Dinner with Devin: Pizza & Pudding

My sister, Devin, lives with me and makes helps me do DIY projects and create food from scratch.  Tonight Sammit is working and it's just us and the pets so we decided to make a chicken artichoke white pizza and chocolate pudding for dessert.

Chicken-Artichoke White Pizza

I've been working with a few pizza crusts.  Tonight I chose this one because it is simple and only takes about an hour from proofing yeast to laying on toppings.  This dough makes two big pizzas for us so I usually divide it after the first rise and freeze half*.

Look at that browning!

Dough - Ingredients
7g or 1 packet of dry active yeast
235ml or 1 cup warm water (110-115 (F))
200g or 1 1/2 cups white flour (bread flour for a crisper crust, AP for a chewier crust)
75g or 1/2 cup wheat flour (you can use all white if you'd like)
30ml or 2 Tbs olive oil
6g or 1 tsp salt
8g or 2 tsp honey

Dough - Directions
1. Proof yeast in warm water with honey for 10 minutes.  Add olive oil.
2. Combine flour and salt, then mix in wet ingredients and combine into a loose dough.
3. Knead on a floured surface for 10 minutes or until the dough passes the windowpane test.
4. Form into a ball and let rise in a lightly oiled bowl covered with a tea towel for 30 minutes.
5. Halve the dough and roll out onto a stone/lightly oiled pan.  Note: if your pizza dough always springs back and won't roll out - let it rest for 5 minutes and try again, repeat as needed.  The gluten needs time to relax.

Pizza - Ingredients
Pizza Dough, rolled out
Enough olive oil to brush the crust's face-up side
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 handful of good ricotta cheese (whey squeezed out)
1/2 lb. shredded brick cheese (we used "brick" an italian pizza cheese with a lot of flavor but mozzarella works well, too).
1 handful of chicken (shredded/sliced, baked/grilled)
1 handful of artichoke hearts
Big pinch of oregano or italian or pizza seasoning

Pizza - Directions
1. Preheat oven to 500 (F).
2. Brush out enough olive oil to lightly over the dough.
3. Spread remaining ingredients evenly starting with garlic, then ricotta, chicken, artichokes, shredded cheese.
4. Pop pizza in the oven, turn oven down to 400 (F) and bake for 15 minutes.

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Chocolate Pudding
I used a quick chocolate pudding recipe from Smitten Kitchen.  It was delicious - light but very rich.  I want to experiment using natural sweeteners (honey or maple syrup) but I thought I'd take it as is first.  I made the mistake of subbing the whole milk for 2 parts skim milk and 1 part half & half.  I didn't have whole milk and didn't want to buy any, but the pudding ended up kind of thin instead.



*When it's time to use the frozen dough, simply take it out of the freezer container and let it thaw/rise for 30 minutes, then proceed as normal.

Mint & Strawberry Salad

Devin and I finished taking out the fence in order to get the garden ready for building.  We broke for a nice lunch and utilized some of the spearmint that's popping up in the yard (and by some, I mean more mint than I will ever be able to use).

Here's a photo set Devin put together from our lunch.

Broccoli, corn on the cob, swiss mushroom brat from the farm,
and mint-strawberry salad.

We aren't very good at the before and after shots yet, but this is from the same angle and gives you an idea of what we've done so far - and here's where we hope to go!

Big Black Fence 

Fenceless! Next the tilling & building.

Bruleed Bananas

Devin and I had a hankering for something sweet this afternoon.  Inspired by an episode of Good Eats and equipped with a blow torch from my dear friend, Monica, we tried our hand at Bruleed Bananas.

Photography by Devin Hendrick of dehephotography.

Ingredients
2 bananas
3 tsp vanilla sugar*

Directions

Sugared bananas, before they were peeled.

1. Slice the ends off each banana then cut them in half length-wise and width-wise so you're left with 4 pieces per banana.



2. Coat the cut edge of banana in the vanilla sugar (nestle it in).

See that guy in the back? Burned.  It happens fast, people.

3. Peel the bananas and lay them, sugar side up, on a heat proof pan.




4. Torch those babies in an even sweeping motion until the sugar caramelizes - don't let it burn.

Delicious with that crispy crunch!

5. Cool and enjoy!

*You can use regular white sugar, but we thought the hint of vanilla would add to our enjoyment.  I make my own vanilla sugar by stashing emptied/used vanilla bean pods in a small container of sugar.  I shake it and adjust every few months.

Poached Pears

Disclaimer: When I was looking for information on the foods Sammit and I could or could not eat while searching for my suspected food allergy I found a lot of conflicting lists.  In the end, I settled on the list of foods to avoid from my ND - so I apologize if this recipe contains foods that you are not able to eat on your elimination diet.

 Sammit and I put together a nice dinner last night (when I say together - I made dinner and Sammit set the table and did the dishes).  I foil baked [Wild Alaskan] cod with some Old Bays & garlic and added a side of wild rice (cooked in HM bone stock) and steamed broccoli.  I was going to take a picture because it was just beautiful - but I'm finding that the better the meal, the less likely I am to have a picture.  I'll work on that.  But the real show stopper was dessert, something to which we thought we'd long said goodbye while looking for my allergy: poached pears!

Now, I've never made or had poached pairs before this, so if you're familiar (and a big fan) you might not like these.  We aren't wine drinkers and rarely ever have it in the house so even though the alcohol would cook off (alcohol is not allowed on the ED) we didn't use any in our recipe.  We also can't have processed sugar, so the simple syrup was out as well.  What to do - What to do?

2 cups water
2 Tbs. wildflower honey (from this Adorable man at the Eastern Market)
1 Tbs. maple syrup (we are using up our grade A and are searching for a local grade B variety)
1 cinnamon stick
1 vanilla bean, seeds removed - reserving both the seeds and the pod
1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped or grated (less if you find ginger to be strong)
Handful of blueberries
2 firm pears, cored with skins peeled off (skins and core can be composted or used as an ingredient to flavor the liquid)


Directions:

1. Add all but the pears to pot appropriately sized to house the pears and bring to a boil.  (I used a high walled but small pot that made it easier to evenly cook the pears - however the lack of surface area caused the syrup to take longer to reduce).

2. Turn the heat down to a simmer and gently add the peeled pears (as they cook they will become easier to bruise).  Place a lid on the pot and let simmer for 20-30 minutes (I let them cook while I made dinner).  Alternately you could put them in an oven-safe pot and let them bake at 250 for several hours.


3. When pears are soft (20-30 minutes on stove top), gently remove them from the sauce and let them cool.  Strain out the solid contents and keep the liquid in the pot - placing over medium heat and allowing it to reduce (stirring regularly) to your desired syrup thickness - I like mine to coat a spoon.  Now - you can keep the blueberries to serve, but we composted ours - they looked too much like Violet Beauregarde for my taste.

4.  Spoon syrup over pears and serve.

Liquid reducing into a syrup

Sammit and I loved the taste of these - pears, honey, ginger with hints of cinnamon and specks of vanilla and blueberry - not to mention the gorgeous color.  A true compliment from Sammit is him remarking on the food without me having to ask if he likes it (he likes everything).  Not only did he think they were delicious, he suggested we serve them at a dinner party; we don't really have dinner parties, but the thought was touching and I'll put these on the short list of things to serve his parents someday.  We also both agreed that as long as it doesn't turn out I'm allergic to dairy, these would be fabulous with some real whipped cream or a dollop of ice cream.  And should I ever decide to get really crazy, I thought about coring ice cream and serving it INSIDE the pear.

Our final product