Handmade Pizza

I have just started experimenting with pizza and I have to say, this pizza crust rivals any restaurant that I am able to get pizza at.

The Dough:

1 3/4 cup warm water
1 Tbs Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
2 tsp Kosher Salt
1 1/2 tsp Dry Active Yeast
1 1/2 tsp White Sugar
3 1/4 cup White Flour
1 cup Whole Wheat Flour

Pour the water into a large bowl and mix in the oil, salt, yeast, and sugar. The mixture won't dissolve completely, don't worry about it.

Add the flour and mix until it forms a consistent dough. The best way to do this is with the handle-end a wooden spoon. This will ensure you don't over mix and also will keep the clumps of dough off the spoon.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap but leave a small opening so that the gas can escape. Let this sit at room temperature for 2 hours to rise.

Put the dough in the fridge for at least 3 hours with the loose plastic wrap on it still.

Now, you can cut the dough into grapefruit-sized balls (feeds about 2-3 people each) and freeze them if you like. Make sure to freeze them individually in zip lock baggies. If you freeze them, put them in the fridge overnight to thaw.

Let the dough rest at room temp for 30 mins - 1 hour to get back up to room temperature.

Take the dough out of the bowl /plastic baggie and stretch it into a ball by folding it into  itself a few times. Don't do this too many times or it will toughen the dough.Let the dough rest for another 15-20 mins.

Now you are ready to stretch or roll out your dough. Roll the dough out on a floured surface and place on a olive oil greesed cookie sheet for thin crust, or use your hands to push it out on the sheet for thicker crust.

Start your oven to as hot as it'll go. (about 550 degrees)

The sauce:

You can use any store bought sauce or make your own by pureeing a can of whole tomatoes and simmering it until it reduces by about half. You can add some chopped basil to this if you like.

Suggested Toppings:

There are so many combinations that you could use. The one pictured here is a half-and-half pizza:

Side 1: Cherry Tomato, Mozzerella & Basil (drizzled with olive oil after cooking)
Side 2: Chorizo Sausage, caramelized onion, roasted red pepper and jalapeno (Yes, it's as good as it sounds)

The taste is really dependent on where and how you place the toppings. Here are some suggestions of my favorites:

Topping Proceedure Placement Caramelized Onion Saute (on low heat) sliced onion for about 30 mins Bottom above sauce Roasted Red Pepper I would just buy the jarred ones but you can throw them on the   Top  BBQ until the skin blackens. Put them into a ziplock bag for This will loosen the skin and you can just peel it off Chorizo Open the sausage casing and sautee in olive oil until crispy Top  Roasted Garlic Cut a head of garlic in half and drizzle olive oil over the cut half.  Top or under cheese Wrap the in tin foil and cook at 375 for 1 hour Prosciutto Proscuitto is basically Italian, dry-cured ham. Just lay it over the  Top top of the pizze, raw and it'll crisp up. Go easy…it's salty Jalapeno or Poblano Cut the pepper in half and remove the seeds and white part. This Anywhere  is where all the heat lies. You can then dice them up and sprinkle them on the pizza. Great pepper taste without killing your tounge.  Basil Leaves Just rub a slight bit of olive oil on the leafs and place them on the very top.  Top They will crisp up and taste incredible Arugula This peppery lettuce goes great on top of bold pizzas (like my caramelized  Top onion and chorizo) Put it on AFTER the cooking
Cook your pizza at 550 for 12 minutes, or until the crust bubbles and starts to turn deep brown. Let your pizza rest for 2 or 3 minutes before you cut into it.

Ancho Rubbed BBQ Beef Ribs

I have been playing around in the kitchen with rubs for the past few years and I think the one I made tonight is going to be the stand alone winner. 

My wife is an artist and is going to sell her art at the Brandon Summer market this year. This turned out so well that I have decided to make this rub and sell it at the market as well.

My Ancho Rub is a subtly spicy, fully flavored rub that would go excellently with beef, pork, or chicken. Freshly ground Cayenne and Ancho Chili Peppers add nice kick and a great smoke flavor without having to use a smoker. Ingredients include; black pepper, garlic, fresh Cayenne and Ancho Chilies. 

If you would like a tin of this rub, please email me and I can send them out using PayPal . ($8 + shipping)

Add the ingredients for your rib rub in a bowl and mix well. Take out the ribs and put them in a shallow pan to sit. Put the rib rub mixture onto the ribs and pour a bit of vegetable oil on top. Rub the oil and rub mixture all over the ribs and massage them for a minute. Cover the ribs with foil and place them in the fridge for at least 4 hours, but the longer the better.

Heat the oven to 275 degrees. Take your ribs out of the oven and open them up. Pour ½ cup of red wine and ½ cup of beef stock into the bottom of the pan to keep the ribs moist. Cook the ribs for 3-3.5 hours.

To finish the ribs, take them out of the oven and light your grill with one side on blazing hot and the other side on about medium heat. Put the ribs, meat side down, on the blazing hot side for about 2 minutes and turn them over and do the same to the other side. Move the ribs over to the cooler side of the BBQ and baste them with BBQ sauce. I used Bullseye Kickin Chicken and Rib. Its got a bit of sweet and kick in it.

Close the BBQ and cook for minutes or so and baste once more and cook for another few minutes. Take your ribs off and cover them with foil to rest for 5 or 8 minutes. Enjoy!

Carne Asada

This is one of my death row meals. I miss the carne asada and arricherra from Mexico so much. I have never perfectly replicated the Arricherra Marinada from our "home town", Torreon, but this version is pretty damn good. Usually, the Torreon version has beer added into the marinade. Use a nice large flank steak that is not thicker than 1/4 inch.

For the Marinade:

4 Garlic cloves
1 Jalapeno
1 large handful of cilantro
Kosher salt and pepper
2 limes
1 orange
2 tbs white vinegar
1/2 cup Olive Oil

Crush up the garlic, jalapeno, cilantro, salt and pepper in a mortar and pestle until it forms a paste. Mix the wet ingredients in a bowl and add the ingredients from the mortar. Mix very well

Put your flank steak into a large baking dish and pour the marinade over it. Let the steak marinade in the fridge for 5-8 hours. Do not let this sit for more than 8 hours or the lime juice will start to break down the meat too much and it will give a mushy consistancy.

Grill the meat on the highest heat possible without closing the lid on the BBQ. This needs to cook very quickly to make sure that the meat is as tender as possible. Do not cook a flank past med-rare. Flank is very tough if cooked incorrectly, but amazing if done right.

Let the meat rest for at least 10 minutes to make sure that the juices stay in the steak when you cut it. Cut the steak against the natural grain of the muscle, into strips. This will also help to ensure tenderness.

Add the steak to grilled corn tortillas and add your condiments (my favorites):

Salsa Verde (Tomatillo Salsa)
A squirt of Lime
A small handfull of cilantro
  -- the stocks have great flavour, too! Don't just take the leaves. Also, if you find cilantro with the root on it still, those are great. Try frying them in oil for a minute or so and you will get great scented cooking oil for your curries.)

Hand Made Spinach & Ricotta Ravioli

I finally received a pasta roller for Christmas this year and was eager to put it to the test. Here is my version of a pretty classic Italian dish...

Pasta Dough:

1 ¾ cups all purpose flour
3 eggs
Pinch of salt

Filling:

1 lb fresh spinach
1 tsp olive oil
1 tbl salt
1 large tub of Ricotta Cheese
1 egg
2 tbl cream
4 Tbl Parmesan Cheese (grated)
¼ tsp fresh nutmeg
Pinch black pepper

Sauce:

1 large can whole tomatoes (San Marzano are best)
1 onion (Small dice)
1 small bunch of basil
2 cloves garlic

For the pasta:

Pile the flour on a clean working surface and make a well in the middle. Crack the eggs into the well, add salt and scramble with a fork. 

 Slowly incorporate the flour into the eggs using a fork and then your hands until all of the flour is into the eggs.

Kneed the dough for 10-12 minutes until the surface becomes shiny. Pat the dough with a few drops of good olive oil and wrap in saran. Rest the dough at room temperature for about an hour before rolling it out.

Cut the pasta into 4 pieces and roll it into sheets according to your pasta machine.

For the filling:

Sautee the spinach, nutmeg, and salt in olive oil until it becomes fully wilted. Set aside to cool. 

Mix the rest of the ingredients in a bowl. When the spinach is cooled, squeeze any moisture out and add it to the mixture. Fold in. Put the spinach and ricotta mixture into a ziplock bag and cut off one corner to create a piping bag.

Pipe the spinach and ricotta mixture onto the sheets of pasta leaving room to create ravioli.

Scramble one egg and brush it onto the dough between the piles of mixture. This will act as a glue for the top half of the dough. Place a sheet of dough on top of the ravioli and press out any air. Cut into ravioli shapes and pinch the edges to make sure the seal doesn’t break.


One lesson that I learned was not to stack the ravioli when you make them. They will stick together regardless of the amount of flour you dust them with. Make sure to lay them as a single layer on a pan or large platter. 

For the sauce:

Sautee the whole garlic cloves in olive oil over medium heat and discard them when they have turned brown. Add the onion and cook until translucent. Open the can of tomatoes and blend with a hand blender or food processor. cook the sauce for 4-5 minutes and add salt and pepper to taste. Add torn basil leaves right before serving.

To finish:

Boil a pot of heavily salted water and cook the ravioli for 3-4 minutes. Add the ravioli to the sauce and top with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

My ravioli was a bit too large and perogi-esq. I would make them a bit smaller than this next time...but a good first attempt. 

Apple and Rosemary Braised Pork over Spaetzle

For the pork:

4 -5 lb Pork Shoulder Roast

3 onions (sliced)
3 carrots (1/2 inch pieces)
3-4 Cloves of Garlic (Diced)
3 Apples (I used Ambrosia, but could be any apple)
1 L Chicken Stock
¾ L Apple Juice
3-4 Tbl Apple Cider Vinegar
2-3 sprigs of fresh Rosemary
3 Bay Leaves
1 tbl Olive Oil

Heat Oven to 300 degrees. Heat a Dutch Oven over Med/High heat. Add the oil. Take your pork shoulder roast and cut it in have. This will give you more of a surface to brown, and more flavour in turn. Brown off the roasts on all 6 sides.

Remove the roasts once they’re browned. Add the onions and brown slightly. Add your carrots apples, and garlic and cook for a few minutes until soft. Add a big splash of chicken stock and scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the dutch oven. This will release all of those brown bits on the bottom (flavour). Now add your meat back to the pot.

Add the chicken stock, vinegar and apple juice back to the pot. Only add as much liquid as it takes to almost cover the meat. Stick it in the oven for about 4 hours.

For the Spaetzle:

1 tsp Salt
4 Eggs
1 Cup Milk
3 Cups Whole Wheat Flour
1 Tsp of Baking Powder
Pinch of Nutmeg and Pepper
Tbl of butter

Put on a large pot of salted water. Start a frying pan on med heat. Wisk together eggs and milk. Add the dry ingredients and mix until a batter forms. Take a cheese grater and, over the boiling water, put a big scoop of the batter onto the inside of the large grater. Run the batter through the slots and let it fall into the boiling 

water. Once they float to the top, scoop them out with a wire mesh. 

They are ready to fry in the tablespoon of butter. Fry until browned and plate. Shred the pork inside of the dutch oven with a pair of tongs. Serve over the spaetzle. 

As always, the photos are all from my kitchen. However, today, a thanks to Michael Smith's website for the after photo (and general recipe)....which I was too hungry to take. :)

Citrus-Thyme Roasted Chicken

Roasting a chicken in the summer is usually not on the meal list. But, this version that is stuffed with lemon, orange and fresh thyme is a wonderful break from the BBQ.

7 -8 pound locally raised chicken
15-20 sprigs of fresh parsley
3 carrots (peeled)
2 celery stalks
1 large yellow onion (skinned and quartered)
4 cloves of garlic (peeled)
1/4-1/3 cup of butter
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock or water
salt & pepper

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

First, rinse your chicken and pat it dry with a paper towel. A dry chicken will encourage that beautiful browning on the skin.

Take 3-4 sprigs of thyme and take off the leaves. Mix the thyme and butter. Also, make a vegetable rack on the bottom of the roasting pan for the chicken to sit on. This is made up of the celery, carrot, onion, garlic and remaining thyme sprigs. (keep 3-4 for the inside of the bird) Set the bird breast side up on the veg rack.

The rack can be seen on my Perfect Roast Beef post. The rack will give aromatics to the bird and also will keep it from sitting in the juices in the bottom of the pan.

Separate the skin from the meat on the breast side with your fingers but keep it in tact. You can separate the entire piece of skin. Next, put the butter and thyme mixture under the skin and close it up. The butter and thyme will give your chicken an incredible flavour burst.

Wash and quarter the lemon and orange and stuff them and the remaining thyme into the cavity . The citrus fruits will steam into the meat through the cooking process. This will leave the meat with a slight hint of those  orange and lemon flavours and will also keep the meat moist.

Truss the bird if you like and put the stock or water into the bottom of the pan.

Drizzle some olive oil over the breasts and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place the bird into the oven for 20 minutes per pound or until a thermometer reaches aproximately 80 degrees.

Take the chicken out of the oven and cover it with tin foil. Let the chicken rest for 20 minutes. This is called tenting and you should do it with any meat you cook, whether it be a full bird, steak or chicken breast. The tenting process is a very important part in keeping the meat moist. When  you take meat out of the heat, the juices are flying around inside the muscle and they need to slow down and redistribute back in the meat. If you cut into the meat before tenting and letting it rest (20 mins for a roast and 5-8 mins for a small cut of meat) all of the juices will end up on the plate instead of in the meat.

Once the bird has rested, carve it and enjoy.

You could make a sauce out of the pan drippings with a little bit of white wine and orange juice. Pour the liquid into the pan and add a sprinkle of S&P and some more thyme. Stir to get the bits off of the bottome and then simmer to reduce for a few minutes. Finish your sauce with a squirt of lemon and a pad of butter. The butter will give shine, richness and body. Pour the sauce over the carved chicken.

Serve with summer vegetables. I used new potatoes and carrots with fresh dill.

Irish Stout Stew

Irish Stout Beef Stew

3-4 lbs of beef cut into 1’ cubes
4 onions (large dice)
4 Carrots (small pieces)
2 lbs of small white potatoes (cut in half)
1 baker potato (grated)
1 can tomato paste
1 liter beef stock
500 ml stout
3 bay leaves

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. This is the perfect temperature to simmer liquid in the oven.

Start by cutting your meat into 1 inch cubes. This should be a cut of meat with lots of connective tissue. This will break down and give body and flavour to your stew. Use a cut of meat that gets used a lot. The more a muscle is used, the more connective tissue, and the more flavourful. I used an outside roast, but chuck would work even better. Also, take some time to dry all pieces, as this will help in the browning process later.

 Prep your vegetables. Make sure to cut all vegetables into uniform pieces, about 1 inch thick.

Heat a Dutch oven with about ¼ - ½ inch of veg oil in it on the stove top on medium high heat. This will look like a lot of oil, but you will be draining it off later. Once your oil is hot put in one, uncrowded layer of beef. Do not put too much beef in the pot because it will not caramelize effectively, it will just steam and that will make for unflavourful and tough beef. You will have to brown the beef in batches. Once a layer of beef is browned on all sides, you can remove it from the pot, put it into a bowl and cook another batch. Take time to really brown each side of each piece of beef. This will give immense flavour to your stew.

Once you have browned and removed all of your beef, drain most, but not all, of your oil.  There should be lots of brown bits in the bottom of your pot. This is where all of the hidden flavour for your stew is  so don’t get rid of it!

Put the onions into the Dutch oven with a sprinkle of salt, cook until soft. The onions will pick up lots of the brown color and flavour from the leftover beef bits. Once the onion is softened and starting to brown, put in the can of tomato paste and cook for a minute or two to enhance the flavour.

Pour the beer and beef stock into the pot. The beer should be a good thick stout. Lagers and ales will not work here because they just don’t have the intense flavour to stand up to the big flavour of the beef. Guiness is ok, but something even darker and more stout-y should be used here. I used  O’Hara’s Irish Stout because it is very dark and full of flavour.

Grate the russet potato into the stew using a box grater. The potato will melt into the stew over the cooking process and the starch from the potato  will take the place of corn starch or flour to thicken the stew. Add the carrots, potatoes, and bay leaves to the stew.  Stir to combine and cover and put the stew into the oven and cook for 3 or 4 hours.