The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

No Sausage Post Yet, Just More Babble

I have tomorrow off – it will be easier to do that sausage post tomorrow.  I’m letting myself off the hook for now. 

In the meantime, and in the interest of writing SOMETHING food-related, here’s one of the nibbles I put out last night for our tree-trimming snacking.  (No sit-down dinner last night, just snacky food.  Our favorite food group.)

Pizza Night

I recently made Feta.  And a batch of Chèvre. 

We’ve got tomatoes ripening…and plenty of basil.  I decided to make a batch of mozzarella, too.  And I used some of the tomatoes to make a sauce.  And we had some gorgeous eggplant that needed to be picked.

The time was ripe for pizza.

The Weekend that Flew

Where to start? 

I spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning either baking or cooking or cleaning in preparation for the party we had for Julia on Sunday.  Someday when I'm rich (hahahahaha) I would like to pay someone else to clean for me.  I don't like cleaning.  I don't mind laundry, or all the cooking and baking.  But vacuuming?  Ugh.

Anyway.

Oh - and this will be random thoughts because I no longer remember the order of everything.  I suppose I could consult my lists, but they're in the other room and I prefer sitting in this chair to getting up right now.

Blueberry and Goat Cheese Pizza with Caramelized Onions and Sauteed Almonds

I think it took me less time to make the pizza than it did to type that title for this post.

Moving along with my self-imposed blueberry theme, today's offering is more an idea or suggestion and not so much a recipe.

Multitasking in the Kitchen

This past Friday I came home with plenty of goodies from the Farmers' Market.    With my haul, I planned to make mozzarella, ricotta, jam, and pie, at the very least.

Since I was going to make mozzarella, I figured I should make pizza for dinner.  So I'd also need to make pizza dough.

And we were out of bread, so I needed (or kneaded, ho ho ho) to make a couple of loaves of bread, too.

That, plus whatever sanding/applying joint compound stuff I did in the bedrooms. 

My problem was I didn't really start any of this - the baking/cheesemaking part - until after I'd picked up Alex from school.  I felt like I had PLENTY of time.

Ha.

And Speaking of Pizza Dough...

I made a double batch of my favorite home-made pizza dough the other day, just because of this contest and all the different approaches take when making pizza at home.

I got this recipe from the Providence Journal ages ago, when Chef Brian Kingsford - either a former or current chef at the time - at Al Forno Restaurant was interviewed about grilled pizzas.  He shared this recipe with the paper and I am sharing it with you.

Summer Focaccia

Going away party/dinner for Joe, our nephew, who was being sent to Afghanistan the following Monday

PLUS

Surplus of summer squashes

EQUALS

This post.  A bit after the fact. 

Herb Crust Pizza - One Crust, Many Toppings

I made a bunch of pizzas last night.  Just for fun, I added some dried herbs to the dough. 

Here's what I used for the dough:

Pizza Making

Well, even though the repair guys from Sears came out on Thursday to fix the fridge, over the weekend, things have gotten WORSE - now in addition to random things freezing in the fridge, now things on the door are freezing too.  And supposedly everything is fixed.  HA!  And also - the water line in there is frozen (I assume) because while the icemaker is working just fine, the water won't come out now.  It was working Saturday.  It did not work on Sunday.  Bill called the repair center on Saturday to get someone out here and Wednesday was the first available appointment.  I called again this morning, because of the water line, thinking that maybe I could get someone out sooner, but NO.  Wednesday is apparently the first available date.  Lovely. 

So instead of continuing to rant and rave about that, I'm just going to put up a few pictures of the kids from when we made pizza a couple of weekends ago. 

There.  That's better than my annoying refrigerator stories.

Two Pizzas

I made two pizzas tonight.

Here's what I did:

Took two 16 oz packages of store-bought pizza dough out of the fridge about a couple hours before my projected dinner time.  Set them out on a counter - still in their packages - to come to room temperature.

Then I got the toppings ready...