Homemade Pizza

Pizza. It used to be the cheap snack. What happened?

Now, I'm not sure if it is due in part to where I live, but a pizza costs about $20, often up to $30 if you want a few more toppings.

$30? For a pizza? For some dough, toppings and cheese? It reminds me of when salads use to be the inexpensive alternative at dinner, until they became "in" and part of the trend, and now they often cost as much as the main course.

So here in my household, we turned to making our own pizza which not only saves money, but we get exactly what we want. I took a picture of our most recent creation, which is covered with bell peppers, kalamata olives, onions, cilantro, basil, jack cheese, mozzarella cheese and goat cheese.
We usually make our own pizza sauce, starting out with a base of tomato paste, garlic, water and oregano, but recently we've settled on BBQ sauce. It began when we wanted to make a BBQ chicken pizza, but we enjoyed the BBQ sauce so much, that we use it on the pizza even when we don't have chicken on there.

And the dough is delicious. The recipe is from the website of my favorite yeast, Red Star Yeast.

Mix together:
1 cup flour
2 1/4 t yeast
1 1/2 t salt

Add:
2 T vegetable oil (we often use olive oil instead)
1 cup water, with a temperature between 120 degrees-130 degrees

Mix together, then add:
1 1/2 cups flour (we sometimes like to throw a cup of wheat flour in there instead of all white)

Knead for about 5 minutes until dough is smooth.

Let it rest for 15 minutes, then roll or pull the dough onto the baking sheet and cover with sauce, cheese, etc. Bake at 425 for 25 minutes.

You don't be disappointed!

Play It Again...

I belong to a book club and every month we meet and discuss the book while eating the goodies that everyone has brought. It was only recently that I decided I should make a cake to go along with the book! I don't know why I didn't think of it before!

This month's book was The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason. It was a good read, about a man traveling to Burma to tune a piano. So of course, I made a piano cake.


The cake was carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I found the cream cheese frosting slightly harder to decorate with than the buttercream I have been using on other cakes, but it turned out okay! And it was a big hit at the bookclub!

The next book might be a little tougher - Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. But I have till August to read it and plan the cake! Watch this space!

How I spent my Memorial Day weekend...

Okay, well not all of my weekend. But at least Saturday morning.
I baked a cake!
I decided to bake a cake for no other reason than I wanted to.
Just for fun.

You may ask, "Why a bathtub cake?"

The truth was, I really wanted to bake a cake in my breadpan, so once I saw the shape, I thought it resembled a bathtub. The flavor of the cake was chocolate, the frosting was vanilla buttercream and the little duck was made out of fondant.

Sushi Time!

I absolutely love sushi. I could eat it everyday and not think twice about it. But I don't.

However, I do enjoy a good sushi dinner now and then and my recent experience was amazing. A local place serves wonderful sushi at a very good price, and is quickly climbing its way to being one of my top five restaurant choices. (not an easy thing to do)
This plate contains a rainbow roll, a shrimp tempura roll and a baked hamachi roll and all of them were delicious! Just looking at the picture makes me excited and I'm already thinking of going out for sushi again instead of cooking tonight... :)

A+ for Presentation

My husband and I recently had the pleasure of dining at the Hali'imaile General Store which is a beautiful restaurant here on the island.

I almost always take pictures of my food, but I was so impressed with their presentation that I made the poor hubby wait several minutes until I was done.

This was their popcorn shrimp. It was served in a to-go container with popcorn coming out of it! Adorable!
And this was their calamari platter:
Look at the large squid shaped decoration! I believe it was made out of some type phyllo dough but I can't be sure. Ab-fab!

A+ Hali'imaile. Well done.

When you don't have PF Changs...

I love the food at PF Changes but unfortunately we don't have one here on the island.

While looking at the Food Network website for an eggplant recipe, I came across a Szechwan eggplant dish. It sounded delicious and a few of the comments mentioned it tasted like the Spicy Eggplant dish at PF Changs. Well that definitely piqued my interest so I decided to give it a try.It was fantastic! It's been about a year, maybe a year and a half since I have eaten at PF Changs, but it tasted exactly how I remember! In the past few weeks, I've made it several times because it is so good! I substituted a few items to accommodate the ingredients I had in the house and now I also add chicken, red bell peppers and green beans to it.

I've pasted the recipe below along with some of my notes. Enjoy!

Recipe on the Food Network website

Szechwan Eggplant Stir-Fry
Recipe courtesy Tyler Florence and JoAnn Cianciulli

4 Servings
Cook 5 min
Total: 25 min

Ingredients
* 5 Asian eggplants, about 2 pounds (I halved the amount of eggplant, but kept the same size of sauce)
* 3 tablespoons peanut oil ( I didn’t have peanut oil so I used olive oil)
* 1 tablespoon dark sesame oil
* Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
* 2 green onions, white and green parts, sliced on a diagonal (I didn't have green onions, so I chopped up some regular onions)
* 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced (I didn’t have fresh, so I chopped up the pink shredded ginger that I have in a jar)
* 3 garlic cloves, minced
* 1 fresh red chile, sliced (I didn’t have a chile so I used some chili pepper flakes instead)
* 1/2 cup chicken broth
* 3 tablespoons soy sauce
* 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
* 1 tablespoon light brown sugar
* 1 tablespoon cornstarch
* 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds, for garnish
* Thai holy basil and fresh cilantro leaves, for garnish
*Half a red bell pepper, thinly sliced
*A cup of cooked chicken
*A handful of green beans

Directions

Cut the eggplants in 1/2 lengthwise and then slice crosswise into wedges, no more than 1-inch wide.

Heat a wok or large skillet over medium-high flame and add the oils; tilt the pan to coat all sides. When you see a slight smoke, add a layer of eggplant, stir-fry until seared and sticky, about 3 minutes. (This took a lot longer than 3 minutes, more like about 8 and I felt the eggplant started to burn. Now I turn down the heat to medium and put a lid on the pan which helps to soften the eggplant, and cook it for about 10 minutes, stirring it occasionally. Make sure all the eggplant is very soft as this is the only cooking it will get)

Season with salt and pepper. Remove the eggplant to a side platter and cook the remaining eggplant in same manner, adding more oil, if needed. Once cooked, remove the eggplant from the pan and set on the side.

At this time, saute the green beans and bell peppers to soften them up, and heat the cooked chicken if it is cold. Set on the side.

After all the vegetables have been removed from the pan, add the green onions, ginger, garlic, and chile; stir-fry for a minute until fragrant. Add the broth.

In a small bowl, mix the soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, and cornstarch until the sugar and cornstarch are dissolved. Pour the soy sauce mixture into the wok and cook another minute, until the sauce has thickened.

Put the eggplant back in the pan (and green beans, bell pepper and chicken), tossing quickly, until the sauce is absorbed. Garnish with sesame seeds, Thai basil, and cilantro and serve.

Wedding Cakes

Our good friends were getting married and I offered to make their wedding cakes for them. I thought it would be a fun adventure, but as soon as I said I would, I started to panic. There was a lot on the line here. These were wedding cakes! After convincing myself that I could do it and a couple of practice rounds, and I started making the cakes - a guitar hero cake for the groom and a white wedding cake for the bride.

The bride's cake was a three layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting in the middle and covered with vanilla buttercream. Everything made from scratch.
Two out of the three layers ready to go.
After all three levels were together, I applied what is called a crumb layer. This is a thin layer of frosting that basically glues all the crumbs to the cake. This is done so when you do the outside layer of frosting, crumbs won't show. And it was important as it was a chocolate cake with white frosting, and the crumbs would really stand out.
I then frosted the rest of the cake with vanilla butter cream and decorated using a star tip.
For the center, I made some small flowers out of fondant. I have to say, I was quite impressed. I didn't think I could do that!
The cakes were a huge hit at the party and everyone loved them. You can see the grooms cake below which was a lot easier as I happen to have a guitar shaped cake pan and the cake was only one level.
Anyone need any cakes made? I think this could be a new path for me!