It looked pretty...

I usually have high hopes for dinner. I think that my meal is going to be so fantastic that Rafa will do one of those silly dances seen in musicals and cry from every rooftop how remarkable his wife is. I'd be Wife of the Year. Erm, that doesn't happen. Which is not to say that Rafa doesn't appreciate my cooking at all - it's just that there are certain things that he doesn't like, actually many things. I have been dying to cook out Cupboard Love but haven't found the inspiration at all because I'm running out of the recipes that are begging to be made. Also, our dinner schedules have been complicated as Rafa usually works very late, which would mean, if we ate together, I'd have to wait until then to eat, or we would eat in shifts, but then that would only be worth it if the food was cold to start with or able to be reheated OR if it is something we both like. As you could see, complicated stuff. Dinner shouldn't be that complicated. And this coupled with the feelings I get every once in a while that my life is meaningless and I'm wasting it away and I can't get out of the vicious circle of overeating and feeling like crap about how fat I look ....
haha, sorry for that. But really, blogging is a lot cheaper than therapy! LOL.

So....... back to dinner. We had some leftover sausages from Nigella's One-Pan Sage-and-Onion Chicken and Sausage (FEAST), and I thought it would be cool to jazz them up a bit with a relish from Tom's Junk Food chapter.

124. DIY: Make your own sweetcorn relish - *Junk Food*

Tom writes that this relish makes a burger, more so than the dill sauce I had made earlier in this project. Well I didn't have any burgers, but taking some inspiration from the hot dog vendors around these parts, a relish sounded like a good topping for some sausages. I don't eat sausages, so this meal was for Rafa. (You'll see what I ate further down below.)

I really didn't know what to expect from this relish. Usually, relish is a pretty generic term for a kind of pungent topping. But, I wasn't sure if it would be spicy, vinegary, sour, salty, etc. See, even though this is a DIY recipe, implying that it is something one could purchase somewhere, I had never heard of nor seen sweetcorn relish. But then again, I'm not really a toppings kind of person. So, I was cooking blindly, and I also had no idea how Rafa would react to it.

On to the process: You first blanch some frozen (or fresh) corn in a lot of boiling salted water. That didn't take very long, and after draining the corn, I put it back in the pan. To this, you add sliced onions, some chilli (I used just a dash of chilli flakes), white wine vinegar, salt and sugar.

You let this boil on a high heat for about five minutes, and then you lower the heat and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

While this was going on, I got started on the thickening agent. It was basically just mustard powder, corn starch and water all mixed together.

After the relish had its simmering time, the mixture was added to thicken up the sauce. This boiled on a medium heat for another five minutes so that relish would get glossy and thick.

And that was it. It was then just a matter of putting it on the desired meat of choice.

I really thought it looked pretty. It was shimmering and sticky at the same time. I tasted a little bit of it, and it was sweet and had heat. Definitely a punch. As you could see, I put a lot on Rafa's sausages. And though he said it tasted nice, it overpowered the actual meat. Rafa said that he had a hard time actually tasting the meat. Hmmn, should have exercised the 'less is more' style of plating up. Well I could not really argue with that; I saw what he meant after tasting the relish again. So it was not a hit at the Ilana-Rafa household.

I don't think this recipe is a total waste, because it really is tasty, I am just not sure what it should accompany. I'm thinking maybe a simple chicken breast that has been sauteéd in olive oil and nothing else. That might actually be pretty good.

Well I promised to show you what I ate. I was quite proud of myself because had about four things cooking at once and was quite pleased that I was able to be in control. Here is Bill Granger's Spaghetti with Garlic and Spinach. I think it may be from his new book, but I got the recipe from the UK Delicious, November 2006.

It's a very basic and delicious recipe. All you do is boil up some spaghetti, or linguini, in my case, and in a separate pan fry some garlic slivers in olive oil and then add white wine. The pasta goes into the oily sauce with some baby spinach (yes, we can eat it again!), and then is topped with parmesan at serving. It was lovely and really flavorful even though not many flavors were added to the pasta. It was a bit on the oily side; but that's not a bad thing necessarily. With the heating in my apartment, it tends to get pretty dry, and this was great at moisturizing my lips. LOL.

Bellisimo!

Last night I successfully made pizza for myself and for hubby - but not at the same time. Rafa was working very late last night, so I made the 'pizza' for myself when I got home, and then made his later on.

87. French Bread Pizza - *Junk Food*
88. Fiorentina - *Junk Food*

My inspiration to make pizza was because I managed to get some fabulous Italian groceries at a shop near my job. In NYC, 'near' is a relative term. It was actually straight down Spring Street and into Little Italy; this is where I shopped at Dom's during my lunch hour.

I discovered Dom's just a few days ago when hanging out with my friend, Elana, in Little Italy and Soho. I needed a place to source some dried porcini mushrooms and porcini mushroom stock cubes. What I was so psyched to see was the same exact brand of peeled plum tomatoes that Tom uses in Cupboard Love. Here is La Bella San Marzano!


Notice the lovely plum tomatoes on her crown! Peeled plum tomatoes is not something I would make a fuss over, but I figured a relatively inexpensive thing like the canned tomatoes I could make an effort and find the 'real deal.' My verdict of these tomatoes is further on down!

I started the French Bread Pizza first. Tom mentions this is a type of 'seventies' dish as he remembers his mom making it for him. I also have a sort of childhood story related to this dish. I was 'bestest bestest friends' with a lovely girl named Nicole - I think we must have been 11 or 12. Anyway, she lived in Mill Basin, the 'Beverly Hills' of south Brooklyn! I was so impressed with her 'very typical' American family - they made Jello on Thanksgiving, and Nicole's mom would make her a home version of the frozen-food favorite, French Bread Pizza. The fact that her mom would do that for her daughter was so cool in my eyes. I would come home and instantly tell my mom how to make it -- a halved baguette simply spread with tomato sauce/pizza sauce and lots and lots of shredded mozzarella cheese (the yellow kind!), and then bunged into the oven until the cheese was brown and bubbly. This version tasted like heaven to me! I thought I was just the coolest to have junk food at home!

Tom's version differs slightly. First I cut a baguette lengthwise, and I scooped out the interior. I pulsed the bread pieces into rough crumbs using my gorgeous food processor....


Then I set those aside and got to chopping up the rest of the ingredients.

Mozzarella into cubes.

Tomatoes deseeded and chopped -- and return of the over-ripe tomatoes!

Prosciutto sliced into shreds.


Plus some grated pecorino and chopped oregano with the rest of the ingredients, and this was all mixed in with a beaten egg and the processed bread crumbs.


The hollowed out baguette was then filled with this mixture and baked. Mmmmm.


And pretty good it was! It was just a tad on the salty side. I think that was the combo of the ham and the pecorino. I think next time I would omit the ham altogether and maybe just add a few olives instead.

So onto Rafa's pizza! I had some thawed pizza dough that I made last time, and I decided on the Quicker Tomato Sauce, though mine should be the Quickest since I didn't bother to measure the ingredients or use the food processor. LOL. Basically, I took the San Marzano plum tomatoes I bought, and squished them in a colander. Let me tell ya, what a difference! The tomatoes I used in the past were tough and once squished the juices went everywhere. The San Marzanos were softer and easier to crush - just a more pleasant experience, and I felt good knowing that Tom used these tomatoes too! There's hope for me yet.

I mixed the tomatoes with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar and finely chopped garlic. That was the sauce done!

The toppings for the pizza just involved some light preparation - grated whole milk mozzarella (the white kind!), drained baby spinach leaves, garlic slices, a broken egg in the middle, and a sprinkling of pecorino and nutmeg!

I did a fabo job of rolling out the dough and got it to fit the entire pizza pan - finally! The pizza came out thin and crunchy - yum!


And Rafa liked it!

The Untraditionalist

Tom starts off the introduction to the Napoletana pizza recipe saying that it is a very traditional one. Ha! Well, leave it to me to screw with tradition! When do I ever seem to follow the rules in this project??!

83. Quicker Tomato Sauce - *Junk Food*
84. Napoletana - *Junk Food*

I was hesitant to dive into another pizza recipe following my previous debacle. Ironically, my pizza making in the past had been disaster-free. I think it is because I didn't heat my pans first, or would just make one large pie, albeit not exactly a thin-crust one!

In order to give myself more time and to not rush, I made the basic dough on Wednesday night, and the pizzas last night. The dough, as you may recall, is quite simple - I have to toot my own horn and say what a bad ass I am when it comes to making dough in my Kitchenaid. It has taken a lot of time and practice but I finally have all the techniques down resulting in perfect dough and no last minute running for more water or flour! I left the dough to rise in the fridge overnight, knowing that it will probably result in a crunchier pizza - fine by me!

So last night, I made the sauce and added the toppings for the final assembly job. The sauce, as its title implies, is mega-fast to make. But I am mega-slow, so for me, it was a Moderately Fast Tomato Sauce. :)

First I crushed some tomatoes in a colander. Tom indicates to use two cans of peeled whole plum tomatoes, or to use fresh, if I'm confident my tomatoes are ripe and delicious - oh boy, were they!!

Don't adjust your screens, yes those are orange tomatoes! This was my first summer seeing these tomatoes in Brooklyn. I'm sure they are all around greenmarkets in the 'city', but it was the first time seeing them at my local grocery store. Of course, how could I not pick them up?! Actually, I walk by the store every day mentally scanning its inventory - I was so delighted to see them this week, and for 99¢ a pound!

Now, back to the sauce, it was indeed 'quicker' than the Quick Tomato Sauce, in that no cooking was involved. I squished the tomatoes, getting rid of extra moisture. This tip came from the man himself in an email to me. I had asked Tom about his expertise in making sauce out of fresh tomatoes, and he said:

Whenever I use fresh for sauces I deseed but often don't peel them. You could do both, but needn't bother with either if the tomatoes are on the small side. It's the runny juices in the cavity rather than seeds or skin that can make the sauce watery that bother me!

I managed to squish the tomatoes as much as possible to get rid of any juices, and what I got was a wonderful orange pulp! Beautiful!

In a separate bowl, I squished some garlic with salt and added it to some light olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Then I pureed the entire thing in my new Kitchenaid (cobalt blue, natch!) food processor. It's only a 3 cup one - many of my friends will know that I am saving myself for the 12 cup when I buy a house! But this one was purchased to replace my $9.99 one, that I had purchased at Rite Aid, no less! Ain't my new boyfriend a beauty?!

And there you go, the Quicker Tomato Sauce. I loved the technique of using non-cooked tomatoes and just mixing it up with salt, oil and vinegar, and garlic. That's really all a sauce needs, in my opinion. It reminds me of the fabulous fresh sauces on the brick-oven pizzas served here, like in Patsy's or Lombardi's. Fantastic!

Then came time to take out the dough and start a-rolling! Last time, I had a few problems, to say the least. This time I was more organized, took out two pizza pans, and chucked half of the dough into the freezer for next time.

It was a bitch to roll out, I'll admit, but I know that is because it was losing its chill from the fridge and did not lend itself too much, but after some elbow grease I managed, erm, sort of 24cm circles. Well, close.

As you could see from the top, I topped the pizza Napoletana-style (sort of!) with mozzarella, oregano, and dry and wrinkly black olives. This is where I went untraditional. First, I used orange tomatoes for the sauce. Then, I completely ignored Tom's suggestion to use anchovies and capers. I hate the former, and Rafa hates the latter. We're fussy! No wonder we have no friends! Ha! He said that mozzarella is not traditional, but nevertheless yummy, so I decided to go with the yumminess factor and included it! Tom also mentioned to add the oregano or basil after cooking, but I knew I'd forget that way, so added it with the other toppings. I must say, the pizza did not suffer - in fact, it was fantastic!

I was happy that the pizza did not get too puffy and maintained a certain air of crispiness and thin-ness. The toppings worked so well and the entire apartment smelled of garlic due to the fantastic sauce! I didn't bother heating the baking pans first, but I don't think my pizza was gravely affected because of that. Here's a virtual slice for hungry readers!

Mmmmmm! Pizza! A friend said I had some balls to attempt to make a pizza to rival the great pizzerias around me -- well I have to admit, it's not exactly Trio, but not too shabby either!

Istanbul, Constantinople, Istanbul....

I am really all about theme nights... cooking a few dishes from the same country of origin, pretending that you are in some exotic locale. Plus, it's a way of getting a few recipes down at once, which is something I am in need of doing! Tonight - it's Turkey night!! No, not Thanksgiving... Turkey, the country -- lamb, tzatsiki (cacik), and salad!

72. Grilled Lamb Chops - *Grills*
73. Tzatsiki of Sorts - *Junk Food*
74. Turkish Salad - *Larder Salads*

When I went in search of minced lamb the other day and was completely unsuccessful, I did manage to pick up some lamb chops -- or at least I think they are. The package (yes it's from a supermarket, kill me all now!) said Australian Shoulder Lamb Chops. So I either have lamb shoulder or lamb chops - well, it looked grillable so I thought, why not?

Since the lamb chops would take the shortest time to cook and needed to be served warm, I started on the tzatsiki and salad.

Tzatsiki, as Tom points out, comes in many forms in many countries. The yogurt/cucumber/mint dish in Turkey would in fact be called cacik. Tzatsiki is the name for the dish in Greece. Lamb and yogurt always seemed to be a good pair so I didn't mind borrowing this recipe from the Junk Food chapter.

For the tzatsiki, I grated a cucumber that was deseeded.

I removed excess moisture and mixed it with thick yogurt, dried mint, finely chopped garlic and salt. I let it get 'cool as a cucumber' (thanks, Tom!) in the fridge, but before that I snapped a pic!!

Then, a few minutes before dinnertime, I began the salad. It is not a difficult salad, just time-consuming because it takes on qualities from salad niçoise, which must have potatoes and eggs just so. I first did the chopping for the salad - yellow peppers, tomatoes (deseeded), cucumbers (deseeded), and lettuce. I also added the butter beans before I put the entire thing in the fridge.

I boiled some new potatoes for the salad, and once a bit cool, tore them into uneven pieces. After tossing the potato shards in some olive oil, I let them sit to the side until I would start assembling the salad.

The lamb chops were just basically the hot grill/hot oven method used in all of the Grills chapter. I seared some lamb chops on the grill pan, and then seasoned them and put them into the very hot oven for a few minutes to finish them off. Here are the Australian Shoulder Lamb Chops!

While the meat was resting I finished the salad -- boiled a couple of eggs, toasted some almond flakes, and dressed the salad with olive oil, white wine vinegar, chopped dill, salt and pepper. I topped the salad with the almonds and put the quartered eggs to the side as a garnish. They came out a bit too, erm, runny, even though I boiled them for six minutes as stipulated. Oh well, never mind.

Here is the finished salad!

And closeup!

To go along with the Turkish theme, I also baked Nigella's Nigella Bread -- aka, bread with nigella (kalonji) seeds from How to be a Domestic Goddess.

The dinner was delicious! I had one of the chops, and although it was quite boney, the meat part was tender and juicy. It was lovely dipping some meat into the tsatski. The salad was fantastic too - lots of textures and colors, and I loved the unusual additions of almonds and dill!

Sorry I couldn't get a table shot - we have horrible lighting in our apartment and the only place that gets good light for pictures is the coffee table - so what you may see in almost all of my pictures that I don't crop to an inch of the picture's life is my Leksvik coffee table. We don't eat at the coffee table -- well not all of the time.

Escapism Via Pub Food

It's not that I don't love the life I have here. It's just that sometimes, I like to escape to the time that Rafa and I lived in Liverpool. We were younger, we used to go out a lot, we were in complete denial how poor we were! LOL.

The place we used to visit in the city center quite often was Wetherspoon. The Brits reading this will no doubt wince -- I know, it's not exactly the classiest, fanciest food, but it was our place! I never quite felt like I fit in with the scousers. I was often given strange looks as soon as I started talking, and they were probably thinking, 'what is a bloody yank doing heya?' Well Wetherspoon seemed to be the only place where I blended in, was one of 'them'.

So tonight I decided to reprise one of my favorite meals from our place, southern-fried chicken wrap! I dived right into CL's Junk Food chapter to help me out.

59. Chicken in a Bun - *Junk Food*
60. DIY: Make your own mayonnaise - *Junk Food*

Firstly, yay!!!! I made my own mayonnaise. I know I've been a total lazyass when it came to Tom's DIY recipes, but I knew I wouldn't be able to argue my way out of this one. Yes, I was scared, and yes, I was intimidated, but I wanted to make this mayonnaise!

Therefore, that is where I started.

Tom's mayo recipe is basically an egg yolk whisked with some mustard and lemon juice (or vinegar) and then olive oil is slowly added to the right consistency. Tom says it is easiest to do this in a food processor with one those tube thingamijigies, but my crappy $9.99 food processor doesn't have one of those, so I did it by hand. It was kind of challenging to whisk and pour at the same time - kinda wished I was ambidextrous at this point. But it worked out great - if slightly yellow! I seasoned it with a little bit of salt and that was my first mayo done!


I covered the bowl with clingfilm and put the mayo into the fridge so it chilled a bit while I cooked the chicken.

Tom's chicken recipe was basically marinaded chicken that was then dipped into egg and then into polenta. He indicated grilling would be a good option, but since I wasn't sure how my grill/broil works when it comes to longer recipes such as this one, I opted to fry the chicken, which he said was fine as well, but would take longer.

I marinaded the chicken for about an hour and a half in lemon juice, black pepper, and chopped garlic. Then I fried the chicken in some butter and olive oil till golden on both sides.



The recipe involved making this variation of a sort of chicken schnitzel and serving it in a bun with mayo and lettuce. Since I was recreating my favorite dish from Liverpool, I decided to put it all in a wrap. And here is how it looked...

I served the wrap with potato chips and leftover salad from last night, and oh my, did it taste good!!! I mean not just good, really flippin' good! The chicken was lovely and crunchy - it is true that the polenta gives the chicken a nice color, but it also provides a great crust that keeps the chicken lovely and moist! The mayo was perfect with it; and I'm so happy I made it to go with this recipe! As simple as this dish sounds, please make it yourself to see how fantastic it is!

Being cheeky...

Last night's dinner did not go exactly as planned. I really should have learned by now that if I have it in mind to make something for dinner days in advance, I should actually do the shopping days in advance.

Well, I wanted to have a sort of mezze-style dinner involving lamb burgers, pita, hummus - the works, inspired by CL's Junk Food chapter. The end result was still a sort of mezze-style, but without the works - but nevertheless wonderfully delicious.

57. A Quick Hummus - *Junk Food*
58. Fattoush - *Larder Salads*

(Edit: I never mentioned why I didn't make a meat dish for dinner last night... it was because I couldn't find ground lamb anywhere. I did an hour's walk and went to 5 or 6 stores and nothing! Whatdya gotta do around here to get some friggin' lamb???!!!!)

The cheeky portion of the evening is solely on my part. In the Pita and Fillings part of the Junk Food chapter, Tom indicates that a quick hummus would be a perfect filling for pita, among other things. Well, I found the quickest way to make hummus --- to buy it!

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, here are the facts:

Tom says:

Some shop-bought hummus is fine, but it is so easy to make that it is worth doing your own. I have a mild beef with supermarkets for making it with vegetable oil rather than olive oil. I think the latter gives it a better flavor. I sometimes find commercial hummus a bit smooth, too.

My case:

Shop-bought hummus, in Israel and Brooklyn, is not fine, it's fantastic! In fact, most homes in Israel never bother to make their own because the quality of the bought-product is exceptional. During all the time I have spent in Israel the only occasion in which I have had homemade hummus was in restaurants, and I honestly couldn't tell the difference between that and the shop brand. Now, I have to make the distinction here that not all shop-bought hummus is the same. I have had really really bad hummus in Liverpool. I'm sure that there are better brands in the UK, but this particular one came in a can and was the most appalling specimen of ground chickpeas I have ever seen. And it was bought in a Middle Eastern store, no less.

Also, the fabulous brand found everywhere in Israel and in many cities in the U.S., Sabra, make their hummus with olive oil. And for those conscious of their hummus being too smooth, I give you Exhibit A.

Chunky style!

So that is my cheekiness - if I really thought that hummus around my parts was horrible, I would certainly put my crappy $9.99 mini food processor to work.

Hummus is just one of the fillings for a typical mezze/pita night. As I said before, pita is really meant to be robust, because you should see how Israelis stuff those suckers at sandwich shops. Being in Israel is all about appreciating the numerous salads and fillings one puts into pita. It doesn't stop at falafel. Like my dad, Israelis are big on pickled items. They are known as hamutzim. You haven't tasted heaven until you bite into a pita, warmed by the sun, that is filled with yummy and tangy delights. When I was at university, there was an American studying in my group. He didn't speak a word of Hebrew. So, you would expect my surprise when standing behind him at one of these pita stalls. His turns comes to order, the man behind the counter has an open pita ready, and then this American guy starts telling the 'stuffer' in Hebrew all the things he wants in the pita -- hummus, hatzilim (eggplant), hamutzim, etc. Food, ladies and gents, is universal!

One of the big things most families have at dinner and social gatherings is the 'Israeli salad'. I have seen it in Turkish restaurants as 'Shepherd's Salad', as well. For my family, it has always been tomatoes and cucumbers (Israeli, natch!) chopped finely, with some onion, also chopped small, a sprinkling of lemon juice and olive oil, and finally, salt and pepper. We eat this as a side for the main dishes or we eat it with the main dishes in a pita.

Tom includes a variation of the Israeli salad I have grown up with, Fattoush. Fattoush is basically the same thing, but with torn up toasted flatbread inside. I love fattoush, and especially how the bread soaks up all the juices. Mmmmmm.

So I had the hummus and I was about to make the fattoush. But what else?? I had to think fast of a suitable and substantial meal for the two of us. It is not so easy to promise meat to a carnivorous glutton, such as hubby, and then to take that away. I had it in mind to make something full of protein, so I could fool him to thinking he would be just as full as if he were eating meat. And I didn't have to go too far, culturally speaking. I went to my Israeli fave, shakshuka.

You will remember that I made Tom's Chakchouka a few weeks ago. The one that I know and love is definitely eggs, mostly tomatoes, and sometimes peppers. His was definitely peppers, mostly eggs, and sometimes tomatoes. You will recall I didn't like his too much, because I am not a fan of peppers, roasted or cooked in any way. I much prefer them fresh. So I made a version, closer to the one I was familiar with, courtesy of my friend, Julie, from Nigella.com.

Now that dinner was sorted, I could start the cooking. (And you're all thinking, 'finally!') I started on the fattoush first because the shakshuka would need to be eaten straight away. So, I deseeded tomatoes and a cucumber, and chopped both into small pieces. I got the rest of the ingredients together by chopping up a red pepper, some parsley, a garlic clove, and a red onion. (I should note here that Tom includes cauliflower, radishes, and chickpeas in the ingredient list, but indicates that each family should add and take away as each chooses, so I thought to keep it simple and leave these out.) Separately, I toasted two pita halves in a low oven, cut them up, and added them to some olive oil and lemon juice.

I put the veggies all together, and then added the pita shards, along with some salt, pepper, dried mint, and sumac sprinkled on top. Yummy fattoush!


With the salad done, I started on the shakshuka. Basically all I did was brown some onions and chopped pepper in some olive oil. To this I added some passata and let it bubble away with added chopped parsley, zaatar, salt, and a pinch of chilli flakes.

I broke three eggs into the mixture and covered the pan to let the eggs cook for a few minutes. I was quite impressed by how the eggs sort of floated on top, a la poached eggs. It looked beautiful!

It was at this point that I was drooling like mad, as was very very hungry, so I set the table -- hummus, pita, fattoush, and shakshuka.


I instantly scooped up the egg surrounding by the lovely tomatoey sauce, and stuffed it into my pita. I put some fattoush on the side for stuffing later.

This was delicious! It was not what I planned, but it turned out to be a lovely meal. The pita pocket is the perfect vehicle for a pungent salad like fattoush and the wonderful and warm shakshuka. I am pleased as punch that I had some leftover fattoush to stuff another pita with this morning, and that will be my lunch! I could imagine making this fattoush for many meals this summer - it's perfect BBQ fare. B'tea-von!

Mama says, 'Eat your veggies!'

I waxed lyrical way back how I could never understand why veggie patties were called 'veggie burgers.' They aren't burgers, and the worse kind are the ones that try to look and taste like burgers. Tom writes in the Junk Food chapter how his version of the patties are called 'cutlets' because that is how they are referred to in India. And I've come to learn they are a far cry different from the pseudo-burgers plaguing the frozen food aisle of health food stores!

48. Vegetable Cutlets - *Junk Food*
49. Cured Cucumber - *Junk Food*

Tom includes a recipe for Cured Cucumber for people that often find gherkins too sweet for their sandwiches. I am not much of a lover of pickled stuff; though my dad is the ultimate kind. I think it's a Russian thing as there is nothing in this world he and my uncle wouldn't pickle. In fact, my dad is so proud of his pickled tomatoes he brings it along with us to restaurants. (I can't believe I ever owned up to that in something so public as a blog!)

But I decided to make the cucumbers tonight as Tom notes they mesh well with the cutlets, so why not?! I mean, I'd have to eat them eventually!

The cutlets involve a lot of steps -- this is not something you could whip up at a moment's notice when you are starving, but these do freeze well, so are perfect for advance cooking.

First, I boiled a potato whole -- Tom stipulates a waxy one. To this day, I am not sure what that means but got some russet potatoes as they are the ones that you end up with the gunk on your fingers.. is it wax?? So the potato boiled until tender, and I let it cool slightly so I could peel it. Meanwhile, I grated a carrot and put it into a pan with some water and thawed frozen peas. These cooked down for about 20 minutes until soft.

To the pan I added the potato and mashed the whole darn thing together! I seasoned with ground ginger and cumin, and then some salt and pepper. I let the whole thing cool for a bit, and then let it harden for a bit in the fridge.

While all this was going on, I got started on curing a cucumber. I halved a cucumber and scooped out its seeds. Then, I sliced it into diagonal crescents and sprinkled it with salt. I let it sit in a colander while I was making the vegetable cutlets.

Once it was done curing, after about an hour or so, I sprinkled it with white wine vinegar and chopped dill.

I got on with frying the patties. First, I coated the mixture in breadcrumbs. (I had asked Rafa to get polenta, which is quite close to fine cornmeal around these parts, but he got coarse instead, and I didn't want to spend dinner making crunching sounds! -- anyway breadcrumbs were another option.) I used butter to fry the patties, as Tom indicates it is the tastiest option.

I am really rubbish at flipping burgers, or really flipping anything, so I was not too excited by the soft texture of the mixture. But I managed to work it out, and the patties stayed intact. I served up the cutlets with the cucumber.

This was really good, and much better than I had expected. I had a bad experience with a veggie burger in the past as the texture was just way too soft for me. But this cutlet worked really well, especially with the cucumbers. It was perfectly seasoned, and quite lovely and filling. I had made two, one for me and for Rafa. Of course, I should have realized, Rafa's appetite usually equals two servings, so he could have done well eating two burgers! Who would have thought he was such a fan of veggie....cutlets!

101 Ways to F*** Up a Pizza!

I really should have known better. On a night when I literally had no time to spare to make dinner I choose one of the most consuming of all recipes in CL. Why, why, why??? Perhaps I am a glutton for punishment, or perhaps I am just a space cadet that doesn't think time exists in this world. Well I was determined to make it, so last night, I made pizza!

35. Pizza Dough - *Junk Food*
36. Quick Tomato Sauce - *Junk Food*
37. Margherita - *Junk Food*
38. Raw pizza topping (ham, rocket and parmesan) - *Junk Food*

Before I go into detail (because, as we all know, brevity is not a quality I possess!), let me just show you the aftermath of the evening.

Before I reveal how such a thing happened to my poor book, let me start off the beginning of the night. I still needed to get lots of things for tonight's dinner, and also for last night's dinner, so I decided to take the subway to Stop 'n' Shop after work. I can't ever spend just a few minutes there. Happily, I found all the things I needed but time did not stand still and it was getting quite late. After schlepping home with my unbelievably heavy bags (lots of canned goods, adds up!) I set to work making the pizza dough at 6:30pm. That is usually when we eat dinner!! I was feeling faint and quite hungry at this point, but I didn't let that stop me.

So I got on with the dough. I have to say the recipe for the dough worked a treat. I just mixed up flour, yeast, salt, tepid water, and some olive oil. After the dough kneaded for about five minutes in my KitchenAid, it was gorgeous and silky.

Basic Pizza Dough

I let the dough rise in a warm place for about an hour, and then started on the Quick Tomato Sauce. Basically, I warmed some garlic slices in a bit of olive oil over a low heat. Meanwhile, I squished some canned, peeled tomatoes to oblivion until I got a sort of pureé. I had forgotten what juicy little suckers these were, so while I squished to oblivion, I also got tomato juice squirted on myself, my hair, the floor, the sink, etc. The sink looked like I had just stabbed someone to death.

Massacre in south Brooklyn!!!

Then the 'assaulted' tomatoes were added to the garlic with some salt. I chopped up some parsley and added this as well to make the sauce.

basics of the sauce: tomatoes, garlic, oil and parsley

This sauce was allowed to simmer for a few minutes, and it was done!!! Looked fabulous, if I do say so myself.

Quick Tomato Sauce

At the time the sauce was done, the bell in my oven dinged that the dough had enough rising. At this point, I was also chopping up mozzarella and talking to my gorgeous friend, Lisa, on the phone. Multitasker, I am!

It's important to mention now that my kitchen was running out of space, and fast!!! The one reason I like to keep dinner simple is because I just do not have a lot of room to have a few cooking stations. Everything basically needs to be done in the little space between the oven and the sink and on my tiny counter space near the fridge. Bad planning, being extremely exhausted (I had swept the entire apartment while the dough was rising too!), and hungry, made me really start freaking out at this point.

I put in a couple of pizza trays into the oven and cranked it up to its highest setting. Those who have heard me describe my nuclear reactor oven should get an idea of how hot it got in my kitchen at this point.

So I started working on the pizza dough. I punched the dough down and divided it into four. It is at this point that I read in the recipe that each circle was to measure around 24 centimeters!!! What???!!!! When I had drooled over the pictures in CL I had never noticed the pizzas were so large, I mean relatively. I thought they were little personal pizza types, so to make four would mean a lot of counter space for rolling. I did the best I could but I honestly was getting very annoyed with myself at this point. With limited space I could only get about 18cm diameter for each, and then I was really cursing myself because there was no way I could get a baking sheet to hold all four. I had put in two baking sheets into the oven, but I couldn't work out how I could transfer the pizzas when the sheets were so hot already. I guess all of this could have been figured out if I was in the right mind, but I just wasn't. It was already something like 8:30pm and dinner was nowhere near ready.

But I perservered. I got the toppings on the pizza. I left the toppings off two of the pizzas as they were going to have the raw filling, meaning they would go into the hot oven for about 10 minutes and then get the raw fillings put on for another 5 minutes of cooking.

The Margherita had fresh mozzarella and grated poorman'sgrana, while the raw pizza toppings, suggested by Tom, were parma ham (I used serrano!), rocket (arugula), and shaved parmesan.. Whoopsie, forgot the parmesan, even though it was right there and I had already used it on the other pizzas. Sheesh!

Raw pizzas ready for cooking

The raw ingredients

So the cooking did not go well at all. Only one of the pizzas seemed to brown and I couldn't exactly figure out how to get each to brown evenly since I was working with two very hot pizza trays. Then, I realized that I did put the oven to the highest setting, THE GRILL/BROIL SETTING, so of course the pizzas weren't getting brown, they weren't being cooked, only the grill part was functioning!!! Errgggh! Or maybe they were, I don't know, I still haven't figured out this oven after three years of living in my apartment. I quickly switched it to the highest setting, but not the Broil setting.

So instead of the raw toppings being, well, raw, they were instead cooked to a fine crisp. I guess in the end all pizzas looked OK. Rafa seemed to like them; but at 9pm I was so hungry and tired I didn't care anymore!!!

If you're wondering what happened to my poor book above, well I was seriously running out of room when rolling out the pizzas and I thought a book would be an ideal place to continue rolling out pizzas... Erm, well it wasn't. Thinking about it now, I have no idea what I was thinking. Oh well, a sign of love for a book is that it looks completely demolished, so I have achieved my purpose!

I am not usually this manic; last night just wasn't my night. It's OK; Tom has another sauce recipe for pizzas and loads of other topping suggestions, so as Arnie says, I Will Be Back!