blue_dolphin

Good to know I still have my cookbook enabling mojo 🤣

Pizza Night by Alexandra Stafford: Roasted Butternut Squash Pizza with Gruyère and Rosemary p 106 made with the Neopolitanish dough p 22; served with the Market Salad with Greens, Radicchio, Fennel, and Hazelnuts p 220 dressed with the Mimosa Vinaigrette p 40 This pizza, on its own, is nice though not particularly more-ish for me but it did a great job turning a big bowl of salad into a meal. For the pizza, I used whole grain bread flour from Cairnspring Mills, honeynut squash instead of butternut and Jarlsberg cheese instead of Gruyère. The crust has a nice chew, the cheese is nutty, the squash is soft and sweet and the rosemary/chile/garlic infused olive oil is a nice touch but it needs some tang and crunch. That’s where the salad comes to the rescue. This isn’t the salad partner given in the book, but I had everything on hand and the fennel and hazelnuts offered the crunch I wanted so I stole this salad from another pizza 🙃 I followed Naomi Pomeroy's recommendation from Taste & Technique to give the radicchio an ice water bath for crispness and to reduce bitterness. I thought this was a perfect pairing. When it came around to leftovers, I went ahead with Classic Kale Salad with Pepper Flakes, Parmesan and Lemon Vinaigrette p 108 that is the official partner for the pizza, Kale salads always make me feel like I’m eating out in the pasture 🙃 and this one did, too. The lemon vinaigrette is bright and fresh and the lemon zest, Parm and chile flakes add flavor and contrast nicely with the pizza but the texture of the salad is too one-note to hold my interest through a big bowl. After a few bites, I tossed in a few figs and a handful of toasted hazelnuts and happily chewed away on my bale of kale!

Pizza Night by Alexandra Stafford: Blistered Shishito Pizza with Onions and Monterey Jack p 72 made with the Neopolitanish dough p 22 paired with the Equites Inspired Street Corn Salad p 74 Both pizza and salad are pretty simple so it’s very easy to make the salad and prep the toppings while the dough is warming up and the oven is heating for the pizza. I used mascarpone instead of sour cream and a mix of mozz and manchego instead of Monterey Jack based on my fridge contents. The dough preferred to be more oval than round so I let it be the boss. I added a sprinkle of Parm when reheating leftovers and it was an excellent addition that I’ll remember for next time. I cheated on the salad with Trader Joe’s fire roasted frozen corn instead of cutting it off the cob. No complaints from me on that time-saving switch. I used a sprinkle of Rancho Gordo’s Stardust chile dipping powder (like Tajin) in place of the salt, chile powder and final squeeze of lime juice. This is an excellent salad. I’m tempted to add black beans and call it a meal!

Pizza Night by Alexandra Stafford: Sautéed Radicchio Pizza with Fig Jam and Gorgonzola p 151 made with the Thin-Crust dough p 26 Baby Kale Salad with Ribbony Carrots, Dates and Sunflower Seeds dressed with the Apple Cider Vinaigrette p 37 The pizza isn’t a looker with the browned, purplish radicchio and bluish melted Gorgonzola atop a smear of crème fraîche and brown fig jam, topped with a brown balsamic drizzle but it’s delicious and another one of the thin-crust pizzas that are well suited to the appetizer category. For those who like to try multiple toppings, I can say that splitting the thin-crust dough balls in half (~120g instead of 245g), rolling out 9” pizzas (instead of 13”, I did the geometry 101 calculation 🙃) and using half portions of the toppings works quite well. I really enjoyed the salad as well. It calls for a fat carrot and they can be less than tender so I gave the carrot ribbons and radish slices a nice soak in ice water to crisp them up and recommend that if you have time. Loved the sweet date pieces, tangy goat cheese and nutty sunflower seeds.

Sure, c'mon over!

How would you compare the flavor of Piment d'Ville with Piment d'Espelette? A farm near me also makes a version of this from their peppers but it sells out in a flash when they offer it each fall and I’ve never managed to snag any.

Pizza Night by Alexandra Stafford: Breakfast Pizza with Sausage, Eggs and Pickled Banana Peppers p 223 made with the Neopolitanish Dough p 223 Raw Snap Pea Salad with Radishes and Mint p 196 dressed with the Lemon Vinaigrette p 37 With a hot Italian sausage, pickled peppers and plenty of cheese, (all of which the header notes encourage adapting to taste) I wouldn’t restrict this to breakfast alone. The egg layer is pretty thin but melds everything together nicely. On its own, I’d find it on the heavy side but accompanied by a big salad, it was just the ticket. The book pairs this pizza with a raw asparagus salad but I knew I wanted something bright and crunchy and had everything on hand for this one, including the lemon vinaigrette - it’s called for in at least 8 salads in the book - and I was not disappointed. What a great, simple salad! Not sure I’ve eaten a salad with this much mint but it really worked.

Caramelized Leek and Potato Pizza with Chive Cream p 113 made with the Thin-Crust dough p 26 Shaved Fennel Salad with Parmesan and Pomegranate p 182 made with the Lemon Vinaigrette p 37 I’m calling this chip & dip pizza. It’s really a great combo of textures and flavors. With the cracker-thin crust, this one would fit right in to an appetizer spread for wine o’clock. The crisp and simple salad, dressed with the lemon vinaigrette was a good partner with bonus points for being pretty! As the header notes suggest, this is a perfect pizza-palate cleanser! I don’t usually comment on portion sizes and don’t expect a cookbook author to know who’s eating at my house and how hungry or picky they might be but two and a half pounds of fennel is a LOT for 4 servings. Use your best judgment!

Broccoli Rabe and Smoked Mozzarella Pizza p 135 made with the Neopolitanish dough p 22 and Roasted Tomato “Butter” p 36 served with the Farm Share Harvest Slaw 136 made with Apple Cider Vinaigrette p 136 I’ve never used smoked mozzarella but happened to spot some at Sprouts the other day so I decided to try this pizza. I thought it was OK, not great. I liked the sweet, roasted cherry tomato sauce with the bitter greens but I didn’t really love the flavor of the smoked mozzarella. Maybe half smoked, half regular mozz would have been more to my taste? One recipe oddity is that it calls for 8 oz of broccoli rabe and it’s not until it’s cooked and you’re topping the pizza that you’re told to put half of the cooked greens on the pizza and put the rest in the fridge or freezer. Why not just call for 4 oz? Whatever. In my review of the book, I said it encouraged me to have a big salad and small piece of pizza. Here's an example: The slaw has radishes, turnips, carrots, cabbage and scallions and is the official partner for the broccoli rabe & smoked mozzarella pizza. It’s a good pairing. On its own, it’s not amazingly interesting, but there’s plenty of crunch and color so it it’s a good no-mayo side or sandwich filler.

Two recipes based on favorites from Bar in New Haven, CT: Mashed Potato and Bacon Pizza made with the Thin-Crust Pizza Dough, served with Bar’s Mixed Green Salad with Candied Pecans, Blue Cheese, and Pear with the Red Wine Vinaigrette. I loved the contrast of the thin, crisp crust with dollops of soft mashed potatoes (made with Yukon golds and buttermilk) crunchy, salty bacon and chewy mozzarella. The salad also offers lots of texture and flavor contrasts. I made this a while ago and it’s really a perfect fall salad with the juicy, ripe pear, tangy vinaigrette and funky blue cheese with lots of fresh greens and would complement almost any meal. This was the first recipe I made with frozen dough. Per the instructions in the book (hidden in the appendix on p 248) I moved it to the fridge the night before and then proceeded as usual, letting it sit out at room temp before shaping.

I just shared this review of Pizza Night: Deliciously Doable Recipes for Pizza and Salad (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) by Alexandra Stafford over in the Cookbooks forum and thought I’d start a topic here to share actual cooking from the book. The first pizza I made from the book was this Sicilian-Style Veggie-Loaded Pizza made with the Pan Pizza Dough. I mixed up a half batch of the dough and used a quarter-sheet pan instead of a half-sheet. I used whole grain bread flour from Cairnspring Mills. This is a very wet, 90% hydration dough and I need to use flour my hands and the counter to shape it into a ball before going into the fridge overnight but after that, it’s just shaped in the pan. I don’t love a lot of tomato sauce on this style of veg pizza so I opened a can of cherry tomatoes and spooned some on. Otherwise, I used the recipe toppings of mushrooms, bell pepper, red onion, pepperoncini and Kalamata olives. Baked in my regular indoor electric oven with a pizza steel.

I’ve cooked quite a bit from Pizza Night: Deliciously Doable Recipes for Pizza and Salad (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) by Alexandra Stafford and thought I’d give it a bit of a review here. The book contains recipes for 52 pizzas and 52 salads, so you can conceivably have a pizza night each week of the year with no repeats. The recipes are arranged seasonally to take advantage of fresh produce. I think this would be an excellent book for anyone wanting to make pizza at home but not ready for a Modernist Pizza-level investment. I also like Marc Vetri's Mastering Pizza. He spends a lot more time on flour types, dough structure, chemistry annd niche Italian pizza styles. And Ken Forkish's YouTube vids that go with his Elements of Pizza are priceless but I think Pizza Night might be a more approachable option. Plus, the salads are great and often encouraged me to have a big salad and small slice of pizza instead of a pizza pig out 🙃 I started a “Cooking from Pizza Nights” topic over in the Cooking forum to share actual cooking but here's a bit more about the book. There are three basic dough recipes with variations for using a sourdough starter and instructions for both regular and dedicated pizza ovens. Most dough recipes make enough for several pizzas with instructions for freezing and thawing tucked (buried?) in the back of the book. All are no-knead and there are step-by-step photos for shaping each type. The Neopolitan-ish dough has the classic thin crust with a puffy rim. The thin-crust dough is rolled out quite thin, resulting in an almost cracker-thin crust. The pan pizza dough is for the thick, airy pizzas: Sicilian, Grandma, Detroit and cast iron skillet style pizzas. There's also a gluten-free dough that uses Antimo Caputo Fioreglut Gluten-free Pizza Flour which is FDA-approved for those with celiac disease but not safe for those with a wheat allergy. When it comes to salads, there are a few dressing recipes up front that are used in multiple salads. The lemon vinaigrette and apple cider vinaigrette are quite nice and versatile. Some salads follow a pattern: there's a wedge, a chopped salad and a Caesar variation in each season, dressed with Italian vinaigrette, blue cheese, and Caesar dressings respectively. Others are one-off combos. Not sure if this will be readable (maybe click to enlarge) but it should give an idea of the recipes included. I highlighted the listing to mark the different dough types. There’s certainly no requirement to stick with them but I find it handy when I’m skimming for ideas. Anyone else have this book?

Over in the appetizer topic, I mentioned making the Ricotta dip with hot sauce butter pine nuts from Mezcla by Ixta Belfrage. The header notes suggest using it as a base for grilled asparagus so that was today’s breakfast, topped with a poached egg. The asparagus were quite huge so I was pleasantly surprised that they cooked up so nicely on my little Philips grill. I used one of Andy Baraghani’s flatbreads to wipe the plate clean.

Ricotta dip with hot sauce butter pine nuts from Mezcla by Ixta Belfrage. I started out with chips but switched to flatbreads. I thought this was OK, quick and easy with ingredients I usually have on hand. It would be prettier spread on a plate with the pine nut mixture swirled over the top. I’ll keep it in mind but probably won’t make it again. I was intrigued by this because the header notes suggest using it in various ways: as a dip for chips, crisp veg or chicken wings, tossed with pasta or tomatoes for a salad or as a base for various meats or grilled asparagus (see here in the breakfast topic for that.) The dip is kind of a ricotta-enriched raita with ricotta, yogurt, cucumber, garlic, lemon zest, green onion and chives. The hot sauce butter pine nuts is a flavorful, oily mix of toasted pine nuts, ghee, olive oil, hot sauce and smoked paprika.

Yesterday’s brunch was the asparagus pizza with crème fraîche and whipped ricotta from Pizza Night. The crust gets a schmear of créme fraîche and sprinkle of Parmesan before the shaved asparagus is piled on. Here it is, fresh out of the oven: The whipped ricotta is dolloped on after baking Today's breakfast was a reheated slice, topped with a poached egg: This obviously required a knife and fork but that was just as well because the strands of shaved asparagus, while very tender, tended to pull everything off the crust with the first bite.

I bought a big bag at a local Indian grocery and it's labeled “Product of India.” I didn’t realize there was Chinese black cardamom so I’ll be on the lookout!

Recently, I made the Black Cardamom Whiskey from A Whisper of Cardamom by Eleanor Ford. I love black cardamom in cocktails so I was interested to try this as all the previous cocktails I’ve made have used the pods to infuse a sugar syrup while this one infuses the whiskey itself. Here’s the “recipe”: “Fill a jar with whiskey, add a few black cardamom pods and leave to infuse somewhere dark.” Easy peasy. As instructed, I tasted after 24 hrs and found the flavor very subtle. At 2 days, it was noticeable, very flavorful at 3 days and starting to get a touch bitter after 4 days. The infused whiskey was nice in the recommended maple syrup-sweetened smoked cardamom Old Fashioned the book suggests. Serendipitously, I happened on a cocktail called Cabin in the Woods on a menu from Paragary's, a restaurant in Sacramento. It listed cardamom-infused bourbon, amaro Nonino, sweet vermouth and orange bitters as the ingredients. I mixed myself one of those, garnished with an orange twist and one of the black cardamom pods. It was lovely. Cabin in the Woods (with apologies to the creator as this was just my best guess) 2 oz black cardamom-infused bourbon 0.5 oz Amaro Nonino 0.5 oz Cocchi Vermouth di Torino 2 dashes orange bitters Garnished with a black cardamom pod and orange peel The smoky flavor of black cardamom makes this more appealing for fall and winter sipping but I’ll make this again when cooler weather comes around.

Ooops. There was plenty in the sauce but I forgot to type it in. Just imagine it’s parsley or spinach!

Charred squid with pan-roasted fennel, ginger, and lime from Sunlight and Breadcrumbs by Renee Erickson A little fussy (my judgement perhaps colored by the tedious first step of cleaning a bunch of small squid - some of those rings wouldn’t fit on my pinky!) but quite good. The fennel is sliced, steamed to tenderness, then browned. The squid are quickly seared, then tossed with a sauce of ginger, garlic, (Edited to add cilantro) lime zest & juice, diced Serrano chile, fish sauce and a pinch of sugar and chile flakes. Served over Massa Organics brown rice with more sauce on the side.

My first meal of the day was later than usual, could be called lunch, but it follows along from yesterday’s breakfast so I’m putting it here. It’s another from Pizza Night:Asparagus and Prosciutto Slab Pizza, and like yesterday’s, it’s baked nekkid and topped post-bake. Is this even a pizza? I dunno but I figure breakfast people are less likely to at me for it 🙃 Same pan pizza crust, brushed with olive oil and baked. Topped with “thinly sliced” Camembert (Really? Can a liquid be thinly sliced 😮?), shaved asparagus dressed with olive oil and salt and prosciutto, also thinly sliced, of course. I dunno if it was pizza or breakfast but it was very tasty!

Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Pizza from Pizza Nights by Alexandra Stafford. This recipe is written for a half-sheet pan and is listed in the book as Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Pizza for a Crowd. It’s a pan pizza crust, topped with Everything But The Bagel seasoning and baked, with the toppings (chive cream cheese, smoked salmon, capers, red onion and dill) added post-bake. No crowd here, but I had a ball of pan pizza dough that needed to be used so this was a good option. I only topped this piece and will use the rest of the focaccia-like pan for sandwiches.

If you happen to be in the LA area, Epicurus Gourmet has these 10 flavors of Bordier butter for 30% off thru Thurs 6/26: The algues (seaweed), yuzu and piment d’espelette are particularly nice. Unfortunately, the basic demi sel and doux aren’t included. I know this is useless to most but I couldn’t resist!

Pineapple kimchi fried rice with salmon

Yes on the too much icing. Not too difficult to remove. Yes on pumpkin in the fall. Yes on pecan!

Copying @Duvel’s pizza and movie night with this puttanesca pan pizza with tomatoes, onions, anchovies, and olives from Pizza Night by Alexandra Stafford. On the relatively small screen will be the recent Marcella documentary. It will air on PBS on JULY 11, 2025 as part of the "American Masters" series and will be available in their streaming services as well.