Stoneview

Daniel has declared that Wednesday night should hereafter be pizza night. In addition he’s promised to eat vegetables if there is pizza made. I like a very thin crust but he wants pan pizza. We usually make a couple different ones anyway so this week I endeavored to create a pan pizza for him. We had a pan pizza which was mushroom and chicken sausage and then a flat pizza with zucchini and shrimp topping. I had a rather feisty dough so the thin pizza didn’t turn out very thin but the pan pizza seemed to satisfy.

Pizza dough

2 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast (or about 2 packets)
2 cups warm water (at about 110 F)
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
cornmeal

Mix together the honey, yeast and water in a large bowl and let sit for about 5 minutes or until foamy. In another bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the olive oil and 3 cups of the flour mixture and stir well with a wooden spoon. Abandon the spoon and add more of the flour mixture until you have a dough that’s only slightly sticky. I knead my dough right in the bowl and would rather err on the slightly damp side than the too dry side. Cover tightly with cling wrap and let stand until the dough has doubled. (45 minutes in my case)

Half of this dough went into a 9 x 11 pan for the deep dish and the other half became a flat pizza. I think in future that half might become instead two flat pizzas so that I can get it thinner. The thin pizza I top and put in the oven immediately at 400 F until it browns- 20 minutes in this case and that’s longer than usual. If I get it nice and thin it’s more like 10 minutes. The deep dish pizza continued to rise while the first cooked and then it went into the oven for 25 minutes.

Tortillas is something I’ve never learned to make properly but when I saw a recipe for pork carnitas I had to give it another try. These can’t really be proper tortillas since they are made with butter rather than lard but they were tasty nevertheless.

Tortillas

3 cups masa harina
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 cups chicken broth

Blend together the dry ingredients and then cut in the butter until mixture is crumbly. Stir in the chicken broth until just mixed. Divide mixture into 12 portions, roll into balls and keep covered until they are cooked. One at a time, flatten balls into about a 6-inch circle and toast in a nonstick pan a few minutes on each side until browned. Cool on a wire rack.

Pork Carnitas

2 pounds pork roast, cubed
salt and pepper, to taste
3 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
several cloves of garlic, peeled
1 cup chicken broth
juice of a lime

Preheat oven to 350 F. Toss pork cubes with flour, salt and pepper and brown in the olive oil over high heat in a dutch oven. Remove from heat. Add the garlic, broth and lime juice. Cover and bake at 350 F for 90 minutes. Add water as needed to keep meat moist.

I served my carnitas on the tortillas with some red onion (cooked until soft) and avocado and topped with cilantro. A salad of lettuce and tomato completed the meal.

Recently I bought a rather large container of local honey. There were only 2 sizes, 8 ounces that would disappear unreasonably quickly or 5 pounds that might be a challenge to use. Searching for recipes to use honey with I found a bread with nuts that looked nice and went from there. This is my tweaked version. I made two loaves thinking I’d have one for the freezer but Daniel and Chris decimated the first loaf no sooner did it emerge from the oven and Jason took half of the second to work today. If you wanted something more decadent you could use the juice of the orange to make a nice glaze for these by mixing it into some confectioner’s sugar and warming until dissolved. I used the orange for yogurt/banana/blueberry smoothies for lunch instead.

Nut ‘n’ Honey Bread
(makes 2 loaves)

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white wheat flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
1 1/2 cups honey
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups skim milk
1 large eggs, lightly beaten
zest of an orange
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Lightly butter two loaf pans.

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside. Combine liquid ingredients in a small bowl and gently stir into the dry ingredients just until mixed. Divide evenly into the loaf pans and bake one hour at 350 F or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool ten minutes in the pans and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.