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Not Necessarily Fast* Recipes
using Castlemaine produce
*Old-World Pizza with Vine-Ripened Tomatoes
This
pizza is a summertime staple for us.
All the toppings are fresh from the garden. We use large thick slices of our fresh
vine-ripened tomatoes in place of pizza sauce. Semolina flour gives it a nice crispy
crust.
MAKING THE CRUST
Ingredients
1
packet of yeast
1 cup
warm water
1 tsp
of sugar
3 ½
cups semolina flour
1 tbsp
salt
¼ cup
olive oil
Dissolve
the sugar into the water. Pour yeast
into the water and stir it until it forms a cloudy tan liquid. Be sure to break up all yeast
clumps. Let sit for five minutes at
room temp. A thick
foam should form on top of the yeast mixture, sort of like the head on a
pint of Guinness.
Put 3
cups of the flour into a large bowl, and mix with salt. Dig a well in the center of the
flour. Pour oil and yeast mixture
into the well. With a wooden spoon,
gradually stir the flour into the oil/yeast. Soon you’ll have a big clump of
dough.
Kneed
the dough on a floured surface. Keep
folding it over onto itself, pushing it sort of down and out, turning and
folding again. Keep adding more
flour until the dough is no longer sticky.
Do this a good 10 minutes, then form the dough into a ball, coat the
bowl on all sides with olive oil, and put the doughball
back in the bowl. Put some plastic
over it (I usually use a shopping bag, tying the handles tight, because
we’re too cheap to buy plastic wrap when you can get plastic bags for
free and they work just as well).
Let it sit for 60-90 minutes to rise at room temperature.
After
the dough rises, take the plastic off and punch it down with your fist to
get all the air bubbles out of it.
Kneed it a minute or 2 more, adding flour, just to get all the
stickiness out. Then form it into a
ball again, put it back in the bowl, cover it, and put it in the fridge for
another ½ hour.
MAKING THE PIZZA
Ingredients
The
dough
Olive
oil
Dried
Oregano
Mozzarella
cheese (preferably local/fresh/high quality)
1 or 2
Vine-ripened tomatoes, sliced
1
Stockton Sweet red Onion, sliced
4 or 5 cloves
Garlic, minced
Fresh
basil, chopped
First,
heat the oven to at least 485 degrees.
(Good pizza likes hot ovens, I’ve
found the perfect temperature for my oven to cook pizza with freshly rolled
semolina dough is 485). A cooking
stone is the best surface for pizza – use it if you got it. I coat the stone with olive oil so the
pizza doesn’t stick to it.
Take
the dough out of the fridge, punch it down if it needs it, then form it
into a ball and cut it in half (The dough is enough to make 2 pizzas). Take half the dough and roll it out on a
flat floured surface. If you
don’t have a rolling pin, use a wine bottle like I do. I’ve found a full wine bottle works
better (afterwards, you can open it and have it with the pizza). If the crust is not a perfect circle
that’s fine, the main thing you want to do is get the thickness of
the crust to be consistent.
Coat
the crust with olive oil. Be sure to
get the bottom of the crust too.
Sprinkle some dried oregano on there. Now, unlike your standard sauce pizza -
next comes the cheese. Rather than shred the mozz,
I like to slice it and lay it on there like they do in the old
country. Then put your tomatoes over
the cheese. Last time I made pizza
we used the orange persimmon tomatoes, green pineapples, and the red big
beefs, so you get all kinds of colors.
Then the red onion, (I slice it laying on it’s side so you can
have the rings on there – you get a sort of circle theme going with
the tomato slices) then sprinkle your minced garlic all over.
With a
hot oven the pizza won’t take more than 10-15 minutes. The semolina doesn’t take long to
get crispy. Pull the pizza out and
sprinkle your chopped fresh basil all over it, and
some parm if you want. Let it sit a minute, in the meantime open
the wine you used to roll the dough with, and pour a glass. Slice that pizza up and dig in.
Cheap Black Bean Lunch
This
has been my lunch of choice for the past few weeks. It’s a great way to use up the
roasted peppers in the freezer from last season before pepper season comes
around again. And it only costs like a dollar or two. And black beans are supposed to prevent
cancer and heart disease because they’re high in antioxidants. Roasted peppers add a great smoky flavor.
Ingredients:
15 oz
can of black beans
salt if
the beans aren’t already salted
onions
garlic
Roasted
anaheim or poblano
peppers
Serrano
pepper (optional for extra spice)
Monterrey
jack or Munster cheese
one
flour tortilla
Chop
onions, garlic peppers. Mix beans, salt,
onions, garlic and peppers in a bowl.
Microwave for about 3 minutes, stirring once halfway through. With about 20 seconds left, throw the
tortilla in there to warm it. Throw
the cheese in afterwards.
It’ll melt. Yum! (Note – make sure there’s some
salt in this. I’m eating it
right now with organic unsalted beans.
Needs salt.)
Savoy Cole Slaw
Ingredients:
Savoy
cabbage
candy
onions
garlic
cider
vinegar
mayonnaise
pepper
hot
sauce (optional)
This
one’s easier than pie. (In
fact I don’t even know how to make pie.) Use as much or as little of all
ingredients depending on your own personal tastes. Get a huge bowl,
chop the cabbage, onions and garlic, stir in the rest. You can eat it right away but it’s
better if you cover it and let it sit in the fridge overnight. The texture of the savoy
cabbage holds the ingredients on the leaf so they don’t all fall to
the bottom of the bowl as easily as with regular cabbage.
Kohlrabi Pancakes
Ingredients:
Kohlrabi
parmesan cheese
garlic powder
salt
pepper
olive oil
butter
(Amt of
spices & cheese based on personal preference. Generally, one large or two small kohlrabi per person will be enough for an appetizer or
side.)
Directions:
Remove leaves and stems of kohlrabi, peel bulbs. Grate
them or put in food processor. squeeze excess
water out of the grated product. Add salt, pepper, garlic
powder and parmesan cheese to taste.
Make into patties.
Heat butter and oil in a pan (enough to "shallow" fry the
pancakes). Add patties to pan and fry until golden brown on each side.
Baby Bok Choy &
Black Bean Salad
Ingredients:
2 heads
baby bok choy
(or one head of big bok choy)
1 15oz
can black beans, drained
1 head spring garlic
1 bunch
spring onions
3 tbsp.
cider vinegar
2 tbsp.
Dijon mustard
¼ cup
olive oil
Directions:
Chop up
bok choy stems and
leaves into 1 inch strips. Chop
garlic and onions and mix with bok choy and black beans.
Mix together vinegar, mustard, and oil and pour over salad and
toss. Cover it up and throw it in
the fridge for at least an hour (a few hours is better especially if
you’re using big bok choy). Taste it and add salt and pepper if you
want – it usually does fine by itself.
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