Three for 50 - Possibility Everywhere

 

Recipes Two and Three

Two new-to-me recipes this week - Cast Iron Pan Pizza and Cheddar Scone Biscuits.  I should explain for those new to my blog that we eat a lot of pizza at my house, mostly home-made (or ho-made as we like to say) and since March 2020 we have been having pizza every Sunday night.  This week we broke from our usual crust (which you can find the recipe for multiple times on the blog but here is one link for it which also tells why we call it Ho-made) and tried a new one.  Adapted from this blog, we halved the recipe and topped it with marinara, turkey sausage crumbles, shredded mozzarella, and green and red peppers. I will tell you how I made the pizza. We liked it and will substitute for our regular pizza crust occasionally (maybe once a month).  Note that the dough needs to rest for at least 30-60 minutes so plan ahead.  

Cast Iron Pan Pizza - recipe as below makes one 10" pizza, which serves 2-3 people

3/4 C warm water (approx 105-110 deg F)

1/4 t dry active yeast (I buy jars of yeast vs. pkg because it is more versatile)

1 T olive oil

1/2 t kosher salt

2 C all purpose flour

1 T cornmeal

2T grated parmesan cheese

1/2 C marinara (we used part of a jar already open in fridge.  You could also use an 8 oz can of tomato sauce with 1 t Italian seasoning and 2 minced garlic cloves or any other sauce you like)

1 C shredded mozzarella

your choice of toppings - we used about 1 C Jimmy Dean turkey sausage crumbles and about 1/2 pepper worth of diced red and green bell peppers

In a large bowl, add warm water and yeast.  Allow to sit for about 5 minutes to activate yeast.  Add olive oil, salt and flour - stir to combine.  Turn out on a floured surface and knead, adding a little flour if too sticky to handle.  It should be a little tacky but not sticky.  Knead until smooth and elastic (I kneaded about 20 times).  Put in zip top bag in fridge (next time would probablynot waste the plastic and would use a covered bowl) for at least 30-60 minutes or up to 8 hours.

Preheat oven to 525 F.  Sprinkle a 10" cast iron pan with a tablespoon of cornmeal.  Press dough into the pan, pressing it out towards the edges and up the sides as best as possible. Set stovetop to medium high and wait a few moments for pan to heat.  As pan and dough warm up, continue to press dough more evenly on bottom and up the sides to form the crust.  Cook a few more minutes until it starts to puff up and bubble slightly.  Remove from heat and use your fingers to create some slight divots in the dough.  Top with marinara, your toppings and mozzarella.  Sprinkle shredded parmesan along top edges of crust. Bake (in the pan) in oven for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted and rust is golden brown. Allow to cool 5-10 minutes before slicing.

We also like soup at hour house and I have other posts on that here and there and everywhere.  Biscuits go great with many soups and this week we had good old Chicken Noodle Soup with this new recipe.  This recipe also lead to a google search to figure out what the difference is between scones and biscuits - egg is the main difference apparently.  Not sure how this one is both a scone and a biscuit.  It came from a Penzey's catalog back when they still used to send paper catalogs chock-full of recipes and interesting articles about cooks.  These puffed up tall and were very tasty.

Cheddar Scone Biscuits - makes 24 small biscuits

2 C cake flour (all-purpose flour works fine as well and that is what I used)

4 t baking powder

1 t salt

1/8-1/4 t Cayenne pepper or smoked paprika, to taste (optional - I used 1/4 t Hungarian smoked paprika)

1 egg

1/2-3/4 C milk, divided

5 T butter

1 C grated cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 475.  In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and cayenne or paprika (I "sifted" with a wire whisk because Hallie does not sift). In a small bowl, beat the egg with 1/2 C of the milk.  Cut the butter into dry ingredients and blend until the mixture is pea-sized crumbles.(Recipe says easiest to use your fingers but I used my pastry blender because that is what I do for all biscuits.) Add the cheese and almost all of the egg/milk mixture, reserving about 1 T to brush on top of the biscuits.  Mix gently together until just combined but do not overmix or they will be tough.  Add the remaining milk if the dough is too dry (I added about a tablespoon).  

Roll or pat the dough to about 1 inch thick.  Cut into circles with a very small biscuit cutter (I used the smallest one I have which is about 2" diameter).  Brush scones with the reserved egg mix.  Bake at 475 on an ungreased heavy (or parchment-lined) baking sheet for about 10 minutes or until puffed up and lightly browned.  Watch carefully, as the size of the scone will determine how quickly they bake and at that temperature the bottoms can burn pretty quickly (mine took about 8 minutes).

Books One, Two and Three

I finished 3 books this week - off to the reading races!  Tuesday I finished a book club selection (the one I selected so I will need to review it later this month before attempting to lead discussion on 2/6) - Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.  This one had come up on multiple lists of classics you should read at sometime in your life and I am so glad I finally read it.  It is not without its challenges for readers, including all of the dialogue written in dialect, but once I got into the flow of that (yes, I may have been reading out loud at times), I found the story very engaging and it pulled me through quicker than I thought it woud.  It takes place in the late 1920s/early '30s in Florida and is the story of Janie, a fierce independent Black woman, her life and her three marriages.  The writing is lyrical and flowing, starting off with "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board." The story is told in a circle - we know right away Janie is coming back from burying someone, that she had last been seen in town with someone named Tea Cake and that the whole town's tongues were wagging with stories of her.  She then tells her whole life story to her friend Pheoby and entrusts her friend to tell her story to others as she wishes - "You can tell 'em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat's just de same as me 'cause mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf."  I would highly recommend this book - there is a reason it is on so many reading lists.  There are important racial, feminist and class themes but also a love story and poetic prose.

Book 2 - started and finished within the week (a couple days of not being able to sleep after feeding the cats at 5am helped) was The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.  Very different than Their Eyes and probably more widely read (or maybe you saw the movie), Wallflower is teen fiction told completely in letters from Charlie, a 15-16 year old, to an unnamed person he simply addresses as "Dear friend".  Comical, troubling and at times relatable, Charlie is a wallflower, encouraged by his friends and teachers to "participate" in life.  It takes place in the early 90s and Charlie is a little younger than I was then.  There are a lot of issues brought up in this book (rape, homosexuality, drug and alcohol use, various types of abuse, mental illness) though not gone into in depth.  I think this one gets tossed out there as the high school experience of an outsider but I could not always relate to many of the things going on.  I didn't attend parties in high school and did not observe many of the things Charlie saw or did.  I know when happened (and still do) but many parts were not at all my experience.  That said, it was a good story, kept my attention and I always love stories told in letters!

Book 3 - And now for something completely different!  No Children, No Pets by Marion Holland was a childhood favorite that I read this week while I ate lunch.  My copy was a first edition, published in 1956 and I have no idea where or when I got the book.  My guess would be from a garage sale and 2nd or 3rd grade.  The main storyline is 3 children (Jane, the oldest, is 12) and their widowed mother from Philadelphia who inherits an old apartment building in Florida when her great uncle dies.  The family and their cat Victoria show up at the apartment house to try to settle the estate, and find a sign posted "No Children, No Pets", a rather run-down building, needy and angry tenants, and a missing caretaker.  

I now remember why I read it many times when I was young.  Florida, the ocean, hurricanes, coconuts and seashells were all new to me as a child in the Midwest.  Visiting another place through reading is a great escape and great way to learn too.  It is a simple gentle story with elements of mystery and characters who we learn aren't always who they seem to be at first.  

I was planning to do a little more Hindsight 2020 but with 2 recipes and 3 book reviews, I will leave that for a future post.  I plan to highlight some of the books I read last year.

Fifty for 50 Tally

Books completed – 3 (4 more started)

Recipes tried – 3

Blog posts published– 3

Miles walked in January –25.9

                Miles walked year-to-date –25.9

Scrap book pages completed –0

Hats donated – 0 (4 ready)

Hours volunteered – 0

Until we read and eat again,

Hallie

Two for 50 – And so the adventure begins

 

Despite the troubling chaos mid-week, or maybe because of it, I tried to focus back on what I can control.  I kept walking, started reading a childhood favorite to escape, tried a new recipe, and kept my fingers busy knitting a new baby hat.  It didn’t stop me from asking “what the holy hell is going on???!” repeatedly but it helped some. 

Fifty for 50 Tally

Books completed – 0 (3 started)

Recipes tried – 1

Blog posts published– 2

Miles walked in January –16.5

                Miles walked year-to-date –16.5

Scrap book pages completed –0

Hats donated – 0 (3 ready)

Hours volunteered – 0

 

Recipe One - Smoky Chicken, Tomato, Brown Rice, and Corn Soup

It is the soup time of the year and I LOVE soups.  This recipe came from a grocery store magazine called Real Food that I picked up, apparently, in Fall 2009.  I have been meaning to try it ever since. I’ll enter it here as published, my comments or changes in parentheses.  Capital T = tablespoon, small t = teaspoon.  We liked this soup and would make it again – it was easy, very flavorful, and a nice winter dinner served with breadsticks or biscuits.  All the main ingredients are usually stocked at my house.

Smoky Chicken, Tomato, Brown Rice, and Corn Soup (gotta love a title that tells you almost every single ingredient)

Use cooked chicken leftover from a rotisserie chicken for this quick, easy and substantial soup.

2 T extra-virgin olive oil (I used garlic olive oil when I discovered I was out of garlic)

1 C chopped onion

1 garlic clove, finely chopped (see above)

2 t smoked paprika (Penzey’s for me, naturally)

1 t ground cumin

1 can – 28 oz – peeled plum tomatoes, with juices (used petite diced because that was what I had)

1 ½ C cubed leftover cooked chicken (used rotisserie chicken I had in the freezer)

3 to 4 C reduced sodium chicken broth (used 3 C water with Penzey’s soup base)

½ to 1 C leftover cooked brown rice, bulgur, quinoa, or other grain (used one bag of Trader Joe’s organic brown rice from frozen section – microwave 3 min and it is cooked, used all of it because I didn’t want a cup of cooked rice hanging around in the fridge)

1 C fresh, frozen or canned corn kernels (Trader Joe’s frozen corn because we always have it on hand)

½ C chopped cilantro leaves and tender stems, divided (I used Boathouse instant fresh herbs cilantro, about 2 T.  They are freeze dried and are as good as fresh once rehydrated, plus do not get slimy in the fridge when you forget about them)

¼ C pitted Kalamata olives, coarsely chopped (we did not add these)

1 T minced jalapeno, or to taste (did not have and I don’t love jalapeno.  I did add a couple shakes of red pepper flakes though, for a touch of heat)

2 T fresh lime juice (I used some from concentrate squeeze bottle stuff.  I almost skipped it entirely but after tasting it before and after addition of lime, would definitely recommend it.  It makes the soup less tomato-y one note.)

½ C plain low-fat yogurt (I added a dollop to my serving, but it really didn’t do much so would probably skip it in the future)

Heat the oil in a large, broad soup pot over medium heat. When hot, add the onion and cook, stirring, until golden, about 10 minutes (did NOT take 10 minutes - watch this so you don't burn it). Stir in the garlic and cook 1 minute (didn’t use garlic but suspect 1 min would be too long for this too). Turn off the heat and stir in the paprika and cumin.

Puree the tomatoes in a food processor (I added mine to the onion and pureed the lot with immersion blender so as to hide the onions).  Add the chicken and pulse once or twice or until chopped into small pieces (didn’t do this because I had cubed by hand). Add to the pot with the sautéed onion and spices. Add 3 cups of the broth and heat to simmering. Stir in the rice, corn, half of the cilantro leaves, olives and jalapeno. Heat, stirring, over low heat. Add remaining cup of broth to thin the soup if desired.

When the soup is hot remove from heat and add lime juice. Ladle the soup into bowls and place a spoonful of yogurt in the center of each bowl. Sprinkle the remaining cilantro over the top, dividing evenly (I didn’t do this).

I had 5 generous portions, especially with the additional rice in there. 

 

2020 Highlights and Reflections

Last week, before my blog post, I spent a good amount of time reflecting on 2020 (titled ‘Hindsight 2020’ in my journal – and yes, I felt clever).  I read 30 books, got stuff done at home and in the yard that had been fairly neglected, cooked hundreds of meals.  It was a crappy year in many ways but also had some shimmery parts to it.  I didn’t read as many books as I thought I would – I had trouble focusing for a good part of the year – but I did get 30 read.  I lost weight and ate better than I have in a long time.  I spent good quality (and quantity) time with my husband.  I learned about laundering money (binge-watched Ozark), forensic anthropology (all 12 seasons of Bones) and cattle ranching (Yellowstone), plus various other topics courtesy a variety of streaming services.  I scrap-booked once at a retreat, once at a virtual crop and then a few times on my own. Christmas cards and birthday cards were made AND mailed.  I walked over 800 miles, despite weather and a couple months of back pain that had me doing physical therapy.

Knitting has long been a source of solace for me.  As Elizabeth Zimmerman has said, “Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn’t hurt the untroubled spirit either.”  In April, I knit a cowl of gray soft baby alpaca yarn and called it my COVID cowl.  The pattern was easy to work, and the entire garment was sort of meditation. Then I started a sweater (corona crewneck?) with some yarn I have had for at least 10 years – soft blue wool – and began a top-down seamless crewneck knit in the round, without a pattern (just a general plan). Before summer and gardening season, I had the entire body of it, plus one whole sleeve, done.  And then it sat until about November.  I finished the last sleeve the beginning of December and it fits beautifully.  December found me working with angora rabbit wool to make some fuzzy warm mittens.  They are also are light gray color and the finished product is like plunging my fingers into the cat’s fur.  Warm and cozy – I better not lose them!  My next project will be to make a string to thread through my jacket like I had when I was 5.

Whew!  That was a long post.

Until we read or eat again,

Hallie