Yogadad World

In my world, grills were made for Sunday. It's the perfect day. Fewer distractions. More time. Relaxation with a favorite libation - or two. What could be finer than starting the fire, sitting down close by to keep an eye on the coals (no gas grills here!), and admiring all that was accomplished during the working part of the weekend. That's how it should work. And then there are the times it rains. That was today.

Yesterday, our outing to the Lansing City Market had included a stop at City Fish where we got a pound of good looking scallops. Then it was over to Sun & Rain Gardens for some fresh asparagus. At Bob's Market, we picked up some freshly picked Michigan strawberries. Nothing says spring like asparagus and strawberries. When I was a kid, trips to the strawberry patch were a regular spring event. It wasn't always my first choice of activities after school had let out for the summer. But her strawberry jam was undoubtedly among the world's greatest. I've not taken up jam-making (yet) but I do love when the Michigan berries start to come in. Their taste still has the power to take me back to the strawberry patch back home. 

With scallops and asparagus in the refrigerator, it was just a matter of figuring how to cook them. After perusing some cookbooks, it  became evident that this meal would be the height of simplicity. A little olive oil, some salt, a bit of pepper, and a hot grill. Grilled scallops and roasted asparagus would be the perfect meal. 

It was not meant to be.

Just about 3:00, when I had planned to get the grill started the rain started. 15 minutes later it stopped. As I was about to get the grill going, the skies opened and it poured. So out came the cast iron grill and I pre-heated the oven for roasting the asparagus inside.

We coated everything in a little bit of olive oil, seasoned with salt & pepper and waited for the oven to heat up. I roasted the asparagus for about 15 minutes in a 400 degree oven. After about 10 minutes, I turned on the burners and heated up the stove-top grill. After it was good and hot, I put on the scallops. A couple minutes later I turned them and took the asparagus out of the oven. The scallops were nicely seared and cooked through.

The berries we picked up were not destined for jam. They were today's dessert. Shannon had found a recipe for coffee-less tiramisu that called for strawberries and moscato d"Asti, a light and fizzy wine. You can find the recipe here, and look here for the accompanying column that ran in last Wednesday's New York Times. It was the highlight of the meal. With a cup of coffee, it was the perfect way to cap off the meal.

Yes, the scallops and asparagus lacked the flavor that comes from an outside charcoal grill. But it was a lovely, simple Sunday meal and it was topped off by a great dessert.

Lynn Rosetto Kasper is a food goddess. Her radio show The Splendid Table is one of the few food shows, radio or TV, that I make a point of listening to on a regular basis. She almost always has interesting guests and I often pick up a tip or two that I can put to use. In addition to the radio, she and cohort Sally Swift published The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper a couple years ago. It's one of my favorite go-to cookbooks when I don't have a lot of time to cook. Yes, it's Saturday. I should have beaucoup amounts of time to putter around in the kitchen making a dish with a gazillion ingredients. But after a quick trip to Indianapolis this week and a late arrival home on Friday, I just wasn't up to a lot of cooking today. So this morning, I sat down with the Supper book and found this recipe.

Growing up, I wasn't exposed to a lot of beans. My mom would make chili with kidney beans, but that was just about it. And I never developed an appreciation for that cold bean salad that you almost always find at summer potlucks. Lately though, as I've come to appreciate lentils more, it was an easy jump to make to this recipe.

We ended up making this the main course, well, more like the only course. But it would make a nice side dish if you were grilling a piece of pork or baking or broiling a cut of beef.

What made this dish was the fresh rosemary and the slow frying of the garlic. Make sure that the garlic doesn't over cook. It's easy to do. Then you're going to lose some of the fragrance that makes this such a delightful supper. Don't skimp on the rosemary either and try to use dried from that little bottle that's been in your cupboard for a few weeks or months. You won't enjoy eating your meal nearly as much.

This cooks up very fast. Once you have your garlic and rosemary cleaned and cut, it only takes a few minutes to get this from stove to table.

For dessert, we had apple-rhubarb crisp with rhubarb fresh out of the garden.

Rhubarb is another one of those foods that I just didn't appreciate it when I was younger. Now that I'm advancing through middle age at an accelerating clip, I find that it's pretty darn enjoyable.

I didn't use Granny Smith apples as called for in the recipe. Instead I dug out a few Michigan delicious apples that had been in the crisper for a week or two. A little too mushy for eating but perfect for baking. Their sweetness was a nice counterpart to the tart rhubarb.

Enjoy.

Ingredients
Topping
1/2 slice coarse whole-grain bread, coarse ground in a food processor (2 generous tablespoons crumbs)
3 Tbl fresh-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Generous 1/4 tsp fresh-ground black pepper

Salad
5 large garlic cloves crushed with 1/2 tsp salt and coarse chopped
1/4 c extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 tight packed Tbl fresh rosemary leaves, coarse chopped
2 15-oz can white beans (cannellini or Great Northern), drained & rinsed
1 large handful mixed salad greens
Additional salt & pepper, to taste

In a 12-inch skillet or saute pan over medium heat, toast the bread crumbs until lightly browned, stirring often. Transfer the crumbs to a small bowl to cool. When cooled, stir in the Parmigiano and pepper. Set aside

In the same pan, slowly warm the garlic in the olive oil over low heat for 30 secs to 1 minute. Stir in the rosemary, blending for another minute or so, taking care not to burn the garlic. It should be very fragrant & just beginning to soften.

Immediately add the beans and fold them in very gently. Turn the heat to medium. Heat the beans through, about 3 mins., occasionally lifting and turning them as they heat, as stirring will turn them to mush. Add the greens and gently move them around in the pan until they are slightly wilted, 30 secs to 1 min. Turn into a serving bowl, top with the bread-crumb mixture and season with salt and pepper.

This was the dinner I had planned for last Sunday before I got waylaid by the good looking tuna at the fish market. It was worth the wait. The chicken was moist and juicy and the sauce tangy and tasty. For a meal this good, it was ready in an astonishingly small amount of time. Tossing in time to chop the mushrooms and shallot, the whole meal came together in less than 60 minutes.

The recipe is from Jacques Pepin's Fast Food My Way, a companion book to his 2005 PBS series. It's the first one I've tried from this book and based on my experience with this one, I'm sure I'll dip into it again.

One weird thing about this recipe though. It calls for the oven to be pre-heated to 180 degrees, with the chicken in for 10 - 30 minutes to finish cooking after the initial searing. After 30 minutes, I still had pink meat. It was not nearly cooked all the way through. My oven tends to run cool. So I had set it for 200 degrees and checked the thermometer we keep inside to make sure it was hot enough. The temperature was well above 180 degrees. Taking my cue from Pepin's admonishment to not keep the meat in the oven more than 30 minutes, I put it back in the skillet, over high heat and seared the breasts for 3 minutes more on each side. That did it. Now it was warm all the way through and thoroughly cooked.

The rest of the meal went off without a hitch. I used frozen corn and frozen peas, and they came out with just the right amount of crunch. I had never sauteed this two vegetables before and now that I know how easy it is and how tasty the veggies are, it's likely to become a staple way of adding them to a meal.

Dessert tonight was special, too. Shannon baked a white cake with lemon curd and blueberry topping. It was fabulous. Normally, I'm not a big fan of anything lemony in my desserts but this was quite good. The sweetness of the blueberries and the tartness of the lemons played off each other very nicely. The cake held it all together, literally. A great finish to a very good meal.

Ingredients
2 Tbl unsalted butter
1 Tbl good olive oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (each about 6 oz)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/3 c chopped shallots
1 c diced (1/2-inch) white button mushrooms
1/4 c balsamic vinegar
1 Tbl ketchup
1/2 c water

Corn and peas ingredients
2 Tbl unsalted butter
1 Tbl good olive oil
2 c corn kernels (from 3-4 ears corn)
1 1/2 c fresh or frozen peas (choose baby peas if using frozen)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 Tbl chopped fresh chives
 
Heat the oven to 180°F. Heat 1 tablespoon of the butter and the oil over high heat in a heavy saucepan or skillet large enough to hold the chicken breasts in one layer. When hot, add the chicken breasts, and sprinkle them with the salt and pepper. Saute, uncovered, for about 3 minutes on each side. Transfer the breasts to an ovenproof plate, reserving the drippings in the pan, and place them in the oven and continue cooking for at least 10 minutes but no more than 30 minutes.

Add the shallots and mushrooms to the drippings in the pan, and cook for about 1 minute over high heat. Add the vinegar and ketchup and continue for another minute. Add the water, and cook until the liquid is reduced by half. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon butter and stir until it is incorporated.

Meanwhile, for the corn and peas: Heat the butter and olive oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add the corn, peas, salt and pepper. Saute for 3 to 4 minutes, until the vegetables are cooked through.

To serve, arrange a ring of vegetables on each of four plates. Cut each breast in half crosswise on a slant and place the breast pieces in the center of the vegetables. Coat the chicken with the sauce, sprinkle with the chives and serve.

When I started thinking about tonight's dinner, I leafed through a few cookbooks and found one that appealed to me in Jacques Pepin's Fast Food My Way. The main course was boneless chicken breasts with a side dish made with corn and peas. I jotted down the ingredients I needed and headed to the market.

My first stop was Lansing's new City Market. It opened just after the new year, but the grand opening was held this past weekend. It was a zoo. All of the nearby parking lots were full and the building was claustrophobic. Still I had to get my chicken breasts and this was the place to get high quality meat at reasonable prices. I stopped at Otto's and got the breasts, then went in search of shallots and mushrooms and wondering if I could find frozen corn and peas there.

On the way, I got a loaf of fresh bread and figured I'd see what was available at the fish market. One look at the case and I changed my mind about Sunday's dinner. He had the best looking tuna I've seen in a long time. Red, juicy, and fresh. So I asked him for two 6 or 7 oz slices. They came out closer to 8 oz each but who cares? Since they were on sale because of the grand opening, I had a couple of luscious tuna steaks for under $10.00. All that remained was finding a decent recipe.

At first I thought about grilling them. It's very nearly grilling season here in central Michigan (but then, isn't every season grilling season?) and there's nothing quite as good as high-quality tuna off the grill. But it's been a wet weekend and standing in a cold drizzle wasn't very appealing.

So I pulled one of my favorite fish cookbooks, Fish Without a Doubt by Rick Moonen and Roy Finamore, off the shelf and had a look. I found a few tuna recipes but it was this one that called to me. It was the mango - jerk seasoning that did it for me. A spicy dish, cooled by the mango sauce sounded just about perfect.

The jerk seasoning I used comes from World Market, a chain of stores with an outlet not too far away. After going with the amounts in the recipe, I would definitely add more next time, probably doubling the amount on each piece of fish. There just wasn't enough contrast with the mango sauce.

I'd also cook the fish just a little bit longer. I'm a big fan of eating tuna rare, and you can see that these are quite rare. But they were too cool at the center and a little more heat would have been good.

The mango sauce was great, and we had a side dish of jasmine rice cooked in coconut milk, with grated carrots. Cooking rice in coconut milk is always a treat. Add in one of my favorite vegetables and you have a great side dish.

A little more spice from the jerk seasoning on the tuna, and it would have gone from a very good dinner to an exceptional one.

Ingredients
For the Mango Sauce
1 ripe mango, peeled, pitted & chopped
1 1-inch knob of fresh ginger, peeled & grated
1/3 c orange juice
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
2 Tb fresh lemon juice

4 6-oz pieces of tuna, about 1/2 in thick
Coarse salt
4 tsp vegetable oi
4 tsp jerk seasoning

For the mango sauce, combine all the ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth. Taste the sauce. It should be tangy. If you need to, add a bit more lemon juice. This makes about 1 1/2 cups.

Season the tuna with salt and rub each piece with 1 tsp of the oil. Rub 1/2 tsp of the jerk seasoning into each side of each piece.

Heat your grill or stove-top griddle. Grill the tuna for 2 minutes for medium-rare. If heating on a grill pan, heat over medium high heat and grill the tuna for 1 1/2 mins on each side.

To serve, spoon the mango sauce onto dinner plates. Slice the tuna and fan the slices over the sauce.

It's another pizza Saturday night. Shannon was off at Michigan HIstory Day so I was on my own planning dinner for tonight. Figuring that she'd be hungry when she got home, I thought that something quick, filling, and tasty would be the best choice. Pizza seemed to fit the bill.

Earlier this week I was in Chicago for a conference and one night I went out with pizza with some wild and crazy Canadians from Vancouver. We hit Lou Malnati's on North Wells in the River North neighborhood. It was a little hike from the hotel but good after a long day of sitting. The pizza there is excellent. I shared a "Lou" special with Anita. It was deep dish with spinach, tomatoes and mozzarella, romano, and cheddar cheese. A better pizza is hard to find. Unless you make it yourself.

Tonight's pie was vegetarian. I began with the best pizza dough recipe ever. I've written about it before and once again the dough was fantastic. This time, I did not split the dough as Lahey recommends in his book. Instead I rolled out the entire recipe into one pan. I think the pizza is better with a bit more dough. It's chewier but still crisp, not at all spongy. If you like crispy crust, this will still work for you. I left it in the oven until the edges were golder brown, which left the center still well down but with enough air in the dough to give it some lift. As I said, I love this recipe.

The recipe I used also came from Lahey's book. But I embellished a bit. Instead of laying the zucchini/cheese mixture right on the dough, I layered on a little bit of pesto. And on top of the zucchini, I added a few kalamata olives. Once plated, I sprinkled on a little parmesan and red pepper flakes.

Definitely up to Lou's standards.

We had a good Davinci chianti with the pizza. The wine nicely complemented the pizza.

Ingredients
Pizza dough
3 3/4 c (300 grams) Bread or all-purpose flour
2 1/4 tsp (10 grams) Instant or active dry yeast
3/4 tsp (5 grams) table salt
3/4 tsp plus a pinch (3 grams) sugar
1 1/2 c (300 grams) room temp water (about 72 degrees)
extra virgin olive oil for pan

Toppings
2 1/2 lbs zucchini, grated
1 1/2 tsp table salt
2 c Gruyere or high-quality Swiss cheese
2 1/2 Tb Homemade bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 500 degrees with a rack in the center.

Use a food processor or box grater to grate the zucchini. In a medium bowl, toss together the zucchini and salt. Let stand for 15 - 20 minutes, until the zucchini has wilted and released its water.

Drain the zucchini in a colander, then squeeze out as much water as possible. In a medium bowl, toss together the zucchini and cheese, breaking up any clumps of zucchini, until well mixed.

Spread the zucchini mixture over the dough, going all the way to the edges of the pan; put a bit more of the topping around the edges of the pie, as the outside tends to cook and brown more quickly. Sprinkle evenly with the bread crumbs.

Bake for 25 - 30 minutes, until the topping is starting to turn golden brown and the crust is pulling awy from the sides of the pan. Serve the pizza hot or at room temperature.

I hadn't used my pressure cooker since the last time I canned jalapeno peppers and salsa. Until this evening. I hadn't really tried to cook with it so was feeling a little skittish. After putting the lentils & water into the cooker and bringing the water to a boil, 35 minutes later I had very tender legumes. Mixed in the spices, tomato, & cilantro and had a very tasty dish.

Ingredients
1 cup whole green lentils
2 Tbl Ghee or canola oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 c finely chopped red onion
1 large tomato, cored & finely chopped
1/4 c finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves & tender stems
1 1/2 tsp coarse kosher or sea salt
1 tsp ground Deggi chiles (or 1/2 tsp cayenne mixed with 1/2 tsp sweet paprika)
1 tsp Toasted Cumin-Coriander Blend
1 tsp ground tumeric

Place the lentils in a pressure cooker. Fill the cooker halfway with water, and rinse the lentils by rubbing them between your finertips. The water may appear slightly dirty. Drain this water. Repeat 3 or 4 times, until the water remains relatively clear. Add 3 c water and bring to a boil, uncovered, over high heat. Sim off and discard any foam that forms on the surface. Seal the cooker shut and allow the pressure to build up. When the cooker reaches full pressure, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for about 20 minutes. Remove the cooker from the heat and allow the pressure to subside naturally, about 15 minutes, before opening the lid.

Meanwhile, heata medium-size skillet over medium-high heat and pour in the ghee. Add the cumin seeds and cook until they sizzle, turn reddish borwn, and are aromoatic, 5 - 10 secs. Add the onion and stir-fry until it is light brown around the edges, 3 - 5 minutes.

Add the tomato, cilatnro, salt, ground chiles, cumin-coriander blend, and turmeric. Cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the tomato breaks down to a saucy consistency and some of the ghee starts to separate on the surface, 5 - 8 mins. Set the skillet aside until the lentils are cooked.

When the lentils are ready, add the sauce. Pour 1/2 c water into the skillet and degalze it, releasing any browned bits; pour this into the lentils. Stir once or twice, and simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally to prevent the lentils from sticking, until the flavors permeate the legumes, 8 - 10 minutes. Then serve.

Garlic. Chicken. Mashed Potatoes. Broccoli. What's not to like? Throw in a homemade pound cake from Mimi's secret recipe, and it was a little bit of heaven. Amanda was coming over for dinner so I decided to do the full-spread. She's a big mashed potato gal and likes her chicken. She'll even nibble on a few pieces of broccoli to keep her dad from growling about the lack of vegetables in her diet. Shannon provided the piece de resistance with her grandmother's pound cake.

The chicken recipe is from my friend Dave. He sent it along after our January outing to Colorado. Included in the package was a PBS special from 2001 called The Natural History of the Chicken. The recipe is a keeper. The DVD is a hoot...or maybe a cluck-cluck. We enjoyed both.

I don't have a skillet that's big enough to accomdate as much chicken at this recipe specifies. So I browned the whole, cut-up chicken in two smaller pans. Afterward, I transferred the chicken to a baking dish rather than baking in the skillet. That worked just as well.

40 cloves is a lot of garlic; I used three complete heads. By baking the dish with the chicken lying on top of the garlic, yhe garlic infuses the chicken nicely, giving the meat a kind of nutty flavor. The wine and juices from the chicken cook the cloves so that they're soft and spreadable by the time it's taken from the oven. We spread it on bread, mixed it in the potatoes, and popped it into our mouths straight. It was all good.

The recipe says you can peel the garlic or not; your choice. I peeled them for this dinner. It's a bit tedious peeling that many cloves of garlic but I didn't like the thought of all that unpeeled garlic just lying in the dish. After taking it from the oven, though, I can see quite easily that it would have worked just as well unpeeled. That would have saved quite a bit of prep time, too.

I followed Mark Bittman's guidlines for mashed potatoes in his book How to Cook Everything, and I used his vegetable gratin recipe for the broccoli. You can see that I burned the bread crumbs a bit on top of the broccoli. I left them a bit too long under the broiler. Next time I do the broccoli gratin, which we all loved, I'll put it in the oven for a bit to bake, then give it a minute or two under the broiler to crisp the breadcrumbs.

The mashed potatoes were excellent. I'm learning that the big secret to exquisite mashed potatoes is to mash them as gently as possible. Otherwise, you activate all the starch and end up with gummy potatoes and just kind of stick together. So stay away from the blender, food processor, and hand mixer. Use a ricer or hand masher. I have the latter and I was careful to press down slowly, going around the bowl several times to get as many lumps out as possible. But also not getting so vigorous that I ended up with a pasty mass. The result was a very good bowl of mashed potatoes. Add a few well done cloves of garlic and it's a heavenly dish.

We ended the meal with Shannon's pound cake. It didn't need any adornments. Amanda has long been partial to desserts. She ate this one with gusto and took much of the leftover home.

I don't get to cook for Amanda often enough and this dinner turned out to be quite the success. We all pushed back satisfied.

Ingredients
Whole chicken, cut-up & skinned
2 Tb extra virgin olive oil
40 garlic cloves, peeled or not
2 cups dry white wine
4 sprigs thyme or 1/4 tsp dried
1 sprig rosemary or 1/4 tsp dried
Salt & pepper
Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley as garnish

Heat oil in large skillet, lay chicken in pan in a single-layer and cook over medium-high heat. Sprinkle salt & pepper evenly over chicken. Cook until golden brown, about 2 mins on each side. Remove chicken from pan & set aside.

Reduce heat to medium. Add garlic & cook 1 minute or until garlic begins to brown, stirring frequently. Arrange chicken on top of garlic. Add wine & herbs. Cover & cook in oven at 350 for 45 - 60 mins.

Serve with toasted baguette slices or crostini.

Chicken, potatoes, and carrots. What else could be more quintessentially Sunday dinner? It takes me back to my childhood when Sunday afternoon dinner was the most important meal of the week. It was always right after church, around noon, and we'd all be packed off for our Sunday afternoon naps after. Heaven knows that no other activity was appropriate for Sunday. It was a day of rest after all. Inappropriate activity like playing with neighbor kids, and watching TV was banned. A few years later, room was made for Sunday afternoon football, but that was as far as the rule against activity was stretched.

I've left the Sundays of my youth far behind but sometimes I get a glimpse of those days. Today's dinner brought those memories flooding back.

For those who like as little dishwashing as possible after eating, this recipe is very nearly a one-pot meal, only the roasting pan, a cutting board and a few utinsels needing washing after the meal. The recipe comes from the Lee brothers Simple Fresh Southern. I like this cookbook a lot. The recipes are clearly laid out; they're easy to prepare, and they taste delicious.

I've long struggled with roast chicken. It's one of those meals that good cooks make with seeming ease. It's my experience that every master makes hard things look easy. My  yoga teacher Ruth does the same thing with her poses. She demonstrates and it looks effortless. Then I try it. Ooops, not so effortless. I find the same thing with roast chicken. Looks like it should be easy. Some salt, some pepper, a little olive oil. Pop it into the oven and an hour later take it out and enjoy. Except it never works out that way.

It's sort of beguiling. Last time I tried a roast chicken, I used Shirley Corriher's recipe in Cookwise. it looked easy enough and I fastidiously follwed every direction. But when I stuck in the thermometer after the allotted time, it was too cool. Extra minutes stretched into a half-hour and the accompanying veggies were done & cold by the time I fetched the bird from the oven. It still wasn't done the way I thought it should be.

The problem of course is that the white meat cooks before the dark meat. Pull it out too soon and you get cold, undercooked leg quarters. Wait too long and you get overdone, dried out breast meat. So I've been in search of the perfect roast chicken.

This recipe comes as close as I've found to an easy-to-make, perfect roast chicken. I think I didn't achieve perfection yet. The dark meat was a touch undercooked. Next time, I'll leave the bird in the oven for another 5 minutes or so. But in almost every respect, this is the best roast chicken recipe I've found yet. And an added benefit is that you have potatoes and carrots ready to eat with your chicken.

Along with our chicken and veggies, we had fresh bread that Shannon pulled from the oven about an hour before dinner, and a bottle of Acacia Pinot Noir. Before dinner, I polished off the last of a bottle of Fenn Valley Dry Riesling. The Pinot was ok but this one was too overwhelming for chicken. I'd go with the Riesling for this meal.

Ingredients
1 large or yellow onion, quartered
1 or more large carrots, peeled & cut into chunks
1 lb Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
3 Tb olive oil
2 tsp kosher salt
3/4 tsp black pepper
3 1/2 lb whole chicken, rinsed & dried inside & out
1 large lemon, halved
1/2 c chicken broth
1/2 c dry white wine

Heat oven to 425 degrees with rack in the middle of the oven

Combine onion, carrots, and potatoes in a medium cast iron skillet or 2 quart ovenproof backing dish. Drizzle the olive oil over the veggies, sprinkle with 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper and toss until evenly coated with the oil & seasonings. Place the chicken, breast side down, on the veggies and squeeze one lemon half all over the back. Season the chicken with 1/2 tsp of the salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper. Roast for 20 mins then briefly remove from oven

Lift the chicken and pour the broth and wine over the veggies in the pan and move them around a bit with a wooden spoon. Flip the bird over so that is breast side up. Squeeze the remaining lemon half over the chicken and season it with the remaining salt and pepper. Roast until the skin is nicely browned on top, about 40 minutes.

Tranfer the chicken to a cutting board, tent it loosely with aluminum foil, and let it rest for 10 minutes. Carve the chicken and serve with the pan vegetables and spoonfuls of the lemony pan sauce.

This is the best pizza I've ever made. It's not your standard tomato sauce, cheese, and two, three, or four toppings, but boy, was it tasty. I used no sauce or cheese, just mushrooms, potatoes, onions and a few spices. Good stuff.

For years, I've fooled around with pizza dough, trying recipe after recipe. But I could never get close to the same texture as pizzeria pizza dough. I even asked my daughter's boyfriend, who makes pizzas at Pizza Hut for the secret. Turns out the dough is delivered to them frozen, and they thaw and bake. It's not mixed on site. No help there. So I looked at book after book & website after website.

Last week, I was rewarded. I got My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method by Jim Lahey from the library. His no-knead bread recipe has been copied and adapted many times, including by Mark Bittman of the New York Times and the folks at Cooks Illustrated. Turns out he also likes pizza. His recipe is simple, elegant, and delicious. It's the closest I've ever come to pizzeria style dough. Two days after checking it out of the library, Shannon ran out and bought a copy. And tonight I put it to work.

I think there are a couple of differences between his recipe and the others I've tried. First, he says to shape the dough into a rectangular pan and place that in the oven on top of a pizza stone. Previously, I've baked the pizza directly on the stone, not in a pan. Second, the pan has been liberally coated with olive oil before stretching the dough out in it. The oil makes the dough a little slippery but made a big difference in the cooking. Last, he calls for more yeast than I normally use to make my pizza dough. That made the crust very light.

This recipe makes enough for two thin crust pizzas, and the crust is very thin. If you don't want to make two pizzas at once, you can cut the recipe in half quite easily or do what I did and freeze half.

You will notice that the dough ingredients are given in weight as well as volume measurements. I recently bought a good kitchen scale and was pleased with how easy it was to put everything together using the scale, rather than the usual assortment of measuring cups and spoons. I suspect that the scale played a role in tonight's supper success.

Lastly a word about the toppings. I used mushrooms and potatoes. The recipe called for cremini mushrooms but the market was out so I used white button mushrooms. For the potatoes, it was Michigan-grown Yukon gold. The key to a well-done, tasty pizza was having the veggies sliced quite thinly. If you are very highly skilled you might be able to do that with a good chef's knife. I'm not in that league. So I used a mandoline. I'm sold on the gadget. I got uniform slices, quickly. There are many mandolines on the market, covering nearly every pricepoint so you should be able to find one that suits you and your budget.

We paired the pizza with one of our favorite Chiantis, Da Vinci Chianti. It's a pretty good, inexpensive Chianti. I often find it on sale for around $10.00 a bottle.

If you're not a fan of thin-crust pizza or think you aren't, you owe it to yourself to try this out.

Ingredients
Pizza dough
3 3/4 c (300 grams) Bread or all-purpose flour
2 1/4 tsp (10 grams) Instant or active dry yeast
3/4 tsp (5 grams) table salt
3/4 tsp plus a pinch (3 grams) sugar
1 1/2 c (300 grams) room temp water (about 72 degrees)
extra virgin olive oil for pan

Toppings
3/4 lb mushrooms
3-4 Yukon gold potatoes, peeled
2 small yellow onions, diced
1/3 c extra virgin olive oil
fresh thyme
fresh rosemary
fresh ground black pepper
oregano
Red pepper flakes

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, yeast, salt, and sugar. Add the water and use a wooden spoon (or your hands) to mix until blended, at least 30 seconds. Cover the bowl and let sit at room temperature, until the dough has doubled in size, about 2 hours.

Oil two 13-by-18 inch baking sheets. Scrape half the dough onto each sheet. Gently pull and stretch the dough across the surface of the pan and use your hands to press it evenly to the edges. Make sure the pans are adequately oiled and press gently yet firmly. Pinch any holes together. The dough on each pan will be quite thin.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees with the rack in the center.

Use a mandoline to cut the mushrooms and potatoes. The mushrooms should be about 1/8 inch thick and the potatoes 1/16 inch thick.

In a medium bowl combine a quart of water and 4 tsp of table salt. Stir to dissolve the salt. Place the potatoes in the brine for about 90 minutes, until the slices are wilted and no longer crisp.

Drain the potatoes in a colander and use your hands to press out excess water. Pat dry.

In a medium bowl, combine mushrooms, potatoes, onions, and olive oil.

Spread potato and mushroom mixture on pizza dough, with a bit more of the mixture near the edges. Sprinkle with rosemary, thyme, and oregano.

Bake 20 - 25 minutes on a pizza stone. Remove from oven when the topping starts to turn golden brown and the edges begin to pull away from the sides of the pan. Serve hot. Put jar of red pepper flakes on table for guests to add.

Not much cooking at the Dykhuis/White household this week. I'm in Indianapolis through Thursday and the only cooking device in the hotel room is a microwave oven. Since I'm likely to be doing these week-at-a-time trips for some time to come, I'm going to need better amenities.

So, nothing fun for dinner this week. But this morning, we had a delightful pan of baked oatmeal. Our friend Susan Fayad served this a couple mornings when we were on our Colorado ski trip. It's very easy to do, but does require some forethought. We mixed it all up Saturday night and put it in the refrigerator overnight. Got up Sunday, popped it in the oven and an hour later had perfectly done oatmeal.  I like to spoon a lot of plain yogurt over it but you could use milk or cream or try maple syrup or honey.

The recipe calls for apples and dried cranberries, both of which we had in the house. But you could easily subsitute pears or other fresh fruit for the apples and just about any dried fruit for the cranberries.

If you love oatmeal, as I do, this is a welcome alternative to the usual stove-top method.

I even hauled leftovers with me to Indy. With some homemade yogurt, it'll be way better than anything they hotel is likely to serve. 

Combine dry ingredients:
2 C. oatmeal
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 - 1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 C. brown sugar
1/2 - 1 C. chopped nuts
1 - 2 C. chopped apples
1 C. dried cranberries

Lightly oil a 2 qt. baking dish.

Spread dry ingredients evenly in baking dish.

Combine liquid ingredients:
2 eggs slightly beaten
1 1/2 C. milk
1/4 C. oil

Pour evenly over the dry ingredients.

Let stand about 30 minutes.  Can leave overnight in fridge.

Bake at 350 for 45 - 60 minute