Fresh tomatoes are the best.

One of my favorite ways to take advantage of all the fresh produce around this time of year is to throw a pizza party.  Invite a few friends over, take a trip to the farmer’s market and pick out some really fresh toppings, and then experiment with four or five different pizzas!  The thing about having a pizza party like this is that a lot of the work is front-loaded (making the dough, cutting toppings, grating cheese, etc) so when the party is in full-swing, you can actually relax with everybody else!

The Equipment. Let’s just get this out of the way.  To make really stellar pizza at home, it does help to have some basic equipment.  I happened to use my stand mixer to make this batch of dough, but you 100% do not have to have a stand mixer to make pizza dough.  I used to make it by hand all the time.

The two things that really do help with the pizza process though is a pizza stone and pizza peel!  It’s pretty difficult to get a really good crust on your pizza without a stone and it’s nearly impossible to get your pizzas in and out of the oven without a peel.  If you’re dying to make pizza and in the market for a few new pieces of equipment, here’s a deal that pretty hard to pass up:

Pizza Peel and/or Pizza Stone Sale

Through the rest of July, you can get 20% off the pizza peel and/or pizza stone
I have listed in my OpenSky Store.

Just use the code: July20pct

Back to the pizza…

Neo-Neapolitan Pizza Dough (From American Pie)
Makes 4 10-ounce dough balls.

- 5 Cups (22.5 ounces) unbleached bread flour
- 1 Tablespoon honey
- 2 Teaspoons salt
- 1 Teaspoon instant yeast
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 3/4 Cups plus 1 Tablespoon room-temp water

Helpful Equipment:
- Kitchen Scale (Also in my OpenSky Store and you can use the 20% off code for that as well)

Making the dough. This is my go-to pizza dough recipe these days.  I find that it makes a really nice crust that isn’t too thick or thin.  It’s has a great crunch to it but is still a tiny bit chewy in the middle.  It’s pretty all-purpose which I like for a thing like this where I’m making a bunch of different pizzas.

You can do this!

If you’re using a mixer, mix all the dry ingredients together in the mixing bowl and then add the wet ingredients.  Mix on low speed with a dough hook until everything comes together (about 4 minutes), then let the dough rest for 5 minutes in the bowl.  This will help it relax and make it easier to mix.  Then mix it on medium-low for another 2 minutes until it forms a smooth ball that clears the sides of the bowl but sticks slightly to the bottom.

If it’s too dry, mix in water by the Tablespoon.  if it’s too sticky, then do the same with flour.  The dough should pass the windowpane test (Rip off a piece of dough and pull it apart.  Can you see light through it before it rips?  Then you’re on the right track.)

If you’re using hands, stir everything together in a bowl until it forms a ball.  Mix the dough with your hands by continuously dipping your hand in water and work the dough as you turn the ball (think of your hand like a dough hook).  As all the flour gets incorporated, the dough will become hard to work with.  Let it rest for 5 minutes at that point to relax (you and the dough).  Then continue mixing again for 2 or 3 minutes until it passes the windowpane test.

Measuring the dough. Regardless of what technique you use, measure your dough out into 10 ounce balls right away and put them in large plastic bags with some olive oil.

Overnight is best.

Let these sit at room temperature for 15 minutes and then stick them in the fridge overnight.  If you don’t have time for that, you can let them rise at room temperature for an hour, then take them out of the bags, punch them down to get out some of the gas, return them to the bags, and refrigerate them for 2 hours.

I highly recommend just doing the dough the day before (or a few days before).  You’ll end up with better crust and less work to do the day of the pizza making.

This was my dough after a night in the fridge.

Results of the slow rise.

Day of Preparation. Whether or not you decide to give your pizza the overnight treatment, you need to bring the pizza back to room temperature before using it.  Otherwise it’ll be too hard to work with.  At least two hours before you want to make pizza, take out each dough ball, punch it down, form a ball and put it on a baking sheet.

Drizzle on a bit of oil oil onto each ball and cover all of them with a damp towel. (I did 1.5 times a batch of dough which is why I have 6.)

So to be clear, if you want to make the dough the same day you’re making the pizza, you need to make it about 6 hours before dinner time.  Trust me.  It’s easier to do it the day before by a long shot.

Very important.

The Pizzas. Finally, some pizza making.  I picked up a few great things at the farmer’s market for this meal including some heirloom tomatoes, purple peppers, nice yellow squash, fresh arugula, and hot Italian sausage.

I picked up some sopressata and a few other things (like a lot of mozzarella cheese) from the store as well.

Can't go wrong here really.

For the sauce on all my pizzas I used this basic marinara sauce (also from American Pie)

Basic No-cook Marinara Sauce (I changed around some stuff from the original.  Feel free to customize based on what you have in your pantry.)
Makes 6 Cups, enough for probably 18 pizzas.  You can freeze the leftovers!

- 1 28 ounce can tomato purée
- 1 1/2 Cups water
- 1 Tablespoon dried parsley
- 1 Tablespoon dried basil
- 1 Teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 Teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/2 Teaspoon dried marjoram
- 1/4 Cup olive oil
- 2 Tablespoons garlic powder
- 1/4 Cup red wine vinegar
- Salt and pepper to taste

Just mix all that together in a big bowl and you’re ready to go!  It’s actually a really delicious sauce.

Cooking the Pizzas. I used the exact same technique to make each of the below pizzas.  Roll out the dough until it’s the desired size (I shot for about 12 inches across).  Place the dough on a pizza peel that’s been dusted with corn meal or semolina flour.  Add a few Tablespoons of sauce.  Add your toppings.  Slide it onto a 500 degree (pre-heated) pizza stone.  Each pizza should take 10-12 minutes to be done.

Pizza Margherita.  The first pizza I made was a take on a classic Italian pizza with fresh mozzarella, heirloom tomatoes, and basil.  It’s also the pizza in the first photo for this post.

Don't over top the pizzas...

Meat Lovers. I had some meat lovers in attendance so I did one with just the Italian sausage (I pre-cooked it) and the sopressata.

For the meat lovers...

The Purple Pepper Pizza.  This one had these nice little purple pepper slices on it along with fresh yellow squash, cheese, and sopressata.  The purple peppers lost a bit of their color in the oven, but it was still tasty.

The Purple Pepper Pizza!

The Leftovers.  I made a pizza at the end of the night with just the leftovers so it had some meat, some peppers and squash, a few tomatoes, and I topped it some fresh arugula when it came out of the oven which gave it a peppery flavor.

Last one...

I’ve posted a lot of pizza posts on Macheesmo, but hopefully they make it accessible.  The thing that made all these pizzas very tasty was the nice fresh veggies.  Their flavors really came through nicely.  I was really impressed by how much I liked the squash actually.

Pizza is really one of my favorite things to make and with just a bit of time you can blow 95% of restaurant pizzas out of the water.

Here’s a few other pizzas I’ve made over the years:

- Mashed Potato Pizza
- Shrimp Pizza with Red Pepper Pesto
- 3 Tasty Pizzas
- Deep Dish Pizza

If you don't like this, I can't help you.

This dish is an example of a serious food rule: Everything is better with an egg an top.  I’m a pretty big proponent of this rule as shown by The Spanglish and my pepper porridge brunch.

I kind of came up with this dish out of the blue although I’m sure I’m not the first person that’s decided to put a poached egg on very tasty tomatoes.  I figured that the basics of a good bruschetta are pretty similar to the makings of a benedict (toast and a topping), so why not combine the two?!

It was a pretty damn good idea.

Bruschetta Benedict
Serves Two

- 1 pound very ripe tomatoes
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 Tablespoon fresh basil
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 4 Farm fresh eggs
- White vinegar for poaching
- Baguette for toast
- Salt and pepper
- Hot Paprika (optional)

Making the Bruschetta. This is actually a very simple dish to make.  But the key to it is starting with really fresh ingredients.  For starters, that means great tomatoes.

Ripe tomatoes are key.

Making the bruschetta topping is as simple as chopping up the tomatoes into pieces along with mincing the garlic and basil.  Drizzle in the olive oil and taste for salt and pepper.  This is pretty tasty as is!

I like a good amount of garlic.

The Other Ingredients. Again, the real key to this dish is getting the best ingredients you can find, because the ingredients themselves are pretty straightforward.

For the toast portion, I’d recommend a sturdy artisan loaf or a good french baguette.  In a pinch though, I could see how an English muffin would work just fine like a normal benedict dish.

To complete the bruschetta theme...

Also, don’t forget about the eggs.  Anytime I’m making a poached egg dish, I try to find really fresh eggs.  The eggs are sturdier and stick together better.  You can always tell a really good farm raised egg because the yolk stands tall and is a nice orange color.

I picked up a dozen eggs from the local farmer’s market for this dish.  This will poach up nicely.

Good lookin' egg.

Finishing the dish. Besides mixing up the bruschetta, the only parts of this dish are toasting the bread and poaching the eggs.  If you have a grill that you can easily fire up, you could definitely grill the bread which would be a nice touch, but I just toasted mine in a 400 degree oven for about 7 minutes until it as golden brown around the edges.

For the eggs, get a medium sauce pan full of water simmering over medium heat and add about 1/4 cup white vinegar to it.  The vinegar will help the eggs set up in the water.  Be sure not to keep the water at a boil or it’ll break up the eggs.

A small simmer is what your looking for.  Then just slowly roll your eggs into the water and cook for about 3 minutes for a runny yolk.  Be sure to crack your eggs into a bowl separately before you put them into the water or you run the risk of getting shell in your egg.

You’re looking something like this!

My favorite eggs are poached.

When your eggs are done, pull them out with a slotted spoon and let them drain on a paper towel.

Stack your toast on a plate like so…

Toasted bread is very important.

Then add a few large spoonfuls of the bruschetta mixture, two poached eggs, and top with a drizzle of olive oil, some basil leaves, and a sprinkle of paprika.  The paprika gives the whole dish a very savory flavor.  It’s optional but I think it really added a nice complexity to it.  Just a light dusting of paprika goes a long way here.

I want this again right now.

Of course, cutting into the egg should give you a delicious runny yolk which can act as a sauce for the entire dish.

I rule.

My favorite part of this dish is that it was a lot of food but I didn’t feel full when I was finished with it.  It wasn’t really heavy like a normal benedict dish because it was lacking the hollandaise sauce but it still had tons of flavor.

I think this could be a really awesome brunch dish for a party.  You don’t have to worry about the sauce and you can mix up a huge batch of bruschetta.  Then it’s as easy as poaching some eggs and you have a really fantastic brunch.

But seriously, this dish is mostly about the tomatoes.  Don’t try this with un-ripe, out of season things.  Your patience will pay off!

Best use for leftover bread ever.

Good fortune smiled upon me last weekend.  I live a few blocks from a local farmer’s market and I go there almost every weekend.  Last weekend it happened to be raining (not hard, but definitely raining).  I kind of like it when it’s raining a bit because it means that the market is less crowded!

I also learned that you can get a steal of a deal from any outside bakery when it’s raining.  This makes pretty good sense because baked good and rain don’t mix too well.  I picked up a baguette and two small loafs of really good bread for just a few bucks.

As I was walking home, I was kind of at a loss as to what to do with all this bread that just fell in my lap.  When I got home though I saw that Panzanella salad had won the poll for the week!  That kind of stuff never happens!

Let’s just say that I was pretty excited to let one of my loaves of bread get stale.

Tuscan Panzanella Salad (Adapted from The Capital Cooking Cookbook)
Serves 4.

- 2 Cups stale country bread, ripped into pieces
- 1/2 European cucumber, diced
- 2 Cups ripe tomatoes, diced (I used cherry tomatoes and halved or quartered them)
- 2 celery stalks, diced
- 1/2 red onion, diced
- 4 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, about one ball
- 3-4 Tablespoons fresh basil
- 1-2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar (I like mine vinegary)
- 3 Tablespoons olive oil (I just eyeballed it)
- Salt and pepper

The Bread.  You can use a huge assortment of bread for this salad.  Almost anything that’s a few days stale will work fine.  If your bread isn’t really stale, or if you’re using store bought sliced bread, toast the bread in the oven at 250 degrees for a few minutes to dry it out even more.

Like I said, I use a loaf of bread that I basically stole from the bakery stand at the farmer’s market.  This cost me $1.

You can use almost any bread for this.

Once you have your stale bread, rip it into pieces (or rip it into pieces and then toast it if you want it crispier).  Add the bread pieces to a bowl and drizzle in a bit of white wine vinegar.  I just eyeballed it, but I would guess I used 1 Tablespoon.  Let that marinate while you prepare your other stuff.

The Other Ingredients. The other ingredients for this are pretty standard.  Use the ripest tomatoes you can find and if you can try to find a European cucumber because they have smaller seeds, but if you can’t find one, no big deal.

Ripe tomatoes are most important.

Some of the best flavors in this dish comes from a lot of fresh basil and fresh mozzarella cheese.

Key Italian flavors.

The Chiffonade. The best way to add basil to a salad like this is to chiffonade it.  Sounds fancy.  Looks fancy.  But it’s dead simple to do.  Start by taking all your leaves and stacking them on top of each other.

Then roll them into a tight ball.

Roll it up tight!

Then chop chop chop!

The technical term is chiffonade.

Combine this with all your other chopped veggies.

Everything all chopped up.

Mix your veggies in with your bread and drizzle in the olive oil and a bit more white wine vinegar to taste.  Also taste it for salt and pepper.

Plus the bread and oil.

The best part about this salad is how some bits of bread are really crunchy and some are a bit soggy and flavorful.  The textures are really great and the fresh ingredients make the flavors really pop.

I served this salad as a side for a roasted chicken I made over the weekend.  It was a perfect side dish for the chicken and reminded me a bit of the Zuni roasted chicken dish.

With roasted chicken...

I think this is maybe my number one way to use stale, leftover bread.  Sure.  You can make bread crumbs out of it or french toast or bread pudding (Mental Note: I need to make bread pudding).

But in the hot summer, this just really hit the spot for me.

Good for a picnic!

I’ve received a few emails recently that were along the lines of… “Hey Nick.  I refuse to turn on my oven until September.  Please give me food to eat that’s oven-free.”

So to answer the call this week I’m doing a few different pasta salads and summer salads that are very quick to throw together and good hot, cold, or room temperature.  You can take these on a picnic or eat them hunched over your computer while you study for the Bar Exam (says Betsy).

The great thing about pasta salad is that you can really go crazy with the add-ins.  I completely winged this white bean salad and it turned out really nice.  Betsy and I ate it for dinner one night and then I had leftovers for lunch throughout the week.  If you didn’t know, it’s almost impossible to make a small amount of pasta salad.

White Bean Pasta Salad
Makes a lot.

- 1 pound orecchiette pasta (or your favorite)
- 4 Cups cannellini beans (about two cans or 1/2 pound dried)
- 1 Cup kalamata olives, diced
- 8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, chopped
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1/2 red onion, diced
- 3 Tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
- 1/2 Cup olive oil
- Salt and pepper

Cooking the beans. I decided to use dried beans for this recipe and when I make dried beans I make a lot and then use the leftovers for various things throughout the week.  I think dried beans have a slightly better flavor and texture than canned beans, but it’s not a huge difference, especially for a dish like this that has a lot of other strong flavors in it.

So if you want to speed this recipe up even more, use canned beans.

If you’re using dried though, get them soaking in cold water for about 6-8 hours, overnight is good.

The long soak.

As they soak, remove anything that floats from the beans.

Then add them to a medium pot with 3 Cups of water per Cup of beans and bring them to a boil.  Let them simmer for about 35-40 minutes until they are tender.  Then drain them and set them aside.

I say to use 4 Cups of these guys for this pasta salad but I probably used closer to 6 Cups because I had them.  Also, these beans keep great for a week or so in the fridge or you can even freeze them for months.  Just make sure they are completely cooled before you freeze them.

Pretty simple people.

The Pasta. I decided to use this fun ear pasta that I found in the store for this version.  It was fine, but if you can’t find it, don’t fret.  Feel free to use any non-spaghetti pasta for this.  Fusilli or bowtie pasta would work great also.

Regardless of what pasta you pick, just cook it according to the package and make sure not to overcook it!  You definitely want it to be al dente.

An okay choice.

The Other Stuff. There’s some really flavorful things that I put into this pasta.

Not pictured below is the basil which is also a strong flavor.

Good simple flavors.

All of these ingredients are pretty easy to prepare.  Half your tomatoes, chop your cheese into cubes, dice your onion, and mince your basil.  The only thing that might cause you some issues is the olives.  If you can find pitted kalamata olives, use them.

I accidentally bought olives that had the pits, which is totally the pits.

If you’ve never pitted olives before though it isn’t too hard.  Just get a large knife and chop down the center of the olive.  You’ll hit the pit obviously.  Then, applying a tiny amount of pressure, roll the knife forward on the olive.  The pressure should dislodge the pit and you’ll be left with two halves.  It might take you a try or two to get the hang of it, but it should work about 95% of the time.  Sometimes you get a stubborn one though.

Just eat the stubborn ones!

Olive you guys.

Mix everything together in a big bowl!

Chopping skillz...

Drizzle in your olive oil and add a good pinch of salt and pepper.  Keep in mind that the olives are pretty salty so don’t over-do it on the salt.

All mixed up!

I thought this was even better on day two and three after the flavors melded a bit, but it was just fine on day one also!

Yes. That's the same napkin from yesterday. Calm down.

I encourage you to add more or less of any of the ingredients based on your tastes.  If you’re in a hurry, feel free to used canned beans and use whatever pasta you can find.

The flavors are classic and it’s pretty hard to go wrong.

Really good flavors.

Summer is here and that means one thing:  tomatoes!  About now is when you should start seeing really ripe red tomatoes in the stores and farmer’s markets.

This is a salad that actually adapted from a restaurant I used to work at although I’m sure my version is slightly different just because I don’t have the exact recipe.  But the idea is the same.

Instead of using a normal vinaigrette or something for this salad, the dressing is a tomato marmalade with ripe cherry tomatoes, rosemary, and red wine vinegar.  Tossing the greens in a tablespoon or two of this gives the whole salad a very rich tomato taste.

Tomato Salad
Serves 4 as an appetizer.

Tomato Marmalade:
- 1 pint ripe cherry tomatoes
- 1 sprig fresh rosemary
- 1/3 Cup sugar
- 2 Cups water
- Pinch of salt
- 2 Tablespoon red wine vinegar

Rest of the salad:
- Greens
- Ripe Roma tomatoes (or your favorite tomato.  Heirloom tomatoes would also rock.)
- Fresh basil
- Toasted bread
- Sprinkle of sea or kosher salt
- Mozzarella Cheese (optional)

Making the Marmalade. You could make this savory marmalade a few days or even a week in advance.  It stores beautifully.  Not that it’ll last that long though because it’s very tasty.

Marmalade Ingredients

In a medium saucepan, add all your ingredients except the red wine vinegar and get it cooking over high heat.

Your tomatoes should be covered completely with water.  If not, add more water.

Cooking down...

Once this comes to a boil, remove your rosemary sprigs from the pan.  They will have given off a lot of flavor and you don’t want the large sprigs in your final product.

Once it’s boiling, move your temperature down to low so it’s simmering and let this cook down for about an hour.  After a few minutes of boiling you should be able to mush up the tomatoes which should help the cooking process.

This is after about 30 or 40 minutes of simmering:

Almost done...

Once it gets down to almost a syrupy consistency, kill the heat and add in your red wine vinegar to taste.  For me this was about 2 Tablespoons but you could use more or less.

Let this cool completely for an hour or two.  Once it’s room temperature it should be pretty thick.

Cool and slightly thick.

Making the Salad. Once your marmalade is made, the salad is pretty simple.

A few basic ingredients should do the trick.  Again, the key to this salad is getting really good tomatoes!

You could add some mozz if you wanted.

Add some greens to a bowl and toss in a Tablespoon or two of the tomato marmalade.  A little goes a long way so don’t over-do it!  Give the greens a good toss to coat everything.

A little goes a long way.

You could serve this a number of different ways, but I cut my tomatoes into wedges and added them on top of the greens along with some basil.

If you wanted to do a Caprese type thing, you could add some mozzarella cheese to the finished salad.  I also served this with a nice toasted piece of bird seed bread!

Good summer flavors!

The nice thing about this recipe is that you’ll probably have leftover tomato marmalade.  It’s good on toast or an english muffin.  In fact, if I made this again, I might just make a double batch of that stuff.  It was awesome.

If you’re looking for a good way to use some nice fresh summer tomatoes, give this a shot!

Savory and delicious.

I was thrilled when risotto won the poll last week.  It’s really one of my favorite dishes.  When made right, it’s creamy and flavorful.  It can be paired well with a ton of dishes or just eaten on its own.  It also rocks for leftovers.

For this version I wanted to use some old cherry tomatoes I had in my fridge as well as some really old tomatoes that I left sitting in the sun for 2 months.  Just kidding.  Just wanted to see if you were reading.

Anyway, the end result was really fantastic.  I think the only thing I would change about this recipe is the quantity.  If I make it again, I’m doubling it!

Super Tomato Risotto
Enough for 4 as an entree.

- 1 1/2 Cups Arborio (or Risotto) Rice
- 1 Cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped finely
- 1 Cup cherry tomatoes, halved and roasted
- 1 medium white onion, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 6 Cups chicken stock, hot.  Homemade is best, and I would have probably 8 Cups ready knowing I won’t use it all.
- 2/3 Cup dry white wine (like a Chardonnay)
- 2 Tablespoon heavy cream (optional)
- 1/2 Cup Parmesan Cheese, grated
- Salt and Pepper
- Fresh Basil for garnish

Roasting the Tomatoes. I really wanted to have tons of tomato flavor in my risotto which is why I decided to use two different kinds.

Some old and some new!

This is my preferred method of roasting tomatoes.  It works like a charm.  Chop your cherry tomatoes in half and toss them with some olive oil and a sprinkle of salt (this is in addition to the olive oil in the recipe).  Then lay them cut side up on a baking sheet like so…

Ready to roast!

Stick these in a 325 degree oven for about an hour and you’ll be left with these delicious little roasted things.  You might think an hour is too long, but there’s a ton of water in tomatoes and it takes awhile to evaporate.  Just check on them ever 15 minutes or so to make sure they aren’t burning.

They should have some moisture in them, but they’ll be dry and wrinkled around the edges.  Like this:

Yum.

These are pretty hands-off which is good because the rest of the meal is very hands on.  I suggest roasting them while you are doing other stuff obviously unless you want to turn this meal into a 2-3 hour production.

Prepping Your Ingredients. I’ve always really enjoyed making risotto.  There’s something very calming about it to me.  Slowly stirring as this very hard thing turns into something creamy.  It’s damn near magical people.

And while it does take some work, I wouldn’t exactly classify it as hard.

To prep for the risotto making, you need to do two things:

1) Pour all  your chicken stock in a large pot and get it simmering.  It has to be hot when you add it to your risotto later.

2) Take care of all your chopping before you get started.  That means mince your garlic, chop your onion, and mince all your sun-dried tomatoes.

If you’ve never chopped sun-dried tomatoes before, they can be a bit hard to handle.  I usually just go kamikaze on them until I get them into the desired size, which for this recipe is a very rough pesto-like paste.

Tough chopping...

Cooking the Risotto. The thing to remember about risotto is just to take your time.  If you rush it, it just won’t turn out as good.  It’s the Italian way you see to spend time making good food.

Start with a heavy pot (I use a cast iron enameled pot, but any large heavy pot will work).  Put it over medium high heat and add your butter and oil.  Once the butter is melted, add your onions to the pot.  Let them cook down for a few minutes (you don’t even want them browned).  Then add your garlic and cook for another thirty seconds or so.

Next, add all your risotto rice.  It might seem odd to add the rice to an essentially dry, hot pan, but it’s what you want to do.  Heating the rice will open it up some and allow it to soak up moisture better and faster.

At this point, you should have something like this:

The start of something wonderful.

Let the rice cook with oil, butter, garlic, and onions for no longer than a minute.  Stir it constantly during this time so the rice doesn’t stick to the pan.

Next, add all your sun-dried tomatoes and your white wine.  This will cause some serious hissing.  Use the white wine to scrap up any little bits that are on the pan and keep stirring!

The Waiting Begins. At this point your rice is ready to start adding your hot chicken stock.  It helps if you have your chicken stock heating in a pot right next to the pan with your risotto in it.  Add your first ladle of hot stock to the risotto once all the white wine is almost evaporated.  That’ll be about 30 seconds after you add it.  Not long at all.

I used a ladle that I think had about a 3/4 Cup capacity so if you don’t have a good ladle, you can definitely just use a measuring cup to add in your chicken stock.

Once you add the stock to the rice, stir slowly.  When the rice starts to get dry, add another ladle!  Keep stirring!

As you can imagine, your first ladle of stock will be absorbed almost instantly.  Your second ladle will take a minute or two.  By your third or fourth ladle, it should start being 5-6 minutes in between ladles.

Keep stirring but you don’t need to stir vigorously.  You aren’t whipping egg whites or anything.  Just keep it moving.

Cheater’s Note: You don’t actually have to stir continuously once you get the hang of it.  You can take a break for a minute or two to drink your wine which, according to the country of Italy, is the only acceptable reason to stop stirring risotto.

After about 25-30 minutes of this, you should be about half-way home.

Getting creamy!

The only thing to really remember about this is to not add your stock too fast, but don’t let the rice burn.  Right when it’s starting to look a bit dry, add more stock.

Taste the risotto regularly to test the texture.  The final product should have a very tiny bite to it.  You don’t want it mushy.  But you also don’t want it crunchy.  I’ve found that my risotto is about perfect after 40-45 minutes or so of cooking.  It seems like a long time, but it’s really not that bad.

Warning: I always recommend heating up more chicken stock then you’ll need just in case.  It sucks to run out and have to switch to lukewarm water to finish your risotto.

Finishing the Risotto. When the risotto is at the perfect consistency and you aren’t planning on adding in any more stock, stir in a tiny amount of cream if you want along with the Parmesan cheese and all of your roasted tomatoes.

Also, taste for salt and pepper at this point and adjust.  I don’t like to add salt before this because normally chicken stock is pretty salty.

More tomatoes... why not.

Serve this as quick as you can!  Basil as a garnish is a great touch.

Basil is a given here.

According to Betsy, this was one of the better risottos I’ve made.  It was really creamy and the tomato flavor was very intense, but in a good way.

Like I said, if I made this again the only thing I’d change is that I’d double this bad boy!

Kind of complicated...

When I post random polls like last week’s poll, it’s a certainty that the option I have nothing actually planned for will win.  It’s cosmic.  This trend was continued when “something cold” won.  I mean, I know and love lots of cold things.  Beer, for example, is cold.

But I didn’t have anything particularly in mind for a cold dish.  I was mentioning my little dilemma to Betsy and she said that she saw an interesting recipe for a chilled strawberry soup.  Given that it was the hottest weekend of the summer (so far) last weekend, that sounds very delicious to me so I thought I’d give it a go.

Chilled Strawberry Soup (Adapted from The Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook)
Serves 4.

Ginger Infused Melon Balls:
- 1 Cup pineapple juice
- 1/4 Cup Sugar
- 1 Tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
- 1/2 of a honeydew melon
- 1/4 cantaloupe

Soup:
- 3 Cups strawberries, the fresher the better
- 1/4 cantaloupe
- 4 ounces vanilla yogurt (or plain yogurt with 1/2 Teaspoon vanilla)
- 1 Cup milk
- Pinch of sugar and salt
- The original recipe calls for sour cream, but I’m not sure I recommend it.  Add it carefully.

Helpful Equipment:
- A blender or a food processor

I think this recipe turned out okay.  It wasn’t my favorite but I also had built it up in mind to a level that was maybe not attainable with real food.

Making the Syrup.  The first part of this recipe really intrigued me and actually made the recipe.  You make a quick pineapple/ginger syrup and then soak some melon in that syrup overnight to infuse some flavor.  It’s a delicious addition to the soup.

The original recipe used pineapple juice but I thought it might be an improvement to blend up some fresh pineapple and use that!

CHOP!

NOTE: I don’t think fresh pineapple really added much to the dish.  If you want to try this recipe, just use pineapple juice and save yourself some time!

After that, making the syrup is as simple as combining the grated ginger, pineapple juice, and some sugar in a small pot.

Other uses: Cocktails!

Bring this to a boil and let it simmer for about 5 minutes until it resembles a thin syrup.

Meanwhile, get out your trusty melon baller and get to work!

Scrape a spoon in there to get the bonus bits.

I used half of a honeydew and a quarter of a cantaloupe.  Once you get out as many balls as possible, don’t forget to scrape the melon with a spoon to get all the leftovers!  That’s a great snack!

Once your syrup is done, let it cool for a few minutes and then pour it over your melon.  Refrigerate this for at least 4 hours, but it’s best overnight.

These were actually delicious.

The Soup Part. This was the part of the recipe that I think could be improved.  I think if I were making it again, I’d leave out the sour cream and maybe substitute a few Tablespoons of heavy cream or just use yogurt and milk.  The sour cream gave the soup a really tangy flavor that overpowered the strawberries.

Finally... strawberries.

Making the soup is pretty straightforward though.  Just clean your strawberries and add them to your processor or blender of choice!

I absolutely love my new food processor.

Ready to blend!

Give it a few pulses and then add the other quarter of your cantaloupe.  The cantaloupe works well with the strawberries, but if you want a really intense strawberry flavor, you could leave it out I think.

Seemed a bit unnecessary...

Process that all together some more until it’s a liquid and then add in all your dairy products.  Again, I think this is where the recipe could be improved.

I did a bad job of tasting as I went here and just threw in all the dairy that the recipe called for only to be disappointed with the final flavor.

So, I relearned a lesson that I already knew:  TASTE AS YOU GO PEOPLE.

A bit bitter...

Anyway…  So once this soup is done, it also needs to chill for at least a few hours, but the original recipe says to chill it overnight!

Then garnish it with some of the infused melon and, if you have some, some chopped basil!  The basil is very optional and not in the original recipe.

Maybe not worth the work...

So to be completely honest, I didn’t love this soup as much as I thought I would.  It’s not that it tasted bad, it’s just that the flavors were really complicated, maybe too complicated.  When I think of strawberry soup, I want something simple that tastes of strawberries, but this was a mix of a ton of different flavors.

I think the main problem I had with this recipe though was that I didn’t really taste it as I went (I should know better I know).  So if you’re adventurous enough to try this, taste as you go and let me know what you change!

Meanwhile, I’m going to try to work on a strawberry soup recipe that’s simple and really delicious.  If you have any strawberry soup tips/recommendations, leave a comment!

I used a spicy, kinda rustic tomato soup for my version and went with a poached egg.  This was a really healthy dinner and Betsy and I loved it.

The soup is good. The egg is great.

I found this recipe in a Body and Soul magazine actually.  But I couldn’t find it again when I was trying to look it up to write this post.  I made some changes to the original anyway though.

Eggs in Purgatory (Adapted from a Body and Soul recipe)
Serves 2-4

- 1 28 ounce can of tomatoes (I used fire roasted, but you can use your favorite)
- 4 large fresh eggs
- 3 cloves garlic, sliced
- 1-2 Teaspoons red pepper flakes (depending on how hot you want it)
- 1 Cup water or stock of your choice
- 3 Tablespoons olive oil
- Fresh basil, chiffonade
- 4 thick slices toast
- Salt and pepper

Preparing Everything. The only thing that’s somewhat important about this recipe is to make sure you get everything prepped before you start cooking.  Once you start cooking, the dish comes together really quickly.

To start, chiffonade your basil.  Don’t worry.  It’s sounds fancy but it’s actually just the most efficient way to cut basil or any leafed thing really.  Just stack up your leaves on top of each other and then roll them up tightly.

This is how you do it.

Then slice the leaves very thin and you’ll end up with these great strips of basil.  It’s perfect to finish off a dish like this.

It's called a chiffonade.

Set aside your basil for later and slice a few thick pieces of bread.  I’m a fan of using no knead bread for this because it produces a really thick and crusty toast that holds up great against the soup.  If you used crappy store bought white bread, you’d end up with soggy little bits in your soup.

Good bread is very important to this dish.

Also, peel and slice very thinly your garlic and measure out your red pepper flakes.  You could use up to 2 Teaspoons of red pepper flakes or mix in some cayenne if you want the soup to really pack a punch.  I used about 1 teaspoon I think and it was a good amount of heat.

Just some more prep.

Also, if your tomatoes aren’t crushed already, add them all to a bowl and crush them up with your hands.

Don't be afraid to get dirty.

Starting the soup. To start the soup, add your oil to a large sauce pan and add your garlic and pepper flakes.  Fry these for a few minutes over medium-high heat until they become really fragrant and the garlic will start to turn lightly brown.  Be careful not to burn!

You’re looking for something like this:

Watch this closely.

Then add all your crushed tomatoes, the water, and a pinch of salt and pepper.  Give this all a start and bring it to a simmer.   Be sure to actually taste the soup to make sure the salt and pepper levels are good to go.

Now would be the perfect time to start the toast for this dish.  Just add your bread slices to a 400 degree oven and let them toast for about 10-15 minutes.  You want them to be really crispy.

Poaching the eggs. Cooking the eggs is about as easy as it gets.  The only tip I have is to not get fancy and try cracking the eggs straight into the soup.  That’ll lead to disaster almost certainly.  Instead, crack all your eggs into bowls and gently slide them into the soup one by one.  You can cook all the eggs at the same time, just spread them out over the soup.

The only other tip is to make sure your soup isn’t at a rolling boil.  That would just break up the eggs.  A light simmer is what you’re looking for.

Ready for a dip.

These will need to cook for 3 minutes for perfectly cooked poached eggs (runny on the inside).

Meanwhile, take your toast out and make sure it’s nice and crusty.

Toast ready

Putting Everything Together. You have two options to serve this dish.  Either you can just serve the bread on the side or you can actually add it to the bottom of your bowl!  If you want to add it to the bottom like I did, it’s really important that you have crusty toast (have I mentioned that enough times yet?) or else you’ll have a big soggy mess at the bottom of your bowl.

Also, if you serve the toast under the soup, you’ll want to eat it as soon as possible.  In any event, once your egg is done, take it out of the soup with a spoon and add it to your toast.

Looking good.

Then ladle your tomatoes over the eggs and add a pinch of basil to the top.  This is good stuff.

A great dish.

Start to finish this dish takes maybe 30 minutes.  It’s really fast, healthy and tasty.  Betsy and I ate it as dinner, but you could serve it for four people as an appetizer course (one egg per person).

I loved this dish and it’s on the make-again-soon list for me.

She really only ever orders two things from there so it means that I make a lot of fries (or she’ll allow a tater tot substitution) and nuggets.  The girl loves her nuggets.  Luckily Betsy is far from picky so I get the chance to play around with how I make them.  If I fry them, I call them NickNuggets because they taste the same (but better) as the McDonald’s variety.

This time though, I decided to bake them.

I like mustard. Betsy likes ketchup.

I wanted to make sure that the crust would be nice and crispy for these so I decided to use Panko instead of normal breadcrumbs.

Baked Chicken Nuggets
Serves 2-4 as a main dish or appetizer

- 1-2 pounds boneless chicken thighs, cut into, well, nuggets
- 1/2 Cup all-purpose flour
- 1 Cup Panko breadcrumbs
- 3 Tablespoons basil, chopped
- 1/2 Cup Parmesan cheese, grated
- A good pinch of salt, pepper, and any kind of Italian seasoning you want to use.
- 2 Eggs, whisked with 2 Tablespoons water or milk
- 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (optional I guess)

The Prep. I decided to use basil for this variety because I had some laying around the house, but you could sub out parsley if you wanted to make these more like chicken parmesan in nugget form.

Yummy crust makings.

Chop up the basil, grate the Parmesan, and mix everything in with the Panko crumbs.  Of course, Parm and Panko look very similar so it’s hard to tell that it’s in there.  Trust me.  It is.

Really tasty crust.

You’ll also want to set up your egg wash which is just a few eggs whisked together with either water or milk.

The Nuggets. You can definitely use boneless skinless breasts for this, but I actually like dark meat more and it happens to be a lot cheaper because everybody is on the chicken breast bandwagon.  Regardless of what you use, try to trim off as much fat as possible and cut your chicken into bite-sized bits.

Once all your chicken is chopped up, toss the nuggets with a light dusting of flour just to dry out it out a bit so everything else sticks to it.

Just to dry them out.

Next, dredge each nugget (or you can do a handful at a time) into the egg mixture and then into the Panko mixture.  Be sure to really press the Panko mixture into the nuggets so it sticks nicely.  Then layout all the nuggets in a baking dish.  You can pack the nuggets pretty close, but just try not to have any that are overlapping.

Ready to bake... almost.

Now, you could just bake these like this in a 450 degree oven, or if you wanted to kick them up a notch, drizzle some melted butter over all the pieces.  That’ll really show McDonald’s who’s boss!

I guess you could leave this out... but come on.

Whether or not you do the butter drizzle, bake these for about 10-12 minutes and then take them out and give them a turn.  This just makes sure that they are browning and cooking evenly.

Give them a turn halfway through.

Another ten minutes or so in the oven and you’ll have some deliciously crunchy nuggets.  They may not be as perfectly uniform as the fast food version, but that’s kind of weird anyway.

Crispy and tasty.

Be sure to test one by cutting into it to make sure that the juices run clear and the chicken is cooked all the way through before serving them.  You could serve these with any kind of mustard (homemade is always good) or ketchup.  Strangely, I hate ketchup (unless I have to defend it) and Betsy hates mustard.  So we normally have to have both with meals like this.  We both like honey though so that makes an appearance sometimes also.

Very tender.

These are really easy to make and I’d put them up against the Big M variety any day of the week.

Someday, when I have children, they will think that this is fast food.  It’ll be a good time.

I try to post delicious and interesting things on Macheesmo so I spare you all the boring daily salad and breakfast smoothie (although I am working on a master smoothie post).  That said, I wanted to share this mushroom and barley stew because not only is it really delicious, it also happens to be very healthy.

Very healthy... minus the beer in the background.

The mushrooms and barley in this recipe produce a very filling stew.  In fact, I definitely don’t miss meat when I’m eating it.  Everything has a great texture to it and tons of flavor.  Plus barley is hugely underrated so it’s worth posting on.  I think you can find it boxed in the cereal section or definitely loose in the grain section.

Mushroom and Barley Stew (Adapted from a Better Homes & Gardens Recipe)
Serves 6. (I doubled it when I made it so Betsy and I ate it for days.)

- 1/2 large onion chopped
- 1 large carrot, halved and sliced
- 1 rib of celery, sliced
- 3/4 pound mushrooms, quartered or halved if they are smaller.  I used a mix of baby porcini and shiitake.
- 1 can (15 ounce) red or black beans, drained
- 1 can (14 ounces) stewed tomatoes
- 2 Cups new potatoes, quartered
- 1 10 ounce bag frozen corn (I omitted this by accident but wish I hadn’t.)
- 1/2 Cup barley (not the quick cooking variety!)
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 Teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 Teaspoon dried basil
- 1/2 Teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 Teaspoon black pepper
- 3 Cloves garlic
- 5 cups vegetable broth
- Pinch of salt

Toppings (optional):
- Scallions
- Red Pepper
- Greek Yogurt

Helpful Equipment:
- Crockpot/slow cooker (This is the model I have and I already love it.  I’m waiting a bit to add it to my OpenSky Store so I can make sure it’s very good.  I got the largest model because who wants a small slow cooker?!)

If you don’t have a slow cooker, you can definitely make this just like a normal stew.  You could just add all your ingredients to a large stock pot and simmer for 30-45 minutes or until your barley is soft and you’d be all set.

But of course the great thing about doing this is a slow cooker is that it becomes a week night meal.

Preparing the Veggies.  I made this on a random week night so the night before I prepped whatever veggies I could so I’d have them ready in the morning.

Possibly overkill on the mushrooms

I sliced up my onion, celery, carrots, and mushrooms.  You can keep them pretty large because they are going to be cooking all day.  You probably don’t want to cut up your potatoes the night before or they will just turn brown.  You could do it though if you kept them in water.

You can do this the night before!

The Morning of… After 15 minutes before I was leaving for work I chopped up my potatoes:

I just used half the bag.

Opened a few cans of beans and tomatoes:

Yea. I realize I opened it upside down. Thanks.

Got all my spices ready:

Dried is just fine for this dish.

And don’t forget the stock and barley!  Because I doubled the recipe when I made it I actually used about half stock and half water and I thought it was perfect.

Seriously one cup is a lot.

The Beast. Betsy and I got this fantastic slow cooker for a wedding gift (Thanks Matt and Julie!).  I’ve named it “The Beast”  in reference to one of my favorite Stones songs, Beast of Burden.  If it isn’t obvious, I named it that because, well, it’s a beast of burden.

It does all the work for me!

It also happens to be enormous.

The Beast!

Cooking the stew. There isn’t much to say about cooking this stuff in a slow cooker.  I added all my ingredients at once into The Beast and added enough extra water to almost cover the ingredients.  It’s important to remember that when you’re cooking with a slow cooker, not a lot of water will escape.  In fact, some of your veggies will give off water while they cook.

So it’s okay to not completely cover the veggies with water.  This was what mine looked like before I left for work.

Barley and the Beast!

I cooked mine on low heat for 10 hours.  The Beast has this nifty feature which automatically shifts to “Warm” after the programmed time is up so no matter what your dinner will be hot when you get home.

I was a bit scared to leave something hot plugged in all day while I was gone, but I shouldn’t have been.  I came home to a delicious smelling apartment and this wonderful pot of stew.

Ten hours later...

I suggest tasting it for salt and pepper. Mine needed a pinch of both.

I served mine with an assortment of toppings.  My favorite was Greek yogurt which gives the stew a nice creamy consistency.  You could do sour cream if you wanted, but Greek yogurt is a great healthy substitute and it tastes very similar in a dish like this.

I loved the Greek yogurt on this.

Betsy and I ate this for a few days and I was a little sad when it was gone.  It was perfect heated up for lunch and just made us both feel very healthy!  My biggest worry was that the veggies would be really soggy after cooking all day, but honestly they were perfect.  They weren’t mushy at all.

Even if you don’t have a Beast of your own, this would be worth the time to make in my opinion!