Our little family's favorite lunch spot is Pizza Brutta. Pickle will eat an entire pizza Margarita (minus the crust, which is my favorite part, so it works). He loves watching them assemble the pizza, place it in the 700+ degree wood-fired oven and cut it and serve it to us ("here it comes, momma!").

So, it was only natural that I try to re-create a version of their pizza Margarita at home -- minus the stunning wood-burning oven. Okay, I admit the crust is so not the same, but the essence is true and Pickle loves it just as much.  

It's simple as can be to make, especially if you have the dough for the crust already made. Peter Reinhart's recipe is impeccable -- a must try. I typically free-form this on an aluminum baking sheet.

This is a great, after-work pizza, since there is little to prep. Walk in the door and, before you even take your coat off, preheat your oven to 500 degrees F.  Pour a glass of wine, put on some music and start making the pizza! I serve this with an apple-celery salad with raisins and toasted almonds. More on that another time.

Pizza Margarita
serves 4 adults or 1 hungry bambino

Ingredients
1 large ball of pizza dough
2 cups shredded, whole-milk mozzarella
28 oz. can of San Marzano tomatoes, drained
1 small clove of garlic, sliced
1/8 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
6-8 fresh basil leaves,torn into large pieces.

Directions
Preheat oven to 500 degrees F. Place a rack on the lowest level of the oven.

On a floured surface, roll or press out dough to the desired size -- about 14-inches round or a 11 x 14 inch rectangle. Place on your baking sheet.

In the bowl of a food processor or blender, add the tomatoes, garlic, oregano, salt, pepper and olive oil. Process until the sauce it smooth and voluminous. Take for seasoning and adjust as needed. This sauce is enough for two pizzas, so stash one part in the freezer for next time.

When the oven is good and hot, sprinkle with cheese, uniformly covering the surface. Place in the oven and bake for 10 minutes, or until the cheese is browned and bubbly.

Take the pizza out of the oven and spread the sauce all over the cheese, covering completely. Place back in the oven for 2-3 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for a couple of minutes before cutting into pieces. Scatter with basil leaves. Serve while piping hot.

Happy eating, -s
I've been MIA for quite some time, sorry about that! On August 25, 2011, our Hungry Bambino got a brother, James Willem. Now we have due bambini and things are doubly crazy as they used to be.

I'm just getting back in the swing of things and heading back to work full time. Future posts will mostly be focused on what dinners can be made in the 15-minute window I now have between work and dinner. This will probably entail a lot of pre-planning, shopping on the weekends, and the cooking one protein for multiple dinners. If you have any dinner challenges of your own that you would like me to tackle, let me know. It may inspire something great on the dinner plate!

My mom asked me to bring a little nibble for our pre-thanksgiving dinner noshing and I wanted to do something that wasn't too heavy and was a bit more kid-friendly as we are slowly becoming outnumbered by the little ones at the holidays. I ended up bringing two things: rosemary and cayenne caramalized nuts and coconut-oil-popped popcorn. Both were a big hit, as I manned the Whirly Pop for 4 batches of popcorn and both jars of nuts were decimated by Friday evening.

The nuts were my take on a favorite: the Union Square Cafe's bar nuts. I love them so, but I always find them a little greasy and the best parts -- the sugar, salt, rosemary and cayenne -- always end up on the bottom of the bowl. In my recipe, I nixed the butter and pan-toasted the nuts before adding the sugar to start the caramel bath that slowly enveloped the cashews, almonds and pecans. Once the sugar was in liquid form, I added the minced fresh rosemary, salt and cayenne. Once they were thoroughly coated and the sugar was a nice dark amber, the nuts were layed out to cool on Silpats. When they were cool enough to handle, I broke them apart and placed in jars -- a perfect food gift for holidays.


Rosemary-Scented Bar Nuts
serves many at cocktail time

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of each: roasted, unsalted cashews, raw pecan halves and blanched, slivered almonds
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh rosemary leave, minced
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Equipment: a heavy-duty 12-inch skillet, silpats or parchment paper, heat-resistent rubber spatula.

Directions:
Over medium heat, add nuts to 12-inch skillet and toast until frangrant. Add sugar and let sit, untouched for 2 minutes. Start stirring the nuts with the melting sugar until all the sugar has turned to a liquid. Add the rosemary, salt and cayenne and stir to coat and distribute evenly over the nuts. Cook the mixture until the sugar is a dark amber -- be careful not to burn the sugar or the nuts.


What we're eating this week:
Sunday: pizza margarita with apple, celery, raisin and toasted almond salad
Monday: pork bulgogi with snow peas from marthastewart.com
Tuesday: ham and salami heros with quick pickled onion vinaigrette and carrot sticks
Wednesday: turkey meatloaf with buttermilk mashed potatoes and sauteed spinach
Thursday: red beans and rice
Friday: ???
Saturday: Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and Holley's cranberry relish

Happy eating, -s.






I will never complain about the heat while living in Wisconsin. Our summers are so short in comparison to our winters, that I will take the heat, the humidity, the severe weather and the bugs. But, I must say, this week is going to be hot; damn hot. Every day, all-day, 90+ degrees hot. The perfect remedy is my refreshing watermelon-lime slushy.

My younger brother and his wife were in town last week and Chris did the grocery shopping, as he was barbequing a 9-lb pork shoulder for the occassion. Back from Costco (where we typically don't get food items besides cooking olive oil and nuts), came a 3-pound container of sour cream (holy s%#$) and a huge-ass watermelon.

I'm still working my way through the sour cream (I tackled a sour-cream coffee cake for Sunday morning breakfast; I may be churning some sour cream ice cream to top a raspberry crisp ... or maybe some corn muffins with green onions and sour cream to accompany barbequed chicken ... any other ideas are welcomed!).

With the huge-ass watermelon, besides slices accompanying every meal, I've been whipping up watermelon slushies, which are in no way related to the artifically flavored/dyed 7-11 slushy. These are the essense of watermelon, with a kick of lime zest and juice. The perfect remedy to a hot day. Adults can add a jigger or two of rum or vodka, if they must.

Watermelon-Lime Slushies
serves 4 thirsty bambinos or adults

Ingredients
2-3 large wedges of watermelon, rinds removed
1/2 cup cold water or limeade, if you have it.
juice and zest of two limes
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups ice

Directions
In a blender, add the water and watermelon wedges. Blend until foamy, pink and smooth. Add lime juice, zest and sugar and blend until incorporated, about 30 seconds. Taste and adjust seasoning, adding more watermelon, lime juice/zest. I wouldn't add anymore sugar, but that's just me.

Add the ice and blitz until smooth and slushy.
Drink quickly with requisite straws.

At the Market
sugar snap peas
green beans
Dreamfarm goat cheese
baby zucchini
rainbow swiss chard
golden beets with greens
Italian paste tomatoes
carrots
red onions

Menu: week of 16 July 2011
Saturday: Key West shrimp salad sandwiches with green beans vinaigrette
Sunday: crunchy tacos with refried beans, sauteed beet greens and fresh goat cheese
Monday: sauteed baby zucchini and Italian sausage with oriecchiette and opal basil
Tuesday: pork and green bean stir-fry with cashews and steamed jasmine rice
Wednesday: chicken cutlets Milanese with oven-roasted paste tomatoes
Thursday: ricotta frittata with swiss chard and red onions
Friday: carryout
Happy eating, -s.
asparagus soup that started our easter dinner

When we first moved into our new house in December, there was a very large, blank wall in our kitchen that was just screaming to be used. Our kitchen cabinets are on the old side and they're fine for storing dishes and appliances, but I am not a big fan of storing food in cupboards. I think it’s because I have been SUPER spoiled in my post-college abodes, which have always had a separate pantry, including one apartment that had a huge butler's pantry ... with a window! Heaven. I really like being able to see what I have on hand. It makes be more organized, prevents me from buying things I already have and keeps me from buying naughty (Oreos, chips, etc.) foods items since they are on full display for everyone to see!
As you can see, it utilizes the entire space from floor to ceiling and from side to side. I even have a whole shelf for my most-used cookbooks, which is so nice. Each shelf houses a theme — cereal grains and baking; pasta, grains, legumes and canned good; spices, snacks, condiments and cereal, with the higher shelves relegated to onion and potato storage and baskets holding non-essentials, like paper bags, blades to my food processer and lunch sacks. The only downside is that Pickle can access his "snacks" easily; something he has just started doing. Cheddar Bunnies at 7 a.m. is not my idea of a balances breakfast!

So, if you have some unused real estate in your kitchen, all you need is a sturdy wire shelf and some baskets and bins for an instant pantry.

At the market:
Mustard greens
Arugula
English hothouse cucumber
Dreamfarm eggs and 'rosebud' goat cheese

Here's what we're eating this week:
Sunday: sausage and arugula pizza with a grape-tomato salad
Monday: spicy pork and mustard green stir fry
Tuesday: Greek salad with cucumber, grape-tomatoes and feta, whole-grain pitas and hummus on the side
Wednesday: skirt steak tacos with avocado, onions and cilantro; grape-tomato and chickpea salad
Thursday: cacio e pepe
Friday: something on the grill ... maybe sausages?

Happy eating, -s.
Our Christmas dinner was German-themed: roasted pork, potato dumplings, pickled vegetable salad and braised cabbage and apples – a pretty amazing meal that was kicked off with an afternoon noshing of flammkuchen that my sister Holley made. Flammkuchen is the German equivalent of pizza that is topped with quark or crème fraiçhe, onions and bacon/speck (see photo above of ours from Christmas). The crust is more cracker-like than chewy pizza crust – mainly due to the miniscule amount of yeast in the dough. It reminded me a lot of a lighter version of Suzanne Goin’s bacon and young onion tart with cantal cheese from her cookbook, Sunday Suppers at Lucques, of which I make a “lighter” version with just sautéed onions and the ricotta-crème fraiçhe base that tops flaky puff pastry.

In cooking, as in life, there are perfect pairs; onion and bacon are one of them. There is nothing better than sautéing onions in bacon fat to start a pot of clam chowder. Spaghetti carbonara and bucatini all’amatriciana are both sublime with the silky onions and pancetta that make up the base of their sauces; one creamy and unctuous; the other piquant. Onion and bacon can play multiple roles in the kitchen, as a flavor base, as the star of the show, or as a side note in a steaming bowl of pasta – a perfect pair indeed.

Here’s a link to a yummy recipe of flammkuchen from the very yummy blog, Delicious Days.

Up next: pork three ways: braised pork with polenta, shredded pork and avocado tacos and fragrant pork with jasmine rice and julienned cucumber.
Happy eating, -s.
Happy Holidays! Pickle's school is closed for the week, so he and I are hanging out at home. It's been a blast so far and we're only on Day Two. Here's what our days have consisted of:

1. Wake up and watch Little Bear; have juice and fish oil pills/tangerine-flavored chewables for P.
2. Eat steel-cut oats and dehydrated apples with a little maple syrup for sweetness.
3. Play with all of Pickle's new toys, while still in pajamas - heaven.
4. Have a snack (steamed edamame, seeded crackers, clementines, etc.)
5. Head outside: go on snow walks, shovel, sled in our back yard (we have a mini hill), make snow angels, follow bunny tracks.
6. Inside for lunch (soup, grilled cheese and avocado sandwiches, etc.)
7. Nap time: for me and Pickle yesterday; again, heaven.
8. Post-nap snack and more playing.
9. Make dinner (see recipe below) and dance.
10. I love vacation

I made a pledge to myself that I would cook out of my cookbooks more this year instead of constantly printing out recipes online. I'll share them with you as I proceed. I'm highlighting Alice Water's lovely cookbook, The Art of Simple Food. Last night's meal was spicy cauliflower soup from page 257 of this lovely tome. I changed only two things: I used orange cauliflower and I pureed it a bit more than what she called for as Pickle likes silky-smooth soups. Try it - it's warm, hearty and good for you, too!

Spicy Cauliflower Soup
modified from The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters
serves 4-6 hungry mamas, dadas and bambinos

Ingredients
1/4 cup olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 carrot, scrubbed clean, ends trimmed and diced
1 teaspoon coriander seeds, crushed
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, crushed
1 teaspoon chile powder
1/4 teaspoon dried chile flakes
salt ( I used about 2 teaspoons total)
freshly ground black pepper
6 cilantro sprigs, roughly chopped
1 large head of cauliflower, stemmed and coarsely chopped (about 6 cups)
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
3 cups water

accompaniments
yogurt
chopped cilantro
wedges of lime

Directions
Heat a heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add olive oil. Once oil is hot, add onion, carrot, spices and salt & pepper. Cook and stir often until softened but not browned. Stir in cilantro, cauliflower, broth and water.

Raise heat to high and bring to a boil; stir occassionally. Once a boil is reached, reduced heat to a simmer and cook until the cauliflower is very tender, 20 to 30 minutes. At this point, either puree with an immersion blender or use a stiff whisk to coursely puree the soup. If overly thick, add a little hot stock to thin until the desired consistency is achieved. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Serve hot with a dollop of yogurt, a sprinkling of cilantro and a squeeze of lime.

Here's what we're eating this week...

Menu: week of 27 December 2010
Monday: spicy cauliflower soup
Tuesday: mushroom ragout with pappardelle
Wednesday: braised pork shoulder with polenta
Thursday: black-bean soup served with crusty bread
Friday: shredded pork tacos with avocado and black refried beans
Saturday: Happy New Year! lasagne bianca with homemade pasta served with a fennel-apple salad
Sunday: sauteed broccoli rabe on ricotta bruschetta

Happy eating, -s.
I love the Thanksgiving holiday. Its focus is pure: coming together to enjoy a meal and giving thanks for another year on this planet. I am thankful every day for my wildly patient and loving husband and my little Pickle who makes me so darn happy, even when he’s a stubborn 2.5-year-old. I’m thankful for my family – my overly generous and supportive parents and my fun, smart and caring siblings to whom I am so close (how lucky am I?!).

But, as I’ve gotten older, it’s the little things for which I am more and more thankful:
1. My daily thermos of delicious coffee made with such care by my husband.
2. Pickle calling me “my mama, my Sarah” when I pick him up from daycare. Too sweet.
3. A job that helps me enjoy all the little things outside of work.
4. A sunny day.
5. A long run.
6. Not rushing somewhere.
7. A husband who cleans up after I cook!
8. A child who sings all of the time and who walks with purpose and confidence. What a gift.
9. NPR.
10. An abundance of love.

I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving Day full of delicious food and drink, lots of hugs and kisses from those you love and, most importantly, a moment to rest and relax.

Cheers, -s.