Pizza pizza day

Thursday is pizza pizza day in our house.  Why Thurs?  No idea; it just evolved.  I found this recipe on the King Arthur website, but have changed it to fit how we like to eat and how I want to make pizza.  This is a thin crust pizza.  Ordinarily it's a little thinner than today's pie; that's just the way it is.

Ingredients for the dough, which I make in the bread machine.  Kneading is hard on my hands.  You can adapt the recipe for hand kneading or using the Kitchen Aid or whatever.   This is a fluid recipe; it changes every time. But this is my basic formula.

1.5 tsp kosher salt
1 cup warm water
Splash of olive oil

2 cups 00 flour; I use Anna.  This makes the dough easy to roll out. Very little shrinkage here.
1 cup all purpose flour.  I use either King Arthur or Hecker's.
1 TB non-fat dry milk 
A scant tsp sugar
1 tsp of oregano crumbled up in your hands to release the flavor
1 tsp instant yeast.  I use Fleischmann's which I buy in bulk.

Place the salt, water and olive oil in the bread machine.
Add the remaining ingredients, placing the yeast in a depression on top of the flour.  You want to keep salt and yeast away from each other initially so that the yeast will work.

Use whatever knead cycle your machine has.  If you're working by hand, then knead it up to a smooth, round ball.

Give it a 60 minute first rise.  If your kitchen is cool, as mine is, you may need more time.  My dough looks as if it's not fully risen.  It is, but it began its collapse as I moved the bucket to photograph it.

When your dough is risen, remove from the bucket.  You will now divide it and put half in a greased bowl, and the other half on a greased piece of plastic wrap.  Wrap the second piece, put into a ziplock bag and then into the freezer.  Now you have next week's dough.  Cover the bowl with another piece of greased plastic wrap, and put into the fridge.  It can sit there for hours, slowly rising and developing flavor.

About 45 minutes before you want to start baking, take the bowl with the dough out of the fridge and place on the counter.You can remove the cover.  It will have risen a bit in the fridge, and will start to rise a bit more now that it's in a warm place.

While your dough is warming up, you can assemble the toppings:

Tomato sauce
Grated cheese(s)
Anything else you like on your pie.  We get lazy and just use sauce and cheese.

My tomato sauce is very simple, but surprisingly delicious.

1 8oz can of unsalted tomato sauce (you can use regular sauce, but the cheese adds a lot of salt)
1 tsp tomato paste
Dollop of olive oil
Salt and pepper
Oregano or a combo of Italian herbs, rubbed in your hands to release the flavor. 

Whatever grated cheeses you like. I used mozzarella, cheddar and TJ's Toscano with black pepper.

About 15 minutes before baking, preheat oven to 425.  Place 1 rack on the lowest spot and one in the middle.

Shaping the dough:

Take 2 pieces of parchment paper.  I use King Arthur's parchment, the one that you can use over and over.  Grease both pieces of paper.  Place the dough onto one piece and cover with the other one.  You now have a parchment paper/pizza dough sandwich.

Take your rolling pin and roll out the dough until it's about the size of the paper.  Because you used 00 flour, it will roll out easily without shrinking back.  (The goofy lines on mine are impressions of the paper.)  Place on a cookie sheet and let rest until the oven is at temp. 

When your oven is hot, place the pizza onto the bottom rack and bake for 5 minutes.  NO toppings yet.

Remove from oven, place all of it onto a large cutting board, and proceed to put on your sauce and cheese, plus whatever other toppings you want.

Place back in oven, this time on the middle rack.  Bake for 5 minutes.

Remove from the middle rack and place again on bottom rack.  Bake for 5 minutes and then your pizza is done!

Remove from oven and slide the pizza without the parchment paper onto your cutting board.  Cut into slices, eat and enjoy!

 Don't toss the parchment paper.  Brush off any food, and then fold up, place in a container, put in fridge and use another time.  I can use the paper 5-6 times easily.  There's nothing on it to go bad.

This sounds like it takes forever, but it really doesn't.  You can prep your sauce and grate your cheese while the pie is on its first bake on the bottom rack.  The clean-up is minimal:  whatever you kneaded it in, the bowl for rising, and whatever utensils you used for the sauce and cheese.

You can make both pies, or freeze half the dough for the next time.  The frozen dough should be taken out in the morning to thaw by late afternoon, and it will roll out easier and be thinner than the first dough.

And that dollop of tomato paste?  The one you opened a can for and now what do you do with the rest?  Put a piece of waxed paper onto a small cake rack, dollop the tomato paste into it, and freeze. when frozen, just peel off and put in a ziplock bag or small container and back into the freezer.

The reason for the placement of the pizza in the oven:  you are trying to mimic a professional pizza oven the revolves.  Placing the dough on the bottom rack both at the beginning and at the end helps it get crusty.

The Yarnarian cooks Indian

Moong dal with dill.  It's more yellow than the picture suggests.  Moong dal is this teeny little split yellow lentil.  It's adorable.  Well, I think that it's cute.  But better than cute is taste.  Dal, garlic, hing, AKA asafetida (I have a thing for hing), mustard seeds, and of course, dill.  Lots of dill. 

It comes out very soupy, but you add a slurry of garbanzo flour mixed with water, saute it up and it will thicken.  Thickens more as it cools.  I have no idea what it will do overnight in the fridge, but it will still be delicious.

We had 3 smallish russet potatoes, so I made potatoes with fenugreek.  We were hungry so I never got to photograph it.  It was so yummy!  Potatoes, lots of garlic, kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves 'cause I didn't have fresh), cumin seeds, salt, water.  Sounds dull, but it was out of this world.

We had leftover basmati rice with cumin plus a tofu dish.  I'm stuffed and we got rid of the leftovers.

Yet another pair

of basketweave socks.  I knit this pattern over and over.  Why?  It's pretty no matter the yarn; it's mindless, but not boring; it fits; it's great TV watching stuff.

Cannot remember whose yarn it is, but I bought the yarn at Woolbearer's in Mt. Holly, NJ.

Here's a closeup of the leg.  Is this not a cute, mindless, adorable pattern?

Punjabi Garam Masala

Can you smell it?  I just ground up spices to make Punjabi garam masala.  Garam masala is a warming spice mixture added to Indian food.  Warming, not hot.  Think cinnamon, that lovely warm heat.  No chilies. 

This garam masala contains cinnamon, bay leaves, peppercorns, coriander, cumin, cloves, and I tossed in some cardamom seeds 'cause I love cardamom.

Heat up a small frying pan and put it all in.  Toast, without burning for a couple of minutes.  When you smell it, it's done.  Put on a plate to cool.  When cool, put in a coffee grinder (which is NEVER used for coffee, just spices), and grind away.  It helps to break up the pieces of cinnamon.

I'll use it in an Indian tomato sauce , e.g. a butter masala sauce, or anywhere else that a garam masala is called for.

You cannot imagine how good it smells.  Don't buy the junk at the market; make your own!

Demogorgon socks finished.

Yippee, I finished this first round of Sock Madness.  Interesting sock, toe up with an afterthought heel.  Different lace on each foot.  Strange bind-off, different toe.  All-in-all, not too crazy to knit.  But then, this is only the first round, and I'm on That team, with the folks who can knit a pair of socks in under 24 hours!  The fastest person in this round of all 26 teams knit her socks in 17 hours. 

Socks are too wide on me, and of course, too long.  I have to knit the medium size, and I'm really a small size person.  But they are not too egregiously large, so I'll wear them anyhow.

Spring!

You know what today is:  First day of spring.  Time for the annual spring poem

 Spring Poem

High up, over the tops
Of the feathery grasses, the grasshoppers hop.
They won't eat their suppers,
They will not obey
Their grasshopper mothers and fathers who say:
"Listen my children, this must be stopped.
Now is the time your last hop should be hopped.
So come eat your suppers and go to your beds."
But the little grasshoppers just shake their green heads.
"no, no," the naughty ones say.

"All we have time to do now is to play.

If we are hungry we'll nip at a fly,
Or nibble a blueberry as we go by.
But not now. Now we must hop.
And no one, but no one can make us stop."

The end

The Yarnarian cooks Indian

Kashmiri baingan, aka Eggplant with apples, fennel and black cumin.  P.495 from Raghavan Iyer's book, 660 curries.  My only modification was to leave out the chilies, 'cause I get terribly sick from them.  And I did add a bit of sweet paprika to help with the smokiness of chilies. I used Japanese eggplant and Braidburn apples.

You cannot imagine just how wonderful this is.  One of my grands, who is a very fussy eater, kept nibbling on this.  I can't even describe the taste.  The eggplant picks up the tartness of the apples and the apples get that umami taste from the eggplant.

Go, borrow the books from the library (I own mine) and make this.  If you think you don't like Indian food, you will be surprised at this tasty treat.

Quilting and knitting

I'm back to the sewing machine!  Finally!  After months of not touching it.  Little 5" blocks with corners.  All sorts of William Morris prints.  14 rows x 14 rows.  A bit larger than my usual lap quilts.  I am so enjoying this.  It's good to have the quilting mojo back again.

Knitting is going on while I'm waiting for the first round of Sock Madness.  Finished and accepted for the qualifying round.  But you know that I cannot be without anything on the needles.  So I started a lovely shawl, Roiling Waters, and bought yarn for it from Earthfaire.  I'm using the yarns from kit A.  I rarely buy kits, but Ellen does such a lovely job of putting yarns together, and her prices are reasonable, so why do it all myself?  She also does amazing bead bracelets, etc.  Check her out!

My Spector sweater

My Spector sweater, designed by JoJi Locatelli.  I rarely use someone else's sweater pattern because I've been doing my own sweater thing for about 45 years. But every now and then, I see something that I really like, and I make it.

4 skeins of Madeline Tosh Twist Light, a basic sock yarn, plied, not a singles.  Simply Socks had a kit (and you know I rarely buy kits, but this was perfect).  This is the first time I've used sock yarn in a sweater, and now I know how to work with it.  In sock knitting, you want nice tight stitches, but not drapey like in a sweater.  I will use sock yarn again.

I love all of this sweater.  Mods for the next time:  shorter sleeves and body; this thing grew in the blocking.  I would use the basic shaping again, but put in my own patterns.  The yoke was fun, the sleeves and body, endless, but I expected that.

Me, attempting to hide my old lady tummy (with no success at all).  I'm not going on a diet.  Piffle.  

Thanks, Bishop Stone!  I love the fade very much.

The Yarnarian cooks Indian

I have this immense love of Indian food.  It started many many years ago when friends took me to an Indian restaurant in Kenilworth, NJ.  Oh my gosh!  What tastes!  What textures!

Fast forward to a couple of years ago.  So, now, I can no longer eat anything very spicy.  No chilies, no over-abundance of black pepper, not bland, but nothing that will stir up my miserable GERD.  If I eat something with chilies, no matter how mild, or how much yogurt with it, I will wake up at 2 AM with a massive attack of GERD.  I can't breathe, the bile is scorching as it comes up, etc, etc.  Believe me when I tell you that no chilies are worth that misery.  Yes, I've had an endoscopy.  Yes, I know how to control this illness with diet and a healthy sleeping position.  But I miss Indian food.

If I go to an Indian restaurant, and there are tons of them in my neck of NJ, I can't get non-spicy food.  The waiters always tell me that "It's very very mild".  Yes, for you, but any of the dreaded chilies will do a number on me.  No more Chand Palace with the most amazing vegetarian food in existence.  Bummer.

But I can cook my own food and leave out the offending ingredients.  Nope, it isn't what someone from India would like, no zip, no incredible taste, but I can eat it and enjoy it.  The thing is that chilies have taste, not just heat.  I figured this out a few months ago when I had a teensy piece of a samosa that had a teensy bit of chili in it.  Argh.  But as my mouth dealt with the heat, I realized that there was a smoky pepper taste that I loved.  So, being the daughter of Hungarian Jews, I know my paprika.  Nope, not the spicy one, but the noble sweet one.  Édesnemes in Hungarian stores.  Not the icky stuff you get at the supermarket, but the real bright, very tasty paprika.  If I substitute this paprika for the chilies or cayenne, it gives me a bit of the brightness but not the heat.  Not a bad solution.

I've always had Indian cookbooks, a couple by Raghavan Iyer, Madhur Jaffrey, etc, etc.  I've been adding new ones as I go along.  We bought an Instant Pot back in late December, and now I use it almost exclusively for Indian recipes.

So, after this very long introduction, let me show you what I made an hour ago:

This is Jackfruit with channa dal,  from Manali Singh's Vegetarian Indian Cooking with your Instant Pot.  Left out the chilies, put in a tsp of paprika.  Used whole spices 'cause I now have them.  It is beyond wonderful!  I had some of it for lunch with roti and my tastebuds are still singing.  We went to Patel Bros to buy the canned jackfruit.  Weird stuff but amazingly tasty.  Who knows what I'll make tomorrow.

Sock Madness 13

It's that time of year again:  Sock Madness on Ravelry.  This is SM 13.  You begin with a qualifying round, and here are my socks, Smock Madness.  Knitted very loosely to fit the large Hubz feet.  If you don't think that gauge matters, then this should convince you.  Had I knitted to gauge, it would have fit Miss P's feet.  Me?  I have small narrow feet and none of the SM socks ever really fit me.  But my gauge was much looser so that he could have new socks.

This is a close-up of the leg beginning.  You can see the pattern and how loose my gauge is.

My yarn was an ancient ball of Lion Brand Sock-ease.  Somehow I acquired 3 balls of this stuff for free, and I don't much like the color.  So I'm planning on using it for the initial pairs of SM socks.  The color leaves something to be desired, but the Hubz doesn't care, and neither will Miss P, should she get the next pair. 

Thanks, Deborah Hamilton!  He does like them, which is good since they won't fit anyone else.