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 lunch (15/5): “why the f is it so cold?!” edition.

I’m a couple or so months behind on updating Sunday lunch/dinner, so there will be a bit of a deluge of food pictures in the coming weeks.

We had an unseasonably cold spring this year, and after I officially declared grilling season open the first weekend of May, temperatures plummeted for the next three weeks, which meant all the magazine issues devoted to grilling in my mailbox would have to wait.

Bummed out and shivering, I decided to warm up by baking two kinds of pizza (one pizza isn’t pictured).

Option #1: tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, plum tomato slices, bacon, and arugula.

Option #2: ricotta, grated Fontina and Parmesan mix, caramelized onions, black olives, and salami.

Having not given up entirely on summer though, I made Frozen Lemon Soufflé and a pitcher of Cucumber Cooler from the June 2011 issue of Everyday Food Magazine. The soufflé turned out amazing—it was almost exactly like lemon ice cream—though I had issues making the extended mold border out of parchment paper. It turns out that tape doesn’t actually stick to baking parchment, so I had to get a bit creative and line the outside of it with foil.

The cucumber drink tasted… strange. Skipping the mint probably didn’t help either. I think I’d rather put my cucumbers in a salad, rather than using up so many of them and ending up with dubious results.

Sunday lunch (6/3/11): breaking in the pizza stone edition. Having never baked with a stone, I was curious to see how the pizzas would be different. I was pleasantly surprised to find the outside of the crust crispier than when simply baked on a sheet, while the inside was nice and fluffy. My technique of getting the uncooked pizza from my wooden cutting board turned pizza peel to the stone needs work though. Two of the pizzas ended up with slightly mangled far edges and lost a bit of toppings in the process.

Pizza #1: Ricotta cheese, mozzarella, cremini mushrooms, kalamata olives, fresh thyme, and a sprinkling of Parmesan.

Pizza #2: Ricotta cheese, mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes in oil, fresh basil, and a sprinkling of Parmesan.

Pizza #3: Homemade tomato sauce, mozzarella, Aidells Italian-style sausage, bacon.

Pizza #4: Homemade tomato sauce, garlic, sauteed onion, feta cheese.

For dessert, I attempted the almond cake from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010). The recipe is basically a meringue with a ton of ground almonds and a little bit of flour, turning it into a simple, yet tasty cake. However, I once again learned that having the proper tools is quite helpful. The cake needed to bake in either an 8- or 9-inch springform pan. I had a choice of using a 10-inch springform pan or an 8-inch regular pan. Being tired of my cakes turning out super thin, I opted for the 8-inch. Of course the batter began overflowing and the dessert started looking like a giant mushroom. When I inverted it onto a plate, the center sank in. The whole thing ended up looking like failed volcano science fair experiment. I didn’t deem it worthy of photography.

Sunday lunch: January 2011 issue of Food & Wine magazine edition, also known as “The Meal of Pungent Cheeses” or “The Unintentionally Vegetarian Lunch.”

1. Best-Ever Cheese Soufflé
Soufflé definitely has a lot of stigma for being a difficult dish to pull off, so I was apprehensive about this. Despite a bit of a fail on my part by not whipping the whites to a stiff enough consistency—I discovered a totally liquid center when digging into it—the parts that cooked properly were fluffy and delicious. I replaced the Gruyère with Swiss cheese as my grocery store doesn’t carry it.

2. Focaccia with Caramelized Onions, Pears, and Blue Cheese
I’m not sure what the difference between pizza and focaccia is in this case, but the dish tasted great anyway. I loved that the blue cheese didn’t overpower any of the other ingredients like it usually tends to.

3. Greek-Style Tomato Salad with Mint and Feta
Great salad; I didn’t bother adding the oil and just ate it straight.

4. Peach Streusel Cake
It’s the first time that I’ve made streusel with pecans and without cinnamon, but it turned out quite tasty, and the crunch of the pecans was very welcome with the softness of the cake and peaches. I wish I could have used fresh instead of frozen, but they’re sadly out of season right now.

Sunday lunch: Pizza overload edition!

I made enough dough for four pizzas and turned the fourth pizza into cheesy bites—sticks of mozzarella string cheese wrapped in dough (not pictured).

Pizza #1: Pretty much the best pizza ever. Spread ½ cup tomato sauce (recipe follows) on stretched out dough. Soften 2-3 oz of mild goat cheese in the microwave and drop bits of it all over the surface. Sprinkle with 2-3 oz of feta cheese. Top with strips of caramelized onion, sliced black olives, and a light sprinkling of grated Parmesan (about 2 tbsp).

Pizza #2: Spread ½ cup tomato sauce on dough. Cover with 4 oz of shredded mozzarella cheese. Top with caramelized onion, thin strips of prosciutto, one pre-cooked and sliced chicken & apple sausage, and a sprinkling of Parmesan.

Pizza #3: Spread ½ cup tomato sauce on dough. Cover with shredded mozzarella cheese. Top with thin strips of prosciutto, torn baby spinach leaves, and Parmesan.

Warning: prosciutto is salty. It is so, so salty. I got one quarter of a pound thinking it would be good for two pizzas, but it ended up being way too much. Something like two ounces would have been plenty. If you don’t have access to prosciutto, you can fry up and crumble four slices of bacon. Once the pizzas are done baking, just sprinkle the bacon on top. Alternatively, you can replace it with other sliced deli meat like ham, or turkey.

Tomato Sauce

1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
2 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried basil
salt and pepper to taste

In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, combine sauce and spices. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Yields about 1½ cups of sauce, enough for three pizzas approximately 10 by 12 inches.

Caramelized Onions

3 small or 2 medium yellow onions, halved crosswise and sliced
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp olive oil

In a skillet over medium-high heat, add the butter and oil. When sufficiently hot, add the onion and cook until softened. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are browned, about 25-30 minutes.

Yields enough to top two pizzas.

Also part of this meal were cardamom crumb cake from the September 2010 issue of Everyday Food and lemon-mint iced tea (recipe follows). I tried baking the cake in a 9-inch round pan, since I didn’t have a 9 inch square. This was a really bad idea. I had to bake it for 30 minutes longer than the recipe stated and I discovered that it had not cooked completely through when I cut into it, despite a clean toothpick test. The extra baking time also made the outside of the cake brown and stick to the pan, making it fall apart when I tried to claw it out. Despite all this, it was really delicious, so I will be making it in my 10-inch springform next time.

Lemon-Mint Iced Tea

5 cups water
2 tbsp loose-leaf black tea
⅓ cup turbinado sugar (sugar in the raw)
2 sprigs of mint
1 lemon, sliced

In a medium saucepan, combine water, tea, sugar, and mint. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved, the mint has wilted, and the tea has brewed to desired strength. Strain through a fine mesh sieve into a pitcher and add slices of lemon. Cool to room temperature and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Yields 5 cups of tea.

Sunday dinner: homemade pizza.

1. Kalamata olives, sun-dried tomatoes, caramelized onions, and Fontina + Parmesan cheese blend.

2. Green bell pepper, red onion, garlic, cherry tomatoes from the garden, and mozzarella, with a sprinkling of sea salt on top.

Dough is homemade according to the Joy of Cooking (Scribner 2006) recipe.

A delicious Sunday night meal that also made Monday lunch a snap. I used the recipes for grilled pizzas in the July/August 2010 issue of Everyday Food. The dough was quite simple to do, as was the tomato sauce and the herb oil for brushing. Tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil from my garden topped the first two pizzas. Mild Italian sausage, leftover Kalamata olives, and part-skim shredded mozzarella topped the second. We had a bit of an adventure trying to cook these, since the grill on our barbecue was a bit large for the purpose and the dough sagged through it, resulting in a quilted appearance on the surface. Didn’t detract in any way from the amazing taste, so the burns were well worth it.

What made this even better is that I could use the leftover sauce, sausage, and oil to make spaghetti and meatballs with garlic-rosemary bread the next day. All I needed to do was boil some pasta, squeeze and sauté some meatballs from the sausage, and brush the leftover oil on some split dinner rolls, then bake them.

Last week, for my birthday, a couple of friends and I celebrated with drinks and a mini lemon cheesecake at Park Place in Cupertino:

Left to right: Ruby Martini, Sazerac, and Cypress Kiss

In addition to drinks, we had the most heavenly wild mushroom flatbread—so good, we got two—and potato croquettes. Inspired, I set out to create a reasonable facsimile of the flatbreads. The result was quite successful and very easy to make:

Mushroom Pizzas

2 packages thin crust pizzas (22 oz)
1 cup grated Parmesan or Grana cheese (4 oz)
1 cup grated Fontina cheese (4 oz)
1 tsp fresh thyme (optional)
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
8 ounces Baby Bell mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
two handfuls of arugula
pepper

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Line two cookie sheets with parchment. Unroll each pizza dough package onto the sheets and pre-bake according to package instructions for a crispy crust (about 5 minutes). Meanwhile, mix cheeses and thyme, if using, in a small bowl.

Place olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Lightly sauté mushrooms with lemon juice and pepper to taste until they’re slightly softened. Divide cheese and mushrooms between pre-baked crusts and return to oven; bake according to package directions (about 8-10 minutes). Top with arugula and serve.

yields two pizzas, approximately 10” x 15” each

And the great thing is that the saltiness and sharpness of the cheeses means that you don’t need to add salt anywhere else in the dish. Enjoy!