Homemade Pizza

One of the world's greatest culinary treats is a really good pizza.  I am originally from the Northeast, and grew up on New York City pizza. Unfortunately, that type of upbringing provides a foodie like me with a pizza palette intolerant of anything but the best...

They say it is the water that makes NYC pizza what it is.  The dough, crisp on the bottom, and great with any arrangement of toppings, is impossible to imitate anywhere outside of the city limits.

What I offer below is a really great pizza recipe.  I use distilled water for the dough and cook the pie on a pizza stone.

Originally published in Cooking Light magazine, this recipe is a classic.   Like NYC pizza it is good with just about any arrangement of toppings.  

Mushroom Parmesan pizza - a white pie garnished with fresh parsley

Prep Time:  1 hour and 30 minutes (D'oh!)

Cook time:  12 to 14 minutes 

Servings:  8

Nutritional Information: (Dough only)

Serving size:  1 pizza

Calories:  328

Fat:  2g

Saturated Fat:  .3g

Cholesterol:  0mg

Sodium:  293.3mg

Total Carbohydrate:  66.4g

Dietary Fiber:  2.6g

Sugars:  .8g

Protein:  9.5g

Recipe Source:  Herbed Cheese Pizza.  Originally posted by Viviana Carballo, September 2009.

Fresh tomato, mozzerella, and basil topping

Recipe Links:

Here's the Post from Cooking Light.

This could be the original from 2002.

$200 Lentil Soup n' Chard

The photo below does not do this very delicious soup justice.  Unfortunately, it is the only photo I have... While trying to get "the shot" for the blog, my fingers slipped and I dropped my camera and it is no more... This ended up being the most expensive cup of soup I have ever made... As far as a Lentil soup goes, this recipe is a Classic.

Originally published in Cooking Light magazine, I stumbled upon it online when searching for recipes to use some really fresh swiss chard I had.  The original recipe calls for adding some lemon juice at the end and serving with a dollup of yogurt.   


Prep Time:  30 Minutes
Cook Time:  About 1 hour
Servings:  6


Nutritional Information:
Serving size:  1 1/3 cups
Calories:  292
Fat:  5.2g
Saturated Fat:  2.8g
Cholesterol:  12.2mg
Sodium:  810mg
Total Carbohydrate:  46.3g
Dietary Fiber:  19.5g
Sugars:  6.7g
Protein:  16.7g


The Ingredients and Method are straight from the original posting by Dorothy Madison, dated October 2003.


Ingredients:
1 3/4  cups  dried brown lentils
2  quarts water
1  cup  diced carrot
1 3/4  teaspoons  sea salt
Dash of dried thyme
2  garlic cloves, crushed
2  parsley sprigs
2  bay leaves
2  tablespoons  butter
3  cups  chopped onion
1  teaspoon  ground cumin
6  cups  torn Swiss chard
1  tablespoon  fresh lemon juice
1/2  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
6  tablespoons  plain whole yogurt


Method:

• Sort and wash the lentils. Combine lentils, water, and next 6 ingredients (water through bay leaves) in a large Dutch oven; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 45 minutes or until tender.
• Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cumin; sauté 10 minutes or until browned. 
• Stir onion mixture into lentil mixture. Discard bay leaves and parsley. 
• Add chard to soup; simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes or until chard is tender. 
• Remove soup from heat. Stir in juice and pepper. 
• Ladle 1 1/3 cups soup into each of 6 bowls; top each serving with 1 tablespoon yogurt. 

Recipe Links:
Here's the original post.

Mushroom Veggie Burger

This is no doubt the world's perfect mushroom burger.  Best I can tell this originated from the weheartfood.com blog under the posting of Lisa's Mushroom Burger. 

This one came from Chef John's site.  I adapted it by using Panko instead of traditional breadcrumbs and serving atop low carb sandwich thins instead of hamburger rolls.   


Prep Time:  1/2 Hour
Cook Time:  10 Minutes
Servings:  4


Nutritional Information:
Serving size:  1 Burger (Burger only)
Calories:  265
Fat:  12.5g
Saturated fat:  3g
Cholesterol:  110.5mg
Sodium:  466.5mg
Total Carbohydrate:  28.3g
Dietary Fiber:  3g
Sugars:  2.5g
Protein:  10.5g


Ingredients:
3 tablespoons olive oil
1-1/2 pounds mushrooms, roughly chopped (combination of crimini, shiitake, and portobello)
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
6 cloves minced garlic
2/3 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup shredded parmesan
3/4 cup Panko breadcrumbs
2 eggs, beaten
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley, or 1 tsp dried parsley flakes
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper


Method:

• Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large saucepan.  Saute the mushrooms, onions and garlic over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until liquid boils off, and the mushrooms begin to saute.
• In a large bowl, add mushroom mixture to oats, Parmesan, breadcrumbs, eggs, parsley, oregano, salt and pepper. Mix well.
• Allow to sit for 15 minutes to develop the flavors.
• Shape into patties. Heat 2 tbsp oil in large non-stick skillet, over medium heat.
• Fry patties, cooking about 5 minutes on each side, or until golden brown.
• Serve over toasted sandwich thins.

Recipe Links:

Here's the original post.

Check out the video!

Barley Crusted Quiche

Around once a year, my mother has a birthday.  This year we decided to get together over my sister's to watch the NASCAR race, oops, I mean, celebrate my mother's birthday... 

I asked my mom what she wanted me to make for her birthday meal - she requested a quiche of some kind.  A Quiche?  I offer to make whatever meal you want and you say Quiche?

Well, that stimulated a really fun cooking adventure for us.  I was intrigued by a recipe I found online at Susan Voison's site and the results turned out marvelous.  

Two things are really fun about the original recipe;  First, the crust is made from brown rice, and Second, there are no eggs involved here.  I got about half way through my prep before I realized what was bothering me, no eggs?... This is cool.

Anyway, I modified the original recipe in a couple ways, I substituted Barley for the brown rice (my mother loves barley), and I pressed the barley mixture a little further up the sides of the pie plate to leave the edge exposed for browning.  This resulted in a wonderful presentation.

Prep Time:  About 1 hour 

Cook Time:  1 hour

Servings:  4

Nutritional Information:

Serving size:  1/4 of Quiche

Calories:  340

Fat:  14.3g

Saturated Fat:  2.5g

Cholesterol:  1.8mg

Sodium:  505.3mg

Total Carbohydrate:  36.3g

Dietary Fiber:  7.8g

Sugars:  2.8g

Protein:  22.5g

Recipe Source:  Asparagus and Mushroom Quiche with a Brown Rice Crust.  Originally posted March 31, 2008.

Recipe Links:

Here is a link to the original recipe.

Photo: J.Christopher Rice

Photo: Mary Ann Rice

Photo: Lance Brown