Tonight, I tried to make a stuffed crust pizza. The dough was 4c all-purpose flour, 1 Tbsp yeast, 1/2c wheat gluten, 1 tsp salt, 1/4c olive oil, and enough water to make dough.
I tried to stuff shredded cheese into the crust — not such a good plan. Rolling the edge so there were three layers was a really bad idea — we had a circle of bread (with a bit of cheese in it) and a puddle of toppings in the middle.
Tonight, we made chicken parmigiana — two chicken breasts pounded to be flat. Looking at recipes online, it’s meant to be fried in oil. We were going to cook it on the grill, so I used the same technique that I use to make crispy fish in the oven — add a little oil to the eggs used to bread the meat.
In one bowl, I mixed two eggs with a quarter cup of olive oil and a bit of salt. In a second bowl, I mixed 1 cup of all-purpose flour with 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, and 1/2 tsp garlic. In a third bowl, I mixed together 1 cup of panko bread crumbs, 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. The chicken was dipped in egg, dipped in the flour mixture, dipped in egg again, and coated with panko. Scott grilled the chicken and topped with parmesan and mozzarella. Served with spaghetti and a spicy tomato sauce.
Tonight, I made a brisket with carrots and potatoes. Carrots and potatoes were placed in the bottom of a cast iron dutch oven and sprinkled with salt, paprika, chipotle pepper, black pepper, cayenne pepper, thyme, garlic. Brisket was rubbed with the same combination mixed with a little brown sugar. Very heavy lid added to cook.
It was cooked at 200F for an hour. Since it didn’t seem to have cooked at all, I bumped the temp up to 250F and cooked for another hour — until the internal temp reached 205F.
I made grilled french toast this morning — 4 eggs, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 cup maple syrup, 1 tbsp vanilla, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, and 1/2 cup milk. Dipped the bread in the mix, heated in a pan until the egg solidified, then moved to the grill to toast. This crisped up the bread quite nicely, and we got a custard-like inner bread with a slight crunch on the outside.
Served with fresh maple syrup. Very tasty!
Tonight, we made cubano sandwiches using the pork roast from last night. Pork, ham, swiss cheese, and pickle on Cuban bread. Butter outsides of bread before … well, normally pressing in a panini press. But, in this case, before grilling for a few minutes to get the bread toast and melt the cheese.
Cuban bread uses a poolish — 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup water, and 1/2 tsp yeast. That sits overnight (12+ hours). Add 1 cup water, 1.5 tsp salt, 1.5 tsp sugar, 1 Tbsp oil (traditionally lard), 1.5 tsp yeast, and 3 cups flour. Mix and kneed — add up to an additional 1/2 cup flour to form a dough ball. Let sit in a warm place for 1-2 hrs to raise. Deflate the dough and let raise for another hour. Form into two logs and embed a metal skewer in the top. Cover with a clean towel and let raise for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, preheat oven to 400F. Bake for 25 minutes.
Remove skewers
I made a braised pork today — cooked at ~300 degrees for about six hours. A few days ago, I mixed up a marinade for the bone-in pork roast.
I coated the roast in the marinade then vacuum packaged it. Six hours was too long — a more marbled roast might have been fine, but the one we had got dry. Drizzling it with maple syrup helped!
We made some burgers tonight — mostly because we had ground beef that needed to be used. While adding feta to turkey burgers works really well, adding shredded cheddar to burgers didn’t work out so well. Also, cooking outside when it’s 26 degrees? Very cold!
It’s toasty cheesy sandwich day — grilled apples & grainy bread toasted up on the grill for lunch and grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup for dinner.
Used the grill to make breakfast today — fried a few fresh eggs in the cast iron skillet and toasted bagels on the grill grates
Lunch today was a salad with grilled apples and spicy peanut sauce. The peanut sauce
In a small skillet, mix the peanut butter, lemon juice, rice vinegar, soy sauce, maple syrup, and sesame oil. Heat over a low heat to melt and combine. Add ground ginger. Add coconut milk to thin it into a dressing. Add sriracha to taste — Anya liked it with a teaspoon of sriracha, but Scott wanted it a little biffier (Anya’s word for spicy). I hard boiled a few fresh eggs — the yolks on the fresh eggs are awesome. Not dry at all.
