I'm on vacation from work and taking advantage of my time off to finally treat Andrew to the ideas I've been talking about for months!
Menu - pan-seared halibut with tomato vinagrette, steamed green beans, and rosemary bread. A relatively simple supper as we've just gotten back from a week of vacation and I don't have the energy for a huge shopping trip. The inspiration for the meal is a recipe from Food and Wine's latest issue. As usual, I start with the basics of their recipe and then pursue my own diversions. Here, instead of the tomato vinagrette specified in the recipe I decide to use my own tomato bruscetta topping (chopped tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil, capers, olives, olive oil, balsamic vinegar) as the sauce for the halibut.
Thursday, July 20th
Menu - broiled lamb chops, summer squash and zucchini sauteed with red and yellow onions, egg noodles with "special sauce". Special sauce (which will never be made quite the same again): olive oil, white wine vinegar, onion & garlic jam from Stonewall Kitchen, green onions, the leftover tomato topping from yesterday's halibut, and some freshly grated parmesan cheese. Turned out really good, a little sweet from the jam, with the kick of the vinegars.
Friday, July 21st
Today is just prep day for tomorrow. After a long week, Andrew and I are headed out for the evening.
First up - Pesto; the basil in the garden is going crazy and we need to use it or lose it. I spent 2 hours yesterday at my favorite grocery store, Wegmans and of course, I still forgot to buy chicken stock. Why we don't have any stocked down stairs is beyond me, but instead of making my preferred recipe for pesto (courtesy of Cooking Light mag) I'm trying out the one from Ruth Reichl's Gourmet cookbook. I almost follow the recipe; okay I don't really follow it at all except for using the same ingredients. The result is a very cheesy pesto, but probably decent for my intended use - Pizza.
My brilliant idea is to add pesto to the pizza dough, thereby creating the base for the ultimate pesto pizza. I add about a tablespoon to my dough recipe and the dough looks and smells fantastic. I also make one plain dough for my pizza alla vodka special.
Night Out in Old Town: Appetizers and beer @ Pat Troys, dinner at the new Tapas place on King St. (good sangria, food was okay), drinks at Restaurant Eve (can never go wrong here!)
Saturday, July 22nd
Time to put the pizza plan into action. I start by making two additional sauces. The first is a spicy traditional red sauce. Nothing fancy here, just chopped tomatoes, garlic, fresh parsley and basil, and salt and pepper. The second is a pink sauce (recipe below) The secret to today's sauces are San Marzano tomatoes (they make all the difference) and anchovy paste.
Menu:
Pizza #1 - Basil pizza dough (shaped into a rectangle about 4x10"), two thin stripes of the pesto I made yesterday, the red sauce goes between the stripes and is topped with fresh mozzarella cheese and diced red onions
Pizza # 2 "Pizza alla Vodka" - Plain pizza dough, pink sauce, prosciutto, fresh basil, sweet yellow onion, and freshly grated romano cheese
Wine: Sakonnet Vineyards Rose
End Result: Both pizzas are very tasty with the Pizza alla Vodka being my favorite. The pesto pizza is a little doughy and on the next attempt I would try and even thinner crust and grill it rather than bake.
Pink Sauce for Pizza alla Vodka (also can be used over pasta)
Saute garlic and shallot in olive oil (2 cloves garlic, 1 shallot). Add san marzano tomatoes (I used about 8 oz) and vodka (1 or 2 swirls around the pan) and cook for a few minutes. Add salt and pepper, anchovy paste (a teaspoon or two), and half and half (enough to give sauce light pink color). Let cook for a few minutes giving the sauce time to come together, add freshly chopped basil and remove from the stove. The longer you let it sit the more the flavors will come together and the better the taste will be.
No comments:
Post a Comment