My First Pizza: Meatball and Onion

Now that it's pretty much winter, it felt like time to make my meatball heros, all warm and saucy on crusty bread. It must be the Italian side coming out in me that I can make great meatballs just like my old Italian aunts, without even knowing their recipe. Usually, I end up with leftover meatballs, which I make into another hero for lunch, or add to pasta or something. But this time I hit upon a great idea - to use the leftover meatballs on homemade pizza.


This was my first attempt at making pizza, dough and all, from scratch (well, except for the tomato sauce, that came from a can), and it was a huge success. Just look at the photo - crunchy, warm, with the right combination of sauce, cheese, and toppings, and the taste of whole wheat to make it really feel homemade and good for you. My boyfriend couldn't stop raving, and declared that this was the best thing I've ever made - my meatballs and pizza, now combined in the greatest dish of all, meatball pizza.


After enjoying the pizza, we geared up for a suprisingly easy and not too cold five mile bike ride to the Columbia Street waterfront district for an open bar with Sixpoint beer, and a friend's birthday party. After riding back drunk on the empty Brooklyn streets at 3am, we toasted up the leftover pizza, scarfed it down, and passed out. What a perfect way to end the night.


Of course, I am already thinking of how I might improve upon the recipe for next time. The bottom of the pizza was nice and charred and crunchy, but actually it was crunchy throughout, without any springiness. Maybe I poked too many holes in the dough and let too much air out. Next time I will try putting all the ingredients on before the pizza goes in the oven and just cooking it all together for 10 minutes.





Meatballs
1/2 lb ground turkey
1/2 lb ground sirloin
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
1/4 cup egg beaters (in place of 1 egg)
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup parmesan
handful of chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup tomato sauce

baguette
1 clove garlic

Mix the first set of ingredients in a bowl. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Coat the bottom of a baking dish with olive oil. Pour tomato sauce over it. Use your hands to form meatballs, about half a handful of the mixture per meatball. Roll the meatballs in the tomato sauce to coat them, and then place them about 1 inch apart on the baking dish. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, until the meatballs begin to brown.




Meatball and Onion Whole Wheat Pizza


1 packet (1/4 tsp) active dry yeast

3/4 cup warm water

2 tbsp honey

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup tomato sauce (half can of Muir Glen tomato sauce)

3 cloves garlic, diced

1/4 onion, diced

About 8 leftover small meatballs, cut into pieces

1/2 ball fresh mozzerella


In a bowl, dissolve yeast and honey in warm water and let it stand for approximately five minutes, until it is nice and bubbly like the photo below.





Add the flour and salt to the bowl and stir until ingredients begin to form a dough. Place dough on a floured surface and knead for 6 to 8 minutes, until dough feels nice and elastic, adding extra sprinklings of flour as needed when the dough gets too sticky.


Place dough in an oiled bowl, turn it over once to coat in oil, and cover it with a dish towel. Let it rise in a warm place, (ideally 85 degrees), away from drafts for 45 minutes, until dough has doubled in size. Because my apartment is cold lately, I turned my oven on and placed the bowl on top of the oven to create a warm environment for the yeast.


About 20 minutes into letting the dough rise, place a rimless baking sheet on the lowest level of the oven, and preheat to 550, or as high as your oven will go.


Once dough has doubled, punch it down and let it rest a few minutes. Place it on a floured surface and roll it out thin with a floured rolling pin. You don't have to roll it into a perfect circle. I tried, but it turned out more rectangular, and I think next time I will just go straight for a rectange. Crimp the edges to create a crust, and feel free to make your crust as big as you would like - I wish I had made mine bigger. Poke small holes throughout the crust to keep too many bubbles from forming, shown below. Spray surface of dough with olive oil cooking spray.





Remove preheated baking sheet from oven, sprinkle with cornmeal, and carefully slide dough onto the sheet. Bake for approximately 5 minutes, until dough begins to get crusty.


Remove baking sheet fom oven. Spoon tomato sauce over the pizza. Place half the mozzerella on top, then scatter all other ingredients over it, and then place the rest of the cheese on it. Grate 1/4 cup parmesan over the top. Finally, season with salt, pepper, basil, oregano, crushed red pepper, or other spices as desired.


Place pizza back in oven and bake until cheese is melted and crust is golden brown, approximately another 7 minutes. Cut into squares and dig in. One pizza is plenty for two people, especially because you get to enjoy the leftovers later. I think I might make my next dinner party a pizza party!

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German Chocolate Cupcakes

My 23rd birthday was this past Friday. Birthdays feel kind of silly now...ever since turning 21 there's nothing to look forward to anymore except getting older. I went to DOC Wine Bar, a charming romantic place in Williamsburg where the waiters always have thick Italian accents. I wish I went there more often, but I only go for special occasions. I looove their pistokku, a Sardinian flatbread topped with beef carpaccio, arugala, and goat cheese.

Last year I wanted to make cupcakes for my birthday party, but my boyfriend insisted I not do work on my birthday and that he would take care of it. So he surprised me with a cake at the bar, but of course, it was very difficult to serve and eat because he had to run out and get paper plates and forks etc. Silly boy, convenient cupcakes that you can hold in your hand are much better for bars.

So this year, I insisted that I would bake my own cupcakes, and I decided on a German chocolate version, which I've been wanting to make ever since I was first introduced to its delicious combination of chocolate and coconut last spring. They were my best cupcakes ever, probably because I sucked it up and added so many wet ingredients to make them moist. I've seen German chocolate recipes that call for toasted pecans in the icing, but that shit is expensive yo, so I left it out.

The cupcakes were all gone at the end of the night, and so was my sobriety. My friends joined me at Bushwick Country Club, which is not in Bushwick nor is it a country club - it's just a casual bar in Williamsburg. They have a policy of letting the birthday girl drink free all night so long as you bring 15 people. And they invited me to be a member, with a card and everything, which allows me to take advantage of drink specials whenever I go back. Pretty good deal if you ask me.

I had one of those nights where I talked my head off to everyone and anyone but can now hardly remember what I said. I was supposed to go to Neue Galerie the next day to continue my birthday fun, but I had one too many whiskey gingers and was sick all morning, so I will have to see the Klimt exhibit another weekend.

German Chocolate Cake

1/3 cup boiling water

4 oz sweet German chocolate or Baker's chocolate

2 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter

1 1/2 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup milk

Bring 1/2 cup water to boil. Pour 1/3 cup into a bowl and add 4oz chocolate, broken into pieces. Stir until chocolate is dissolved. Let cool.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350. Grease two 12-muffin tins with nonstick cooking spray.

Sift dry ingredients into a bowl.

In another bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add melted chocolate and vanilla. Beat in flour alternately with milk until just incorporated.

Pour mixture into muffin tins and bake for 15-20 minutes (check at 15 to see if done, if not, let bake another few minutes).

While the cupcakes are baking, also toast the coconut for the icing:

Spread 1 cup coconut flakes on a baking sheet and bake for 3-5 minutes (check on them to make sure they don't get too browned or burned!) Cupcakes are done when a knife stuck into them comes out clean.

While cupcakes cool, prepare icing:
3 tbsp butter

2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp milk

3 cup confectioners sugar

1 cup toasted coconut flakes

Beat above ingredients together, vigorously, as in the photo above, and add additional sugar or milk to reach desired consistency. Once cupcakes are cool, spread icing over the tops with a knife. Makes 24 cupcakes. Enjoy, and try not to think about the millions of bowls and utensils you now need to clean!

PS. Sunday was the first snow of the season in Brooklyn! I'm glad the weather waited until after my birthday for winter to start in earnest.

PPS. Thanks to Gina for using her new baby, aka camera, to take the supremely delicious looking cupcake at the top and the one of me stirring vigorously.

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Beer and Deer BBQ

Flatbush Farm continues to not disappoint. A few weeks ago, we had an awesome romantic dinner in their bar. This afternoon we biked down there to meet some friends for their monthly barbecue. There was venison, Six Point beer, and a bluegrass band, three of Jesse's favorite things, so we basically had to go. The bar was surprisingly not crowded, considering what a good deal the food is at $2-5 per item on the menu above. But that left plenty of room for cute kids to play and dance.

The cooks grilled up our food in the backyard garden. Jesse enjoyed a skewer with grilled lean venison, apple, and celery root, along with tender braised cabbage. Meanwhile, I dug into the vegetarian chili, with multiple kinds of beans, carrots, and kale, I think. The cornbread was wonderfully sweet with a nice grilled crust. We also tried oysters grilled in their shell - they were good, similar to raw oysters but with a less wet texture. Still, I prefer slippery raw oysters sliding down my tongue over chewing into oysters.

Surprisingly, it was all served in paper plates and bowls with plastic cutlery. My green guilt told me I should have asked for real silverware, but I didn't want to be a bother. We also enjoyed a rare opportunity to drink local Sixpoint IPA and Amber on tap, brewed in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The two beers were similarly good, but the IPA was more bitter. As the bluegrass band played its last set and the kiddies headed home, so did we, feeling full and satisfied with our earlier dinner. I'm afraid that soon it will be too cold to go on these long bike rides. I hope not - they're a good way to exercise off all the food I just ate!

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Thanks and giving

Considering that every food blog I've been ready lately has been obsessed with Thanksgiving, it seems ironic that I didn't even cook anything for Thanksgiving. I hope to make Thanksgiving next year, to cook wonderful, flavorful foods that I know to be local and organic. Maybe I'm turning into too much of a food critic and greenie nazi. But considering that Thanksgiving is supposed to be about celebrating eating, I believe it should be all about eating really good food that allows us to enjoy the bounty of the season. My Thanksgiving menu would be something like the one below. It would mostly procured from my local farmers market. There would be lovely classical music playing the background and plenty of alcohol imbibing.

Appetizers:
Cheese and crackers
Chopped raw cauliflower, broccoli, and peppers
Homemade pita chips
Homemade hummus and cumin carrot dip

Dinner:
Roasted beets with toasted walnuts and goat cheese
Butternut squash, carrot, parsnip, and three bean casserole
Cranberry chutney
Smashed potatoes with roasted garlic and scallions
Garlicky sauteed kale
Rosemary and sage biscuits
Cornbread stuffing
Turkey and gravy

Dessert:
Carrot cake
Pumpkin bread
Apple pie
Brandied cranberry and white chocolate cookies

Drinks:
Local beer, wine, and bourbon (such as Hudson's Baby Bourbon) of course!

So, see you at my house in a year?

PS. Here are two things I have to be thankful for this week:

1. Jesse cooked moules frites and potato leek soup and cinnamon oats for breakfast when I was sick this week, and taking a sick day actually helped me rest and get better! It's Jesse's own fault that he is not getting full write-ups on his meals because, as he said, "Do we have to photograph everything we eat?"

2. I enjoyed a rare opportunity to hear the Berliner Philharmoniker, one of the best orchestras in the world, perform live at a venue in Washington Heights for free. They delivered a brilliant, on-point performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, one of my favorite 20th century pieces, while hundreds of New York City public school students danced, ran, creeped. and stomped about the stage like primitive humans. It was truly amazing to hear this piece live as a full ballet, that I had studied so much in college, and nice to actually feel connected to the music that goes on thanks to all my hard work, which happens pretty infrequently, sadly. Thank you BPhil.

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Brooklyn Bike Tour II: Destination Red Hook

This is my block in Williamsburg, where new condos are sprouting up everywhere. Notice how much taller the beige building in the top right corner is than all the other vinyl sided row houses?
Around the corner, there used to be an old factory in this lot, now vacant except for one obnoxious piece of machinery. I didn't have a chance to photograph them, but three of the four corners of this intersection are all empty boarded lots, warehouses that were, now condos to be.

We biked down to Park Slope for lunch at Bonnie's Grill. Jesse loves their burgers and I enjoy them as well, but let me just say that other items I've had from their menu were subpar.

Next, we rode down Union Street over the Gowanus canal. Someone created this pretty mini sunflower garden at the gate of the bridge.

The canal itself isn't so nice, but I actually liked the surrounding area. Just look at the golden leaves lining this brownstone street:

We continued our ride all the way to Red Hook. We're not Red Hook newbies, as we drive there frequently to shop at Fairway (best grocery store EVER), but this was our first time biking there. We rode to the waterfront on Van Dyke street and stumbled across this little park.

Those benches are a lovely place to sit, rest, and enjoy the calming feeling of the water. Afterward, we went in search of the Six Point brewery and the attached bar to taste their multitude of beers. Well it turns out that the Libery Heights Taproom I had read about online has been replaced with a new bar, Rocky Sullivan's, that only has two Six Points on tap. It looked empty, so we didn't bother with it. The other strange thing is that there is no signage to even tell you that you've found the Six Point. So we didn't find it, we thought maybe it had moved too along with Libery Heights, but a Red Hook local later confirmed we were at the right corner.

So instead we went to the Bait & Tackle Bar on Van Brunt Street for a drink. It's extremely quaint, decorated on almost every inch of the bar with taxidermy, fishing gear, knick knacks, and so on, and it's a cute place to kill some time.

We had dinner at the Good Fork, which I had been looking forward to all week because I wanted almost everything on their menu. Maybe because I was so highly anticipating the dinner, it fell a little flat. We started with two appetizers, cornmeal crusted oysters and beet salad. The oysters were meaty and well executed with a nice cornmeal coating and a Russian dressing-like sauce. But we decided we still prefer oysters in the raw because the greatest thing about oysters is the salty taste of the sea. The beet salad was skimpy on the beets and walnuts and didn't benefit from the one lettuce leaf it was plated on. Considering that beets are in season now, I was hoping for a richer, sweeter taste like I've experienced before.

For dinner, I chose the paperdelle with pork ragu. The homemade pasta was soft, tender, and delicious. But somehow the wow factor was missing. Jesse felt the same about his salmon over crunchy lentils. Conclusion: The Good Fork is a good restaurant, but we probably won't go to Red Hook again just to eat there.

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Brooklyn Bike Tour

Last weekend, I braved the cold and ventured on a 16 mile bike ride throughout Brooklyn, from Williamsburg, whizzing under the Williamsburg bridge (above) through prettier neighborhoods of Brooklyn, including Fort Greene below. Maybe I live in the wrong neighborhood, I pondered during the ride.

I stopped in Park Slope to visit Bierkraft, because I was really interested in checking it out. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but I like that the beers are organized by region so that was able to focus on selecting a New York state beer, because I am trying to drink local whenever I can. And the cheese selection! What a great idea to sell beer and cheese - it's not just all about the wine and cheese anymore. I came up with this plan to get beers and cheese and have a picnic in Prospect Park. It was cold, but I managed, on a lovely bench by the lake as the sun set. My favorite cheese is Doddington, a cheddary English cheese, so I asked to try a new cheese that would similarly appeal to my palate and was given a cheese called Licolnshire, but Doddington still remains the champion in my cheese quest. Taste it, you won't be disappointed!


And by the way, Prospect Park is amazing! This was my first time, and I had no idea it was so woodsy and spacious. It fills that void in my life that Central Park just doesn't because Central Park never allows you to feel that you've escaped the city, but Prospect Park does.


After a ride around the park, and craft beers at some bars on 4th Avenue that did not live up to their reviews, I capped off the evening with dinner at Flatbush Farm , which I have been looking forward to for a while. Their menu is filled with seasonal vegetables and organic meat, sourced from New York state farms, at least I think so. As a burgeoning locavore, I was very excited to support this restaurant. To my dismay, there was a 30 minute wait for the restaurant room. But no problem! They simply directed me next door to the bar where I was still able to have a table and order from the restaurant menu. I don't really understand why they bother having a bar separate from the restaurant.


I love oysters, but haven't been able to indulge as much since oyster prices went up. Hence only five oysters as an appetizer below, but delicious they were. Slurp!




Since I'd been munching all day, I split one entree with my dinner partner, and we chose the half chicken with collard greens. It was the most delicious, meaty chicken I've had in a while, and the collard greens were as good as ... greens are. I could say more, but by that point in the night I was sufficiently liquored up that I don't remember much more than the dark, warm, ambiance of the restaurant and warm fuzzy glow in my stomach from the food.

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Dinner Party

Last night I had some friends coming over for dinner and decided to use it as an excuse to make it into a real dinner party with seasonal and local ingredients, of course. The menu for the evening was:

Kale and white bean crostini on homemade bread with grated piave cheese

Butternut squash tortellini with sage brown buttered sauce

Chocolate chip apple cake

A bit ambitious, but I had time to kill.

Part 1: Crostini

The night before I made the bread. It took longer than it was supposed to, and then after all that effort, it came out no good. While baking, it sunk into a dense rectangular block. A rectangular block that I was ashamed to photograph and that didn't taste great because I included buckwheat groats. The recipe said I could! But I should have known. Considering that I don't like the smell of buckwheat groats...its horrible smell was overpowering and affected the taste of the bread. Jesse liked it, but he seems to like anything. I almost went out and bought a baguette, but decided it would be passable, especially with a topping to mask the smell.

I also made the crostini topping the night before - I sauteed 2 cloves garlic, half a bunch of kale, and half a can of white beans, salt and peper to taste, then pureed it and put it in the refrigerator to store it.

To assemble the appetizer, I toasted half slices of bread with the kale and bean puree spread on top to warm both a the same time. Then I grated piave cheese over top - a mild cow cheese a bit more tasty than parmesan. Personally, I don't think I like kale enough for it to be a delicious crostini topping...it tastes too healthy!

Part 2: Squash Tortellini
The night before, I also roasted the butternut squash - I cut it in half, scooped out the seeds, drizzled it with olive oil, and then placed it scooped side down on a baking pan to roast for approximately 45 minutes at 450. When it was soft and mushy, I scooped out all the flesh into a large bowl. Then I added a tsp or so each of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, salt, and pepper and mashed it all together, and also stored it in the refrigerator.

Originally, I had hoped to make butternut squash ravioli myself from scratch. However, Jesse warned me not to make the pasta as he thought we should stick with the pros and buy pasta sheets from Raffetto's in the West Village. However, it turns out they don't sell pasta sheets for ravioli making, just their own ravioli fully made. So the Italian man sold Jesse spinach (hence the green color!) pasta for tortellini making with some vague directions on how to shape the tortellini. From the picture, you can see it looks nothing like tortellini. It was really hard to fold it up small like real tortellini, so Jesse took it upon himself to fold it into giant pockets with loose flaps.

Just before dinner, I took the butterut squash out of the fridge, and Jesse as my sous chef helped me plop little teaspoons of the squash filling into giant pasta messes. I boiled them in two batches of about three minutes each because they wouldn't all fit in our biggest pot.

Meanwhile I made the sauce. I sauteed 2 cloves garlic and a diced shallot in olive oil. Then I added half a stick of butter and 2 tsp of dried sage, as well as some rosemary, salt, and pepper. I was scared of too much butter, but realized it wasn't enough for sauce, so I added another half stick or more of butter and let it heat and brown a little. When the pasta was done, I strained it and then plated it, pouring the sage brown buttered sauce over each plate with some grated parmesan. We ended up with about 6 servings of giant tortellini, so there is still some in the fridge.

Part 3: Cake

For dessert, I made a moist chocolate chip apple cake. I would have used applesauce instead of all that milk, but someone ate all my extra apples, even though I bought them from the farmers market especially for this dessert. :-(

Cream 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup butter. Beat in 2 eggs one by one. Combine with 1 tsp vanilla and 1 tsp lemon juice, as well as 3/4 cup milk. Add 1 cup white flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp ginger, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt. Stir it all together. Add one package of chocolate chips. Dice one apple and throw that in. Stir it all together again. Grease a 9-inch round pan. Bake at 350 for approximately 40 minutes until golden brown. Sprinkle confectioners sugar over the top. Eat for dessert that night, and another huge hunk for breakfast the next morning.

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