Pizza!

I have been on a quest for a good homemade pizza crust for years. Yes, I know Trader Joes has their easy to use dough, but I find it bland. I think I finally found one that will work for weeknight “I forgot to make the pizza dough the night before” dinners. I have another dough that I love, but it is very sticky and I’ve ruined more pizzas than I care to count trying to get it into the oven, so I’ve been hesitant to use it. This one worked well, so I think I will go with it for awhile. I might add some honey next time. We used the dough and pizza recipe from here. Given our abundance of arugula in the garden, we also made one of these (using the aforementioned dough).

It was delicious, and I didn’t lose a single pizza in the transition from the counter to the oven. That is a victory in my book!

Expanding my pasta repertoire

I made ricotta cheese the other night. It is so easy, and so much better than what you buy in the store. It’s creamy and buttery and you can make whole milk ricotta, which can be hard to find.

You can make it with regular milk or buttermilk, with lemon juice or vinegar. I like the milk/lemon juice combination. You can google a specific recipe, but basically you bring one quart milk and one cup cream to a simmer with a little salt, remove from heat and add 2 Tbsp lemon juice. Stir gently and let sit for about 10 minutes. Strain through a colander lined with cheese cloth (I strain it over a pot, in case I didn’t add enough lemon juice and the milk hasn’t curdled enough; you can always add more lemon juice and try again). Let it sit for an hour and voila! Cheese!!

Once I made the cheese, I had to find something to do with it. So I googled “pasta with ricotta cheese” and last night we had pasta with roasted tomatoes and ricotta cheese. It was easy, and tasty. I also tried another variation on arugula salad since we have an abundance of arugula in our garden, but this one wasn’t very good. The dressing was lacking something. But with the amount of arugula still in the garden, I think I will have many more opportunities to find the perfect arugula salad.

BBQ Weekend

Memorial Day = the start of potluck BBQ season. And we have three to attend this weekend.

BBQ #1 with people from the lab. I brought potato salad. It was amazing, and is definitely going to be my go to potluck side dish this summer. No mayo, and the sour cream/yogurt sauce is surprisingly light and refreshing. Recipe from the always reliable Smitten Kitchen: tzatziki potato salad

BBQ #2 is with the other fellows from the program. I’m bringing dessert, my second time making the Pioneer  Woman’s tres leches cake. I make it a little differently–leave it in the pan, and use the entire glaze instead of all but one cup. It was delicious the first time I tried it. Hopefully it will be delicious again. The key to a good tres leches cake is a good sponge cake. You need well beaten eggs and egg whites to make a light fluffy cake to absorb all that milk.

BBQ #3 is with friends, and unfortunately at the same time as BBQ #2, but we are hoping to make both. I will probably bring my favorite corn muffins. It’s a cook’s illustrated recipe, but I’ve transcribed it to tastebook, so I can link to it. I like to make these as muffins rather than corn bread, because they are easier to freeze and save for later meals that way. They go great with chili!

Still trying to figure out the crock pot

Another crock pot failure: Crock Pot Teriyaki Chicken.

It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t great. Chicken thighs don’t take long to cook, I don’t know why you would need to cook them in the crock pot. Just throw them in a baking dish, cover with some teriyaki sauce and you have the same thing, but are less likely to have dried out chicken. Yes, it was fast. Yes, it was easy. But I love Soy Vey teriyaki sauce, and this seems like a much simpler way to cook the chicken. This one was not my favorite. It wasn’t bad, just not up to my standards.

Salmon Season

The Copper River salmon are here! These fish bring with them much fanfare, as they are the first fresh salmon we get for the year. And they are delicious. Expensive, but delicious.

I bought a small piece of salmon the other day to try out this recipe:

Poached salmon with peas and mushrooms

I used shitake mushrooms instead of morrels. It was AMAZINGLY delicious. Since I only had a little salmon, I defrosted some halibut we had gotten from friends after their fishing trip in Alaska and threw that in as well. It was also delicious. Basmati rice and an arugula salad from the garden. Definitely a meal to serve next time we have guests over. Which will hopefully be during salmon season!

Quick and Easy

I’m trying to revamp my cooking style–going from the 2 hour meal prep of the past to something that can be done in less than an hour. Once I start my new job in August, I’m not going to have the time to cook, exercise, clean and just relax that I’ve had during fellowship. So I’m trying to make a few quick meals each week to expand my recipe repertoire.

This week:

Tortellini with Sausage, Mushrooms and Spinach

This was a Pinterest recipe, but could have come from the Trader Joe’s cookbook (recipes that are made exclusively from ingredients available at TJ’s). It was easy and quick. I’ll probably use different sausage next time, I just don’t like the flavor of chicken sausage. It would probably be good with arugula instead of spinach too. It will be joining the rotation.

Trader Joes BBQ Pulled Pork

This is in the refrigerated section. It takes about 2 minutes to microwave. I pulled some hamburger buns out of the freezer and voila–BBQ sandwiches. This would be great with any sort of cole slaw.

Smoked Salmon Hash

This was delicious. And a great use of that smoked salmon we’ve had in our pantry since we found it at the Grocery Outlet. Just 30 minutes to make.