Life and more Pizza Bites

Late update is late. It's been busy and hectic and stressful the last couple of days, there has been much A&W consumed and not a whole lot of cooking going on. We apologize...

Since Doctor Who isn't having new episodes until Christmas, we've decided to start watching Life, the newest in shows along the lines of Planet Earth and the like. We made pizza bites again, but this time with different fillings.

There's a pizza place that does amazing vegetarian pizzas, so we used the same vegetables and spices that they did in an attempt to mimic their deliciousness. We also decided to try bacon cheeseburger pizza bites!!

Hopefully this week will bring more delicious posts for you guys to try. Thanks for tuning in!

-Sam and Jesso

Doctor Who Night: Pizza Bites

Doctor Who night, which sadly will end for the year tonight, was the time for appetizers. Sam and I came across a blog talking about pizza bites a while back, and we decided to try our own take on them.

Pizza Bites (intermediate difficulty)

What We Used
Dough:

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp white sugar

Filling:

• Pepperoni
• Mozzarella Cheese
• Cheddar Cheese

The dough was actually fairly easy to prepare, though time consuming. We dissolved the yeast in the cup of warm water and let it stand about ten minutes until it was milky.

When the yeast was done turning into slime, we stirred all the dough ingredients together in a bowl, then kneaded (add a little more flour if it's waaaay too sticky during this stage) until it was thoroughly mixed. Then we let it sit for a couple hours until it doubled in size.

When it was done growing, we pulled off little palm sized chunks and formed them into little discs. We filled the discs with a few pieces of cubed pepperoni and cheese then pinched the discs closed to make little filled balls which we placed in a 9 x 11 cake pan. We covered again and let them rise again for a while.

Once they were the size of small buns, we placed them in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes until golden brown. Before you put them in the oven you have the option to brush them with olive oil and herbs... we used garlic and basil, which was awesome. Some parmesan cheese would have been lovely as well, but we didn't have any.

We served with a dish of maranera sauce, and the entire thing was fantastic. Nice little snacky pizza pockets.

-Jess

Doctor Who Monday: More of the Shortcakes, Sorbet, and the Great Phyllo Experiment

Should we just rename Doctor Who Monday to Shortcake Monday? We liked them so much last week that we wanted to do them again (except... smaller. With enough whipping cream for everyone.)

Doctor Who night tends to involve a bunch of people and snack food. As such, we've taken to mostly making finger foods, ergo the phyllo pastry.

Broccoli, Mushroom and Cheese in Phyllo

What We Used:

• Phyllo pastry
• 2 cups mushrooms (button works best, but we also had some leftover Portobello)
• 1 and 1/2 cups grated marble cheese
• 1 head broccoli, cut small
• 2 shallots
• melted butter
• marjoram to taste
  

Mince the shallots, slice the mushrooms, grate the cheese and cut the broccoli! Heat some oil in a pan and add the shallots and marjoram. Add the mushrooms once the shallots are cooked for awhile, and when the mushrooms cook down a bit, add the broccoli. Cook until the broccoli is tender but not too soft.

Now it's the hard part.

Layer three sheets of phyllo pastry together and brush them down with butter. Cut into squarish shapes (they don't have to be perfect) and put some of the veggie mix into the middle. Top with cheese and fold them however you'd like. We wanted to do triangles, but we ended up going with a much different shape in the end.

Brush the tops with more butter to keep them from drying out and bake in the oven until they're golden and crispy!

Verdict?

Perfect. The buttery Phyllo added just enough salt to the mushroom/broccoli/shallot mix to make lovely bite sized yummy things.

Lemon Pomegranate Sorbet

What We Used:

• 1 large pomegranate
• 5 lemons
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 cups water
• a pinch of salt
• a splash of 7-up

I was official in charge of lemons again, since Sam's allergic. I beat up, halved, and squeezed five lemons into a measuring cup. The goal was 1 cup of lemon juice, but I was slightly short so after I strained out the seeds and pulp with cheesecloth, I topped it off with 7-up.

Sam, meanwhile, was removing the seeds from the pomegranate and setting them aside.

In a pot on the stove, we dissolved the sugar in the water and brought the entire mix to a boil on a medium heat (make sure to stir constantly). After boiling it for a few minutes, we removed it from the heat and added the lemon juice, pomegranate seeds, and a pinch of salt. It was brought back to a boil until the pomegranate seeds released their color.

The entire thing was strained again into a pre-chilled metal bowl and then shoved into the freezer. Every once in a while, it was removed and stirred to put air in the mix and get the right texture.

Verdict?

The flavor is fabulous. But sorbet is the perfect place to experiment with mixing fruit flavors. The pomegranate added a beautiful color and sweetness to the sourness of the lemon.

-Sam and Jess

No Doctor Who night? Lasagna with Mr. Science!

Due to Wine-ing Philosophers taking up Carmen's time this Monday, we asked Mr. Science to guest star on the blog (he's been itching to make lasagna for a while now... what a good excuse!)

Lasagna A La Mr. Science



What We Used

Sauce

• 2 1/2 lbs lean ground beef (Mr. Science prefers extra lean, but admits you need some fat to help everything stick together)
• 5 or 6 roma tomatoes
• 2 cans tomato paste
• 1/2 yellow onion
  
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp oregano
• dash of marjoram
• dash of thyme
• 4 sticks celery
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley
• 3 brown mushrooms
• 5 white mushrooms

All the Rest of it

• 3 brown mushrooms
• 5 white mushrooms
• Lasagna noodles (We used fresh ones, not homemade, but fresh)
• A large tub of baby spinach, chopped
• A bit of butter for cooking the spinach
• 2.2 lbs Ricotta cheese (or two large containers)
  
• Mozzarella cheese, grated (we used a large block of it, you can use however much you'd like)
  

Saute the onions and garlic in a pot, then add the ground beef and spices. Brown the beef. Chop the tomatoes, mushrooms, parsley, and celery and stir them in. Let everything simmer for about 20 minutes then add the tomato paste.

Slice the additional mushrooms and set them to the side. Mr. Science says that adding in raw mushrooms to the layers gives you better texture and taste.

Chop all the spinach and fry in a pan with a bit of butter until the spinach is cooked. It will cook down a LOT, so don't be intimidated by how much you've got. Mix the spinach once it's cool with the ricotta cheese and set aside.

Once everything is ready to go, it's time to layer it. Mr. Science used a stoneware casserole dish for his lasagna, and greased it before beginning to assemble the lasagna. Assembly goes as follows...

1. Noodles
2. Sauce
3. Mushrooms
4. Noodles
5. Spinach
6. Noodles
7. Sauce
8. Mushrooms

... and etc, etc, until you've got all your ingredients used up! Top with cheese! Bake covered with aluminum foil in the oven at 375 degrees for thirty five to forty five minutes. Bake for five minutes uncovered or until cheese is browned.

Just as a note, using fresh noodles will actually cut down on cooking time, because you don't have to wait for the dried noodles to cook!

Verdict?

Super awesome! We all agree that it could've used...something. Egg in the ricotta layer? Eight more bulbs of garlic? salt? bay leaf? Dunno. But then again, that's the glory of experimentation!

Home Made Strawberry Shortcakes



What We Used

Shortcake

• 3 cups flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tbsp baking powder
• 1 cup butter
• 1 egg
  
• 2/3 cup cream

The Rest of it

• Strawberries
• Sugar
• Whipping Cream
• Vanilla extract
  

Mix flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl. Cut in butter with pastry cutter or a fork, then stir in egg and cream. Knead until it's one solid lump of dough.

Grease a cookie sheet, and place dough in 1/2 inch thick discs on it. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until slightly brown on top.

While the shortcake is baking, slice the strawberries into a bowl and sprinkle a couple teaspoons of white sugar over them. Set those aside. Whip the whipping cream with a little sugar and vanilla to taste. Cover and refrigerate.

When you're ready to eat the shortcakes, slice them in half like you would a bagel. Layer some strawberries and whipping cream on the bottom half, place the top half of the shortcake back on, then put a little more of the strawberries and whipping cream on top.

Verdict?

Tasty! The shortcake was just sweet enough, without being too overwhelming.

Anyway, good night for now, see you in the morrow and ecetera...

-Jess

Asparagus Off!!

Tonight, it was Doctor Who Monday!! And we had an asparagus off. Our friend Carmen told us that she would like to see us make a delicious proscuitto wrapped asparagus recipe thing she had done before, so we decided to take her up on her challenge!

Then...

Well. Lets be frank. I like bacon. In my opinion, it is greater than everything and anything ever made. Bacon > Sliced bread... The moon landing... and definitely Proscuitto. So I said to Sam...

...It's a battle!

We decided to have a mini Iron Chef type thing tonight. I purchased the asparagus, we had a few other things on hand that we could use for the battle left over from previous adventures.

Proscuitto Wrapped Asparagus

What We Used:

• Asparagus
• Proscuitto
• Cream cheese
• Fresh basil
• Fresh chives
• 3 cloves garlic (what I used, you can use less or more! )

First of all, I trimmed the bottoms off the asparagus and washed them so that there was no clinging dirt.

I then put the cream cheese and the herbs and garlic into my handy dandy food processor and blended them together till they made a brilliant greenish herby cream cheese mix. That was spread onto the strips of proscuitto and wrapped around the asparagus spears. Easy!!

Bake the spears in either a Pyrex dish or a baking pan lined with tin foil, since it's a little messy. I had the oven pretty high since all we were doing was cooking the asparagus and crisping up the proscuitto a bit. Proscuitto is already cooked, after all.

Bacon Wrapped Asparagus

What We Used:

• Asparagus
• Bacon (I used thick sliced, but in retrospect thin might have been better)
• Mayonnaise
• Chipotle pepper spice
• Wierd squeeze tube of habanero and cayenne chilis
• Worchestershire sauce
  

In hindsight, I should have kept more accurate measurements since the Spicy Mayo also made a perfect chip dip.

Sam already prepped the Asparagus, so I didn't have to worry about those. I was too busy dumping the chipotle, squeeze tube chilis and Worchestershire sauce into mayo until it tasted right. And really, that's the key right there. Add as much or as little as you want until it tastes the way you want it to.

The bacon was just simply wrapped around the asparagus then put on a foil lined baking sheet and baked at 375. It needed to be turned a lot... more than the proscuitto did... and I was baking for longer at a lower temperature. At the end, when the bacon was starting to crisp and the asparagus was at my desired level of done-ness, I turned on the broiler to finish it off. Served with the mayo it was fantastic.

Verdict?

It was pretty much a tie. Both Sam and I liked the Bacon better, but some of the people there liked the Proscuitto since it's less fatty, and the herbaceous cheese was fantastic (if a bit salty). Both are fantastic appetizers, though.

Finally, no pictures tonight. I'll try to have them up tomorrow when I can grab Luke's camera. Until then, cheers!

-Sam and Jess

Ugly Stepchild

We're having a difficult time finding the cord for the Nikon, so pictures may be a little late in coming (I'll add them when the rest of our merry band shows up and post up a notice that they're there.) but Sam and the rest of the whovians were pretty insistant that the TARDIS cake was glorious, especially since we were lacking almost all of our icing tools and the icing was a bit of a fiasco. (but not as much of a fiasco as the curdling cream cheese)

ETA: Cord is found, have an image!

It's like the children's drawing version of the TARDIS, turned into a cake. Note the spots where I apparently suffered a seizure.

If this doesn't end up on Cakewrecks, I'll be dissapointed.

-Jesso