The Weekend Project That Is Making Me Happy: Making Pizza From Scratch

First, for those of you who have reached out during the epic winter storm Texas has been going through, my family and I are safe. We had power cycling on and off every hour for 3.5 days and some of our pipes froze, but we were able to stay warm and safe, so we were luckier than many others. We now have power back and things are thawing you.

Now, on to something much more pleasant—pizza!

I know that pandemic bread baking has been a thing over the last year, so I’m not introducing something novel, but I thought I’d share an offshoot of bread-baking that has been bringing some joy over at our house—making pizza from scratch.

It all started with hubs falling into the rabbit hole of watching David Portnoy’s pizza reviews. There was one about a guy making pizza in his apartment, taking donations, and then lowering pizzas out of his window with a pulley system to those who had donated. Portnoy gave the pizza high marks and was impressed with the crust this guy was getting with a home oven and a baking steel. So hubs came to me to show me the video and then asked if I could research baking steels.

Cue me now falling into the rabbit hole too, lol. Not of pizza reviews but of pizza making.

One cookbook, a hunt for double zero flour, and a baking steel later…I starting making pizza from scratch. And y’all, it’s been amazing. Like truly. I’m picky about pizza and want a good wood-fired crust and never thought I could create that effect at home. I was wrong. Behold…

Although I would consider myself an experienced home cook (I have quite the cookbook obsession), I am not an experienced baker. So I was totally intimidated by the thought of trying to make dough and getting it to rise and shaping it and all the things. And when I first flipped through the cookbook I’m going to recommend below, I was like, yeah, I’m in over my head. The recipes didn’t even START until page 100 because of all the explanations and photos.

But when I actually just said, screw it, I’m going to try it, and if it sucks, oh well I ended up making really great pizza right out the gate. Crispy bottom, slightly charred edges and delicious sauce. The instructions LOOKED intimidating but, in practice, were totally doable. All that step by step instruction in the book helped so much.

So, I thought I’d post about the experience in case you might want to give it a try but don’t know where to start. I will admit that there is a bit of equipment shopping needed to get the right tools, so I’ll list what we bought below.

The Cookbook

The Elements of Pizza: Unlocking the Secrets to World-Class Pies at Home [A Cookbook]

By Forkish, Ken

Yes, I’m sure there are a million free recipes online. But I wanted a cookbook to walk me through every step with photos. I’d seen The Elements of Pizza by Ken Forkish recommended in numerous places, and I was not disappointed. The pizza sauce recipe inside is worth the price alone and it’s literally the simplest most basic sauce ever, but I could eat it with a spoon like soup.

This book has great photos, great recipes, and walks you through every step. If you get it, I’ve been using the “I Slept In But I Want Pizza Tonight” dough recipe. I like this one because I can start prepping dough around 11am and have three dough balls all risen and ready to stretch and top by dinner time.

The Equipment

The Pizza Steel

Artisan Steel - High Performance Pizza Steel Made in the USA - 16" x 14.25" (.25" Thick) Buy on Amazon

This seems to be the game changer. I have a baking stone. This is not that. This is literally a heavy piece of steel that you put in your oven and heat for an hour at high temps before you put your pizza in. It gets screaming hot and then when you slide in your pizza, it cooks in 5-10 minutes depending on what kind you’re making. It gets the crust crispy and gets you that wood-fired oven effect. This is the one I purchased. Just be careful. The sucker is heavy. Only handle it with two hands and when it’s cool.

The Pizza Peel

Checkered Chef Pizza Peel Extra Large Pizza Paddle Stainless Steel With Folding Handle Buy on Amazon

You’ll need this to slide the pizza in and out of the super hot oven. The cookbook recommends a wooden peel. I couldn’t find that kind so I went with a metal one. It worked well as long as I floured the surface enough.

A Dough Tub

I don’t know if this was 100% necessary but I already had one and I find it very useful. You can mix the dough by hand right in the tub and then cover it while it does its first rise. The bonus of this method is you don’t need a fancy stand mixer. I have one and never had to fire it up.

Something to blend sauce

This can be whatever you have on hand—a blender, a hand blender, a food processor. But if you’re making from scratch sauce from whole canned tomatoes, you’ll need something to blend it. I used my hand blender.

Specialty Ingredients

Aren’t my dough balls pretty? ;)

This isn’t a must have, but I’m passing it along because it’s what I’m using. I haven’t tried the recipe with regular flour, though the cookbook does say you can use substitutions. The “best” is supposed to be double zero flour. We were able to find it at Central Market here in Texas. My guess is you could also find it at Whole Foods or online if your local store doesn’t carry it.

Those are the main things you need. The sauce and topping ingredients are all basics you can get at the grocery store. And I know this list may sound intimidating, but once you have it, you can make pizza whenever you want!

So far we’ve made some basics like pepperoni and margherita, but we also tried a prosciutto and arugula one and the Brooklyn Hot Honey from the cookbook (it’s one of the photos above) and they were all so yummy. I can’t wait to try more.

And in a pandemic, with all the stress of the world going on, I find it really relaxing and satisfying to take on a cooking project that is slow and methodical and has visible results. Plus, it’s so rewarding when I slide that pizza out of the oven and it looks (and tastes) better than I could get in most restaurants. Highly recommend pizza therapy! ;)

So, what have been some of your pandemic projects?

Meal Planning: Streamlining with Theme Nights & A Crazy Week List

If you follow me on any type of social media, you've probably figured out that I'm slightly obsessed with food. Besides eating, I love cookbooks, trying new recipes, and cooking from scratch. But I also have those little things called a full-time job and a family, which often derail my aspirations of putting a beautiful, yummy meal on the table every night because I'm just too tired or scatterbrained or starved by the time I step into the kitchen.

For that last decade, meal planning on the weekends has been a key component to me getting healthy food on the table. (I even blogged about here and provided a free printable you can use for meal planning.) Every Saturday or Sunday, I'd take a chunk of time to flip through cookbooks and magazines to see what appealed to me that week. I like trying new things and get bored easily, so often, the majority of the meals were ones I hadn't made before.

But over the last year, things have gotten so busy, that my normal weekend planning time has shrunk and when I don't get a chance to plan the meals, the week is shot food wise. We end up eating out or picking up from a drive thru and just generally eating stuff that isn't so great for us and cost more money. So I knew I needed a solution to streamline things.

One obvious solution is to cook the same things on rotation. However, because I like trying new things and get bored easily, I was a little scared of that. That would feel more like drudgery than an activity I enjoy. But I thought there had to be some way to incorporate both. After a little research, I stumbled upon the concept of theme nights for meal planning.

Theme Nights for Meal Planning

This isn't a new concept, but it's one that I never gave much thought to. I figured it would mean eating the same thing all the time, and that's not my jam. However, I realized after reading a few different posts, that the themes could just be a framework. It doesn't have to be "spaghetti night", it can be "pasta night" which could mean an endless variation of pasta dishes. But it would give me a starting point when making a list. It would give me structure with variety/flexibility built in.

So, this past weekend, I sat down and made a two-week rotating schedule of theme nights. Here's the pic but here's the basics if you can't read my handwriting.

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Week 1

MONDAY: Pasta, Salad, & Bread

TUESDAY: Tacos, Beans, Rice/Veggies (I'm changing this to Mexican night so I'm not limited to tacos). Here are some of my favorite recipes: Sheet Pan Beef and Black Bean Nachos, Homemade Taco Bell Mexican Pizzas, Salsa Picante)

WEDNESDAY: Roasted Chicken & Veggies (There are endless recipes for different seasonings and sauces for roasted chicken. Here are some of my favorites: Superfast Crispy Chicken Thighs, Piri Piri Chicken, Sumac Chicken, 

THURSDAY: Beans and Rice (Red Beans and Rice are a staple since I'm from New Orleans, but we also love black beans and white beans.)

FRIDAY: Breakfast for dinner

SATURDAY: eat out

SUNDAY: Asian/Indian (This is a good choice for Sunday because we love both of these cuisines but often the meals take more prep than I want to do on a weekday.)

Week 2

MONDAY: Sandwiches/Burgers, Oven Fries, Salad

TUESDAY: Flank steak & veggies (even though this seems like it wouldn't have variation, I love serving flank steak with different sauces. Two of my favorites are chimichurri sauce and cilantro green apple chutney. This week I served the steak with fresh pico de gallo.

WEDNESDAY: Soup/Slow-Cooker Meal with Bread

THURSDAY: Stir-Fry or Rice Bowls

FRIDAY: Homemade Pizza (or buy your own crust and let everyone top it with what they want.)

SATURDAY: eat out

SUNDAY: New recipe (this gives me room to play with new recipes that don't fit a theme)

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Creating Go To Lists of Items to Plug Into Themes

Obviously, if you do this, your own themes will look different depending on what you and your family like. But I tried this method this week and I have to say it was SO MUCH QUICKER to meal plan. I also started keeping running lists of the categories within the list. So, for instance, I'll have a list of veggie sides that I can pull from for the nights where it says "veggie." Then I can just plug one in based on what I'm craving or what goes best with the meal.

Example...

Veggie Sides:

Roasted Sweet potatoes

Oven Fries

Roasted Broccoli

Cauliflower Mash

Sautéed Cabbage

Roasted zucchini, onions, and red peppers

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Sautéed shredded Brussel Sprouts

Baked potatoes

Same will go for each thing. So I'll have a list of options under Mexican night. Under beans and rice, that could mean Red Beans & rice with sausage. Or it could mean Black Beans and rice with pico de gallo. And if I have time and want to pull new recipes, I can.

The Crazy Week Emergency Plan & List

The next thing I decided to make playing off this concept was the Crazy Week Emergency Menu and Pre-done Grocery List. 

There are some weeks that are just too insane to even pick things within the themes. Those are the weeks I just need to get something on the table and put zero thought into it. So I'm making a bare bones menu plan for those weeks and am making a typed, easy to grab pre-done grocery list that will cover all the meals. So that might mean something like: spaghetti, beef tacos, french toast, bean burritos, and burger and fries. So easy things to make, but things I can make healthier than going through a drive thru.

That will give me a back up if I just don't have time. The menu is already done, the list is done. I can even order straight from Amazon Fresh if I don't have time to make it to the store. Done.

So this is what I'm going to experiment with going forward. 

Do you do any kind of meal planning or theme nights? Do you think you'd find this helpful? What are your favorite go to meals?

Friday Reads: The Dorito Effect by Mark Schatzker

It's Friday Reads time! Today I'm going a little outside of the norm with my pick and choosing a non-fiction read. This may not be for everyone. I know I can be a little (a lot) nerdy, and research-focused type books are my jam, but this one is written in a very compelling style and is a page-turner despite the fact that there is a lot of science and a number of research studies discussed.

One of my areas of interest has always been food and nutrition, so I've read and watched a lot in that sub-genre. So it's rare that a book on this topic completely changes my perspective on something. The Dorito Effect  did.

Yes, we all know that artificial flavors (including those listed as "natural" flavors, which this book shows you are no different from artificial) are not great for us. But why? And what exactly does it do to us, our food supply, our children, our tastebuds, our chickens? Why are tomatoes, which used to be so delicious when I was a kid, bland and watery now? Why do we overeat strawberry ice cream but not strawberries even though both have sugar? This book seeks to answer those questions with both history and science.

Spoiler: it's not just about sugar or fat or calories. This is not a diet book. This is a book about flavor and what's happened to it and why.

And it's utterly fascinating. 

This book will make you want a really juicy tomato or flavorful chicken. This book will also probably make you angry. It made me angry (not at the book but at what's happened to our food.)

So if you want the curtain pulled back on the things we eat, I highly recommend it. If you don't want to look at your Doritos or vegetables or meat differently, then maybe pass it by.

About the book:

A lively argument from an award-winning journalist proving that the key to reversing America’s health crisis lies in the overlooked link between nutrition and flavor: “The Dorito Effect is one of the most important health and food books I have read” (Dr. David B. Agus, New York Times bestselling author).

We are in the grip of a food crisis. Obesity has become a leading cause of preventable death, after only smoking. For nearly half a century we’ve been trying to pin the blame somewhere—fat, carbs, sugar, wheat, high-fructose corn syrup. But that search has been in vain, because the food problem that’s killing us is not a nutrient problem. It’s a behavioral problem, and it’s caused by the changing flavor of the food we eat.

Ever since the 1940s, with the rise of industrialized food production, we have been gradually leeching the taste out of what we grow. Simultaneously, we have taken great leaps forward in technology, creating a flavor industry, worth billions annually, in an attempt to put back the tastes we’ve engineered out of our food. The result is a national cuisine that increasingly resembles the paragon of flavor manipulation: Doritos. As food—all food—becomes increasingly bland, we dress it up with calories and flavor chemicals to make it delicious again. We have rewired our palates and our brains, and the results are making us sick and killing us.

With in-depth historical and scientific research, The Dorito Effect casts the food crisis in a fascinating new light, weaving an enthralling tale of how we got to this point and where we are headed. We’ve been telling ourselves that our addiction to flavor is the problem, but it is actually the solution. We are on the cusp of a new revolution in agriculture that will allow us to eat healthier and live longer by enjoying flavor the way nature intended.

Grab a copy: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

Making Cold Brew Coffee or How To Be Highly Caffeinated

Today I'm fighting Spring allergies and trying to get my head in the game to write, so what did I think to blog about? Coffee. Why? Because that's the only thing on my mind this morning. *needs ALL the coffee*

The other day I mentioned on Twitter that I love my cold brew coffee and a few people asked me what it is or how I make it. So I figured that we can always use a little more caffeine in our life. :)

I am not a lifelong coffee drinker. I actually was an avid coffee hater until a year ago. I had tried all kinds of different versions, everything from the basic to the frothed, whipped, chocolatified kind of coffee and always found it - yuck. Then, last year on a trip to Napa (God, that sounds pretentious), I was cold and hubs got a pour over coffee and it smelled really good and I thought--okay, I'm going to try again. Lo and behold, after a few sips, I realized I liked it.

This also may be due to the fact that we'd been wine-tasting for a few days and I'd learned the technique of getting your tastebuds acclimated to a new taste. Meaning, you probably aren't going to like the new thing on the first or second sip because your tastebuds are all--what the hell is this? Is it poison?! Abort! But by the third sip, you're tastebuds are all--oh, look at that, we didn't die. We can like this. Carry on. Yum.

So since that day, I've become quite an avid coffee drinker. And I like to try new versions of it. So last summer, when I was wanting iced coffee (because a cup of a hot coffee just doesn't have the same effect in 100 degree Texas heat), I started researching how to make it home. That led me to the concept of cold brew coffee, which is different from iced coffee (and tastier! and more caffeinated!) Cold brew means just what it said. The coffee isn't heated up to brew it. This means that much of the acid in coffee never makes it into the brew (yay!) leaving a smoother, almost chocolate-y taste. It's delish. I sampled it at Starbucks first. (Make sure to ask for cold brew not iced coffee. Iced coffee is just cooled regularly brewed coffee poured over ice.) 

But I work from home and didn't want to drive to Starbucks every day, so I needed to figure out how to make it myself. Because if you try to buy cold brew concentrate at the store, you'll find out that it's freaking expnsive. I was not down with that. So I researched.

OXO Good Grips Cold Brew Coffee Maker, Clear/Grey

$49.95

There are some basic ways to make it involving filters and mason jars, but I wanted the easiest system possible. Enter the OXO Cold Brew Coffee Maker.

This thing is exactly what I needed because a) I don't like complicated kitchen equipment and b) I hate to clean intricate stuff. This fixed both. All you do is put in your coffee (recipe below), add your water, and then leave it on your counter overnight. In the morning, you put the carafe beneath, flip the switch, and your delicious cold brew concentrate comes out. (Note: There are tiny little paper filters you can buy that go with this. I use those.)

And here's the best part, the concentrate will last in your fridge for TWO WEEKS without getting stale. Though, a batch only late a week around here. 

And this is CONCENTRATE. You don't drink this straight up. It's meant to be mixed with your milk and water. So you get a lot of cups out of one batch. And you can make it over ice or you can mix it with hot water to get a hot cup. Easy easy. And so tasty. Plus, it's a hellavu lot of caffeine, lol.

So if you decide you want to try it, here's my favorite recipe:

To make the large batch of cold brew (will keep in fridge for two weeks):

• 3.5 cups of your favorite fresh ground coffee (I use Starbucks Pike)
• 5 cups of filtered water

Let brew on your counter for about 12 hours or overnight.

To make an individual travel size cup of iced cold brew coffee once your concentrate is ready:

• Fill travel mug halfway or so with ice
• 1/3 cup of cold brew (OXO recommends 1/4, but what are we? Amateurs?)
• 1/3 cup of low sugar vanilla almond milk or milk of your choice
• Sweetener of choice (I use one sweet n low)
• Whatever room is left, fill to top with filtered water

Enjoy and be caffeinated. :)

What's your favorite way to have your coffee?

*This post isn't sponsored but any Amazon links are affiliate links. 

My Favorite Non-Intimidating Cookbooks & the Recipe App I Love

Monday I talked about meal planning and how it keeps me on track. I promised y'all I'd share some of my favorite cookbooks and an app that helps me with the whole meal planning process.

First, the cookbooks. I have a lot of them and cull them yearly to make room for the news ones I pick up each year. I have some with super complicated recipes. I have some that are vegetarian and vegan, even though I'm an omnivore. I have some that focus on international cuisines--which I'll probably feature in a future post because there are some great ones. But today, I wanted to highlight the non-intimidating ones. The ones that are the workhorse cookbooks that provide doable, healthy recipes that don't take too much time and don't require hard-to-find ingredients.

Mark Bittman's Kitchen Matrix: More Than 700 Simple Recipes and Techniques to Mix and Match for Endless Possibilities

By Mark Bittman

Two words: Mark Bittman. Of all the cookbooks I have, I find Mark's to be some of the most comprehensive and foolproof. And they aren't "diet" cookbooks, but it's healthy whole foods using real ingredients--which is how I try to eat. He's also great at the recipe "riff", meaning he lists the main recipe and then he'll give you three or four variations using different meats or vegetable or spices. He teaches you not to be afraid to spin a recipe for what you happen to have on hand. He even recently released a cookbook that's all about spinning one core recipe into many variations called Kitchen Matrix. I, of course, had to buy that one, too. 

But the main ones of his I reach for over and over are the ones in the "everything" series. How to Cook Everything, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (because veggie cookbooks really know how to elevate vegetables), and How to Cook Everything Fast. The last one is my jam. And I can't tell you how helpful it is that when I get a big pile of fruits and veggies from the produce co-op that I'm in, that I can just pick up one of these tomes, flip to the index and find multiple yummy recipes for the produce I've got on hand. 

How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition): 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food

By Mark Bittman

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food

By Mark Bittman

How to Cook Everything Fast: A Better Way to Cook Great Food

By Mark Bittman

And though there are some recipes that are more complicated than others, in general, you're going to find easy to follow recipes with no intimidation factor. Plus, I have yet to try a recipe from these books that flopped. He even has a recipe that got me eating grapefruit--a feat. (Spoiler, you broil the grapefruit with a brown sugar almond topping. Yum.)

Cooking Light

The Time Inc. Magazine Company

So, you can't go wrong with those three. I'll also give an honorable mention to the magazine Cooking Light. I've been a subscriber for at least a decade and I still look forward to every issue. They consistently have great recipes and fresh takes on things. Now, be warned, they vary in complexity. But each issue usually has a good mix of quick and easy stuff along with some "challenge yourself" stuff. And they don't do fad diets. All the recipes focus on healthy, fresh ingredients prepared in a way that isn't too calorically dense.

Lastly, the app I use for recipes. There are a ton of recipe apps out there, but I needed something to organize my online recipes from Pinterest and from Cooking Light (all their recipes are also available online, so I look up my favorite to save instead of keeping a million magazines). Because if you've tried to cook from Pinterest, you know that if the screen goes dark on your phone, Pinterest often resets WHICH IS NOT AWESOME WHEN YOU'RE MID-RECIPE. Enter the Paprika App. This app easily stores all your online recipes (you can easily "clip" recipes from anywhere) and you can organize them into categories, pop them into meal plans, all kinds of cool things. But for me, the most important feature is that when you open a recipe, it keeps your screen on. No touching your phone or tablet with flour-covered fingers. Hallelujah. Plus, it syncs across my devices, so if I find a recipe on my desktop and send it to Paprika, it will be on my phone as well. Perfect.

So those are my picks. Do you have a favorite cookbook or recipe app? I'd love to hear about it. :)