Archive | September, 2011

Everything Flatbread

22 Sep

There need only be the mere mention of a get together or activity, and the very first words blurted out of my mouth are, “What can I bring?”  It’s beyond a habit at this point, I fear, for recently I have been faced with the rather challenging situation of not really having much to physically contribute beyond my ability to create things in the kitchen .

This is, of course, rather perplexing for me.  As someone who has remodeled a kitchen or two, landscaped her own yard, and once tiled a bathroom floor while six months pregnant, the recent realization that I can no longer lift heavy things or reliably handle a shovel has proven to be somewhat sobering.

Of course, it should be pointed out that, technically, I should have stopped lifting heavy things and swinging construction implements long before I made the decision to actually stop doing so, but sometimes it takes me a while to learn.  Maybe not learn, but, you know, listen to my body.  The short version of this story proceeds as such: Ten years ago I was hit by a truck while riding my bike.  I lived to tell the tale, but my back and neck have never been the same.  It took me a while to admit it, but it has finally come to pass that me and physical labor?  We’re no longer friends.  Sure, I still want to lift heavy rocks to build a retaining wall, but I also want to be able to stand upright without crying, so those rocks are just going to have to be moved by someone else.

It’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s a predicament that I find I can overlook somewhat if I just make every effort to contribute in a different way.  You need someone to demo your kitchen?  How about I bring over some snacks and share them with whomever you get to do that with you?  Need to dig up some bushes and move them?  I will make you lemonade.  Over the summer, determined to help my son’s school beautify their new play area without simultaneously crippling my body, I made a similar offering.  You need help moving those wood chips?  Here come the snacks!

The good thing is, as much as people appreciate help with laborious physical tasks, there is hardly a project that does not have room for snacks.  A simple flatbread sprinkled with seeds and a bit of dried onion and garlic will go a long way on a hot afternoon.  Offering a light bite with a familiar taste (in homage to everyone’s favorite standby: the everything bagel) is a good way to pep up spirits that have grown weary with work.  Pair it with some mango lemonade and you might feel just as welcome as someone arriving with a bit more muscle and a lot less neck pain.

Everything Flatbread

Good news!  This flatbread is made from the exact same dough that I use to make pizza.  This means that you can make a batch of flatbread, then have enough dough leftover to pop in the fridge and save for making pizzas another day.

1/3 of a batch of this pizza dough

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

sesame seeds

poppy seeds

caraway seeds

dried onion flakes

granulated garlic

sea salt

Preheat oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit.  Adjust an oven rack to the lowest position.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Sprinkle a very small amount of flour onto the paper.  Place the dough onto the parchment paper, then, using your hands, gently stretch the dough across the entire surface of the baking sheet, coaxing the dough as you go and making certain not to tear it.

When the dough has been sufficiently stretched, drizzle 1 tablespoon of olive oil over the dough and, using a spoon or a brush, coat the top of the dough.  If you find that 1 tablespoon of oil is not enough to cover the dough, add the remaining tablespoon.  Sprinkle the top of the dough with the seeds, onion, garlic, and salt.

Bake the dough on the lowered oven rack for 10-15 minutes, until the edges have browned and the top is bubbled and golden in spots.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

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Tomato Tartlets with Rosemary

19 Sep

Things are rather tomato-heavy around these parts, but I could not be happier.  As mentioned once or a million times previously, we wait a long time for garden tomatoes in these parts, so when the tomatoes start to ripen, the tomato recipes come out in full force.  One of the most attractive tomatoes we grew this year is an heirloom variety called a pineapple tomato.  This is a tomato that does not mess around.  It is hearty, it is flavorful, and it is massive.  This fellow in particular weighed in at just over a pound, and it was the smallest pineapple tomato we’ve harvested so far this year.

Alas, our garden’s output not always so impressive.  Last year was so cold and wet, so lacking in any sort of sustained stretches of warm sun, none of our tomatoes ripened.  Actually, that’s not entirely true.  We ended the season with perhaps half a dozen ripe tomatoes, when but you’ve taken the time to plant and subsequently care for five different types of tomato plants, facing a yield of six tomatoes total does not, in my mind, count as a true harvest.  We ate a lot of fried green tomatoes last year, which, to be quite honest, is not the worst fate one can suffer.

The tomatoes of 2011, thankfully, are doing a lot better.  My favorite way to eat these luscious pineapple tomatoes is raw, piled high on a sandwich of any type.  Sometimes I don’t even go full sandwich, and just eat slices of pineapple tomato on a big hunk of bread.  Sometimes I don’t even bother with the bread.  The tomatoes are that good.

Never one to shy away from a tart of any type, however, when I spotted this tomato-centric recipe in Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone, I knew I had to give it a whirl.  The yeasted crust looked like a nice change from a standard tart crust, and the simple ingredients in the tart seemed like a great combination of elements that would allow the freshness of the tomatoes to really shine through.

Not surprisingly, this recipe totally delivered.  Made in miniature gallette form, the tartlets are a modest, yet absolutely delicious, presentation for fresh garden tomatoes.  In a surprising variation from my ordinary routine, while making these tarts I found that I was compelled to change very little in either the recipe for the crust or the filling.  They are perfect as is.  Allow me to suggest that you do yourself a favor and become closely acquainted with both.

Tomato Tartlets with Rosemary

From Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone 

Yeasted Tart Dough with Butter

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

½ teaspoon sugar

½ cup warm milk or water

1 egg, at room temperature

¼ teaspoon salt

2 cups flour

4 tablespoons soft butter

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and sugar in the milk (or water), and allow to stand until it begins to bubble, about 10 minutes.  Stir in the egg and salt, then start to add the flour, ½ a cup at a time.  After 1 cup of flour has been added, beat in the butter.  Continue adding the flour until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl.  Turn the dough out onto a well-floured counter (this dough is VERY sticky), and knead until dough is smooth and supple, anywhere from 3-5 minutes.  If dough is still very sticky and will not release from the counter, add a bit more flour as you knead.  (You are, of course, welcome to mix and knead this dough in a standing mixer.  The instructions remain the same, though you will most likely only need to knead the dough for 3 minutes rather than 5.)

Place the dough in a well-oiled bowl, then cover with plastic wrap, a towel, or a fitted lid.  Allow to rise until doubled in size, about 45 minutes.  Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface.  Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces, shape each piece into a ball, then allow the dough balls to rest under a towel for 15 minutes.

Tomato and Rosemary Filling

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary

1 pound of tomatoes, sliced very thin (thick slices of tomato will cause your tartlets to become soggy)

18 Nicoise olives (I used a mix of Kalamata olives and green olives instead), pitted and halved

extra virgin olive oil

salt and freshly ground pepper

Roll each ball of dough into a circle about 1/8 inch thick (rolling the dough thicker will make the dough turn out a bit too bready).  Sprinkle ½ teaspoon rosemary over each circle, then gently press the rosemary into the dough.  Overlap 4 or 5 thin slices of tomato on each round, leaving a 1-inch border around the edge.  Tuck in the olives amongst the tomato slices, sprinkle with a bit more rosemary, drizzle with a tiny splash of olive oil, then season with salt and pepper.  Fold the edges of the dough over the tomatoes, creasing and tucking as you go. Gently cup your hands around the tarts and press lightly to make the dough form a tight seal around the tomatoes.

Bake on prepared baking sheet for 20 to 25 minutes, until the crust is golden.  Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature.

Makes 6 tartlets.

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Black Pepper Buttermilk Biscuits

15 Sep

Ladies and gentlemen, the tomatoes have arrived.

Long have we waited, through the cold of June, the erratic and broken weather cycle of cold-warm-cold in July, the August sun slowly gaining strength, and now, finally, the unexpectedly wonderful burst of heat in September.  As though they had been waiting as eagerly as I had, our tomatoes are very suddenly exploding with ripeness, and there is little I can do to stop myself from coming up with every excuse imaginable to use our garden tomatoes in every manner possible.

These biscuits, with their flaky, yet sturdy, texture and abundance of spicy black pepper, are the perfect vehicle for garden fresh tomatoes.  Of course, we’ve been waiting so long for tomatoes, my line of thinking as of late dictates that everything is a perfect presentation piece for the glory of the heirloom tomato.  That aside, these biscuits really are spectacular.  There is something so utterly satisfying about tucking a thick slice of tomato in between layers of rich, warm biscuit, and, if you throw in a soft fried egg for good measure, you’ve got yourself a fantastic meal that is fit for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

I might even admit to having eaten a biscuit topped with tomato for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on what I can only recall as being a banner day.  I earned that trifecta of black pepper against cool tomato, I tell you.  I waited all summer for the summer to arrive, and arrive it finally did.

P.S. Next Saturday it is supposed to be cloudy and in the 60s.  Summer, we hardly knew thee.

Black Pepper Buttermilk Biscuits

This recipe yields 9 very huge, square-shaped biscuits.  If you desire a smaller biscuit (I don’t know why anyone would, but I hold no judgement), try shaping the dough into a 10″ x 8″ rectangle and cutting it into 12 biscuits.  Why do I instruct you to make square biscuits instead of round ones?  Because when you cut your biscuits into rounds using a biscuit cutter, you will inevitably be left with scraps of dough that then need to be re-rolled and reshaped before being cut again.  The more you handle your biscuit dough, the more you activate the gluten in the flour and heat up the little flakes of cold butter in the dough, the end result of both being that your biscuits will turn out less flakey and more tough.  By simply cutting a square biscuit, you eliminate the need to keep fussing with your dough.  You handle the dough much less, resulting in a tender, flakey biscuit every time.

4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

8 tablespoons (½  cup, or 1 stick) very cold unsalted butter, cut into small chunks

1 ½ cups buttermilk or soured milk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, or in the bowl of a food processor, combine dry ingredients.  Add the butter, and cut it into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal.  Add the buttermilk and stir (or pulse, if using the food processor) until the ingredients just come together.

Turn the mixture out onto a floured counter.  Briefly knead the dough 2 or 3 times, then form the dough into an 8” x 8” rectangle about 1” thick.  Using a sharp knife or a bench scraper, cut the dough into thirds both horizontally and vertically, yielding 9 square biscuits.

Place the biscuits 1-inch apart on the prepared baking sheet.  Bake biscuits in the center of the oven for 12-15 minutes, until the tops are golden brown.

Makes 9 very large biscuits.

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