. Lemon Meringue Frankenpietart
I call this the Frankenpietart because I took three different Joy of Cooking recipes—one for the filling, one for the crust, and another for the topping—that weren’t meant to go together and used them anyway. The filling is for a lemon tart, but the crust is made of graham crackers, instead of the pâte brisée you would normally use in a tart. Basically, this is what happens when you have a giant bag of lemons and leftover boxes of graham crackers from Costco, as well as eggs that need to be used up ASAP. Overall it was fine, but I overbeat the meringue, so it didn’t brown as nicely as it could have.

5. Arnold Palmer
Self explanatory. Half homemade lemonade, half freshly brewed black tea!

Sunday grilling (12/6): Balinese chicken edition.

1. Balinese Grilled Chicken (Food & Wine, June 2011)
Although I didn’t include the fresh bay leaves—couldn’t find any at the store—and don’t know how that affected the dish, it still tasted great. The chicken was moist, smoky from the grill, and had an Asian flavor courtesy of the ginger and turmeric.

2. Potato Hobo Pack (Martha Stewart Living, June 2011)
This was a bit of a failure. I didn’t include the beer (too weird) and just put some oiled, salted, and peppered baby potatoes in some foil with a couple of garlic cloves. Sadly, we didn’t grill the pack long enough and the potatoes ended up a bit… crunchy.

3. Salad
A simple salad made with the first harvest of lettuce from our backyard!

4. Strawberry-Lemonade Icebox Pie
This was so gooooood. I love lemon and I love strawberry and I love graham cracker crusts—though not necessarily trying to cut them—and this pie had everything! It also had meringue, which meant I had the excuse to bust out my propane torch from Home Depot and go to town toasting it. :D

5. Iced Tea
Self explanatory.

Sunday dinner: May Day edition, aka I declare grilling season officially open! Temperatures were in the 80s that weekend with not a cloud in the sky; perfect day to bust out the charcoal.

1. Turkey Burgers with Spiced Tomato Chutney and Cajun Grilled Onions (Real Simple, June 2009)
Homemade burgers are the best ever. I’ve also realized that mixing cheese into the patty, at least in this combination, is a lot more tasty than putting the cheese on top. The chili in the patty combined amazingly well with the spices on the onions and the cinnamon in the chutney to create a delicious, smoky-sweet flavor. Note to self: label random bags of leftover spices. At some point last year I was cooking a recipe that involved making my own spice mix, and I had a couple tablespoons left over, so I figured I would use it up on these onions. It turned out so damn good, but I have no idea what it was! Definitely some kind of mixture of chili powder, paprika, oregano, and salt. Maybe onion and garlic powder as well?…

2. Potato Salad with Bacon and Parsley (Real Simple, June 2009)
Fairly simple potato salad, though the Dijon and vinegar are a deviation from your standard creamy dressing. I think I still prefer creaminess and lots and lots of chives. The bacon for this recipe was cooked on the grill, since it was fired up anyway.

3. Strawberry Icebox Pie
The strawberry train continues! I ended up putting a whole stick of butter in the graham crust because it refused to stick together otherwise. I also replaced the cranberry juice with a handful of frozen cranberries from my Thanksgiving stash.

4. Raspberry Lemonade
My classic lemonade recipe with an added pint of mashed raspberries passed through a sieve. After the experience of a past lemonade batch ending up incredibly sour, I’ve learned to adjust the sugar by taste rather than rely on my previous ratios. I had wanted to try this with Meyer lemons, but as Murphy would have it, this was the week they were no longer in the store.

Sunday grilling: Sunday Night Football edition, where I settle down in front of the teevee with some traditional American fare and watch the San Francisco 49ers lose yet another game.

1. Chicken Cobb Burger
I was in a bit of a hurry and totally forgot the avocado—just as well, my sister hates them in any form that is not guacamole—and the dressing. The grocery store also didn’t have ground chicken, so I substituted turkey. It still tasted quite a bit like a Cobb salad though.

2. Double-Fried French Fries with Creamy Parmesan Mustard Dip
Omitted the salt on the potatoes on the account of the dip and used olive oil instead of canola for the frying. The dip was amazing. Something akin to a mustard-y Caesar dressing. Absolutely delish.

3. Apple Pie
I changed the crust up a little by adding a couple tablespoons of sugar, chilling the lard, and using nearly frozen butter—which was actually just a mistake because I forgot to defrost some the night before. It turned out amazingly soft and easy to roll and was perfect when baked.

4. Fox Barrel Apple Cider
After looking all over for some apple cider, I finally discovered a couple six-packs of it in Whole Foods. This cider is more bitter than the Woodchuck I’m used to—although the first bottles were more bitter than subsequent ones; maybe I’m getting used to the taste?—but still quite nice. I just wish more places would sell it.

Sunday grilling: pseudo-tailgating, pork burgers edition.

1. Manchego-Stuffed Pork Burgers
Since my grocery store doesn’t carry anything as fancy as Manchego, I simply didn’t include it and spread some goat cheese on the toasted burger bun instead. It turned out great, though dad complained that the burgers were a bit on the “falling apart” side of things when he tried to flip them and that the cheese would have held them together better. The combination of spices and olives is quite amazing.

2. Deviled Dip with Baked Potato Wedges
Unfortunately, the dip didn’t really go with the potatoes, though each component was delicious by itself. It would be great with some salty potato chips and maybe a few more dashes of Tabasco. I omitted the herbs and garlic on the wedges on the account of the dip and baked them plain.

3. Game Night Margaritas
Good lord these were strong! I had to add a whole lot more grenadine and use a lot of ice to get them to a drinkable level. I don’t now if there was too much tequila or triple sec for the amount of lime juice + grenadine. Need to work on my margarita ratios.

4. Apple Pie
This time I put in lard in the crust and got the correct amount of salt into it. It turned out heavenly! Rolled out very nicely and flaked well once baked. In an attempt to get the pie to look less boring, I did a top crust similar to what I’ve seen in an issue of Martha Stewart Living a few years ago. The effort to use up our ridiculous harvest of apples continues!

Sunday grilling: kebabs & apple pie edition.

1. BLT Pasta Salad
Used whole wheat pasta, one head of regular lettuce, and didn’t include chives because they somehow didn’t make it onto my Grocery iQ list. Wish I hadn’t forgotten them; I think the salad would’ve been way better with chives.

2. Wine Marinaded Beef Kebabs
Because I couldn’t find a package of meat small enough and wanted leftovers, I increased the meat to about 2½ pounds. This meant I had to increase the red bell peppers and onions to two—though we did end up with a Frankenkebab that was two pieces of meat and eight pieces of pepper, whoops! Swapped red onions for the yellow. Nixed the cherry tomatoes to prevent veggie overload.

The recipe for the Essence isn’t actually included in the kebab recipe page, but you can find it here. I wouldn’t make it again without some major modifications like cutting the cayenne way down and nixing all the salt, since the marinade calls for soy sauce. I had already cut the salt to one tablespoon and used low sodium soy sauce, but the meat turned out ridiculously salty. I also took out the rosemary, since I already had oregano, thyme, and a ton of spices.

3. Apple Pie
We are currently being overrun by apples, since the tree in our backyard finally caught up to the season. This means I’ll be baking nothing but apples for the next month at least. I used the Joy of Cooking recipe for apple pie and decided to brave making my own crust for the first time in years. I usually hate making pie crust since I can’t do it quickly enough and it ends up sticking everywhere when I roll it. However, since I discovered I could use my KitchenAid and learned a few tricks from years of watching Martha Stewart + the Food Network, I figured it wouldn’t be as difficult as it used to.

I was mostly right, though I discovered too late that the recipe called for vegetable shortening, which I didn’t have, so I had to make do with just butter. I also managed to misread the amount of salt and put in one tablespoon instead of one teaspoon. Next time should be easier—and there will definitely be a next time since I have at least half a tree’s worth of apples to use up—and I will make sure to include the secret ingredient that makes good pie crust so great: lard! ;)

4. Modified “Creepy Crawlers” Cocktail
The October 2010 issue of Everyday Food predictably includes some Halloween themed recipes, one of which is the Creepy Crawlers Cocktail: a concoction of pomegranate juice, both light and dark rum, simple syrup, and lime juice. Since the recipe makes only one serving, I modified it to fill a pitcher, which conveniently used up the last of our light rum. I didn’t want to get a bottle of dark rum, so I replaced it with black tea, and cut the sugar in the simple syrup down since I figured the pomegranate juice would be sweet enough, especially without the dark rum. The drink still turned out way too sweet though, so I’ve cut the sugar out completely for this recipe. You can feel free to dissolve some in the water if the drink isn’t sweet enough for your tastes.

South of the Border Pomegranate Tea

1 cup light rum
1 cup strongly brewed black tea, cooled
2 cups pomegranate juice
½ cup fresh lime juice, strained (from about 2-3 limes)
1½ cups water
(½ cup sugar, optional)

Combine all ingredients in a pitcher and stir. Serve over ice. Makes 6 cups.

With all the excitement about the cupcake challenge, I totally forgot to post about Sunday dinner. Just as well, really, as the main dish failed because I got the wrong type of squash; I turned it into a layered dip instead. There was also some delicious homemade guacamole using the Joy of Cooking (Scribner 2006) recipe and I once again made some Sweet Tea Mojitos, making the same modifications I talked about last time while reducing the sugar even further to 2/3 of a cup, and throwing in one more lime.

The pièce de resistance, however, was this apple tart/pie/thing. Not quite sure what to call it, since it has a filling similar to apple pie, but uses yeast based dough for the shell. We are facing a large harvest of apples from the tree in the backyard and created this dessert in an attempt to find a use for them.

Russian Apple Pie

For the dough
1⅓ cups warm water between 105ºF and 115ºF
1 package (2¼ tsp) active dry yeast
1 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and divided
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tbsp salt
3½ cups of flour

For the filling
4 large apples, cored
¼ cup sugar (or more, if you prefer a sweeter filling)
1 tbsp ground cinnamon

Make the dough: in a large bowl, combine water, sugar, and yeast and let stand for 10 minutes until bubbly. Stir in 4 tablespoons of melted butter, eggs, and salt. Adding half a cup at a time, stir in the flour. Knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. Place in a greased bowl and brush with remaining melted butter. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place free of drafts until doubled (about 2 hours).

Once risen, punch down the dough and separate into two parts: a larger portion consisting of two thirds of the dough and a smaller portion that’s one third. Stretch the larger portion onto a rectangular, parchment lined, 11½ by 17 inch baking sheet, making sure to leave the borders thick as you will then stretch and overlap them over the filling. Let rest for 10 minutes while you make the filling. Preheat the oven to 475ºF.

Make the filling: By hand or in a food processor, finely dice the apples. Thoroughly mix with the sugar and cinnamon. Spread the filling evenly over the dough, then stretch and pull the edges over it by about two inches.

Divide the remaining one third of the dough into four pieces. Stretch them to make strips and crisscross them over the center of the pie. Pinch and press the ends into the border. Brush the outside with some melted butter for a crispy, golden appearance.

Bake at 475ºF for 12 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350ºF and bake for 10-13 minutes more until the dough is hollow when knocked. Let cool slightly, cut into pieces, and enjoy!