Pizza Party for One

I'm a major pizza fan.  Matt and I could single-handedly put Cici's Pizza and their all-you-can-eat pizza buffet out of business if we wanted.  But then we wouldn't have anymore all-you-can-eat pizza and that would be a sad world to live in.  It's not like I think Cici's is the best pizza around - far from it - but when it comes to pizza, I'm willing to try it in any form.

With such a love for this Italian specialty, it was only a matter of time before I took it on myself.  I often passed by the pizza dough in the refrigerated section of the grocery store only to leave without putting it in my buggy.  To me, dough = baking, and we all know I'm no baker.  But with the long weekend ahead of me, I decided it was time to experiment.

As I tried to devise my recipe, I came up with too many topping combinations to choose just one, so I decided to split the dough in half and make two different pizzas.  The first had pesto as a base, artichoke hearts, ricotta, and lemon zest.  The other had marinara, buffalo mozzarella, wild mushrooms sauteed with rosemary, and truffle oil.  Since the only thing I actually had to cook (other than baking off the pizzas) was the mushroom and that's pretty easy to pull off, the whole meal only took about 20 minutes to make, including bake time.

It's all about picking quality ingredients and assembling them properly.  While we're on the subject of quality ingredients, the only thing I would change would be the pizza dough.  When I decided to take on pizza, the store didn't have real pizza dough so I used the Pillsbury brand.  All Pillsbury products are exactly the same.  The dough tastes identical regardless of the packaging so my pizza was basically on a thin crescent roll.  It was fine but not authentic.  Now that I've found good topping combos, I may have to try the real deal dough.  Pretty soon, I'll be good enough to say itsa pizza pie like a real Italian, you know, like Super Mario.

Zucchini Two Ways

Last night was all about zucchini.  I had found a recipe for zucchini soup that looked promising so I headed to Fairway on my lazy Sunday to pick up the ingredients.  I assumed I would end up with some extra zucchini so I picked up a few additional ingredients to try out a fun zucchini appetizer.

The soup was easy to make: I sauteed shallots and zucchini in a soup pot until tender and then simmered in stock and water with dill and parsley.  I pureed it and stuck it in the fridge to start chilling while I set to work on the appetizer.  I took the extra zucchini and sliced it thin on a mandolin.  I then seasoned it slightly and roasted it in the oven for about 20 minutes.  While it was getting nice and pliable in the oven, I mixed together goat cheese, lemon zest, and basil.  I spread the goat cheese filling on each zucchini strip and rolled them up into cute little pinwheels.  It hit me that these little scrolls are great at room temperature and the filling can be made in advance so they would be perfect for bringing to a party.  I'll remember that one for later.  By the time I was done with my appetizer, my soup had chilled so I removed it from the fridge and stirred in some salt, pepper, and greek yogurt.

I am surprised that I was satisfied with an all vegetarian dinner like this, but after spending the whole weekend eating takeout and beer, lighter fare was exactly what I wanted.  Also, since it's Labor Day weekend and Summer is officially coming to a close, I wanted to take advantage of all the herbs that really make Summer cooking special.

Chatting and Chewing

On Saturday, the plan was to eat and then hit up the green market, so we needed a restaurant right around Union Square.  After some investigation, we picked Chat 'n Chew since it was cheap and just a few feet away from all the fresh produce in the square.  The decor is like Union Square itself - half bustling urban with it's metal walls and half down home farm style with roosters and chalkboards.

I went with the breakfast burrito special, which was a hug tortilla filled with chili, eggs, cheese, and a southwestern mayo on the side.  The menu is small and simple - just a few sweet and a few savory items, but there is at something for everyone and nothing over $11.  It was exactly what we needed to fuel up before the green market where Jon picked up fruits and veggies for his home juicer.  Did you know juicing is all the rage now?

Beer at Birreria

It took me literally the entire summer, but on the last official Friday afternoon of Summer 2012, I finally made it to Birreria, the rooftop bar at Eataly.  The weather was simply perfect for outdoor drinks and nibbles so we spent a few hours chilling on the roof.  The food is good, but the selection and prices seem better downstairs in the main Eataly web of food stations.  I would go early, get some food downstairs (maybe put your name on the list if it looks like a line is forming) and then head to the roof just for drinks.

On the upside, the Eataly staff makes sure the bar never gets overly crowded.  There was more than enough space to spread out and it was so nice to be able to enjoy this prime outdoor real estate without getting bumped and banged.  The downside is that this means the bar fills up quickly and a line soon develops downstairs in front of the elevator.  If you happened to get caught in a 30+ minute line and decided it wasn't worth it and now fear the bar will be closed now that Summer is over, fear not.  The bar has a retractable roof and heat lamps so we can keep  this party going all year long.

Ask for Basque

When you allow yourself to forget that walking through Bar Basque makes you feel like you're on an episode of Deep Space Nine, you'll probably enjoy yourself and the food.  This crazy setting comes courtesy of Jeffrey Chodorow (Asia de Cuba, China Grill, etc.) who has a flair for theatrics.  Everything is black, red, and shiny, including the cold, metal toilets.  The inside may feel space age-y and robotic, but the outdoor lounge area is subtle and airy.  It juts into the Eventi Hotel courtyard air space and faces a giant screen that has been plastered on the wall of the adjacent building.  Sometimes, this screen features old movies but on Wednesday night, we got to watch the US Open as we enjoyed the crisp end-of-August air.

The Basque Country is a specific region that crosses Spain and France, but the culinary focus here is all Spanish.  Steph and I started with cocktails that were tasty but too sweet.  (My watermelon and raspberry martini tasted like a Jolly Rancher.)  We decided to switch to the all-Spanish wine list for drink number two, a wise choice.  For our first bite, we wanted to get an order of the croquettes and the waitress recommended the wild mushroom.  The mushrooms were very...wild (not sure how else to describe that strong flavor - I like it, others don't).  I thought that while the flavor was there, the texture of the filling was a little to runny.  The next dish was more mushroom, but this was a definite success: portobello mushroom fries with a cod roe dip.  I know seeing the word "roe" on a dish frightens some people, but trust me anyone would enjoy this slightly salty mayonnaise.  The fries were not too thick, not too thin and cooked just the right amount of time to maintain a sturdy texture.  We veered away from mushrooms for our third dish and ordered calamari a la plancha in a squid ink sauce.  The plump bites of squid were nicely seared and not doused in sauce.  Why squid is not served in its own ink more often, I do not know, but it seems like a logical combination.  I can now tell you it is not only logical but tasty as well.

We were celebrating Steph's birthday, so dessert was a must.  Steph immediately spotted salted caramel ice cream on the menu and what b-day girl wants, b-day girl gets.  Turns out the ice cream comes in groups of either three or six adorable mini cones.  We rounded out our trio with cream cheese and rice pudding flavors.  The cream cheese tasted basically like French vanilla, but the rice pudding was my surprise favorite thanks to the speckles of rice pearls.  The cones were paper thin crisps instead of mini versions of a regular sugar cone, which is good because that would have been too thick for these dainty desserts.  The dessert menu as a whole was very inventive, but we had to try the fried milk, which came as four building blocks of warm custard encased in a sugar crust.  I wish there was a little more of the passion fruit sauce on the plate but overall this was a great, fun dessert.  I don't even know what would happen if you paired this with Momofuku Milk Bar's cereal milk.  I might self combust.

My only complaint would be the service.  There are hostesses when you walk in but they pretty much stand their posts and say hello with a smile as you walk in, but finding a seat is all up to you.  Once you're sitting, it's rare for a server to walk by so acquiring your food could take some time.  Steph and I were in no rush, but if you walk in ready to eat, you may need bring along some sort of flashing light to attract the eye of a waitress.

Sweet Sausauge and Aged Gouda Pasta

They may have given the “all clear” signal on Sunday, but I decided to pretend the hurricane was still raging and stayed holed up in my apartment, reading a book all day.  I didn’t even change out of my pajamas.  At around 6:00, I decided it was time to start thinking about dinner but I certainly was not planning to go out and get food; that would require putting on real clothes.  I pretty much cleaned out my fridge as a hurricane precaution, but I did have some ingredients in the freezer that weren't cleared out during storm prep and decided to throw together a one-pot pasta meal.

I browned up some sweet Italian pork sausage and then added some of Trader Joe’s’ sweet balsamic onions.  I know that sounds like a lot of sweet in one dish, so I tossed in some grated aged gouda that I had leftover to provide the necessary salt and cave-y taste the dish needed.  I added a little cream and toasted pine nuts to achieve the texture I was quite pleased with the final result. 

One of the best things about sausage is that it’s already packed with seasoning, as are most of Trader Joe’s’ frozen vegetables.  Using these two ingredients takes the guesswork out of cooking.  You don’t have to worry if spice X would go with ingredient Y.  Another tip: I think of shells as a pasta shape for kids and, now that I'm a grown up, tend to favor linguine or angel hair.  However, these little conchs capture all the meat and sauce bits in their cavity, ensuring that each bite has tons of flavor and you don't end up eating the pasta first while the toppings fall off and wind up in a pile at the end.

'Cane Party

As a native of New Orleans, Susan knows hurricanes.  It was only fitting she and Greg threw a hurricane party on Saturday while we were all stuck indoors, anticipating the onslaught of Hurricane Irene’s wind and rain that turned out to be little more than a drizzle.  We blasted “Come on Eileen” (changing the words to “Come on Irene” because we’re corny witty), played Taboo, and drank hurricanes in the hurricane.  It was a successful party by any standard but made more impressive by our determination to cook after battling hundreds of crazed New Yorkers at the grocery store.  In case you’re wondering what is most important to Manhattanites during a natural disaster that is likely to take out electricity, I can tell you the top two items I spied in people’s buggies at Food Emporium were beer and sushi.  Priorities.

The action started around 2:15, which is when Greg handed me my first bloody mary, prepared with juice shipped from New Orleans and garnished with spicy pickled green beans and okra.  Next came Matt and Jen’s bakery purchase: lard bread.  Yup, there is actually such a thing as lard bread and it’s phenomenal.  It’s this greasy, yeasty, bread with chunks of pork.  Manna from heaven is what it really is.  Or it would be if the Jews walking the dessert had eaten pork.  Matt also prepared a baked gouda with homemade jalapeno jelly.  I’m not sure how Matt finds the time to make jelly from scratch and tend to all those urology patients.  I don’t plan to ask for fear that he reprioritizes and decides jelly no longer makes the cut.  The final appetizer was a product of my kitchen: Southwestern artichoke dip.  Very similar to regular artichoke heart dip, but with corn, paprika, and cayenne added.  I followed the recipe I got from Big Girls Small Kitchen, but I think it could have used a little more cayenne.  Definitely something to remember for next time since I plan to make it again.  It was a great way to mix up a good but expected party recipe.  For the main course, Greg and Susan prepared shrimp and sausage gumbo as an homage to Katrina, the hurricane that set the bar.  After that, we had a small interlude where we sipped on Hurricanes and let the food settle before we tackled dessert, Jen’s peach cobbler.  All the food was amazing though I think the pancakes we had as a movie snack put me over the edge.

Of course, I’ll take any excuse to party, but I think a weather emergency is the best yet.  If you’re forced to stay inside, why not have fun with it?!

Southwestern Dip

Any food with lard in the title is bound to be good

Baked Gouda with Homemade Jalapeno Jelly

It actually tasted like banana bread.  Does this mean I can have it for breakfast?

I figured this was appropriate for a hurricane party - if we're all gonna die, we should be drinking Dead Guy Ale

Hurricanes for the Hurricane

Cobbler