Simple easy pizza dough

Got this from my sister.  I'm not sure whence she acquired it.

Preheat your oven to 200F and turn off when it reaches temp.

1.5 c of water at a temperature appropriate for proofing yeast
One packet of yeast

1 T sugar
2 T olive oil
1.5 t salt
flour (see below)

Proof that yeast in the warm water and add flour slowly, kneading/mixing as you go until it's the right consistency.  It'll probably be 3.5c or so before it starts pulling cleanly away from the side of the mixing bowl.

Put the dough in a  well oiled glass bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap, then place in that warm-but-off oven for at least 45 minutes.  Then remove it, punch it down, and roll out on a well floured surface.

Bake at 425F for 15 minutes for a softer crust, 450F for 15 minutes for a little crispier.

Halloween pasta

I meant to post this last year but time got away from me. Good thing dry pasta keeps. Behold:

Butternut squash sauce over squid ink spaghetti.  Nothing world-redefining, but it suits the season.  And the squid ink isn't bad at all.  Smells a little earthy, but not to an "Is this still fit for human consumption?" degree.

And I have reason to suspect that squid ink isn't fully digestible, but not because of any experiences that I would go so far as to label "traumatic."  So dig in!

Maybe don't serve it to trick or treaters.  But dig in!

Brownie chocolate chip cookies

After I brought some chocolate chip cookie Oreos to work, one of the foodies I work with inspired me to try baking chocolate chip cookies and brownies together.  It was so awesome idea I couldn't resist.

Even if it would have been disappointing.  The planning was harder than stir-fry, trying to find a brownie recipe with baking conditions close enough to those required for the cookie that I would have some grounds for hoping for success.

But, I was lazy and used the break-apart square cookie dough things just to keep things simple.  I guess we'll see if I ended up saving time in the long run or if I just created more work for myself.

Anyway, we'll get back to the cookie dough, but here's what I put into the brownie batter:

• 1/2 c AP flour
• 1 1/4 c sugar
• 65g Dutch cocoa powder (sorry about switching units here; I wanted to use my scale)
• 1 t salt (I had kosher on hand, so that's a slightly heaping spoon full there)
• 1 large eggs
• 1/2 T vanilla
• 10 T butter
• 1/4 c chopped walnuts

I started by mixing the cocoa, sugar, butter, and salt over a double boiler on medium heat, stirring

occasionally.  I actually had a little more butter than I needed according to the recipe I was cribbing from, 1 stick and then 3 tablespoons left from another stick, so I took a pat and greased an 8"x8" pan and then tossed the rest back into the mix.  It never quite got smooth, but once it was at least uniformly grainy, I took the top pot off the heat to let it cool until it was just warm.

At this point I added the eggs and vanilla.  The original recipe said to add the vanilla, then one cold egg, then the second cold egg, but since I didn't anticipate any mixing problems I scrambled both eggs with the vanilla in advance, stuck it back in the fridge, and then stirred half of the mix at a time into the chocolate.

At this point, if you want something more like fudge, you can forget to add the flour.  I did that once.  It still tasted good.

I had half a cup of finely chopped walnuts but that just seemed like too much, so I added maybe a third of that to the batter along with the flour.  When it was all pretty even, I poured it over--wait, interlude for a cookie:

Okay, so buttered 8"x8" pan and prefab cookie squares.  Left them on the counter just long enough to get soft so I could press them more easily into the pan.  You don't want to let it warm up too much or it will start sticking to whatever you use to press it.  I ended up using the glass I had already employed to hold my premeasured flour and walnuts.  It worked pretty well because I could twist the glass when I lifted it from the dough and there was no pullout.  I put the mass of cookie squares in the middle of the pan and pressed it toward the corners, but in retrospect it might have been easier to put it at one edge of the pan and then work my way across.  Well, it wasn't exactly a Herculean task either way.

Back to the brownies!  I poured the batter over the cookie substrate until there was little enough batter left in the pot that I wouldn't feel ashamed licking it clean.  I sprinkled half the remaining walnuts over the top--really, it seemed like there was plenty to go around--and put it in a 330° oven.  Seemed like a reasonable compromise between the chocolate chip cookie and brownie recipes.

This was really the toughest part.  Everything's going to cook more slowly with the extra mass.  My instinct is to go with longer times at lower temperatures, so the thermal gradient in the food is flatter, but you can't just lower the temperature arbitrarily or nothing gets cooked.

I originally had it in for 25 minutes, but a toothpick in the middle wasn't coming out clean.  I put it in for another ten minutes, and then ten more minutes again.  Toothpick still came out wet.  Okay, ten more minutes, but at 320° this time.  Still a little wet at the bottom, but starting to look done in the middle:  fifteen minutes at 300°, and the toothpick finally comes out clean.

The hard part here is all these door openings coupled with the fact that I can't turn off the oven timer without turning the oven itself off, so trying to coordinate the time is a hassle; I was probably only getting 7-9 minutes at temperature, but maybe that's close enough.  Now that I've extended the time thrice, it occurs to me I could use the timer on my microwave instead.  Oh well; good reason not to drink Coke and vanilla vodka while I'm doing science.  Maybe next time.

Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookie

This recipe was another case of "I must experience this for myself now that I've heard about it."  Since I was a little impatient, I tried using cookie dough from the store instead of making it from scratch.

I actually made two attempts.  The very first was with storebought dough and I tried completely encasing the Oreo with it.  Unfortunately, the normal cookie dough is so fluid at baking temperatures, before it starts to set, that I ended up with chocolate chip saucers with an Oreo island in the middle.  Fortunately, short of burning the cookies entirely, it's still delicious.

My second time, I thought I'd leave the cookie dough as thick dollops above and below the Oreo, so as it settled during baking, it would, I hoped, just encase the Oreo.

Nope.  Close, but no cigar.

Obviously the storebought dough just isn't firm enough.  I'd have to do something like try making it by hand.  Adding extra flour might work, or substituting a fraction of AP flour for something with higher gluten like bread flour, but since I knew someone has already figured all these details out to have posted this idea online in the first place, I thought I'd see what they had to suggest.

The original recipe apparently comes from here.

After all that hassle, I came up with a workable, if inelegant, compromise:  muffin tins.

I overdid it, but it worked:  two cookie dough squares in the bottom of each depression of the muffin tin, then the Oreo, then two more squares.  It was almost too much cookie, but it held together and baked up just fine.

Big hit with my coworkers, even the diabetic one.  I just wish I'd made more to share.

I tried it again using a mini muffin tin and one square each on top and bottom (and mini Reese's peanut butter cups--I thought they'd melt and fall apart without the support of the tin--but let's not get distracted), but that didn't turn out as well.  The top squares spread out during baking and all touched, so I couldn't twist them out one at a time like I could with the regular size muffin tin.  They did bake up fine and were delicious, but I had a lot of cookie shrapnel piled up by the time I got all the cookies extracted.  But that's an adventure for a later time.

Avocado-quinoa dip

This dish was adapted from a salad recipe I got at Wegmans.com.  I like avocado more for its versatility, especially its capacity for becoming guacamole, so I thought this one might work better as a sort of dip.

The main cast:

• 10 oz red quinoa, cooked
• 12 oz frozen whole corn, thawed (or fresh, whatever)
• 1 c sliced green onions
• 2 plum tomatoes, diced
• 2 avocados, mashed
• 1 t minced garlic
• thyme, coriander, cilantro, and celery salt to taste
• 1/2 T lime juice
• 1 T sesame oil

The quinoa I cooked per the directions on the bag, except I added some chicken bullion after adding the water.  I should have added it to the water first, but I had been trying to redeem some vile s'mores vodka, and it didn't occur to me until it was too late.

Okay, so:  Cook the quinoa, chop up all the vegetables as you see fit, mash the avocados, and mix it all together.  The original recipe said to let the quinoa chill for 20 minutes first but I got impatient, and it didn't seem to hurt not to wait.  As for the herbs and spices, you can adjust those however you see fit; the original recipe called for a cup of chopped fresh cilantro but I only had dried, and it's not my favorite, so I thought I'd throw in the other things to bring it more to my wavelength.  Maybe subconsciously I was trying to make it more like guacamole but with corn and quinoa in it.  And tomato.  Well, whatever.

I thought it was phenomenal.  I got full on it and still wanted to keep eating the stuff.  Seemed to go better with tortilla chips than water crackers.  Probably could have used a third avocado and/or tomato, though.  Maybe a little sour cream would make it more dippy, but I might still have guacamole on the brain.

I really need to get a better way to present these dishes.  Sometimes the big red plastic bowl is just not amenable to presentation.  

Bailey's Mousse

Went to a shindig at a former coworker's farm last summer and he pulled this out at the end of dinner. It's pretty strong, for pie.

• 3 T water
• 1 package unflavored gelatin
• 2 c whipping cream
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1/2 Bailey's Irish cream

Dissolve gelatin in water, heating as necessary.
Chill whipping cream and bowl, then beat to firm peaks.
Add gelatin solution and whip back to firm peaks.
Mix in sugar, then fold in liquor.

You can substitute Kahlua or Buttershots for the Irish cream. Other substitutions can probably also be made, but I haven't tried them.

As-is, serves 4. Doubled, it should fill a pie crust. Make sure you bake the crust first, if you're supposed to. I forgot to do that on the last chocolate mousse pie I made so I had to run back to the store at midnight before Thanksgiving and pick up all the ingredients I'd just wasted.

Orange cranberry relish

My sister makes this at holidays sometimes.  It's delicious; tangy without being overly tart.

1 bag of cranberries
1 entire navel orange, in chunks but not peeled
Sugar

Wash the fruit and put it in a blender until the consistency is even (not smooth...unless that's what you like).  Add sugar to taste.  Easy, tasty, festive.