This Week's Sunday Menu: Chilaquiles and Pizza

Time for another Sunday of food. Today's recipes are a little more involved than our usual ones but they're still pretty easy.

Breakfast is one of my favorite Mexican dishes while dinner is something everyone loves. 

Recipes at the links below...

BREAKFAST: Chilaquiles con Huevos y Salsa Verde

DINNER: Pizza

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Pizza!

Originally, I was going to do this on my gas barbecue but my pizza pan wouldn't fit with the lid closed so it was off to the kitchen oven to cook.

There are two time consuming steps to this but this is another one you can do a few hours ahead of time and stick in the fridge until it's time to cook.  The first step is the sauce and the next is rolling out the dough, which not only takes time but is pretty labor intensive, too.

Except for the sauce, I bought all the other ingredients premade at a local Italian deli, Capri in Covina, California. That makes things a bit easier.

INGREDIENTS
16 ounces of pizza dough (you can make this yourself but I just buy it premade at a local Italian deli. You can also find it at Trader Joe's and other stores)
6 medium Roma tomatoes
1 teaspoon oregano
3 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 links Italian sausage
1/4 pound prosciutto
1/2 pound mozarella cheese
1/2 cup shredded quattro formagio (four cheeses, available at most supermarkets - substitute with a high quality shredded parmesan if you can't find it)

Sauce
Take 5 tomatoes (you may want to cut them in half first) and puree in a blender with 1 cup of water.

Cut the 6th tomato up into cubes.

Put 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a sauce pan. Pour your pureed tomatoes on top of that and bring to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes, then set to low to simmer. Put your tomato chunks, garlic, oregano, salt, and sugar into the mix and stir. Simmer for 2 hours or until reduced by two thirds. Stir occasionally during this time (maybe every 10 or 20 minutes). Taste a spoonful occasionally to see if the taste would be good on a pizza. Add ingredients to adjust, sparingly, until you get your perfect tast.

When sauce is thick, a little thicker than you'd want to serve on pasta, take it off of the heat.

Pizza
Preheat oven to 450 -500 degrees...very hot!

On a large, wooden cutting board, sprinkle about a quarter cup of flour and spread out over the board. Place dough on it and roll out flat. This will take quite some time as the dough will keep wanting to snap back to its original shape. Keep at it and, eventually, the dough will lose its elasticity and you'll have a flat dough. be very careful not to tear your dough.

Put a tablespoon of olive oil and coat it with a paper towel over a round pizza pan. Transfer your dough into the pan and, carefully, spread it to the edges.

Using a ladel, spread your sauce over the dough, leaving about a half inch clear around the rim to be able to hold your pizza slice later.  Put a think layer of mozzarella over the sauce. Put on your toppings (we're using Italian sausage and prosciutto but the sky's the limit on what you'd like to put on it). Sprinkle quattro formagio on it. 

Cover with another layer of mozzarella (I'm using a mozzarella ball for this and laying slices of it around the pie).

Put in oven and bake for 10 minutes.

Put parchment paper on your cutting board and transfer finished pizza pie to it once done. Let sit for 5 minutes before slicing.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Pasta Parma Verde

You know the dilemma...what'll we have for dinner? That one question causes so much stress for a family cook. What will I do for my family for dinner?

We all want to cook a great meal and not just serve the same thing, time after time...no matter how good it is.

That was my quandary this Sunday morning as I perused the freezer for something to thaw for dinner. At first, I pulled out a smoked ham hock but I just wasn't feeling it.

Before I resigned myself to ordering a pizza or going out for burgers, I went to Claros', our local Italian deli, to see if I could get some inspiration.

Claro's never lets me down, and today is no exception.  

With a package of some super premium Parma ham in my hand, I headed home to make the following dish for dinner.

INGREDIENTS

4 oz. egg noodles

4 oz. casarecce noodles

1/2 pound Parma ham, thinly sliced

half a bunch of spinach leaves

2 stalks of broccolini finely chopped

4 small,green onions finely chopped

1/4 cup quattro formagio or parmesan

1 ounce (quarter stick) butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup half and half

2 tablespoons soft goat cheese
1 teaspoon minced garlic

Put water in a large pot (5 quarts or so) and start heating towards a boil.

Put a sheet of wax paper over a plate.  Hand-tear the Parma ham into small pieces and place on the was paper.

Spread the ham out evenly. Save this for later.

Heat the olive oil in a saute pan on high heat.  When hot, add the spinach.

Put the pasta into the boiling water. Cook until al dente (about 9 minutes)

Add the green onions and broccolini. Cook until the broccolini softens.

Turn the heat down to low/medium and add the garlic and quattro formagio. Mix in thoroughly.

Add the goat cheese.  

When the goat cheese is melted, add the ham and mix in very thoroughly.  

Turn off the heat, wait two minutes. Add the cream and stir in.

When the pasta is done, drain and mix into the sauce.

Darryl
Copyright - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved