Noodle’s Life

A “food-on-a-stick” party wasn’t enough stick foods for me. At a family picnic later that summer I brought these colorful apps.

Fresh mozzarella, basil, sun-dried tomatoes, and salami. On a stick!

Lame attempt at some Spanish. I do what I can.

I do better at cooking. The following meal comes to you from the August of 2010 issue of Cooking Light Magazine.

Look, ma! Tomatoes. And I ate them all! Your little girl is growing up.

Thanks to my friends at Amazon (who thank my wallet multiple times a week) I now own smoked Paprika.

Said Cooking Light recipe. Well worn.

Guacamole

Salsa!

The works.

Birds’ eye view of “the works”.

Two tostadas for a whopping caloric intake of 345. Pretty awesome.

I’m going to have do this same exact recipe but substitute the chicken for some blackened fish. And add some feta. It’d be perfection.

This journey I’m on takes me far and wide. Like, you know. From Des Moines to Tacoma. That is a long way to go for yeast and canned tomatoes. But let me back up a sec.

I recently attended an event with Isaac for the winners of Parent Map’s Golden Teddy Awards. Isaac won best Children’s Live Entertainment. Pretty cool and ego boosting for him. What I got out of the deal was to meet the brand manager of Tutta Bella’s, one of the best Neapolitan Pizzeria’s in the Seattle area. I told her of my pizza obsession and she hooked me up. Free pizza coupon, the recipe to the pizza sauce and pizza dough, and the promise of taste testing in December and January. Very fruitful evening for me.

I needed some ingredients I can’t get at my local grocery store so I stocked up on Italian Type OO flour on Amazon and headed to Tacoma’s Metropolitan Market for fresh compressed yeast and San Marzano tomatoes. I’ve since stocked up on those on Amazon as well. Much cheaper, and amazing sauce! Let’s not forget Salumi’s salami and more bufala mozzarella. It’s not our first time at the buffalo rodeo.

Holey Grail, or something like it.

Fresh, compressed yeast.

Italian Typo 00 Flour and Sea Salt

Italian San Marzano canned tomatoes. DOP designation and all. Majorly official.

Mozzarella Bufala!

Best stuff. Ever.

This is why God invented the Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer (with dough hook).

3 Weekends’ worth of pizza dough.

Is it weird that I think they’re super cute? And they smell like what heaven must smell like.

Pizza making station. Ready. Set. Go!

As round as it’s gonna get over here.

Ella’s pie. Basic Kraft mozzarella and turkey pepperoni.

The grown-up pie with the mozzarella bufala, basil, and Salumi salami. And truffle oil.

I’ve got to admit that the crust turned out better on Ella’s pie and I know it’s because the fresh mozzarella has a much higher water content. I think I need to give the crust a head start by putting it in the oven with no toppings and then piling it on. It turned out soggier than it should be even for a Neapolitan.

Still, we’re on the right track and it still tasted amazing. We soldier on. It’s a tough gig.

I know what you’re thinking… what have they been eating over there? Trust me, we’ve been eating. Quite well. It’s just that often we’re in such a hurry we don’t care to pause long enough to whip out the camera and take pics.

Let’s eat already!

When visiting my friend in New Hampshire we made sure to visit Portsmouth and they have a store there that I’ve never seen here in Washington called “Stonewall Kitchen”. You will on occasion find their products in specialty food stores but not the full store.

I picked up some champaign blueberry preserves and a recipe card for a blueberry tart. Couldn’t wait to try it out.

I had to pick up a tart pan because I didn’t yet own one. Never get tired of adding “toys” to the kitchen, even something as silly as a tart pan.

It was pretty good, but a bit sweet. Coming from some one with a serious sweet tooth this is saying something.

Are you tired of posts about pizza yet? Too bad. I’m not. I’m forever experimenting with doughs and ingredients. My mission is to produce something here at home just as good as what you can get at a good Neopolitan pizzeria. I’m making progress… today when I was taking the pizza out of the oven it smelled right. The crust was too hard though. My fault for pre-heating the crust even though I used an already pre-heated pizza stone.

This was my 2nd attempt at the dough recipe in “The Silver Spoon”. The first time I accidentally used a “rapid rise” yeast. It turned out fine, but this time I went with the standard dry yeast. I’m dying to get my hands on some fresh cake yeast like the recipe would prefer. Any one know where to find some? Other than Metropolitan Market in Seattle which isn’t exactly convenient for me.

I visited DeLaurenti’s at Pike Place Market yesterday to get some mozzarella di Bufala (Buffalo mozzarella). Seems to be an authentic ingredient for pizzas from the Naples area. I also bought a slightly spicy salami. Really yummy on its own. To complete the pizza there were also garlic slices, mushrooms, a pinch of dried basil (really wishing I had bought more fresh basil) and the pinchiest of pinches of truffle salt.

Other than the crust being a bit hard it was really good.

So this isn’t a post about what I cooked recently. It’s a post about what I’m going to cook. And it’s part of my favorite meal of the day… breakfast-for-dinner.

blueberry yogurt multigrain pancakes from Smitten Kitchen.

And, honestly, if you haven’t been to her site before, you can’t call yourself an even kind of on special occasions cook.

Isaac’s mom sent him Omaha steaks for his birthday. Between that and the Sherries Berries she sent me we eat well. Thanks Mary!

Marinated these steaks in some “steakhouse” marinade. Sure was tasty. Finally getting the hang of doing steak after many charred and briskit-y steak.

A bit pink for me but Isaac likes it.

A giant mound of mashed potatoes. Red potatoes, heavy cream (because I have some), sour cream, butter, garlic powder, liquid smoke, salt, and better. Oh, and freshly grated Parmesan. Because I had some.

Tri-fecta of goodness.

I was too lazy for my poor-man’s raspberry dressing, so I tossed this salad with blue cheese. Romaine, apples, red onions, cranberries, walnuts, feta. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Pizza, that is. It never gets old.

Still trying to figure out how to make the most awesome pizza at home. And by most awesome of course I mean Neapolitan. The “Silver Spoon” has some recipes for pizza dough but it calls for a type of flour you won’t find in your average grocery store and I’m not making a special trip in to Pike Place Market to hit up the Italian shop that’s there.

“OO” Flour. Ever heard of it? Amazon.com to the rescue!! Now if only I can find fresh yeast. Any one know where I’ll find some?

I didn’t want to make an inferior pizza dough because I didn’t have the right dough or yeast, so I went with good ‘ol Pillsbury. It did the job well enough. This is the white pizza. Mozzarella and Fontina.

Canadian bacon, pepperoni, and olives.

I’ve referred to this as my “favorite food” since I was young. It’s “official” name is escalloped potatoes, but I think it goes by other names as well. To me escalloped potatoes are those potato discs layered in a pan and covered in some cheesy sauce. The dish I make is a staple at Thanksgiving and Easter Feasts. I also make it a couple other times a year. Like the other day.

Take one big bowl and throw in hash browns, cream of chicken, sour cream, butter, salt, pepper, onions, and this time, cubed ham.

Spread it in a pan and cover it in crushed up corn flakes.

Drizzle melted butter over the top and bake for an hour.

Melty, warm, comfort-foody goodness.

Put it on a white plate, cause it’s prettiest that way.

Eat that good stuff up!