As Easy as (Pizza) Pie!

My daughter Kirsten and her family are here from California for a few weeks. So the extended-family get-togethers have begun!

Tonight we made pizza for the masses. Everybody contributed various food items. I made the pizza dough.

For anyone who bakes pizza at home, I recommend making your own dough for the crust. It's easy to make and it tastes good.

For anyone who wants to learn how to bake yeast breads, I recommend starting with pizza dough. It's easy to make and not at all fussy.
 

Pizza Dough

Pour 1½ C warm water into large bowl.

Add:

1 T yeast

Add and mix:

2 C flour*

2 tsp. olive oil

1 tsp. salt

Continue to add flour—about 2 C more in all—until dough can be kneaded; then knead for 10 minutes.

Put 1 tsp. olive oil in the bowl. Turn the ball of dough in it until it is covered with oil. Cover the dough and let rise in a warm place for at least 1 hour, or until doubled in bulk.

After the dough has risen, punch it down, but do not knead it. For thicker crust, divide the dough into 2 parts. For thinner crust, divide the dough into 4 parts.

*You can use all-purpose flour, bread flour, or whole-wheat flour. My current favorite is white whole-wheat flour. If you are using white flour, I recommend using bread flour if you can.

NOTE: This dough is not fussy. You could make it and put it in the refrigerator to take longer to rise (up to several hours). Or, if it rises and you aren't ready for it, punch it down and let it rise some more. As long as you don't knead it any more, it will be ready when you are. If you knead it some more, just let it rest 15 minutes before rolling it out.

The fanciest pizza we had tonight was topped with fresh garlic, tomatoes, spinach leaves, feta cheese, and mozzarella cheese.

The others--eight in all--were delicious, too. Here are pictures of some of them.

I'm good--not great--at making pizza. But, for a better crust, I do recommend baking it on a pizza stone or ceramic tiles in your oven at a very high temperature, 450-475 degrees.

Here is what my well-used pizza stone looked like:

I use the past tense because this is what happened one day not too long ago:

They don't last forever. I'm going to try tiles next.

If you have any leftover pizza--we had two leftover slices tonight--eat it for lunch the next day! (Or breakfast ... )

Cold? Crack Wheat!

I was cold.

After a few minutes of cracking wheat ...

Now I'm not!

Eating Healthy Food Doesn't Have to be Expensive

Often I hear and read comments like these:

A bag of Cheetos is cheaper than a bag of apples; unhealthy processed foods are more prevalent (and less expensive) than whole foods

I hear people use these as excuses for choosing the less-healthy foods to fill up on.

I would like to offer a few random examples of inexpensive, healthy, and (very important) delicious foods. They may require a little extra time. But often that just requires a little planning ahead.

Bake fresh whole-wheat bread for less than $1 for a 1 pound loaf. It tastes better than anything you can buy in the grocery store, it is more nutritious, and it is satisfying. Freeze whatever you can't use right away. When you thaw it out, it will be as good as fresh. Well, almost. Yes, it requires some up-front costs, like a grain mill and grain. But those are obstacles that can be overcome. (I'll address them in a future post.)

Last week I made Split Pea Soup. Delicious, nutritious, and very inexpensive. I made about a gallon of soup for less than $5. That's 16 cups of soup. That's 31 cents per cup:

$2 for 2 lb. split peas, 38 cents for 2 oz. of ham, and I'm being generous when I figure about $2.50 for a few ribs of celery, a couple of carrots, an onion, 2 cloves of garlic, a couple of teaspoons of thyme, a little freshly-ground pepper, and a little salt. I happened to have a quart of home made chicken broth in the freezer, so I used it in place of some of the water.

When my kids were little, I was a stay-at-home-mom, and I always tried to start the day with a hearty breakfast--things like pancakes, French toast, scrambled eggs and toast. Add a glass of milk and seasonal fruit (apple slices, orange slices) or canned fruit (those were the days of home made applesauce and home canned peaches!) and it's a pretty inexpensive meal. Breakfast doesn't have to be eaten in the morning either. It can make a quick, inexpensive supper.

Speaking of breakfast, a bowl of oatmeal costs a lot less than a bowl of any cereal from a box. And it's more nutritious and more filling.

As I said, these are just random examples, but I don't believe you have to choose between eating cheap and eating healthy. You do need to be judicious in your choices, and you need to be willing to cook more from scratch and use fewer prepared foods. But some people--like me--think that's a better way to eat anyway!

What are your inexpensive healthy food choices?

I Love the Smell of Baking Bread

I think I'm addicted to the smell of baking bread. This is what's in my oven right now:

I'm not even sure what I'm going to do with this bread. I'm baking it to practice making sourdough whole-wheat bread. Much as I'd love to, I can't eat all of this bread. So most of it will go in the freezer. Let me know if you would like to try some! My first batch came out great. This batch looks and smells even better.

I love having my house smell like bread--or rolls--and I like tasting it and having a limited amount for daily use. What I need is to have someone come by when I bake and whisk away all the rest of the bread. And I can still savor the lingering smell of baking bread.

Cracked Wheat Rolls

I almost forgot to take a picture of these rolls before I ate them!

Cracked Wheat Rolls take me back to my Aunt Betty's kitchen, where these were a regular part of dinner.

This is my Aunt Betty's recipe. It is based on her regular dinner roll recipe, which you can find here.

If you can, plan to serve dinner about 15 minutes after these rolls come out of the oven. That is when they are at their best. Thankfully, they remain awesome even after they cool.

Here is the recipe:

Cracked Wheat Rolls

2 C boiling water
2 C cracked wheat
1 C cold water
½ C canola oil
1/3 C molasses
3 C unbleached all-purpose flour
2 T yeast
1 C sugar
½ C instant potato flakes
1 C instant nonfat dry milk
1 T salt
3 eggs
5-6 C unbleached all-purpose flour

In the mixing bowl, pour the 2 C boiling water over the cracked wheat and stir them together. Let stand a few minutes and then add the 1 C cold water. Add the oil and molasses. Mix together the 3 C flour with the yeast, sugar, potato flakes, dry milk, and salt. Add them and the eggs to the cracked wheat mixture. Beat with mixer until smooth. Kneading by hand or with dough hook, add enough flour to make soft dough (5-6 C). In oiled bowl, let rise once or twice. Shape into rolls and place in greased pans; let rise. Bake at 350°F until brown, about 20 minutes.

Start Over!

I finally baked bread using natural fermentation! I first started this process about a month ago. A few days in, my first starter attempt lost all of its ability to expand, but I kept stirring and aerating it, hoping something would happen. I had hope because it had an interesting, fruity smell and it was not showing signs of mold.

But finally I did start over.  My second attempt was doing really well, until I moved it temporarily to a spot out of sight--and forgot about it! Sadly, it had to join the compost.

My third attempt worked well. Here is the result:

It doesn't look appreciably different from regular whole-wheat bread. But the texture is slightly stretchy and the taste is lightly tangy--a nice, light sourdough. Very delicious!

Instead of giving you the recipe, I will refer you to the book. There's a lot to it. I feel like I'm at the beginning of an adventure. A bread adventure!

Here is my mother starter, all refreshed and ready to tuck into the refrigerator.

This is what makes the adventure possible!

Apple Crisp

I love apples. The apple is one of my must-have foods. It stands on its own. It accompanies other foods, like natural peanut butter. Or it can get fancy.

Apples bake well. Apple Crisp is the second-best way to bake apples. The first, of course, is apple pie, but I'll save that for another day.

Apple Crisp tastes wonderful, makes your home smell great while it is baking, and it is easy to make.

First, make the topping. If you slice the apples first they might get a little brown. This is enough topping to cover apples arranged in a 9"x13" baking pan.

Apple Crisp Topping

Mix together with hands or pastry cutter:
1 1/3 C sugar
3/4 C whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 C rolled oats
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cloves
2/3 C butter

Next, prepare the apples. I like to use empire apples because they are my favorite apple. But there are lots of other varieties that work well, too.

Wash, core, peel, and slice 8 or 9 medium apples. You need 8 cups of apple slices. Arrange them in a 9"x13" baking pan. You do not need to add sugar to the apples or grease the pan.

After that, sprinkle the topping over the apples. Bake at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes.

This tastes good warm or cold; by itself, with a glass of cold milk, or with vanilla ice cream. I can also verify that the time of day or night that you eat it doesn't matter.

You can make the topping ahead of time or make extra for another time. It stores well in the refrigerator for a short time or in the freezer for a longer time. I don't know how long because mine never stays there very long.

Substitute pears for apples and you will have a delicious Pear Crisp.