October 8th: potato pizza take 1

Verdict:
Toss: potato, carmelized onion, etc. pizza

Friday night family pizza night! Tonight I made pizza dough from Crazy Plates, which won out over the Chatelaine pizza dough I cooked last week. This is in large part due to the Crazy Plates dough giving the impression of being healthier. The pizza proper was from October 2010's Chatelaine: Potato pizza with carmelized onions and rosemary. I had some serious doubts about potatoes on pizza, but forged ahead. This recipe is hitting the toss pile, but not because of the potatoes, which were pretty tasty. The carmelized onions didn't really carmelize, which I attribute to not enough sugar in the pan; when I've made carmelized onions in the past, they've called for 8 times the amount of sugar in the sugar:onion ratio than this recipe calls for. Other than that, the pizza was just on the boring side. I ended up scraping the topping off the leftover pizza, and throwing it into an omelet on Sunday morning; that was quite tasty.

I have another potato-topped pizza recipe from Epicurious I plan to try on an as-yet-undefined  future family pizza night.

Here's the Crazy Plates pizza dough recipe:

No Business Like Dough Business

1 pkg active dry yeast (or 2-1/4 tsp)
1 cup warm water (105° to 115°)
1 tbsp honey
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1-1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp olive oil
2 tbsp cornmeal (optional)

Pour yeast into a large bowl. Combine warm water and honey. Pour over yeast. Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes, until mixture is foamy. Meanwhile, combine all-purpose and whole wheat flours. Set aside.

Add 1-1/2 tbsp olive oil and salt to yeast mixture. Mix well. Add 1 cup flour mixture. Using a wooden spoon, stir until smooth. Add a second cup of flour mixture and continue to stir until dough forms a soft and sticky mass and comes away from the sides of the bowl.

Flour the work surface and your hands with some of the remaining flour mixture. Turn dough out of bowl onto floured surface and knead in more flour until dough is smooth and elastic. Don't worry if you don't use up all of the flour. Shape dough into a ball. Pour 1 tsp olive oil into a large bowl. Add dough and roll it around so the whole surface gets lightly oiled. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 45 to 60 minutes, until double in size.

Lightly oil two 12-inch pizza pans and sprinkle lightly with cornmeal, if using. Punch down dough and return to work surface. Divide dough into 2 balls. Using a rolling pin, roll out each ball to a 12-inch circle. Place dough on pizza pan. Brush lightly with oil. Add your favourite toppings and bake at 450° for 13 to 14 minutes.

October 7th: butternut squash soup cook-off

Verdict: can't give it away! Read below...

October 2010's Today's Parent had a recipe for Butternut Squash soup that sounded like an appropriately warm and fall-like food. At the same time, I had been given a butternut squash soup recipe by my friend Janice. What's a girl to do? Clearly, slice the butternut squash in half, halve the two recipes, and have a cook-off! The magazine's recipe sounded like it would be more flavourful, with a variety of herbs thrown in. Janice's sounded almost too simple, with only an optional red apple to take the flavour up a notch, should one so desire.

So, what was the verdict? Drum roll please ... Janice's soup wins, hands down, with a vote of 3-0. G, O and I all loved Janice's soup, and we ended up pouring the leftover TP soup down the drain. Lesson learned: always trust your friends over the media!

Here's the winning soup recipe:

Butternut squash soup

1 small butternut squash, about 2 lbs (1kg), peeled, seeds removed, chopped
2 tbsp (30 mL) butter
1 onion, chopped
1/4 tsp (1 mL) nutmeg
6 cups (1.5 L) chicken stock
1 red apple, peeled, cored, chopped
salt to taste

Prepare squash. In a large pot, melt butter. Add onion and nutmeg and cook 5-8 min. Add squash and stock. Bring to a boil then reduce heat, cover and simmer until squash is tender, about 25 minutes. With 10 minutes remaining on the timer, add chopped apple. Remove squash and apple pieces and purée in a blender in batches. Return to pot, warm if necessary, and add salt to taste.

Makes 6-8 servings.

TP soup: top and left; Janice's soup: right and bottom

October 6th: Faux fried chicken & a host of veggies

Verdict:
Keeper: Faux fried chicken
Try Again: Cinnamon sweetie fries

Tonight was a re-try from October 2009's Chatelaine: Faux fried chicken. Very good, and good enough to keep. The recipe suggested serving this with roasted tomatoes, and I had leftover grape tomatoes from Margherita pizza night, so I tossed these on the side of the pan with the chicken. October 2010's Today's Parent had a simple recipe for Cinnamon Sweetie Fries. (Note: the link is not the recipe I made, which is not online. It is exactly the same, but add in 2 tsps ground cinnamon.) We make sweet potato fries regularly, but usually with savoury spices or herbs, like a Cajun mix, or a salt and thyme combo. Tonight's recipe called for tossing the fries with cinnamon and baking, then salting to taste. These were good, but I like the savoury variety better. Surprise, surprise, Greg thought these were the best sweet potato fries he'd ever had. His review came after a run in the rain though, which I think might increase the likelihood that all food tastes good. One thing I did differently tonight was leave the skins on the sweet potatoes when I made the fries. I will continue to do this in future. Oh! I almost forgot; we also had delish yellow beans on the side, from the local farm, and they would have been more delish if I hadn't got caught up in cleaning the play room and over cooked them. Oops.

October 5th: Spaghetti bolognese

Verdict:
Toss: spaghetti bolognese

Because I just love pasta and questionable meat so much, I cooked it for two days in a row! Last night's chicken meatball miso soup noodles was not a winner, and tonight's recipe is getting tossed too. BUT. Tonight's meal was a re-try from last year; from October 2009's Chatelaine: Spaghetti bolognese. Last year I jotted, "V. Good" on the recipe, and this year I think I would say the same, but it is just not quite good enough to keep. Greg and Olivia may differ in opinion on this from me. It's on the spicy side as far as flavour goes, but without a lot of depth; no onions and garlic, and what is cooking with no onions and garlic? Especially where pasta is involved? Fairly easy in preparation, though you can't trust Chatelaine when they say things like, "Cook the meat for 4 minutes, stirring frequently. Meanwhile, chop veggies." Trust me: chop the veggies before embarking on meat-cooking. Oh, and the recipe says it makes four servings. You can easily feed more than four people with this recipe. Do we need to eat 1/4 lb of pasta each?

Oh dear, I sound quite negative. That's likely just because I am writing this when I should be sleeping and my alarm is set to go off in 5 hours. But no worries, I slept in Olivia's bed for 2 hours earlier tonight! Hopefully tomorrow night's meal is more pleasing to my palate: chicken and sweet potatoes!

October 4th: miso chicken soup and sugar cookies

Verdict:
Keeper: sugar cookies
Toss: soup


From October 2010's Chatelaine: Chicken miso noodle soup. I can't give a real review of this recipe, as I replaced the chicken with beef and the udon noodles with spaghetti. All I know is I used 1 1/2 times the amount of water called for and it was still like eating spaghetti and meatballs rather than a soup. Seeing as I don't like pasta or ground beef overly, it is no surprise I'm opting to toss it. O&G liked it; again, no surprise there!

Last night after O went to bed, I whipped up some sugar cookie dough and popped it into the fridge. Tonight after bedtime I pulled it out and whipped up cookies with one half of the dough and threw the other half into the freezer for another time. Half the baked cookies went into the freezer too, but who am I kidding, those won't stay in there for long! These sugar cookies are simple to make and if I kept a better eye on them in the oven and got them off the hot pan immediately, I probably wouldn't have as many burnt cookies. Even the burnt ones are good though. As per usual, I forgot to read my comments I jotted on the recipe the last time I made them, to try the spiced alternative they list at the end. I'll just have to make them again some time! From November 2005's Chatelaine: Christmas sugar cookie cut-outs.

October 3rd: French Onion Soup

Verdict:
Keeper: French Onion Soup

From October 2009's Chatelaine: Fabulous French onion soup. It really is fabu too. I made the mistake of making this in the past with sweet onions, which were not good. This time around I used one white and one red and those were good choices. I don't seem to have wine on hand for cooking much, so I just used more beef broth in place of the wine, which likely doesn't give it as much depth, but ah well. This is a good soup, and although it takes a bit of time for cooking, is relatively simple in its preparation.

October 2nd: Margherita Pizza

Verdict:
Try Again: Margherita Pizza

Did you know Margherita is Italian for daisy? The things Wikipedia teaches me!

For the month of October, and maybe beyond, I am planning a once-a-week family pizza night. This is a super challenge for me, because Greg and Olivia love pizza and I don't. My goal is simple: make pizza that we all love. Homemade crust, sauce and toppings are all part of the deal. First up on the menu: from October 2010's Chatelaine: pizza dough + pizza sauce = Margherita pizza on Saturday night. Greg was working so it was up to me and O to get the crust made, let it rise twice, simmer up some pizza sauce, chop toppings and then put the whole deal together. Relatively easy, in fact, but we did miss Saturday afternoon swimming at the pool because I didn't want to leave my rising dough unattended. Should have made up for that on Sunday but we went to the gym instead. Alas. Here is the work in progress:

Plus the sauce:

The pre-and post-cooked pizzas:

And the finished result:

So, what did we think? Essentially, this is a review of three recipes. The pizza dough I made exactly as the recipe directed. It turned out beautifully, and cooked up thin and crispy, just as I like dough. When Greg ate his pizza later in the night, he didn't realize I had made the dough and thought I had bought a pre-made crust. Needless to say, I was not impressed! I think he liked the crust, but he prefers a thicker crust than I do, so I'm not sure...

The pizza sauce I made as directed, but upped the amount of garlic. The only thing I would change is using 3/4 cup sauce on the pizzas rather than 1/2 cup; the crust was a little dry with the lesser amount. The pizza sauce was delicious and fresh-tasting. I could have eaten it out of the pot, and did, a little bit. I should note I don't like tomatoes, so that is high praise from me. Also note that the link for the pizza sauce above forgets to list fresh basil in the ingredients, but does call for it in the directions.

The pizza is called "modern" Margherita. "Modern," I think, because it replaces basil with mint, and Bocconcini with goat cheese. I used basil, not mint, but did use goat cheese, as I already had some open in the fridge I wanted to use up. Again, when Greg ate his, he didn't realize it was goat cheese and thought he was eating bland Bocconcini. !!?? I think his taste buds were off their game. I loved this pizza. I thought it tasted simple, fresh and all-around good. Definitely, I would make it again. Olivia ate hers, slowly, but in its entirety. Greg liked it, I think.