cherry tomato pizza margherita

88 degrees today.

88 degrees. In April.

What do I do when it's 88 in April? Heat the oven to 425 and make pizza! http://www.loveandoliveoil.com/2010/03/cherry-tomato-pizza-margherita.html

As usual, I didn't have all the ingredients. But I made it anyway.

No garlic. (What?!) I sliced & sauteed an onion.

No basil. I finely chopped a little Italian parsley & sprinkled it on the pizza as it came out of the oven.

No mozzarella. I used (a little less) sliced provolone.

Serve with champagne. Because it was my birthday Monday.

"Woops" Cooking or Muffins vs. Cake

I do a lot of what I call "woops" cooking. As in, "woops. I'd better use this before it goes bad."

Now I'm not saying that I serve anything that's actually gone bad. Really. I'm talking about the celery that's not so crunchy anymore, the carrots that have gotten a little bendy. You know what I'm talking about.

Today I wanted to make muffins & I looked in the fruit bowl for inspiration. There were 4 little mackintosh apples that would have been crisper a couple of days ago. All I'm saying.

I turned them into apple muffins:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/apple-muffins-recipe/index.html

For those of you who may not watch hours & hours of Food Network like I do, Ellie Krieger has a show with healthy recipes. Works for me. Every recipe doesn't have to start with 2 sticks of butter or a pound of bacon. (although that does pretty much guarantee deliciousness.)

So when I saw Ellie Krieger's name on the recipe I thought, "she'll have a good muffin recipe that I'll like." But no. Not quite.

Let's talk about muffins. & the difference between muffins and cake.

Muffins are supposed to be a semi-healthy breakfast option. Cake is dessert. Are you with me so far?

In my world a muffin is not super sweet. It doesn't have a lot of sugar. For example, check the corn muffin recipe on the Quaker box.

12 muffins: 1/4 cup of sugar.

These muffins: 3/4+ cup of sugar. If you've added a cup of sugar you've just made cake. No matter what you call it.

Nothing wrong with cake. I love cake. I just try not to have it for breakfast.

OK. Rant over. Thanks for listening.

So if you want muffins healthy/delicious style try them with less sugar. I recommend 1/4 cup of honey.

& if you like them cake style I'm sure this recipe is still delicious. But either way: Apple muffins!

Crock Pot Conversion

It's 8:00 a.m. It's supposed to snow today. (In fact, it's already an epic storm, a "snowpocalypse" farther down the east coast.) Time to try out my new crock pot!

I missed the original crock pot trend in the 70's and was missing it again this time around until a friend at work got a beautiful new one & passed her gently used one on to me. So with snow in today's forecast I just dumped 5 ingredients into the cooker, turned it on & now I get what it's all about. Could this be easier? I don't think so.

I'm making "drip beef" from the Pioneer Woman.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/02/drip-beef-two-ways/

These "drip beef" recipes look like French dip and Italian beef sandwiches to me.

I'm going with the Italian-style:

Italian Beef

4 lb. chuck roast

12 oz. jar of pepperoncini (including all the juice)

3-4 T Italian seasoning

28 oz. can of low sodium beef broth

salt & pepper

(I left out the salt because the pepperoncini are salty enough for me.)

Dump it all in the slow cooker & cook on low till the beef falls apart.

Serve on really good Italian rolls. Dip in sauce.

That's it. I get it now. Now I get it. Slow cookers forever!

Looking forward to beef happiness this afternoon. & maybe some snow.

Macaroni & Blue Cheese

Living in the northern suburbs of NYC has its +'s and -'s. On the upside we're very close to NYC. On the downside we're very close to NYC.

I'm sure you get how that's a plus.

But the minus is that Rockland County NY doesn't always have all the amenities that you'd like because local businesses can't compete with NYC, only 20 miles away.

So I was really happy a couple of years ago when I found out about Laraia's Cheese in Nanuet. Not only do they make their own mozzarella but they carry artisanal cheeses that you'd usually have to travel at least 20 miles to buy.
http://www.laraiascheese.com

And today I made some pretty fabulous macaroni & blue cheese with some great French blue from Laraia's.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Macaroni-and-Blue-Cheese-with-Chives-107867

So what if it's made with cheese, butter AND cream. It's winter. I need the extra energy for snow shoveling. Anyway, that's how I rationalize it.

Asian Noodle Salad and Tim Tams

My lunch today! It's an Asian Noodle Salad, made from this recipe on one of my favorite food blogs -

Pioneer Woman Cooks

but without cucumbers, and with toasted sunflower seeds instead of cashews. I won't lie, it came out pretty great when I made it for dinner last night. I will continue to not lie and tell you that it was FAR too much for one person when I made half of it, and did not hold up AS well for lunch today, although it was still pretty great.

Even more exciting is my discovery of Tim Tams at my local grocery store! Yes, my Associated carries these cookies that I haven't had since I was in New Zealand, and as far as I knew were not available in the U.S.! I let out an audible gasp when I turned to corner to find these antipodean favorites. And proceeded to talk about them to my friend for the next twenty minutes.

Union Restaurant Haverstraw

It was a gorgeous day in NY today. 67 degrees in November. Unbelievable.

And my daughter Liisa was here. We wanted to go out for brunch somewhere lovely and preferably somewhere by the river.

The answer: Union Restaurant and Bar Latino in Haverstraw. http://www.unionrestaurant.net/
(o.k. the restaurant is not on the river but Haverstraw is a river town so close enough.)

So let's just cut to the chase here. It was the best meal I've had in Rockland County in a long time.

We started with sangria; always perfect on for a sunny day. Later I ordered a glass of pinot noir and decided that next time I'd also order a bottle of something red from there very well-priced wine list.

Since it was a Sunday afternoon and we'd been kind of thinking about having brunch we didn't order entrees. We'd never been to Union Restaurant before and we wanted to try a few things. And anyway, I can always make an entire meal out of appetizers. So we did.

We had ensalada verde, (watercress, avocado and tomato in a light vinagrette. Why haven't I had a watercress salad before? Who knew?) French onion soup, (very cheesy with plenty of good onion flavor) a small pizza on a tortilla crust with carmelized onions, fresh tomato, basil and blue cheese and and an arepa colombiana with lightly breaded shrimp and mango, one of their signature dishes. (photo.)

I loved the Latin flavors and influences here. The menu was small enough that each item could be prepared with attention but varied enough to give choices to a party of diners. The service was welcoming and attentive. The atmosphere was special yet comfortable. I'll be back. And I'll be bringing my friends.

Pizzas!

Confession: I spent approximately the first 23 years of my life avoiding and pretty intensely disliking pizza. Now that I've realized how much I've missed, one of my go-to meals is homemade pizza. It also combines two of my favorite things: bread making and cooking.

Last night my friend and I had dinner to "celebrate" the end of her employment at her current job (hurray economy!) and I made two kinds of pizza: Spicy Spinach and Herbed Goat Cheese on flatbread, and White Pizza with Broccoli.

For the spinach pizza, I wilted the spinach for a couple minutes in a pan with olive oil at medium heat. As the spinach began to wilt, I added about a teaspoon and a half of fresh rosemary and some red pepper flakes (#1 spice of the New City Murrays). After a couple minutes I added this to the top of the flatbread, and added about 4 oz of garlic and herb goat cheese.

For the white pizza, I used regular pizza dough, picked up at my local bakery. I rolled this out and put it on a pan that had been sprinkled with cornmeal. I chopped some garlic and added it to about a cup of fat free ricotta. I also added some basil, onion powder, salt, pepper and (here it is again) red pepper flakes, and then spread the ricotta mixture on the dough. I sauteed some broccoli with garlic salt, put that on top, and then added some part-skim mozzarella and a little parmesan.

I put both of these pizzas in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes, until the cheese had slightly browned. Serve with Bud Light, or free Miller Draft from your landlords (true story)!