3 ways with pizza dough

You know those cravings that won't leave you. The ones that creep up at in appropriate times. Cravings that whisper in your ear "that just doesn't taste right" when you eat something that isn't what you crave. Fill your mind to the point where not even your favourite series, your child's laughter or your husband's loving words can penetrate the thoughts of making or eating that which you crave? 

I see you nodding and so you will understand when I tell you about my pizza dough craving. It wasn't about what was on top, that didn't matter. It was the flavour and texture of what makes a pizza a pizza that took residence in my head and would not leave. 


So I paused Lost Girl, got up and made the dough. I had no idea WHAT I was going to put on it but the dough was made. Next I went foraging in the fridge, freezer and cupboards for something to use. No, going to the shop was not an option....because...stop it! No! aaaaanyway. In the freezer I found a beautiful piece of beef fillet which I had trimmed off a larger piece I made a few weeks back, some roasted red pepper and tomato soup and a couple of sausages. In the fridge a tiny bit of cheese and in the cupboards onion and spices.

So I went about creating these 3 tasty snacks for us, never having to leave the house or dress in anything but slippers and PJs (see why the shop was not an option). I turned the sausages into cows in blankets (beef sausage see), the meat I fried up with some onions, caramelising it a little then made balls of meaty goodness. The roasted red pepper and tomato soup was cooked down and thickened and made a beautifully rich base for the pizzas I made with cheese and some onion and the rest of the dough was mixed in some caramelised onions to make little dinner rolls (that never made it to dinner)

Pizza Dough

1/2 cup warm water
1 sachet activated dry yeast
2 + 1 cup 00 flour (or half white bread flour half cake flour)
1 tbs olive oil
1/2 tsp salt


Put the yeast in the warm water with a pinch of flour and allow it to bloom. Mix it in with the 2 cups of flour and knead adding the 3rd cup as you knead the dough. Kneed in the olive oil and salt. Place ina oiled bowl and cover and allow to rise. 
Once the dough has risen, knead it to knock out or the air bubbles and divide it into the number of portions you need. (If you are freezing the dough this is when you do it)

Canderel Yellow - The experience

There is much bandied about in the blogesphere about freebies. Some love them, others hate them, some get to many and others sulk for lack of any. For me a freebie are welcomed like any gift, as long as the giver understands that I will be honest in my review (if they expect one). Canderel didn't expect one when they invited me to cook up a storm at The Cook's Playground. All they wanted was feedback.

Sneaking a bit of tuna sashimi before putting it in the pan

For me the best event invitation is one where I get to cook. Sure, sitting at a beautiful restaurant, enjoying magnificent food is great but it makes my night to be able to participate in the making of that food and to learn, teach and experience every step.

On this night we got to do it all. Drink bubbly, eat good food and too many lots of chocolate coated almonds. Old friends got to chat, new friends were made and near future invitations were extended (more on that in the next post)

Myself, polkadotcupcake and ninatimm preping the tomtoes for the Tart Tartin

Canderel teamed up with Jenny Morris to create 2 mouth watering, savoury dishes using the Canderel Yellow product, a sweetener designed specifically for cooking. We baked gorgeous tomato Tart Tartins and succulent tuna steaks with tangy sweet and sour salsa. We finished off with a bright fruit soup, that Jenny made for us with seasonal fruit, young coconut and coconut water, flavoured with almond extract and Canderel Yellow.

As soon as a nice warm, not so wet, day comes along I plan to attempt meringues with Canderel Yellow. If I succeed I know of a lot of very happy sugar free people.

Mini Tomato Tart Tartin

This makes a stunning starter or could be served as a main course with salad. For ease it can be made ahead if required. The tomatoes turn wonderfully sweet and caramelised once cooked.

1 Serving

15 minutes preparation time 

30 minutes cooking time

Save 40 calories

7g fat (per serving of which saturates 3g)

144 calories (per serving)

19g carbohydrates (per serving – of which sugars 9g)

INGREDIENTS

3 tomatoes, cut in half

2 tsp granular Canderel Yellow

A few fresh thyme leaves (optional)

25g/2oz ready bought light puff pastry

Fresh basil leaves for garnish

YOU WILL NEED A 10CM ROUND FRYING PAN

METHOD

1 Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6

2 Add the tomatoes to a roasting tin and sprinkle over 1tsp of Canderel Yellow and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cook in the oven for about 15 minutes until they just start to soften and wilt a little. You want them to retain their shape.

3 Whilst the tomatoes are cooking, roll the pastry out on a lightly floured board to a 10cm round. Put to one side.

4 Now spoon the tomatoes out and sit them cut side down in a small pan along with the thyme if using, then add the remaining Canderel Yellow. Cook for a few minutes until some juices run then remove from the heat.

5 Sit the pastry over the tomatoes, tucking it in and around them. Put in the oven and cook for about 15-20 minutes until the pastry is golden.

6 Remove and leave for a few minutes then invert onto a plate, be careful as the pan handle will be very hot. Garnish with basil leaves.

Tip: If you haven’t got a mini pan, you can transfer the tomatoes to a mini tart tin or oven proof dish before covering with pastry

Sicilian style swordfish

This meaty fish is griddled and served with a sweet and sour mix of herbs and sultanas. Protein rich swordfish is filling so a lightly dressed salad or spinach is all that is needed.

2 Servings

15 minutes preparation time  

20 minutes cooking time

Save 10 calories

18g fat (per serving of which saturates 3g)

285 calories (per serving)

9g carbohydrates (per serving – of which sugars 9g)

INGREDIENTS

2 swordfish steaks

2 tsp olive oil

For the sweet and sour sauce;

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Juice of 1 Lemon and zest of ½ of the lemon

Handful of fresh flat leaf parsley, leaves only, finely chopped 

2 cloves garlic, grated

Few stalks of fresh oregano, leaves finely chopped or use dried   

25g/2oz sultanas

1 tsp granular Canderel Yellow

METHOD

1 Lightly brush the swordfish steaks with olive oil and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

2 In a bowl add all the sauce ingredients, season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, taste and adjust as needed. Put to one side. 

3 Heat a griddle pan until hot then add the swordfish steaks one at a time and cook for about 3-4 minutes each side, depending on their thickness, you want the inside to remain still pinkish. If you overcook they will become dry.

4 Serve the swordfish on a plate and spoon over the sweet and sour sauce and serve with baby spinach leaves or a salad.

Tip: If you can’t find swordfish use fresh tuna steaks instead (which is what we did)

Note: Images and recipes were supplied by Canderel. I was not paid to do this post, only shown a really good time and a product that is easy to work with.

Trinchado

The start of something beautiful

When you have a relationship with some one for many years, living in the same house, sharing meals, you learn their preferences, their quirks. You discover what makes them turn up their nose and what makes their ears perk. After 7 years with Jack I can happily say that I KNOW the man and I KNOW what he loves.

My misfortune is that my husband is a man that eats because it is something that is needed to survive. He does enjoy things that taste good and has preferences but he does not go googly eyed at a well presented dish or get a far away stare when something so good touches his tongue, random "mmm" sounds do not escape his lips when he tastes something amazing. He will even eat things he isn't crazy about in the right company.

simmer away

He does, however, have his favourites. Something he will order every time we go to a certain restaurant or something he loves for me to make for him if I have a chance. One such thing is Trinchado. A Portuguese beef stew, rich with flavour. My favourite thing about this recipe is how forgiving it is of adjustments, especially the kind of adjustments that make it a healthier option.

The long cooking time means you can use lean cuts of meat and using evaporated milk or regular milk (carefully), while not making the dish AS creamy as using actual cream, still make for a very tasty dish. I personally don't miss the olives in the dish when I need to take them out for TheSister and my favourite adjustment has to be the wine.

A little longer

Trinchado

What you need:
1 tbs butter
1 tbs olive oil
(or 2 tbs olive oil if you want to reduce the fat)
1kg beef, cubed (as this is a stew you can decide how lean you want the beef)
2 large red onions, chopped
2-3 red chillies, chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
250ml beef stock (I used NoMu fonds, the richness is unbeatable)
1 bottle red wine, minus 1 glass for the cook (I used Pinotage)
1 bay leaf
100g black olives, stones removed (optional)
1 sprig fresh rosemary
125ml cream (or evaporated milk or regular milk)
1 tsp lemon rind
Salt and Pepper to taste

What to do:

Heat the butter and oil in a heavy-based pan and brown the beef.
Remove from the pan and set aside.
Lower the heat and saute the onions, I like to put in some water so that the onions get soft without burning, when the water has evaporated add the chillies and cook for about a minute.
Add the stock and wine. Bring to boil and stir continually.
Add the bay leaf, olives (if using) and the fresh rosemary.
Add the crushed garlic
Return the meat to the pan and simmer slowly for 2 hours (or more).
If you are making this in advance, this is where you stop. The rest of the process happens just before serving. When you are ready to serve, gently heat up the trinchado to a medium heat.
Add the cream (or substitute) and stir through. If you are using milk instead pour slowly and carefully to avoid it splittin.
Add the fresh lemon peel and if you want extra rosemary.
Season to taste

You can serve trinchado as a starter with some bread, or a main course with rice.

Stuffed pepper

Sometimes I forget to post the pictures that I take. I get so lost in the taste and then I get lost on the internet and then I forget about the pictures. I get so excited when I find them as the bring back floods of tastes and smells and experiences. Unfortunately they don't always bring back exact recipes. This one is one of them and I am apologising in advance for the vagueness of the following recipe.

To be honest though, stuffing peppers is a pretty easy endeavor, you really can put anything in them and it should taste fantastic, especially with sweet red peppers. This was a meat free Monday meal.

What you need:
Red peppers (1 or 2 for each person depending on size and hunger)
2 cups rice
1 cup lentils
1 large onion (sliced)
a couple of zucchinis (sliced into thin strips)
cumin
smoked paprika
1/2 cup mozzarella
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

What to do:
Boil the rice and the lentils. Preheat the oven to 180°C. In a large pan fry the onion in some olive oil, add the spices, fry a bit more then add the zucchini. When the rice and lentils are done mix everything together and stir  for about 30 seconds then remove from the heat. Cut the top off the peppers and empty them out. Stuff with the filling , sprinkl some grated mozzarella and pop the top back on. Place on a baking tray and into the oven for about 15 minutes.

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My Easy cooking - Event #1 - Thai Entry

If followed my comments on Food24 you would have picked up very quickly that I am not a fan or pre-made, pre-cooked, pre-packaged foods and sauces. In fact that's putting it mildly. I hate those things. I feel very strongly that taking a piece of chicken, mixing some pre-made mushroom sauce with some milk, drowning the chicken in that and popping in the oven, is not cooking and definitely not blog-worthy cooking.


So I have taught myself to make a lot of things that people just buy. For example "sweet chili sauce". I scoured the web for recipes, threw out the ones that had corn flour in them (after all my 1 complaint about store bought stuff is the starchy mouth feel) and came up with my own. I never did blog the recipe as it was in the time when I was fed up with blogging that I had made it that first time. However, one friday afternoon while browsing other food blogs I came across a recipe for butter chicken which had sweet chili sauce in it. For me that's just scandalous, a dish as rich and complex doesn't need sweet chili sauce shoved into it. 


I mentioned this to Marisa, over at The Creative Pot, and also mentioned that I make my own sweet chili sauce so the though of that fake stuff they sell at the shops glooped into my butter chicken just made me ill. She said I had to blog the recipe so she could steal it, so off I went and cooked up a batch.  


Now if you are anything like me, you cant cook up a batch of something without tasting it and while you can taste sweet chili sauce with a spoon I decided to make something a little more tasty to go with it. What better accompaniment then sweetcorn fritters.


All this cooking came at a great time. As Nina, over at My Easy Cooking is having her first Blog event. Go check it out  and see for yourself. Nina is an outstanding cook and food stylist so I jumped at the chance to participate in something that is linked to her blog. Also I love Thai food and Wang Thai is one of my favourite Thai restaurants. My corn fritter recipe was given to me by some one who used to be the manager there (of course with a  few embellishments of my own as I cannot follow a recipe to the T).

Thai sweet chili sauce
What you need
2 cups Rice wine vinegar
2 cups Sugar
Chilies
Coriander (preferably fresh)
Garlic


What to do
Put the sugar and vinegar into a saucepan and starting heating it through. Int he meantime pop all the rest of the ingredients into a food processor or blender. You want to get everything as small as possible. If you a milder sweet chili sauce then de-seed your chillies. Put the chili mixture into the saucepan and stir till all the sugar dissolves. Bring the mixture up to the boil and then reduce to a simmer. Allow it to cook for about 35-40 minutes. I used a trick I had learned earlier that day at Oded's Kitchen: put a plate in the freezer, when you think the sauce is ready place some on the plate to test the consistency.
Allow the mixture to cool slightly and bottle it.


Thai sweetcorn fritters
What you need
500g Sweet corn off the cob 
½ red pepper
1 baby marrow
2-3 eggs
2 tbs flour
fresh corriander


What to do
Mix all the ingredients together. Heat up some oil in a frying pan and place spoonful of the mixture into the pan. Fry until golden on both sides.


Just a small caution. Both these recipes originally had exact measurements unfortunately I never followed them or copied them. They both are very forgiving and so do what feels right.

Red Bean Salsa

Sometimes the same old same old gets boring so when What's For Lunch brought something new to my birthday picnic I latched onto it. Her version was pimped from this recipe and I pimped it further (my changes in bold)

What you need:

1 tin red kidney beans

1 red bell pepper, cut into small cubes

1 yellow bell pepper, cut into small cubes

1 big handful fresh coriander, coarsely chopped

1 can (340g) corn, drained

1 red onion, finely chopped

100g small rosa tomatoes

1 firm avocado

Dressing

Juice of 1 lemon

2 cloves of garlic (crushed)

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

What to do:

Mix all the ingredients (except the dressing) together in a large bowl. Mix the ingredients for the dressing and pour over.

Serve with nachos or as part of a tortilla selection, as a healthy alternative, Slice a cucumber into cracker width diagonal pieces instead.

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