Monthly Archives: December 2014

Hot Honey Pizza with Roasted Broccoli and Red Onion

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A damn good pizza idea:

Besides the usual dough, sauce, and cheese galore, add broccoli and red onions prepared as you would for roasting them (coated in olive oil, plus s&p). Broccoli florets should be quite small, and onions quite thin, to allow for a short cooking time.

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THEN, make the best pizza topping in the world (discovery thanks to Paulie Gee’s…aka the debatable best pizza in NYC): HOT HONEY. You can be all fancy and buy the official version (which we did at the recent Greenpointers Holiday Market, but, as per my rules, we Cannot Touch until Christmakkuh is celebrated…) OR make your own. Simply combine 3 parts honey to 2 parts hot sauce (unless your hot sauce is ridiculously hot) and mix well. Drizzle over pizza before popping into your oven (at the hottest possible temp).

Pizza is done when cheese melts sufficiently, broccoli is charred but still crunchy, and the edges begin to brown, about 12 minutes.

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We strayed a bit from this basic model by trashing our pizzas up with black olives, yellow peppers, leftover mushrooms (me), prosciutto (him), and of course fresh basil post-oven. None of this was at all necessary, though, and I recommend giving the broccoli-red onion-hot honey combo a chance before letting your fridge leftovers make the rules.

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Ingredients:
Sauce, dough, cheese, broccoli, red onion, olive oil, honey&hot sauce, s&p

Method:
Use your brain, silly! (Or, follow my first pizza post for more specifics!)

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Recipe inspired by Serious Eats and veggie-fying the Hellboy.
Snowflakes by us, proudly 🙂

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Mushroom, Olive, and Farro Stuffed Acorn Squash

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This was one of those nights that Daniel decided he didn’t feel like eating vegetarian and would make himself a side of meat from the Homesick Texan cookbook he (aptly) received for his birthday. He chose something that sounded delicious and we ventured out to our two local grocery places (one better for fresh produce, the other better for (ridiculously overpriced) happy meats and fancy cheeses…) around 7:30, and came home and got to work. A slight misunderstanding of the recipe meant that the carnitas actually had to simmer for three hours, a bit of a formidable cooking time when my proposed squash would take under an hour.

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But, stubborn and dedicated as he was, we ended up making both and eating around, oh say, 11:30. (I wish I could say that was rare.)

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This squash was out-of-control good! All my favorite flavors in the filling, which is perfect for lunch the next day. (Double the filling recipe! You won’t regret it!) And acorn squash is just the cutest little squash there is. A ridiculously tasty, cute squash. Also out of our kitchen that night: aforementioned carnitas (which smelled pretty darn good) with a tomatillo-avocado salsa (delicious with just a spoon!) and Dorie Greenspan’s perfect lemon poppyseed muffins. Recipes available upon request 🙂 Happy cooking!

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Mushroom, Olive, and Farro Stuffed Acorn Squash

adapted from What’s Cooking, Good Looking

serves 2

1/2 cup farro
1.5 cups water
pinch of salt
1 acorn squash
olive oil
s&p
1T olive oil
½ a large white onion, chopped small
1 big clove garlic, minced
2 T pine nuts
4 big button mushrooms, chopped small
1 t soy sauce
3 T chopped kalamata olives
2 T parsley, finely minced
¼ cup crumbled feta

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Combine farro, water, and salt in a medium sized pot and bring to a boil. Cover, turn heat to low, and simmer for 30 minutes. At this point, water should be absorbed. (If not, drain excess water once farro is sufficiently chewy.) Set aside.

Meanwhile, cut acorn squash in half horizontally. Scoop out the seeds. Trim off the very top and very bottom using a very sharp knife so the squash halves can sit upright on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper. Bake for 25- 30 min, or until a knife cuts through easily.

While squash bakes, heat olive oil in a largeish pan. Add onion and garlic and cook over medium heat for about 8 minutes, until onions are beginning to brown. Add pine nuts and toast for 3 minutes, or until they start to brown as well. Next, add mushrooms and soy sauce and cook for 3 minutes, or until the liquid evaporates. Take off the heat and add olives, parsley, feta, and farro. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stuff farro/mushroom mixture into scooped out squash halves and consume!

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Buttermints

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Candy-making! An ideal Sunday evening post-salsa-rehearsal, post-Ramen-consumption, pre-Arrested-Development-and-popcorn-binge activity. We meant to send some to Daniel’s brother and sister-in-law, who just had a baby (CONGRATS!), but then we sorta ate them. Oops.

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This was a bit of a messy process (UNDERSTATEMENT), as the powdered sugar literally coated every surface of the apartment at the first beater rotation. Next time I would start with softer butter and add the powdered sugar one cup at a time. (And oh my, I just looked at their website and this is exactly what they suggest on their “Cookbook Corrections” page. I’m probably a candy genius.) But the messiness is worth it! These things are just an excuse to eat minty frosting cubes. I’ll let the pictures now speak for themselves.

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Buttermints

from The Liddabit Sweets Candy Cookbook

1 stick (8 oz) unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch cubes
4 cups powdered (confectioners) sugar, plus extra to coat
2-3 T milk
½ t peppermint extract
food dye (optional)

In a large bowl, combine butter cubes and powdered sugar. Using a hand mixer, beat on medium-high speed until no more butter chunks remain. Pause frequently to scrape down bowl and replace fly-away butter chunks. BIG NOTE: This is freaking messy! We got powdered sugar literally over the entire table AND floor AND under the table AND on the adjoining shelf. Cover mixing bowl with a towel. You can easily use a stand mixer for this part, unless you live in NYC and have a ridiculously small kitchen and nowhere to store one. (Next time, for a hand mixer, I would start with softer butter and add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time…)

Add 2 T milk and peppermint extract and continue mixing on medium-high speed until big clumps form. (If necessary, add 3rd T of milk, but keep in mind it will take longer for mints to dry this way!) Keep mixing; mixture should soon form a loose dough. You can use your hands to help along this process.

Divide dough into four parts. Cover each loosely with plastic wrap. If you’re going to use food coloring, now is the time. Take one dough segment and place it on a cutting board covered with powdered sugar. Coat your hands with the sugar as well. Add just 1 drop of dye to dough and knead it with your fingertips until the color is fully mixed in. Add more dye as necessary. Then, keeping hands coated with powdered sugar, gently roll the dough into a log 1/4-inch thick. Using a very sharp knife, cut into 1/4-inch cubes and place on a cookie tray covered with parchment paper. Repeat this process for all 4 dough segments.

Leave out to dry overnight, uncovered and unrefridgerated. Apparently these stay good for weeks. Keep in an airtight container, separated by layers of parchment paper, in a dry place (not the fridge!).

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