Pizza

I love pizza.  I was raised on Chicago style deep dish pizza and I still love that once in a while.  However over the years I've become more enamored of Neapolitan style pizza.  I don't leave the dinner or lunch table feeling so heavy.  There's something just so fun about a personal pizza.  So I was thrilled when I came home to an early mother's day gift from my husband, the OONI 3 portable pizza oven.  

We stumbled upon this at our local hardware store and found multiple videos showing how to use it.  It didn't look that hard, and honestly it wasn't.  I would highly suggest you purchase an infrared thermometer if you plan to cook pizza this way.  The pellet-burning oven gets hot, really hot.  Not too much after 10 minutes of burning we had a temperature of 700 plus degrees. 

Of course I had to try the pizza oven last night.  The weather was perfect and it's supposed to rain all week so Sunday was it.  I used my typical pizza dough.  This was my big mistake as the dough really was too wet.  We had trouble transferring the dough to the paddle from a cookie sheet. I've done some more research and I really should make the pizza directly on the paddle and use a drier dough for the crust.  I might as well try the Ooni recipe and see what happens next time.  We had to use a lot, really a lot, of cornmeal to keep the dough from sticking. 

However after about 60 -90 seconds and my husband turning the pizzas every 20 seconds this was the result.

Pizza margherita, with fresh mozzarella, local hot house tomatoes and basil as well. 

Sausage and pepperoni with fresh mozzarella and tomato sauce.  Both were delicious so we are going to try later in the week.  I placed an order for the OO flour from amazon, and I'll use a different recipe for the dough so we'll see what happens.  It's always fun to try something new.

Bon Appétit!

and as always with love from the Midwest, 

Beth

What I ate Wednesday 15

Hello! Another week has passed.  This past weekend with Easter and other things going on I didn't really have too  much time to prepare any meals for lunch or breakfast this week.  So I did more last minute planning - which is okay.  I'm such a planner; it's a good thing for me to take a moment not to plan.

Breakfast: "Apple pie" steel cut oatmeal, can't be beet smoothie and coffee.  I made the oatmeal for Tuesday's breakfast and this is Wednesday's sweet version.  I added homemade unsweetened applesauce and cinnamon.  The Beet Smoothie is from Run Fast Eat Slow, see my previous post.  I'm still really not sure about the taste of the beet smoothie.  

Lunch: Kale salad.  My favorite!  I made the dressing and chopped up the bit of kale I had before I went to my middle daughter's lacrosse game on Tuesday.  That night I had a small bit of salad with dinner and then added to the remainder for my Wednesday lunch.  Add ins included: sauerkraut, red peppers, snow peas, pepitas, smoked salmon and cucumbers. 

Dinner: I played around with some tinned seafood I picked up in Madison, octopus, cockles and mussels. I served all of this with a sauce of butter, clam juice, onion and red pepper flakes over homemade pasta. Honestly it wasn't my favorite, but it's always good to try a new recipe or make one up. I served it with some veggies I need to use up.  I roasted cabbage, brussel sprouts and little bit of mix bag from Trader Joes of cruciferous veggies. 

Dessert: Cloud Cake.  This is a delicious gluten-free and grain free chocolate cake I made for Easter dinner when my oldest was home. We had just a bit leftover.  Everyone enjoyed it.

Bon appétit!

As always with love from the Midwest,

Beth 

New Cookbooks to Buy?

I love cookbooks.  I love reading a novel in paper back or hard cover so much more than on my kindle.  Likewise, I love having cookbooks around.  There's something so nice about just sitting on my floor and reading a cookbook thinking about all of the recipes I could make. Recently I checked out from our public library a few new ones to me: Both books by Shalane Flanagan & Elyse Kopecky in the Run Fast, Eat Slow series and Alison Roman's Dining In.   Both have simple recipes that as Alison Roman says "are highly cookable."  

Dining in offers some quick and intriguing ideas such as a kimchi omelette, pasta with squid lemon and chile and a pistachio-plum crisp.  

Shalane Flanagan & Elyse Kopecky's books have very simple yet real food recipes for athletes of all levels.  You don't have to be running marathons to get ideas from this book of healthy eating habits.  I love the superhero muffins, which I made earlier on in the year.  I also just tried the Can't be Beet Smoothie.  In general I don't really like beets, but in the last few weeks I've had beets in ways that not only have I found tolerable, I've found quite good.  I had a small glass this afternoon, and I'm not quite sure what I  think.  If you like beets, this is for sure a winner.  I just pureed everything in my Vitamix and 3 minutes later I had a juice for tomorrow and the next few days.  There are also many recipes that I would like  to try from salads to even a few desserts.  In addition there are some simple meal plans if you like to have more ideas of how to incorporate healthy eating into your life. 

I really encourage you to pick up a few cookbooks from your local library.  It's really a treasure chest of old and new recipes.  If there are enough wonderful recipes than hey maybe buy a new cookbook or two. 

As always with love from  the Midwest,

Beth 

What I ate Wednesday 14

Well it's definitely spring here in Wisconsin.  One day it's 50 and sunny and the next its upper 30's and rain.  Additionally, I'm running out of jars in my basement and one of my farmers is getting low on storage veggies.  So I'm anxiously waiting for new fruit and veggies.  As I said many times before, I like to eat seasonally and locally. I'm not perfect by far, but I do my best. On to Wednesday.

Breakfast: Soft boiled egg, cracked wheat toast with almond butter and peach butter, canned peaches, and coffee. 

I love eggs and sometimes my soft boiled eggs don't turn out.  Luckily on a school day this one was just about perfect.  I like it nice and runny.  I canned the peaches last summer when the peach truck came, and I had about 3 (25 lbs) boxes of peaches - same with the peach butter.   I reduce the sugar by a lot and add more peaches, but using the crockpot is a great idea. 

Snack: Grapes. I don't usually eat a morning snack, but we had a crazy schedule this week at school so I didn't get to eat lunch until 1 pm.  Yup they are sitting at my desk.

Lunch: Quick veggie curry.  I added previously cooked quinoa to make it a little heartier. 

Dinner: Hamburger Pie, Kale Salad, Sauteed Lion's Mane mushrooms and some left over French bread, of course wine and water to drink. 

This recipe, from my mother-in-law, is a mock version of shepherd's pie.  Instead of a potato crust it has custard topping of cottage cheese and egg.  Of course I made kale salad to use up the veggies in the drawer and so I could have lunch the next day.  The mushrooms and bread were just little bits of pieces I had laying around so I thought better to use than to let go to waste. 

Dessert: not pictured my small bowl of coffee ice cream.

I hope your week has been full of adventures in the kitchen and enjoyable eating.

Bon Appétit. 

And as always with love from the Midwest,

Beth 

What I ate Wednesday 13

Another week has gone by.  I thought I'd be writing with a pretty view of grass and trees.  Unfortunately not so, it snowed last night and I have a winter do-over for a few days.  However I know the snow will be gone quickly and spring will come back.  On to the eats.

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with spinach, toast with natural peanut butter, pineapple and coffee.  I thought I'd treat myself to scrambled eggs yesterday.  I love to add bit of spinach and some cheese as well. 

Lunch: Cream of mushroom and barley soup and grapes.  I thought I would have leftovers from dinner the previous night, but my family ate them all.  So luckily I had a container of soup in the freezer all ready to go.  I based my soup loosely on this recipe.  I added a few more spices and a little less cream and blended some of the soup for a creamer consistency. 

After school I needed some tea on a blustery day.  After 2 pm I only have decaf tea.  This one, roasted almond chai, is from a local tea store.  They sell everything in loose leaves which makes the process of making the tea that much more relaxing. 

Dinner: Thai curry with chicken and brown rice.  My daughter found the curry recipe one day searching for something for lunch so I just added some chicken for a more substantial dinner.  The curry had peppers, carrots and spinach in one skillet, so it made for an easy cleanup.  As you can see wine and water to drink.  

Dessert: (not pictured) a bowl of coffee ice cream with chocolate sauce. I always like a sweet ending.

Bon Appétit!

And as always with love from the Midwest,

Beth

Madison Overnight

I really love traveling to Madison.  Before my oldest went to UW Madison, I had never been to the city.  I was missing a lot. I love to eat and Madison is filled with great places to eat and local food shops.  I know there places to see in the vicinity, but usually I'm there to see my daughter and enjoy some good food.  I like to stay at the Concourse Hotel. It's right on the square so many things are within walking distance or a short drive. I tend to do my driving first and then park the car and walk to dinner and cafés.  

Lunch started at La Kitchenette.  This is a darling French restaurant. It's super tiny so I suggest a reservation. I had buckwheat crepes with smoked salmon and light mayonnaise spread, green salad and of course a glass of wine, a Vouvray. 

After lunch we stopped next door at The Underground Butcher.  This store is a meat and salami lover's dream.  I picked up some kielbasa for a future dinner.  I will definitely go back when I'm there.

Next up after some errands was a stop at Camp Trippalindee.  I met some of my daughter's friends and enjoyed some bug juice, a rum cocktail.  The weather was finally warm and there was outside seating.  This was a nice way to spend a late Saturday afternoon. 

Dinner was at Estrellon for tapas. We did the chef's tasting menu and it was delightful.  I actually ate beets - the one vegetable I really  don't like. These beets were roasted, smoked and delicious. In addition we were seated at the chef's table looking into the kitchen.  I would really recommend it if there is just two of you.  

Beet tartar 

Breakfast on Sunday at Bloom.  My daughter needs to be gluten free and this little bakery is just wonderful. We shared a lemon poppy seed baked donut to start while we waited for our breakfasts.

Breakfast was a Bloom Benedict, poached eggs, micro-greens, honey drizzle and chevre on top of homemade biscuits.   Yum! 

As you can see this was a delicious weekend!  I hope you are inspired to take a short road trip and discover something new in your state or one near by.

As always with love from the Midwest,

Beth 

What I ate Wednesday 12

Well this week's post is a little different, but since I was able to take photos I continued on the theme of Wednesday's eatings.  Unfortunately I spent Monday-Wednesday down in Madison with our daughter who was in the hospital.  She is alright now, but many questions are yet to be answered.  That being said she's the one who helped me start my blog so we thought why not continue with the theme.  So here it goes.

Breakfast: Oatmeal, hard-boiled egg, cheese, fruit and coffee.

Continental breakfast at a hotel is not always my favorite, but I thought I'd keep my oatmeal savory.  So I made breakfast work for me, and it kept me full until noon.  

Lunch: The hospital cafeteria.  This may not conjure up good food memories, but I have to say this was not bad at all and for $6.00 I was pretty happy.   Baked salmon, veggies, lemon dill sauce topped with micro greens.  Now I'm not really a fan of eating out of a box, but lunch could have been way worse.  

Snack: Banana bread.  Also from the UW hospital cafeteria and pretty good.  Every ingredient listed on the packaging was real food.

Luckily my daughter was discharged, and I arrived home around 7 pm.  Thankfully I thought ahead and had my husband pull out ground beef during the day.  I made a quick dinner.  I was so excited to be home that I quickly snapped this picture half way through dinner.

Dinner: Salisbury steak, roasted fingerling potatoes, roasted cabbage and wine.

Dessert: (not pictured) small bowl of coffee ice cream and chocolate sauce.  

Bon Appétit!

And as always with love from the Midwest,

Beth

Sunday Dinner -Deconstructed

Why  the title? Well I forgot to take a picture of the final product.  Most of the products I used yesterday were local or as local as I could get.    Steak dinner is one of my favorites on the weekends.  I love a good steak.  My meat comes from a local man who runs a farmette and we get 1/2 cow every year.  Tonight it was porterhouse and a rib eye from another half used package. Ribeye is my favorite cut of steak. 

The veggies were from a local farmer. He gets the trumpet mushrooms for a Wisconsin grower and the cipolini onions are from his farm about 40 miles south of us. I roasted them with olive oil, salt and pepper and thyme in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes. 

On the side I served sourdough bread.  I've been making it recently with heritage  turkey red wheat from a farm that is about 20 minutes away.  It has very rustic texture.  We served it with roasted garlic that I still had from the late fall farmers' market.

Okay so the wine was not local, but I bought it from a small business.  It's 100 % tempranillo and had hints of fruit yet it stood up well to our steak. 

Dessert was also from a local store. I just discovered a new tiny bakery that specializes in macarons!  They were delicious and I will definitely be going back in the future.  I've tried making them, but with this store 10 minutes away I'll be purchasing instead. 

Bon Appétit!

And as always with love from the Midwest,

Beth