Spring Pizza and Some Other Stuff...

This recipe is coming.  Be patient....

     Usually when I come back from a trip I sigh, clasp my hands under my chin, and bat my eyes about what a wondrous culinary adventure I had and regale you with tales of my perfect family's perfect vacation.  Lemme tell ya.  This ain't gunna be one of those posts.  My son is going through an unusual developmental thing right now that, in an effort to afford him some privacy when he is old enough to read this blog I won't go into detail on, but I will say it made mealtimes challenging.  Couple that with a limited resort menu and a limited restaurant selection and I ended up having one good meal on the island.  

     This was it.  I was so desperate for something edible I didn't even stop to take a picture beforehand.  It was the gnocchi at a place in Koloa called Pizzetta.  Get it.  And get the tiramisu.  Holy crud.

     Got back home, discovered a week's worth of mail had been stolen, and on top of that someone had been writing (and cleared) a couple checks.  So we've been in a whirlwind of account closures, police reports, and general feelings of violation for the past week.

     Top that with my husband's surgery on Tuesday that both of us were expecting to be more on the "not-terribly-extreme" end, and ended up being on the "much-more-than-we-bargained-for" end and I'm completely drained.

     This isn't a "poor me I can't do my blog" post.  It's a "WT actual F?!" post.

But to be fair we did have a really great time, even if it wasn't culinarily mind blowing.

Did I find a recipe to make again (better) at home?

 Yes.

Eat totally worth it $12 chocolate made on Kauai?

 Yeah, man!

Sample a weird fruit we weren't sure how to eat?

Yes. (It's a cream apple.  Next time we won't try to eat it w/o utensils....)

Did I get to eat my first manapua?

Yes.  This is purple sweet potato.  It was a really good dessert.

Visit a Taro Chip factory?

 Yes.  This is it.  The factory.  It's awesome.

Yes.  Four different varieties of chips, taro, purple sweet potato, and potato and purple sweet potato with li hing mui powder.

Yes.

And Oooooooh yes.  We loved all the flavors, but finally decided on two.  We paid the weathered little man, and as he was bagging them up, he stuck the other two varieties in the bag and said, "For you!"  If you are ever in Hanapepe (the town that Disney used as a model for the town in Lilo and Stitch) you have got to go by the chip factory.

Did we find what my husband called the best textured shave ice he's ever eaten?

Yes. (From Wishing Well Shave Ice in Hanalae).

Did we rent a convertible?

Hail to the yes.  And we got it stuck in the sand because we're not used to driving two wheel drive cars...  Oops.  Fortunately a couple of locals took pity on us and helped us shove it out of the hole we dug ourselves into.

Did we see this?

Yes.

Did we see a bunch of touristy stuff?

Yes. (Wimea Canyon)

 Yes. (Spouting Horn)

 Yes. (Kilauea Lighthouse)

And yes. (Hanapepe Swinging Bridge)

Did we see a bunch of not so touristy stuff?

 Yes. (Talk Story Bookstore mural in Hanapepe)

Yes. (Gorgeous smelling barbecue on Poipu beach.  Dude came up a little later and chopped actual logs to feed the fire in this little thing.  No sissy lighter fluid filled briquets for kama'aina!)

 Yes.  (The Menehune Ditch, built to bring water from the mountains down to the fields at the base of the mountain.  Legend says the Menehune built it.  They are mythical men who helped the ancient Hawaiians build lots of things.  They seemed to have been especially active on Kauai.)

Double yes.

Would I do it all again?  Oh heck yes.

Would I skip all the returning home drama?

Yes.

When we got home it was Easter and we spent the day with some friends.  This was my lunch contribution:

What says Spring more than eggs, asparagus, and ramps?
  This is asparagus pesto on a pizza crust baked with ramps and topped with a fried egg, thyme and a mild chevre.

We also made these.  Avocado, asparagus pesto, cumin, dill, goat cheese deviled eggs.
  I'm unclear as to whether we had started drinking yet at this phase.  They were... interesting...  Make the pizza.  Maybe skip the deviled eggs.

These are ramps by the way.  I extolled the virtues of ramps last year.  They are a wild leek native to the Eastern states.  I may or may not have tried to transplant a few into my back yard.  (Shhhh...)

I just realized that this is basically the same recipe I wrote last year.  Doesn't matter.  This time there's pizza crust and pesto.  I used the asparagus pesto recipe from Food and Wine.

Asparagus Pesto Pizza with Ramps and Eggs

1 batch of pizza dough

1/4-1/2 C Asparagus Pesto

4-5 ramps

1-4 eggs

1 Tbs goat cheese (for sprinkling)

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

butter

Depending on the size of your pizza, you will need differing quantities of the ingredients.  The smallest amount is for a personal size, the largest amount works for a large, four adult size pizza.  Bake your pizza dough according to recipe directions.  I like to do mine at 500 on a pizza stone.  Bake until slightly browned, but not completely finished.  Your crust might puff up in the center like a balloon, that's perfectly fine, just push it down flat when you take it out of the oven.  Remove from oven, and top with pesto and ramps.  Cook a few more minutes until ramps have wilted.  In the mean time, fry your eggs in the butter until they have reached your perfect consistency.  I like sunny side up for this, but hard boiled would probably be great, too.  When ramps have wilted, remove pizza from oven, top with eggs and sprinkle with goat cheese and thyme.  

Notes:

When I made this at my friend's house, I baked the eggs on top of the pizza.  That worked OK but it was hard for me to tell the eggs doneness so they ended up being over-baked.  It's just as fast and a little easier to run quality control if you fry the egg separately.

If you can't find ramps, or want to try this when their short season is over, you can sub green onions, garlic, or thin slices of leek.

Review:
The adults loved it and the kids were happy with their regular old pepperoni.

PS, On a quasi food-related Hawai'i note, we don't have cable so the only time my kids get to see it is when we're on vacation.  My 6-year old's new favorite tv show?  Diner's Drive-Ins and Dives.  "I like that guy.  He's funny.  He looks like he's about to cry all the time."  He also said, "I can feel in my mind what the food would feel like."  So there you go, Guy Fieri's target audience: 6 year old boys on vacation.

Shall I Compare Thee to A Hummus Pizza?

You may recall from my Hawai'i post that I had a rather disappointing encounter with a hummus pizza.  

He was gorgeous, but I wanted more from the relationship than he was willing to give.  You know, flavor-wise.  

     Well, my friends, I have whipped out my brand new pizza stone for this and holy crud is it worth it (insert de-flouring joke here).  I do not have a pizza peel however.  For those of you who don't know, a peel is that big fancy wooden board thingie they show in the commercials that looks like a big flat shovel.  Apparently, it's handy for getting your 'za into and out of the bloody hot oven.  So, while this bad boy tasted beautiful, this is the shape it turned out:

He may not be all that much to look at, but he's got it where it counts.  Ooooohhh yeah...

No matter what shape yours turns out you will want to eat a lot of this as fast as you possibly can.

     Here's a couple of things about a pizza stone.  They're not too expensive.  The one I bought was about $25 and was made in the USA, too.  Love that.  You have to heat your oven really high (500 degrees and up) and you need to heat your stone at least 30 minutes before inserting the pizza.  I used a spatula and the bottom of a baking sheet as the "peel".  It worked great with a thicker crust, but not so much on the super thin one.

     Find a pizza crust recipe you like.  This one called for the oven to be heated to 550°.  It's probably a good medium for any dough you choose.

Ugly But Worth It Hummus Thin-Crust Pizza

Pizza dough

Olive oil

2 cloves garlic

Hummus

1/4 small squash, cubed

1/4 small zucchini, cubed

Sundried tomatoes packed in oil

Feta cheese

One half hour in advance, move the middle rack down to the bottom third of the oven and put the pizza stone on it.  Preheat to 550°.  While the stone is pre-heating, roll out your dough very thinly (1/4-1/8 inch).  Flour your peel or dust it with cornmeal.  Transfer the dough to the peel and brush the top of the crust completely with olive oil.  Using a garlic press, crush the garlic over the crust and brush it around as evenly as possible.  Transfer the crust to the stone and bake it for 2 to 4 minutes depending on how thinly you've rolled it.  It will start to bubble almost instantly.  When the crust has bubbled up, dried a bit, and has turned just a tiny bit tan, remove it from the oven and as quickly as you can, spread with hummus, add the veggies and lightly sprinkle the cheese.  Return it to the oven for another 2-4 minutes until the edges have begun browning.  Remove it from the oven and let it cool slightly until it's just above room temp.  This won't take long with a thin crust pizza.  It is still wonderful once it's at room temp, but too warm, you can't taste the hummus as much.

Notes:

I could take or leave the tomatoes.  Hubby liked them.  In a previous incarnation of this recipe, I used sweet little peppers cut into strips, those were wonderful but I forgot when I was making this one.  Next time I want to try shredded carrots.  To veganize this, you could easily leave off the feta.

Also, upon further experimentation (and a little hint from America's Test Kitchen) I found that a little parchment paper under the thinner crust pizza helps it keep its shape during transfer.  Just slide the pizza off, paper and all.  Don't worry, the paper won't burn in the oven, which was my original fear...

Review:

The boys both approached this with a little hesitation.  But once they had a bite, they were hooked!  I also made an additional crust covered in olive oil and garlic and cut it up into strips to dip into the hummus.  They liked that even better.  None of those pesky vegetables to get between the bread and the hummus... =)

St. Patrick's Day's A Comin'...

     Last year on St. Patrick's Day I lamented the fact that I didn't have anything green in my recipe box.  This year I've got another confession to make.  I've been deceiving you with my recipes (only a teensy bit).  Maybe "deceive" is the wrong word...  Exaggerating?  I do believe in eating fresh, organic, and local as much as possible, but we don't eat like this all the time, especially when my farmer's market is closed for the season.  I've got two little boys who can make gourmet meal preparation a challenge to say the least.  What we actually eat are things like macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, and burritos.

     Now, though I usually make them from scratch (no blue boxes of "mak n' cheaz" in my pantry, thank you) we are hardly the gourmands we seem to be with recipes like this, this, and this.  So this St. Patrick's Day I'm kicking off a new (occasionally updated) series called: "How We Really Eat."  The recipes are quick, sometimes use store-bought/name brand ingredients, are free of preservatives, as local as possible, and weird chemical-free.  (I spend a lot of time in the store squinting at labels, let me just say!) I'll be posting the recipes throughout the year. 

Today, for St. Patty's day, that traditional Ye Olde Irish dish:  Pesto Pizza

Check out the also not Irish beer.  It's local.  It's goooood.  It's Pike's Place Brewery Pale Ale.  You can get your own at Pike's Place Market and grocery stores in the greater Seattle area.  They have one called "Kilt Lifter" but I was afraid that a Leprechaun might beat me to death with a shillelagh if I used it in a St. Patrick's Day post...

Pesto Pizza 
Start with the pesto:
Yield: enough for two pizzas and a little left over
3-4 C basil, washed and dried
3 large garlic cloves
1/2 C olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
1/4 C pine nuts
2 Tbs shredded Parmesan
salt

Put everything in a food processor except the Parmesan and buzz until it's "pesto-y."  Then add the Parmesan and buzz it some more.

For the Pizza:
1 package Trader Joe's garlic and herb pizza crust, divided in half
4-8 sundried tomatoes packed in oil (Mediterranean Organic brand), roughly chopped
5-6 cloves garlic
baby bella mushrooms, sliced (these are button mushrooms pictured here, and they turned out fine, too)
feta cheese
mozzarella cheese
salt

Preheat oven to 425°.  Dust your work surface lightly with bread flour.  Divide dough in half and roll out as thinly as possible, about a 1/4 inch.   Lightly brush entire crust with olive oil.  Crush garlic with a garlic press over the crust and brush until it is distributed evenly.  Pesto is next, make sure to leave the edges clear.  If you really want to guild the lily, you can drizzle a tablespoon or so of oil from the sundried tomatoes bottle over the pesto.  Place mushrooms and tomatoes sparsely over  pesto.  Sprinkle salt around the edge of the crust.  This next part may seem weird, but trust me.  Put the pizza in the oven without the cheese.  Bake until the crust just begins to brown, about 10-12 minutes.  Remove from oven and sprinkle with feta and/or mozzarella.  The more sparse the better.  Then return to oven and bake for 2-4 minutes until cheese is just melted.

Optional:
If you don't want to make your own pesto, or don't have the time, Roland Pesto is the best!  The 3 oz jar should cover at least one crust and you can over the other with tomato sauce and see how you like that!

Review:
This my favorite pizza of all time.  My previous view of pizza was more cheese, more crust, gimme.  This crust is so crispy I just couldn't stand to make it all soggy under a million toppings and gobs of cheese. It's thin crust gone sophisticated with zero time spent slaving over a warm proofing drawer!

When the Moon Hits Your Eye...

This recipe came on a coupon flyer in the newspaper.  I didn't use Gallo brand salame since it's got nitrates (sorry Gallo!) and I didn't use refrigerated bread dough.  I know, it kind of defeats the purpose of a quick meal when you add dough making to the equation...  I just don't like the way most refrigerated doughs taste and by making my own I know exactly what's in it.  The dough recipe I found here.  I used my bread machine to mix it up so it wasn't really that much extra work and had the added benefit of not needing to be thawed, which I can never remember to do.

Salame and Cheese Pizza Bread

Prep time: 10 minutes
Rise time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 15-20 minutes

1 T olive oil
1 (3 lb) package frozen bread dough, thawed
1/4 C chopped fresh basil, divided in half
8 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 C freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 (16 oz) package Gallo Sliced Salame
1/2 C drained oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, minced

Spread olive oil in bottom of a jelly roll pan; press dough into pan, stretching to cover bottom of entire pan.  Press half of the basil into the dough.  Let stand in a warm, draft-free place for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Top dough with cheeses.  Lay salame in rows over cheese, overlapping slightly; top with tomatoes and garlic.  Bake on bottom oven rack for 15-20 minutes or until surface is golden brown.  Remove from oven and sprinkle with remaining basil.
Makes 12 generous servings.

My substitutions/additions:

• I used Applegate Farms salami.
• I didn't wait for dough to rise the second time, partly because I had just made the dough, and partly because I didn't have the time.
• I also didn't have time for beer to flatten, but it was just fine.
• I made half sun-dried tomatoes, half salame.  One of the beauties of pizza in the half veggie household.
• I think it could use more garlic, but that's just 'cuz I like garlic, and I don't know if the salame side needs it or not.

Review:
DH said it was some of the best I've made.  He loved the salami and said he preferred it to pepperoni (as he was shoving pieces into his mouth straight out of the bag).  The crust was fantastic and I could see perking it up even more with fresh chopped rosemary or thyme.  The boys both had seconds and so did I.  Definite keeper.

PS, it is incredibly hard to make jarred sun-dried tomatoes look yummy in pictures.  Sorry...