Chicken Pesto Pizza

So last night I came home in the mood for pizza. In this economy I am not going to whimsically order pizza on a week night just because I am having a craving. Instead, I opened my freezer and fridge to figure out what I could put on this pizza. I have to go food shopping tomorrow so the pickings were slim. I did find an older bunch of basil and half a bag of mozzarella cheese in the fridge and there were chicken breasts in the freezer. I set about defrosting the chicken and began the crust.

I decided it was a good time to pull out How to Cook Everything and try a new recipe. I turned to the Basic Pizza Dough recipe on page 258. I was disappointed that there was not a wheat option, but decided to try this recipe anyway. If I liked it, I could always substitute some of the unbleached white flour for wheat flour when I made it again. I followed the "To make this dough with a standing mixer" variation along with the baking instructions.

I used 1 cup of bread flour and two cups of unbleached all-purpose flour. Following the recipe, the dough was a bit sticky. As recommended by Mark Bittman, I added another TBSP of flour. at that point it was perfect. The dough tasted a bit salty to me, but I decided to go with it.

I also have to admit, true to my name, I got flour EVERYWHERE!!! Note to self: If making this pizza for a crowd...use an apron and don't wear black!

When it was time to let it rise for an hour, I followed a trick I learned from a friend who bakes bread. Our apartment is kept at a rather cold temperature and I have trouble getting breads to rise in a reasonable time. I turned on my empty microwave for two minutes. When it was done I shoved the bowl filled with dough in the microwave and quickly shut the door. This creates a warmer environment for the dough to rise. It worked like a charm. Check out the before and after pictures:

Finished dough waiting to rise.

After rising for an hour in my microwave.

While the dough was rising, I had a chance to do some of my school work. About 10 minutes before it was finished, I put together the pesto. I threw the basil in my trusty blender/processor. This is similar to a Magic Bullet but it is the Bella Cucina brand. Just a quick recommendation here: this product is awesome! I have used it for making salad dressing, smoothies, pesto, grated cheese and pancake batter. I strongly recommend it to anyone who can't afford a large food processor right now or who doesn't have the room for both a food processor and blender.

In the little cup I tossed in all of the basil, three garlic cloves, a few pinches of kosher salt, a few pinches of fresh ground pepper, a small handful of toasted pine nuts, a three small chunks of fresh parmesan and good amount of extra virgin olive oil. I didn't use a recipe. I have made pesto so many times at this point that it is easiest for me to just toss the ingredients together and let it blend.

I would like to note at this point that pesto (or its ingredients) is something I love to have around. You can spread it on sandwiches instead of mayo. You can put it on pasta or on pizza. If you put a dollop of pesto on small, toasted bread rounds and place a small shaving or parmesan cheese on top, it makes an excellent appetizer. I also enjoy pesto shrimp and pesto "garlic" bread. You can really do quite a lot with this stuff and it keeps well in the refrigerator for about a month.

Here are some pictures of the pesto-making process.

Loading up the Bella Cucina processor.

Side view of the processor loaded up.

Blending!!! Sorry for the mess in the background. I am NOT a neat cook. I try to clean up as I go along, but usually end up making more of a mess. I do clean up well when I am done!!

Sorry this picture is a little blurry. But I posted it to show the gorgeous green color of the finished pesto. Fresh pesto is absolutely one of my favorite things.

While I was making the pesto, Awesome Sauce took the defrosted chicken and covered in in garlic powder, parsley, oregano, salt and pepper and cooked it in a pan with a little extra virgin olive oil.

When the dough had risen, I spread it on a greased sheet as Mark Bittman suggested. I did do something that he didn't recommend. I added a little cornmeal to the greased pan. I love this trick. It makes moving the pizza much easier. I used a pastry brush to add a nice layer of pesto. Awesome Sauce added the cooked chicken which he had cut into small pieces. We then added a layer of shredded mozzarella cheese and some fresh grated parmesan. See the pictures below:

Pizza dough covered in pesto.

Awesome Sauce adding his chicken.

Oooh! Chicken on Pesto!!

Mozzarella and Parmesan added!

Finally, it was time to bake our pizza. Mark Bittman suggests you turn your oven to the highest possible temperature and cook the pizza 6-12 minutes. I had never cooked a pizza at that high of a temperature before and admit to being a bit skeptical. I learned that my oven goes to 550 degrees. Once it reached the desired temperature it took 8 minutes for the pizza to look "right" to me.

It was perfect!! We really enjoyed this pizza dough recipe. I will definitely be making it again. Next time I am going to try to add some whole wheat flour. Here is a picture of our finished pizza.

Finished pizza!!

A yummy slice!!

A few minutes after it was done, Junky Monkey walked into the door and had a slice. She enjoyed it as well. Both she and Awesome Sauce requested having the pizza again, only this time instead of a Chicken Pesto Pizza they want a traditional marinara and salty meats pie. As an added bonus, we had over 2/3 of the pizza left for lunches today and snack this weekend! If anyone wants an easy, quick pizza, this recipe is definitely tops!

Pizza Dough Recipe Ratings:
The Clumsy Gourmet: 8
Awesome Sauce: 8.5
Junky Monkey: 9.5

The Blog is Changing Already

It has been almost a month since I have started to cook for this blog. I have only made four items out of Mark Bittman's How I Cooked Everything. I had hoped I would be making a few recipes every week. I haven't stopped cooking, in fact, this month Awesome Sauce and I have made new recipes of french dill bread, butternut squash soup, roasted acorn squash, garlic and parmesan mashed potatoes, Jack Daniels sauce, Jack Daniels steak, Jack Daniels pork rips, miso steak, turkey and black bean chili, thyme steak, parsley potatoes, miso soup and maple balsamic vinaigrette. These were in addition to my every day cooking with my staple recipes. I have simply realized that I am not the type of girl to stick to only one cookbook! I need to play the field a bit!!

I do want to expand my repertoire and learn how to make the classic foods in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, however, to keep my interests going I need to be able to seek out other recipes and to try new things on my own. I missed out on blogging all of those recipes this month because I was trying to stick to posting about one cookbook. From now on I will blog any new recipes I try or any variations I try of my favorite recipes. I will commit to making at least four recipes from How to Cook Everything per month, but I will also post the pictures and results from other recipes I attempt.

Similar copyright rules will apply as before. If the recipe is from a cookbook, I will indicate the recipe name, the cookbook and the page number where it can be found. If the recipe is online, I will post the recipe with credit to where I found it. If the recipe is one I made up I will happily tell you what I did.

I look forward to being able to blog more of the food that I make and trying new recipes.

Golden Cupcakes

So I woke up this morning in the mood to make cupcakes. Yes, cupcakes. So I pulled out my trusty copy of How to Cook Everything and got to work. I chose to make Mark Bittman's Golden Layer Cake (Page 724). I made them in the Golden Cupcakes form.

I loved the batter. It was light and fluffy. I only made 12 and had plenty of batter left over. I easily could have made the 24 the recipes calls for. I followed the directions to fill each almost to the brim. I would like to suggest that you NOT fill each almost to the brim. They spilled over and formed one huge muffin top!!! As cool as this was, individual cupcakes would have been easier. So fill them 3/4 of the way (what I typically do for cupcakes).

NOTE: I did make one change to the recipe. Mark Bittman suggests liberally buttering the muffin tins prior to placing cupcake papers in each. I hate doing this. The papers get greasy and I have never seen the point. In my view it makes things messier with no gain.

I iced the cupcakes with a simple butter, confectioner's sugar, cocoa powder and milk frosting which I threw together.

Overall I was very happy with this recipe. The cupcakes came out moist and tasty. The big test for me is what they will taste like tomorrow. I have made cupcakes that were great the day of and dry the next day. Since I often make cupcakes a day in advance, this is the real test. I really enjoyed the taste of these golden cupcakes and could easily see myself making them again. **NOTE: I tasted them the next day and they were fine! Definitely a slight difference, but that happens when there are no preservatives. This recipe definitely made a great impression on me.

Awesome Sauce Says: "The cake part tasted very good. I like cupcakes that are light and fluffy and not too dry. And a little sweet."

Junky Monkey Says: "It's okay. It doesn't stand out to me as anything special."

Below are some photos:

Here are the cups ready to be filled. As you can see in the bowl there is plenty of batter.

Here I am filling the cups more. Don't do this!!!

They almost look like one giant cupcake!!!

I iced the HUGE tops anyway. Hey, any vehicle for more icing can be a bonus, right? I still don't recommend doing this on purpose, but hey, let's make the best of it.

Golden Cupcakes Rating:

The Clumsy Gourmet: 7
Awesome Sauce: 8
Junky Monkey: 6

Roast Pork with Sage and Potatoes

THIS RECIPE WAS AWESOME!!!!

Okay, so clearly you can tell that this recipe completely rocked! For our New Year's/Holiday party with our weekly dinner group I was providing the meat for our potluck. I made Mark Bittman's Roast Port with Sage and Potatoes (Page 465). Since two others in our group were providing starches, I made this recipe without the potatoes.

This recipe was so easy to make. I doubled the spice recipe for our crowd and used a six and a half pound roast. I also used a roasting pan with the rack in it (the rack is because I didn't use potatoes). I poked about 15 holes in the top and stuffed them with the spice mixture. That was actually a lot of fun. The roasting was easy, but took a bit longer than I thought. This time my trusty meat thermometer behaved and I got a perfect reading when it was time.

This recipe was excellent. It had great flavor and was nice and juicy. I thought this recipe was incredible and so did most of our friends. Junky Monkey thought it was great and wanted to know when we were having it again. Awesome Sauce was less impressed. He thought it lacked flavor though he appreciated how tender the meat was. (Note: Awesome Sauce is not a huge fan of sage, which may have played a part in this). My only complaint is that it came out a bit too salty. In the future I will use a little less salt in the spice mixture.

Below are some pictures.

Here hes the roast resting on the rack.

Here I am cutting into the roast. You can see how the meat is juicy and pink.

Here is a picture of the pork plated and ready to be served.

Here is Awesome Sauce making his contribution: Savory Bacon Puffs!!! He got this recipe from The Silver Spoon, another awesome cookbook. Incidentally, The Silver Spoon was my Christmas gift from Awesome Sauce.

Roast Pork with Sage Rating:

The Clumsy Gourmet: 9.5 I loved this recipe!!!
Awesome Sauce: 7
Junky Monkey: 8 She didn't like eating the spice stuffing and felt like she was eating leaves! She thought the pork itself was great.

Chocolate Layer Cake with Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting

Awesome Sauce, Junky Monkey and I are part of a small group of friends who meet up once a week for dinner. We each take turns hosting the group. So, with the holidays and the New Year, we needed to do something special to celebrate. The Saturday after New Year's Day we had a potluck party with our friends. I decided to take this opportunity to try out a few more of Mark Bittman's recipes.

One recipe I made was his Chocolate Layer Cake (Page 724). This recipe was very simple to make. The most difficult part was melting the chocolate without letting it burn. Both Junky Monkey and I were thrilled with the batter. It was fluffy and chocolaty and delicious! We looked forward to a wonderful cake.

I decided to cover the chocolate cake with Mark Bittman's Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting (Page 727). This frosting was delicious, but a bit sticky. I doubled the recipe because I wanted to decorate the cake and do a nice thick frosting. I had trouble when I went to frost the cake by piping the icing through a metal tip. The icing held its form okay, but there still wasn't enough of it to heavily frost a cake.

Then, disaster happened. There wasn't room in my fridge to put the cake, so I decided it would be okay on the counter for two hours. BIG MISTAKE. The worst part: I know better...I worked in a pastry shop for years. The cake cracked and fell as the icing ran. Butter-based icing should be refrigerated!!! Next time, I clear out space in the fridge! I thought since it was such a short time it would be okay...I didn't think about the fact that my home was warm. Oh well. A little tip if this happens to you at home: serve the cake pre-sliced. It is much harder for anyone to tell!

I did finish the cake and everyone at the party liked it. I was personally disappointed in both of these recipes. I would like to note here that I am NOT a trained chef. I follow these recipes to the best of my ability, but if they do not come out correctly, it may be me, not the recipe. I am rating these recipes based on my personal experience, but I want readers to take that with a grain of salt. I am an amateur who easily could have made a rookie mistake. I will level with you about any substitutions or changes I made to the recipe and will let you know what I thought.

The chocolate cake was good, but was a bit drier than I prefer. Additionally, the cake had a funny aftertaste that I couldn't get past. I still haven't figured out where it came from. The icing was heavy and VERY sweet. I prefer a European-Style Butter Cream which is much lighter and much less sweet. Awesome Sauce also thought the chocolate cake had a bit of a funny taste and found it a bit dry and crumbly. Junky Monkey was also not a huge fan of the cake. She also found the icing a bit too sweet.


Below are some pictures:

Here is the cake in the pan.

Here is the cake on the cooling rack.

Icing in the bowl.

OH NO!!!! IT FELL!!

We ate it anyway.

Chocolate Layer Cake Rating:

The Clumsy Gourmet: 6
Junky Monkey: 6
Awesome Sauce: 5

Vanilla Butter Cream Icing Rating:

The Clumsy Gourmet: 4
Junky Monkey: 7
Awesome Sauce: 6.5

Prime Rib Roast for a Small Crowd

Happy New Year!!! Okay, this post is coming a bit later than New Year, but it took me a while to figure out how to upload the pictures from my camera. So today I will write several posts to catch up.

For the purposes of this blog, I am aptly named The Clumsy Gourmet. I am incredibly messy when I cook. I tend to become covered with whatever ingredients I am working with. I also tend to be clumsy with my fingers. I have accidentally nicked myself with knives, slammed my fingers between cooking implements and generally manage to be somewhat of a klutz. Thus the explanation of my name.

I am writing this blog because I love to cook and wanted to expand my recipe repertoire. I decided to work my way through a cookbook with a wide-variety of recipes. I chose Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. I chose this cookbook because it has a nice mix of both modern recipes and classics. I have also been a fan of Mark Bittman's for a while. I have made a few of his online recipes and have been very pleased with the simple, yet elegant results.

The book I am using is his soft-back version published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. and copyrighted in 1998. I will post the exact name of the recipe and the page number for reference in case anyone has this cookbook or wishes to purchase a copy of this book and attempt to make the same dish. I will NOT post the actual recipe. I do believe in copyright laws and I strongly urge readers who wish to prepare these dishes to purchase their own copy of this great cookbook and enjoy!

Finally, my tasters. To protect our real identities, I have come up with internet names for both myself and my two primary tasters. I am The Clumsy Gourmet (CG). The first taster is my significant other, Awesome Sauce (AS). Once upon a time, AS and I were making yucca fries with chipotle aioli. Our friends went bananas over the aioli and nick-named it "awesome sauce." Since then, yucca fries with "awesome sauce" has become a signature dish for us. Thus, Awesome Sauce decided to take this as his internet monkier. One more note, Awesome Sauce is an excellent cook. He has a better nose for spices than me and much of our relationship is spent in the kitchen together. My other primary taster is my friend and roommate, Junky Monkey (JM). Her nickname simply comes from the fact that without the benefit of Awesome Sauce's and my cooking, Junky Monkey resorts to eating junk food. Okay...she might eat some celery and cream cheese once in a while...but that doesn't excuse the oreos, frozen chicken patties, hot dogs and tator tots. Junky Monkey is a lot of fun to cook for because she appreciates anything made for her.

One quick note. Our recipe rating scale is from 1-10. It is based on a system where 3 and below would not be made again and 8 and above is varying degrees of great. A 1 is one of the worst foods we have ever eatin and a 10 is one of the best.

Okay....on to the first recipe. Prime Rib Roast for a Small Crowd (Page 429). Awesome Sauce and I decided to stay home on New Year's Eve and cook ourselves a wonderful dinner. We bought a gorgeous prime rib roast (definitely the most money I have ever spent on one slab of meat!!) On the advice of the butcher, we purchased three ribs worth of meat. I forgot to record the exact weight for this blog, but will be more careful in the future. We had prime rib to feed ourselves and Junky Monkey the next day and still had more for lunches later the next week.

We ended up cooking the meat for almost two hours. My meat thermometer said it was a little over-cooked and I was worried, but it turns out I just need a significantly better thermometer. The prime rib came out perfect. My only complaint was that it needed a little more flavor. I have seen other recipes where the meat is stuffed with thyme, rosemary and other spices in addition to the garlic. I would love to try this to see if there is a difference. We served the prime rib with a nice red wine, cheesy potatoes made by Awesome Sauce and green beans sauted in a little butter and garlic. Below are some pictures of our feast.

This is a picture of our roast after it has "rested" but before being cut.

Our roast being cut!

A close-up of our pretty roast!

Our beautiful New Year's Eve table!

Awesome Sauce's cheesy-potatoes!

Overall, I give this recipe an 8.5. AS rates this recipe a 7. He found the meat to be a great consistency but a little boring flavor-wise. Re-heated the next day, JM gave this recipe a 7. Note: JM is not a huge fan of steak in general.