Today’s guest post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale.
It’s the end of harvest season in the upper midwest, and for us it was a good year for eggplant. The only difficulty with that is what to do with all that eggplant from the last picking. Since I have what we fondly refer to as “enough cookbooks”, I’ve discovered recipes for Eggplant Fritters, Eggplant Custard, Eggplant Lasagna, Eggplant Pizza, and Baked Eggplant. Some Trail Baboon readers already know about “PJ’s Eggplant Curry“. And of course there are my old standards, Ratatouille and Baba Ganoush.
I realized that Fried Eggplant is the first step in several recipes; I could get brave and try it again, then freeze it in small batches and decide later how to finally use it.
The “getting brave” part is because I’d tried fried eggplant once before, and it was horrible. Just because I consult a recipe doesn’t mean I follow it to the end. I didn’t salt the pieces and let them drain, didn’t use enough oil, probably didn’t get it hot enough, etc. So this time I promised myself that I would not deviate from the instructions, and I came close to keeping my promise. I cut the eggplants lengthwise, pretty close to the prescribed thickness, ¾”. I salted the slices and let them give up their beads of water, which I blotted away before frying. I heated the oil each time I added some, as directed. I drained on paper towels on a platter.
So I am inordinately pleased with my batch of Fried Eggplant. I changed only two things in the recipe (an un-breaded version from: The Best of Ethnic Home Cooking by Mary Poulis Wilde). Instead of frying in an inch of olive oil, I chose a half inch. (I’m rather stingy with my olive oil.) And I didn’t peel the eggplant (what, and lose all that shiny dark beauty?), so some of my pieces are rather chewy. But as I taste them, I am transported to a little corner of heaven. Wow, it worked!
Now somewhere in the middle of winter, I’ll pull out a package from the freezer and decide whether to use it for some version of Eggplant Parmigiana, or maybe even Moussaka.
When have you, successfully or not, altered a recipe?
Trail Baboon 
RIse and Shine Baboons!
This post was an effort BiR–Eggplant pictures on a non-cooking blog! So versatile!
Sigh. I alter recipes each time I cook. I view recipes as “suggestions” not THE RULES. As a child I cooked for the family starting at age 9. I learned to cook from my mother and grandmother. My grandmother, especially, was an expert cook. Learning from her was learning the art of it all. If you hung out with her in her kitchen or in my mother’s kitchen, she would tell all her little secrets: like salt on eggplant to draw out the water; soak home grown broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts in salt water before cooking to evict the worms–an old organic trick that eliminates the need for pesticide.
So, I learned to improvise from my earliest days as a cook from the master, my grandma who was the queen of her kitchen. The only recipes I don’t change are the basic ingredients in a bread recipe. While you can often add things to bread there is a great deal of touchy chemistry interaction between the flour, water, yeast and sugar that you mustn’t alter or you get a product you do not intend.
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Morning all… thanks for the cooking lesson BiR!
There aren’t very many recipes that I HAVEN’T altered. One of my happiest alterations is a vegetarian stuffing dish that I found in a magazine. For years I tried one vegetarian thanksgiving dish after another at our gathering – all OK, but nothing that screamed “make me again next year”. Then I found the stuffing recipe. Sounded good and I purchased what I thought I needed. On Thanksgiving morning, it turned out I didn’t have the almonds or the raisins in the cabinet like I thought. So I made the stuffing with pine nuts and craisins instead. Added a little extra apple juice to keep the bread moistened and put in more red onion than the recipe called for (because I didn’t want to waste 1/2 the onion). Luckily I remembered the alterations because everyone raved about the stuffing, including the non-vegetarians and I now make it every year!
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Well, post the recipe VS! I have a vegetarian coming for T-giving and I will make it.
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pine nuts, you might as well suate 10 dollar bills.
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you must have newer bills than I do, tim. I find they don’t give nearly the satisfying curnch of the pine nuts.
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🙂
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you are sauteeing them too long. shorten it up a bit
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I don’t like to make to make too many chages in a recipe and some times wonder if I am overdoing the amount of onions. My father once told us that you can’t put too many onions in something you are cooking, adding extra onions just makes it better. I think he was more or less right about that..
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Good morning to all,
We have been experimenting with eggplant at our house. In the past we usually fried slices which does take a lot of oil. This summer I found a recipe for baked eggplant. You can do this without using so much oil because you just brush a little on slices and put them into the oven on a broiler pan. They need to be turned. It doesn’t take long. We also tried grilling slices brushed with oil on our back yard gas grill. This also worked and it was sort of an extension of the recipe for baking the eggplant slices so it was sort of an altered recipe. We make changes in recipes as we see fit. Some times I look at a number of similar recipes and combine elements from several of them. Some of these “experiments” turn out better than others.
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I need to make a correction in the recipe for cooking eggplant in the oven. It is broiled, not baked. Recipes slip out of my mind in no time. Over the years I have found many good recipes that I don’t remember at all.
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One more addition to the broiled eggplant recipe. It is very good with a little grated Parmasan cheese sprinkled on it after removing it from the oven.
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eggplant is my least favorite food in the world i believe. it is so beautiful but there is nothing there to work with. reminds me of early dating. no matter what i try you can’t make it work, a waste of tomato sauce in eggplant parmasen, rattatoullie would be better without the eggplant even if you added anyother option on gods green earth. celery tomato lettuce radish cucumbers pepper all wonderful stuff to throw in a salad. zuchinni is tweekable, eggplant nah. is it so easy to grow there is a reason i am unaware of to put a seed in the gorund? i don’t get it!
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I think Husband would agree with you… It grew on me, eventually, now I really like it. Usually with wine, though, come to think of it.
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I also had trouble finding good uses for eggplant that I liked. I would always try frying it and it was a little hard to get it cooked without adding a lot of oil which it soak up in great amounts. I think the way Barbara fried it with 1/2 inch of oil would be better. That would be more like deep frying. I kept adding oil a little at a time and it never got very well browned and just kept soaking up the oil. However, I can get eggplant cooked in a way I like in the broiler. I think eggplant that is cooked until it is soft in the middle and browned on the outside does have a good flavor. I supose salting the raw eggplant to draw out the water would make it easier to fry, but I never wanted to take time to do that and I don’t need to do that to cook it in the broiler.
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I would grow it for its dusky foliage and beautiful blossoms. It’s one of the more beautiful vegetable garden plants somewhat resembling nicotiana – it’s a relative of the tobacco plant.
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my friend Sue was an excellent baker – i always said that was because she was so obedient. i’m a bad baker but a better cook – you can guess why.
the trouble with tweaking – which, like many of you i do all of the time – is that i don’t write down successes or failures or changes that produced them. but heck, i usually lose the recipe also. or maybe there wasn’t one in the first place.
last TG weekend, for our “orphans’ dinner,” i made a coffee (goats’ milk) flan that made everyone weak in the knees. i’ve been looking for the recipe since. do you think i can find that sucker anywhere? and if i find it, i won’t see the changes i made to it. i am pretty sure it didn’t even start out as a coffee flan….. ha, ha..
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You really need to be a rule bound person to be a good baker. Maybe I could use baking style as a diagnostic aid. Does being a good baker make a person more uptight, unimaginative, obsessive compulsive or rigid? Are poor bakers more likely to be free spirits, right brained, or careless? Hmm. This warrants further study.
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I bet the bakers of the world would quibble with that hypothesis, but I won’t. I’m not a good baker because I don’t pay close enough attention to measurements. Besides, I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, so I’ve never gotten into cookies and such. As anyone who has ever had dinner at our house will tell you, desserts are not my strong suit. A chunk of good cheese and a little fresh fruit and I’m content.
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but, but…you’re Danish, aren’t you?
The best food I have ever eaten came from the Danish farmwives of west central Iowa. I doubt I shall ever eat the like of it again. I’m sure it had a lot to do with all the farm fresh ingredients they used. I also don’t think they wrote a lot down.
There were 2 retired school cooks who did the cooking for our Bible camp, and I remember one of them stirring whatever it was they were making while the other poured the flour out of the sack until they both thought it was the right amount.
Experience will do that for you.
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mig, I must be genetically flawed. My mother was Irish and if you were to use her culinary skills as typical for the Irish, you would have to agree with those who say that Irish gourmet food is an oxymoron.
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6 pack of guiness and a potato
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mig, one of the recipes in my Danish American Fellowship cookbook, has this postscript.
“This recipe is from my grandmother, Mrs. Janet Jensen, Fredsville, Iowa.” Is that anywhere near where you grew up? Just wondering.
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Hmmm, seems to be near Cedar Falls, so not the community I grew up with. Somebody at the Fredsville Lutheran Church is doing a lot on-line though-goodness!
The Danes I knew were farther west, mid-way between Des Moines and Omaha-I believe Clyde knows the area. If any of the recipes you have are for a cookie (I have no idea of the name of it, never heard it) that contains baker’s ammonia and looks like a biscuit when baked, but is more like a meringe when you bite into it, I would be much obliged. I cannot find this thing anywhere, and I always loved them for the surprise value (and they were delicious too).
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Right off, that description doesn’t ring a bell with me. What exactly do you mean by “looks like a biscuit”? Like in biscuit and gravy, without the gravy kinda thing?
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Greetings! As I have mentioned before, my dear mother was a very bad cook, so I did not have a good example. However, I have learned to do decent, basic cooking — but I follow recipes quite closely. Once I’ve made a recipe a few times, then I might feel free to change it a little if I’m missing ingredients or whatever — but not too often. I’ve never made up my own recipe — I don’t have the confidence or the imagination to do anything wonderful with food. I have great respect for those who do! For me, any kitchen is Hell’s Kitchen.
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Like Joanne, I’ve learned NOT to alter recipes, at least until I can make them blindfolded, because I’m not an inspired cook and extemporization usually leads, though not to disaster, to a very disappointing meal. I’m slowly accumulating a repertoire of recipes for everyday lunches (mainly stirfry sauces, curries and soups) as I figure out what my skills, tastes and imagination can handle–the quinoa mango risotto with spiced taro chips and avocado aoili will just have to wait (no, that’s not a real recipe, but if you want to try inventing it, be my guest!). Barbara, if I’d known you were buried in eggplant I would have been happy to take a few off your hands last weekend!
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Over time I have learned enough to do some improvising. You would think it would not be too hard to make soup without using a recipe. My experiments with making up my own recipes for soup have not turned out well in most cases. As a result, I usually follow a recipe if I want to make a really good tasting soup.
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This “essay” was actually written a few weeks ago, but I’ll certainly remember you for next year, CG!
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I’m fairly lazy when it comes to food preparation. Most raspberry jam recipes call for removing some of the seeds, but I leave them all in there. I figure it’s higher in fiber that way. (Perhaps it was the seediness of the jam which prompted a friend of mine to suggest “Grape jam is for sissies” as an appropriate slogan.) I am always impatient when a recipe says something like “beat in eggs, one at a time” or “sift together dry ingredients” or “add milk gradually”. Life is too short.
I’ve made baba ganoush, but it wasn’t as good as BiR’s (had a generous helping when Jacque hosted BBC). My other eggplant adventures would have to be called failures, I’m afraid. I do like Eggplant Parmigiana when somebody else cooks it.
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During college I spent part of a summer in France with business associates of my father. We went to the country and the isolation was good for my language skills. They ate family style and everybody had to eat a plateful before the next course was served. They were very interested in liver which was VERRY challenging.
One day they served a suspicious looking food. I asked what it was but at the time “Aubergine” was not in my vocabulary. I feared it was another form of liver. I was so delighted when I took a bite and tasted eggplant.
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And, as Anna observed recently, it’s fun to say it in a French accent…”oh-behr-jzheen”…
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I just altered a recipe last week. The recipe is called “Chocolate Fudge Cookies with Dried Cherries” and one of the changes I made was to soak the cup of dried cherries in 1 T. amaretto before adding them to the cookie dough (adding the amaretto too, of course). Additionally, I added another tablespoon or so of amaretto with the vanilla extract, and threw in 2 or 3 oz. of melted bittersweet chocolate to the creamed mixture – the dry ingredients already had 1/2 c. cocoa and the dough has 8 oz. chocolate chunks in it, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have a wee bit more chocolate, and I was right. The cookies turned out to be absolutely wonderful.
I’m always tweaking recipes. They often turn out pretty well.
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Ooooooooooh.
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My sweetie is a great cook but she approaches it as a biblical (10 commandments style) chemistry experiment. Thou shalt have all of thine ingredients pre-chopped and waiting for thee in little bowls before the cooking process hath begun. Thou shalt not deviate from printed recipe EVER under pain of horrible, lingering death. Etc, etc, etc. Some would say that’s not actual ‘cooking’ but, rather, just combining ingredients. I, on the other hand, rarely follow recipes. I learned to cook from my Mother, who basically used whatever was at hand to create something we would call ‘dinner.’ Early in our marriage, I came home from work to find my wife working on a story in her office. I managed to find some leftover chicken in the fridge and found some pasta sauce, an onion, frozen broccoli, and a box of pasta. Insant dinner. My wife was amazed. “What do you mean you didn’t have a recipe? How did you know that it would taste good all mixed together if you didn’t have a recipe?” This is why I do most of the cooking.
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Sounds like your sweetie would be an excellent stir-fry cook. If you don’t have all of the ingredients pre-chopped and everything ready, you end up with a soggy overcooked mess.
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Okay, at least I’m nowhere near as bad as that 🙂 ! I remember running across an article about a web site on Cooking for Engineers–a techie guy was frustrated that he couldn’t comprehend directions like “Boil some water in a big pot, throw in the pasta and cook till it’s done”, and rewrote recipes as tables and flow charts. It probably works great–his readers can probably calculate the percentage of cooking time to add or delete for elevation and compensate for humidity in their heads.
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I think my husband might appreciate that level of detail. He doesn’t like to cook because he doesn’t get the nuance of “until done” in directions (and similarly vague instructions). He does, however, make a fabulous grilled cheese sandwich.
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I love the cook books, typically spiral bound, put out by church ladies, garden clubs, ethnic organizations, etc. You can tell a lot about the cook who submitted the recipe by how much detail they’ve included. You can also tell by looking at the recipes that the cook who submitted it often assume a fair amount of cooking expertise. Some of the recipes in my Danish American Fellowship cookbook would be completely unintelligible to someone not familiar with Danish food. This particular cookbook has six different recipes for “frikadeller” (Danish meatballs), and six different “æbleskiver” (pancake balls) recipes, each recipe submitter believing their version the best. Husband considers his “frikadeller” the best in the world, and my Dad thought his were.
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I have a recipe that, if you know about the person who wrote it, is absolutely creepy and tragic. A friend of mine gave me the recipe for chicken pot pie written by a plastic surgeon or her acquaintence. It is two pages, single spaced, in great detail with nothing left to chance or not made explict. It is for the world’s most perfect chicken pot pie. The creepiness comes in when I was told by my friend that the surgeon in question had been widowed when his perfect and beautiful trophy committed suicide by setting herself on fire.
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“of her acquaintence”.
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trophy wife jubilee
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Most suicides are tragic, but setting yourself on fire has to be very traumatic.
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I was struck withe the almost obsessive perfection of the recipe, and wondered if the surgeon had the same expectations for perfection in his family, and how symbolic was the nature of the suicide. I get the grues whenever I think about it.
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She does the “cooking show style” of food prep… At least she doesn’t get to the end of the process, having not read to the end, and find she’s out of a couple of key ingredients… 😐
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Indeed! In fact, when we visit either of our folks’ places, she loves watching Food Network. And she grew up watching Julia Child. I’m always surprised, when she’s cooking, that she doesn’t pull one out of the oven saying, “I made this one earlier…”
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I confess to cooking like a pirate-those recipes are really more like guidelines.
Before the advent of the s&h, I would sometimes cook myself a lovely full-blown meal and then package up the leftovers in the freezer for future use. I also watched a lot of cooking shows on PBS in those days and I really do find it true that cooking is more about what flavors work well together. I also grew up grocery shopping by the sale flyer and the garden. The idea of weekly menu planning with subsequent grocery shopping has never really seemed logical to me. You stock the pantry with things you like when they are on sale and put by whatever you can during garden season. Then you see what you have on hand and cook.
It must be working, because the s&h is about to top me in height (but please don’t notice that! he is self-conscious about the height as it is), and I could stand to lose a bit in width.
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I wish I could cook like that. It seems like it would be the most economical and fun way of making meals. But my brain doesn’t work like that…I have a terrible time looking at what’s in the garden, farmers market, pantry, or freezer, and then figuring out what to make with it. The past few months, I’ve been consciously trying to think that way and I’m getting a tiny bit better at it, but it’s not my natural way of thinking.
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i too am trying to empty the pantry. i have discovered stuff behind stuff tht dates back a wife or two. not sure want to try vintage canned goods or bottles of …what the heck is that???
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I’m squarely in the loosey goosey cook’s camp; I routinely alter recipes. What I don’t do, and have never understood anyone doing, is review a recipe when I have omitted key ingredients or substituted them with something completely different. So you didn’t have fennel and used celery instead, you left out six cloves of garlic, the fresh herbs and lemon juice, and now you’re telling me this recipes was nothing to write home about; go figure.
I often use Jim’s technique, if it can be called that, of combining recipes, and like biB, I don’t write down the changes I make, so you’re not likely to have the exact same dish twice. The exception to the experimentation is when I cook some ethnic cuisine the first couple of times. I love Moroccan and Turkish food and I try to follow those recipes as closely as I can, at least until I get the feel for how they’re supposed to taste.
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That’s pretty funny! Substituting celery for fennel and leaving out all the flavorful ingredients and then not liking the finished dish. That made me laugh. I think some people don’t understand that it’s the little things in the dish that can make a big difference between it being just edible and it being delicious. When I started using things like fresh lemon and lime juice, herbs, and wine or liqueurs in my cooking, it made a huge difference in taking my cooking up a notch to pretty darn good. Using good, fresh ingredients is important, but it’s those little things that can often put a dish into the “wow” category.
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I agree, Edith, fresh is the way to go whenever possible, and little things make all the difference between a so-so meal and a delicious one..
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I agree that there are lots of things that can be done to make food more interesting. At the same time I think good food prepared in a more basic way can be excellent. Broiled meat, a steamed fresh or frozen vegetable, and potatoes just cooked a few minutes in a microwave is a very good meal.
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You’re right, Jim. One of my favorites is good, fresh vegetables, roasted with a little olive oil and sprinkled with kosher salt after. Can’t beat it.
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I like both fresh and simple too, but there is something to be said for a soup made of well-combined leftovers. I think it is Crescent Dragonwagon who does this in a continuous fashion by adding supper leftovers to the crockpot for the next day’s lunch.
Obviously, you have to be rather discriminating about it, but it can be a wonderful and effortless way to have a cozy lunch. Should I ever get to work at home again, I’ll be doing that (although with a tall 12-year-old at the table, there are not so many leftovers lately).
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I think most soup recipes started out with someone cleaning out the refrigerator, and someone else saying – Hey, that’s really good, you should write down what went in there!
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Baking I tend to follow recipes a little more closely, but have been known to substitute and experiment – sometimes with better results than others. The sad yellow cake mix wound up being a lot tastier when orange juice was substituted for the water and I added some cinnamon and cardamom (and put a made-up-probably-can’t-make-it-the-same-again lemon/orange glaze on top). Cooking, well, yah – a list of ingredients is just that, a list. Items get added and omitted off those lists on a regular basis in my kitchen, especially since Husband can’t tolerate onions (oh the humanity!) or bell peppers. I have learned ways to tweak many things so that you still get a savory taste without the lovely and amazing onion (it’s a good thing I like him – I love onions).
One grand success was figuring out the proportions to adjust a cake-mix based Bundt recipe (dark chocolate cherry Bundt) to become gluten-free cupcakes. That worked well enough that I won a team baking contest at work. 🙂
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Would love to know that gluten-free cupcake trick, Anna… and VS’s altered Pine Nut Stuffing, and Barb’s coffee goat-milk flan, and Jim’s broiled eggplant, Edith’s Chocolate Fudge Cookies with Dried Cherries soaked in Amaretto, and Extra Chocolate… I suspected this might happen.
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Note: tsp = teaspoon and T. = tablespoon
Amaretto Chocolate Fudge Cookies with Dried Cherries
Place in bowl and toss together:
1 c. dried cherries
1 T. amaretto (or enough to moisten the cherries)
Let sit while you mix the other ingredients.
Stir together dry ingredients:
2 1/4 c. flour
1/2 c. cocoa (the kind you use for baking, not cocoa mix, duh)
1 tsp. soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 T. expresso powder (optional)
Cream together until fluffy:
1 cup unsaled butter, softened
1 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. white sugar
Beat in:
2 eggs
1/2 T. vanilla
1 1/2 T. amaretto
2-3 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted (I’m thinking a little unsweetened chocolate subbed for some of the bittersweet in this would be good, too)
Stir in:
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
the soaked cherries with liquid
the dry ingredients
Mix thoroughly. Drop by spoonfuls onto greased or parchment paper-lined cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for -oh my gosh, I forgot to write down the time, let’s say 10-15 minutes, depending on your oven – until firm. Cool on wire racks and enjoy!
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Here is my recipe (I had the recipe at work in an email since folks here wanted it awhile back):
Chocolate Cherry Fudge Cupcakes (Gluten Free)
2 boxes Betty Crocker Gluten Free Devil’s Food Cake Mix
2 tbl baking cocoa
1 stick butter
6 eggs
~4/5 cup water
1 small can cherry pie filling (Wilderness brand is gluten free)
1 cup mini chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin/cupcake tins for 36 cupcakes and set aside. Stir the cake mix and the cocoa together briefly to break up any lumps and blend in cocoa. Add the remaining ingredients and mix at low speed for about 30 seconds to moisten, then beat at medium speed for ~3 minutes (make sure butter is mixed in well – it may still be in smallish lumps). Pour into the cupcake/muffin tins. Bake for 20-25 minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean). Cool in the tins about 10 minutes, then remove to continue cooling.
Topping: Mix together with a fork 3 well-rounded soup spoonfuls of hot fudge sauce (I like Mrs. Richardson’s for flavor and it is gluten free) and 3 rounded standard/table spoons of cherry preserves (I used Polaner All Fruit Dark Cherry) and spread on top of the cooled cupcakes. You may find that you need 4 spoons of each – the key is one soup spoon of hot fudge to one regular spoon of cherry preserves for the ratio.
Garnish with shaved dark chocolate (or whatever else makes you happy).
If you want to make these in their standard form (which was the original Bundt cake recipe – and it makes a very moist Bundt) – here is that recipe:
1 box (18 oz) devil’s food cake mix
¼ cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
½ cup water
1 small can cherry pie filling
1 cup chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 12-cup Bundt pan using butter and flour or Baker’s Joy and set aside. Mix the dry cake mix briefly to break up the lumps. Add all the other ingredients and beat at medium speed for about 3 minutes. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out of the cake clean. All the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a rack or serving plate to continue cooling.
When I make this as a Bundt I dust the top with a bit of cocoa.
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i’d like to have my recipe for coffee goat-milk flan also! dang! if i ever find it, you folks will be the first to hear.
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I have a recipe for Coffee Flan…it is amazingly good. Would it work if you just substituted goats milk for “regular” milk?
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It would certainly be worth a try, no?
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i make oatmeal pretty consistantly and campbell tomato soup comes out about the same every time too. other thank that hang on tight lord knoews whats coming out of the recipe brain this time. learning is a big picture thing and if its good or bad file it away and tyr to remember why. olive oil , garlic blue cheese parmagian cheese a litte smoked gouda and some chedder with mozzerella along with kamata olives are the good basis for any pizza i whip up. pineapples and black olives are a favorite and i adjust form there but my kids like cheese and or pepperonni so i try to make them the boring version and know they will eat some of mine after theres is gone. they like theirs better but will aquire a tatste in my sneaky way in small doses.
anyone got a good pizza crust recipe. mine is guilty of bakers sins mentioned above. i fake it and the consistancy is poor. i am a water yeast honey and olive oil add the whole wheat and white flour and some basil or whatever if i’m in the mood and it comes out so so most often. my kids love it so maybe i should leave it alone but i would like an option
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I have a fantastic pizza crust recipe. It uses semolina flour which makes it nice and crisp. Do you want me to type up the recipe here?
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Yes. 🙂
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Edith, are you going to give us your fantastic pizza crust recipe? I promise I won’t change a thing.
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thanks i can taste the seminola already now that you mention it
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Here it is…sorry for the delay, but I couldn’t access the recipe for a while.
Note: I’m assuming you know how to make a basic yeast dough and this is a thin crust – not a deep-dish or thick crust. I’ve also made it, cutting down the olive oil a bit and increasing the water to take its place and it’s still good.This is from a very old Harrowmith magazine.
Semolina Pizza Crust
Stir together:
1 1/4 c. warm water
1 T. active dry yeast
pinch of sugar
Let sit 5 minutes or until foamy. Sir in:
6 T. olive oil, preferably extra-virgin
2 tsp. sea salt
Add one cup at a time:
2 c. semolina flour (can find at a co-op)
approximately 1 1/2 c. unbleached, all-purpose white flour (until the dough comes together)
Knead for 5-10 minutes or until satiny and elastic. Cover and let rise 1 hour or until doubled in size.Roll out or stretch to the size and thickness you want.The recipe says it makes at least one 15-16 inch pizza or two 10-inch pizzas, but I think it may make more. Let rise a while and then put on a coating of olive oil and your toppings (the olive oil keeps the crust from getting soggy). Best to not overload it with too many toppings that are wet.
Best if you place it on a cornmeal-dusted pan or pizza peel and then slide it onto a pizza stone which has been preheated in the oven for at least half an hour. Bake at 500 degrees for 10 minutes. (My pizza stone broke so I’ve been using a cast iron griddle instead and that works great.)
Roll out or stretch to the size and thickness you want.
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Weird…it cut off the rest of my recipe. Let’s see if I can remember what I typed earlier.
Roll or stretch out to the desired shape and size.
The recipe says it makes “at least one 15-16 inch pizza or 2 10-inch pizzas,” but I think it might make more.
Let rise 20 min. or so. then put on your toppings. Best to not overload it with too many wet, heavy toppings – I put a thin coat of olive oil on the crust to keep it from getting soggy.
Best if placed on pan or pizza peel with cornmeal on to keep it from sticking, then slide it off the pan onto a pizza stone which has been preheated in oven for 1/2 hour. 500 degrees for 10 minutes.My pizza stone broke and I now use a cast iron griddle in the same way and it works great.
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The recipe for pizza that we found many years ago in Fannie Farmer works good for us.
Add a package of baking yeast to a cup of water and mix in 1 tsp.. sugar, 1tbs of cooking oil, and 1 tsp of salt. Gradually add up to 3 cups of flour. Usually 3 cups is a little too much. Start with 2 1/2 cups and add a little more if needed. Work the dough until it comes together in a soft pliable ball that is well formed. It will take a few minutes of kneading to do this.
Let the dough raise in a warm place. you can skip letting it rise before spreading on a pizza pan and just spread it gentlely on a pizza pan and let it rise there only. If you let it rise once before putting on the pizza pan you will get a lighter pizza crust. The dough doesn’t need to rise very much on the pan. It will do some rising in the oven when you put it in to bake. Put a little oil on the dough and poke some holes in it with a fork to let out steam as it cooks.
At this point you can add your toppings and put it in the oven to cook. We have found that it works well to precook the crust for about 8 minutes before putting on the toppings and finishing the cooking. The oven is set at 425 degrees.
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In the spirit of a basic simplicity Jim mentioned above, here’s a recipe for “Seasoned Potatoes” from the Northern Exposure Cookbook contributed by Marilyn (Dr. Fleischman’s secretary, remember?):
12 small new potatoes
Salt
1. Wash and quarter potatoes. Place Potatoes in a pot. Add water until potatoes are covered.
2. Boil potatoes for about 15 minutes, or until tender. Drain. Transfer potatoes to a serving dish. Salt and serve hot.
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Love it.
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Yes, easy to do and very good.
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especially if you grow the potatoes yourself!
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I’m flexible with recipes and alter them much of the time. I make them as intended the first time, then I modify them. I rarely write down what I did but sometimes I can remember. I tend to be more precise when baking because I’ve learned the hard way. I’ve made some cakes that sank in the middle… 😦
I like eggplant grilled with olive oil and sprinkled with crumbled feta or parmesan cheese and herbs. I’ve made eggplant parmesan, but only for myself. I have no idea if it was done correctly but it was sure tasty! I think there’s a recipe for it in Moosewood that I might have used for guidelines. I used to try to cook more gourmet foods but I’ve realized that simple is elegant and I live alone so there is no one to impress. I love Italian foods and usually make up recipes with Italian ingredients. Tofu is a staple. I usually have pressed, marinated tofu ready to be added to stir fries or Italian foods.
Thanks for the recipes today, ‘booners.
Does anyone know if the Tom Keith thing on Saturday will be on air? I mean, will it preempt PHC on Saturday night? I’d like to tune in that way.
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Hmmm, what do you marinate the tofu in, Krista?
I too hope that the Hurrah for Tom Keith is broadcast some time, since I can’t make it Saturday night.
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The info I have from MPR indicates they are going to archive video highlights on MPR.org about a week later. ‘twood be nice of them to run it on Radio Heartland some evening. Mike Pengra, if you are out there could you maybe whangle this for us?
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It varies. I like to use honey-mustard marinades with summer veggies or Italian-style marinades. Sometimes if I’m out of time, I just use a little Newman’s Own Italian dressing. I don’t have recipes written down but I will sometimes use a little olive oil and red wine vinegar with some garlic, black pepper and Italian herbs tossed in. The tofu will take any flavor you put with it so it can be pretty versatile.
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On the subject of the Tom Keith Hurrah – according to the FAQ, each person in line can request two tickets, so however many you have in your group, only half of them have to stand in the line. I’ll be a line-stander, and I can get an extra ticket for somebody else.
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ah, I will be bringing the s&h, so perhaps they would let us each have 2-not sure about that.
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Oh sure, that should work, mig. Your mom and dad will be joining you later, but you don’t owe them an explanation. It’s called,working the system.
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I would be forever in the debt (and might just bring a good chocolate bar) to a person willing to stand in line and let me have use of their second ticket…
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OT but we were talking about parking lots the other day and I mentioned the Faribault Woolen Mill parking lot. Here’s a link from MSNBC.
Neighborhood revival
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45184025/dis…
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I am silent.
I have been put on a very restrictive diet for a reason I will not explain. This combined with my food sensitivities and my food restrictions for other reasons, means I can only have most vegetables, boiled egg, and a little fish or chicken before 3 and some fruit and candy after 3. (I am exaggerating, but not as much as you may think.)
Egg plant is on my list of foods I can eat.
I would rather die.
The Forces of Nature conspired to see just how far humans would go to eat the uneatable. After they tried snails, and crickets, and other bugs, the Forces of Nature said, “Let’s invent the truly ridiculous thing, and see if they will eat that.”
And the eggplant was born.
Or is it laid?
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I don’t see any reason why anyone should eat any food they don’t like. I have my doubts that the Forces of Nature created eggplant to see if we would eat a truly ridulous food, but maybe that is true. It’s possible the Forces of Nature have fooled me into eating a truely ridiculous food. Who am I to think that I couldn’t be fooled by the Forces of Nature.
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There are lots of foods about which I wonder who first decided to bit into that. I suppose hunger is the mother of cuisine. I am a man meant to be a carnivore put on a herbivore diet, and a restricted one at that.
If you don’t hear from me by spring, well, you knw.
🙂
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It pains me when Clyde, Steve and Aaron aren’t active on the trail because I’m concerned that may mean a worsening of their pain or condition.
I agree with Jim, there’s no reason why you should eat food you don’t like. I’ll add to that, that if you live in our house, you had better cook what you want instead, either that or stop in at Taco Bell on the way home!
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Hee, hee.
Re egg plant–just having a joke about today’s excellent blog. One of the running jokes in my family is how repellant I find certain vegetables. Asparagus, for instance, the smell of which when cooking is a trigger for me, and beets cooking or lying around raw and egg plant cooking.
There must be about 15 things wrong with my going to Taco Bell right now. My wife is loving this. For the first time in 46 years of marriage I have a more restricted diet than
she does.
I think you can expect my attendance to be hit-or-miss for awhile, but do not draw any conclusions. Or maybe I will drag in after supper (I’m so old, it’s supper, but I gave up on dinner for lunch).
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To show you why I have unsophisticated taste buds.
Kool-Aid: A Memory
It is, perhaps, the arrival of an A & W Drive-In on the edge of the town which spoils the sweet simplicity of Kool-Aid. Or it is the whole culture of consumption beginning in the late 1950’s of which A & W is only a first invasive force.
Kool-Aid is an innocent treat of a more sheltered era. Wonderful, special, sweet, flavorful, sugary. Leaving a stain above the mouth curved to the shape of the glass.
Kool-Aid comes in envelopes for, if I remember correctly, ten cents each. I can picture the envelopes in rows in their own special rack at then end of an aisle in the grocery store where my brother works. At first only a limited number of basic flavors are available, such as cherry, strawberry, and grape.
Fill a two-quart pitcher with water. Tear off the top of the envelop. Pour the contents into the water. Add sugar. (Could it be as much sugar as I remember?) Stir the contents until all of the sugar dissolves. (Despite a vigorous stirring, the last dregs from the pitcher are strongly sugary sweet, but who would waste it?) Put the pitcher in the refrigerator to cool for later consumption. Or, if you forgot to ask mother to do it far enough ahead of time, pour it in a glass with ice. (Ice does not come quite so readily from the freezer part of the non-modern refrigerator—usually called an “icebox,” as if people sensed that something much more convenient was to come.)
The definitive summer mid-afternoon childhood treat is to come into the kitchen and drink Kool-Aid from a condensation-dripping glass on the oilcloth-topped kitchen table. In canning season, when the kitchen is stifling hot from the fully-heated wood stove, the full glass is taken outside to drink on the front or back porch.
When the menfolk of the family are out working in the field and need to be brought a meal or an afternoon treat, it is never Kool-Aid. (Who wrote that rule, or is memory faulty?) Instead, it is plain water in a quart jar with wax paper over the top held in place with a ring. (Wax paper, never a lid; do not waste a lid; save the lids for canning.) Pure water is more thirst-quenching. All that sugar is likely to increase thirst instead of diminishing it.
Some evenings all or most of the family sits outside watching their panoramic view of the sunset, falling late at night, far to the north of the western point on the horizon denoted by the fire tower. On such evenings Kool-Aid is served, even to the adults. Otherwise Kool-Aid is for mid-afternoons. For children.
Later lemon-flavored Kool-Aid appears. It tastes fine, that is, unless you do on occasion get real lemonade, made with real lemons by a real mother. Otherwise Kool-Aid lemon flavor is watery and weak, too sweet, lacking the acid bite of true lemonade.
Then root beer flavor comes, which seems to hasten the end of Kool-Aid’s appeal. Kool-Aid root beer is too much like, but very unlike, the flavor of true root beer even before the A & W invasion. A bottle of pop was rare of but not unknown.
Kool-Aid is only for summer. Except my birthday falls awkwardly just before Christmas, and Maryann’s birthday comes in early spring, which is really still winter. Kool-Aid must, nevertheless, be served. With cake with thick sugary frosting. With sugar cookies.
And all the winds go sighing,
for sweet things dying.
Christina Rossetti “A Dirge”
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Kool-aid is about $0.25 a packet now – I bet accounting for inflation, that makes it cheaper these days. I grew up with it too (though I learned early to skimp a bit on the sugar), and as near as I can tell it comes in varying flavors of “red,” as well as a few others that are vaguely fruit flavored. But the best ones are “red” flavored in my book.
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I bet it was a nickle, what do you think?
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Sometime Cub puts it on special 8 packets for a dollar. I like the lemon-lime, which is a brilliant green color.
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Did you ever dye your hair with Kool-aid? It works pretty well but you attract insects!
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No, I’ve never done that. I colored my hair once when I was in college with a package dye bought at the local Ben Franklin store. It was a spontaneous purchase, not one I’d been contemplating, but the color called “County Corker Red” struck my fancy at that moment.
I was a carrot top for months. Never did it again.
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the very best Kool-Aid is red flavored as noted above. Black cherry is exotic and reserved for special occasions.
The red is served on my grandmother’s front porch from a glass Schmidt beer pitcher into pilsner glasses. You 4 kids don’t need more than one pitcher/day. Drink water.
Thanks for the memory, Clyde.
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Thanks for the memories, Clyde. At our house it was made in an aluminum pitcher (silver color) and served in those surreal colored aluminum tumblers, sometimes with these little stretchy terrycloth “sleeves” to soak up the condensation. I remember flavors like strawberry and maybe raspberry.. the reds Anna spoke of.
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I have to add that–I was going to and forgot.
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