Sinfest

[Mizike]

Alright, I finally feel like I have a recipe that's good enough to share.

Pesto Pizza
This is a really easy recipe, but it is not a quick recipe. I only have the time to make pizza's on the weekend. If I start the dough at 3:00, the Pizza is usually done between 5:30-6:00. Most of that time is waiting for the dough to rise.

The Dough recipe is one that I originally found on the internet and then tinkered with until I loved it. Anyway, here goes:

Part I - The Dough
3 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup warm water
2 T yeast (Yes, tablespoons)
2 T honey
1/4 cup olive oil
1 T salt
1 T butter

Pour the warm water into a bowl and add the honey and salt. Mix until blended. Add the yeast and mix. Let this mixture sit for about 5 minutes. Add 1 cup of flour and the olive oil and mix until well blended. Mix the rest of the flour in 1/2 cup at a time until the dough balls up. If the dough does not ball up because it's too dry, add water one tablespoon at a time until it does. If your mixture is more like a batter, add flour one tablespoon at a time. I've made this dough in Iowa and in North Dakota and the difference in humidity can make a significant difference in the amount of flour you will need to use. You want the dough to be elastic, but not so sticky that it stays on your hand when you knead it.

I usually start kneading the dough when I have 1/2 cup of flour left, just to make sure that the dough feels right. Knead the dough for a minute or two and then place it in a greased, covered bowl and let it rise for about 45 minutes or until it has doubled in size.

After about 45 minutes, punch the dough down and let it double again. This can take between 1-1.5 hours. I usually sprinkle some cornmeal on a counter and roll the dough out there and then transfer the dough to a pizza pan. I have rolled the dough out directly on the pizza pan as well and this works, too.

Before you add any toppings, it's a good idea to partially bake the dough.; this is going to be a surprisingly thick crust, thanks to the yeast. Take a fork, and poke the crust all over. Preheat the oven to 425 and bake the crust for about 8 minutes or until the edges begin to turn golden. Then add your toppings and put the pizza in for another 5-8 minutes.

That was a lot of typing, but it's a really great crust. I've made it a number of times now and it's been a hit every time.



Part II - Pesto Sauce
While you're waiting for the dough to rise, you will have ample time to make a sauce and prepare toppings. I'd never had a pesto sauce before this year; now some of the best pizzas I've ever had are pesto pizzas. This recipe is both quick and easy.

1 cup packed basil leaves
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup shelled pine nuts
2 medium-sized peeled garlic cloves

Put everything into a food processor or blender. Pulse the machine on and off so that you get a fairly coarse grind. You'll have to scrape the sides down once or twice to make sure that the mixture has the same consistency. That's it. It makes one cup of sauce or enough for a large pizza.

For the carnivores out there, fry up a half a pound of ground Italian sausage and sprinkle it on the pizza with some roasted red pepper. Then top it off with about 6 ounces each of mozzarella and fontina cheese.

For the vegetarians, I really like topping it off with sun dried tomatoes and thick slices of smoked mozzarella.


This recipe does take a pretty sizable time commitment, but I have had nothing but good experiences with it.
_________________
Scire aliquid laus est, pudor est non discere velle
"It is laudable to know something, it is disgraceful to not want to learn"
~Seneca

[Darqcyde]

By the powers of Necro--

Courtesy of Jwing

[mouse]

ok, i haven't tried this yet, but it looks seriously cool:

Ice Cream in a Bag

Time: 40 minutes

3 to 4 pounds ice (10 cups or more)

1/2 cup table salt or 1 cup kosher salt, plus a pinch

1 cup milk

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.

1. Pour all the ice into a large glass or plastic bowl, cover it with salt, and stir.

2. In a bowl, mix milk, heavy cream, sugar, vanilla extract and a pinch of salt together until sugar dissolves. Pour into a sealable 1-gallon freezer bag, push out as much air as possible, and seal.

3. Place a wide plastic bowl with a lid, like a salad spinner bowl, on a kitchen towel. Fill bowl with about half the ice. Lay freezer bag on ice and flatten it with your hand. Dump rest of the ice, along with any melted water, on top of bag, leaving zipper edge exposed. Place lid on the bowl. Let rest for 15 minutes, shaking it once or twice to redistribute ice and brine.

4. Pour about half the ice and brine into another bowl. Lift bag out by the zipper edge and lay it on a towel. (Avoid touching ice or brine, which are cold enough to cause frostbite.) Cover your hands with another towel and gently knead frozen areas for about a minute to mix them with liquid.

5. Return freezer bag to bowl, laying it flat on ice. Cover it with reserved ice and brine. Put lid on bowl and freeze as above for another 15 minutes.

6. Remove bag and carefully towel off the brine. Serve ice cream, or keep bag in freezer until ready to serve.

Yield: One pint.

Note: You can use this method to freeze any ice cream or sorbet mix. If you make ice cream regularly, you can eliminate ice cubes and reuse salt. Make a brine with 3 quarts water and 1 pound salt, divide it between two 1-gallon freezer bags, and store bags flat in freezer. To make ice cream, sandwich the bag of mix between brine bags, enclosing stack in towels.


(also, read the article)
_________________
aka: neverscared!

[dazedb42]

I used to make brine for freezing bio samples of marron when we would forget the liquid nitrogen, oh and super chilling beer at the end of the day too. Science in action in the field woot woot.
_________________
(_**_) *note to self, insert bottle at other end.

[Guccipiggy]

I discovered an awesome low-cal breakfast the other day when I ran out of my usual yoghurt, crackers and philadelphia cheese:

- 2 egg whites, scrambled.
- 2 slices of extra lean ham.
- 5 whole-wheat, low salt crackers.

You make tiny sandwiches with the crackers, putting some of the scrambled egg whites and tiny pieces of ham inside the two sandwiches. The third cracker, you add the scrambled egg on top with the slices of ham and eat it like that. You should have some egg white and ham left over. Eat that with a knife a fork.

It's yummy and it's got lots of protein to make you feel full for at least 3-4 hours. And it's only 180 calories (240 if you drink a nice big glass of light yoghurt with it), which leaves something like 1000 calories to eat for the rest of the day (or less, but I'm not supposed to say that cause you should never eat less then 1200 calories a day. Never. Except me. Okay?)

[Deleted shh]

necro...

buffalo chicken dip

* 2 (10 ounce) cans chunk chicken, drained
* 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
* 1 cup Ranch dressing
* 3/4 cup pepper sauce, such as Franks® Red Hot®
* 1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat chicken and hot sauce in a skillet over medium heat, until heated through. Stir in cream cheese and ranch dressing. Cook, stirring until well blended and warm. Mix in half of the shredded cheese, and transfer the mixture to a slow cooker. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top, cover, and cook on Low setting until hot and bubbly.

Eat with crackers, chips, bread, whatever you feel like

Also, More easy recipes would be great. I hate cooking complicated things for only one or two people.

[Mr_Moustache]

100 grams of rice per person
1 can of kidney beans per person
chicken, as much as you'd like per person
Vegetables (Any amount of carrot, eggplant, zuchini,peppers. Also you could do precut veggies)
Sesame oil, garlic, spring onions (fine) , chilli peppers, salt and black pepper and Ketjap manis

1. Marinade chicken with sesame oil, cut veggies, boil rice.
2. fruit the galic, chili peppers+black peper and onions in a wok with the sesame oil, add chicken, then add the veggies. Stir fry them on a high fire.
3. After a few minutes add the whole can of kidney beans, including the fluid !
4 Add ketjap manis to taste. Its a sweet, defined soy sauce. Very nice for flavoring rice.
5. Drain rice, then add it to the wok. Stir fry for another few minutes, mixing the rice. Season with salt and black peper. As extra serving tip, keep some with rice and you can make a "trail"

the end result: A very big pan of good fried rice with beans. Depending whether you use pre cut veggies (chinese mix) you can be done in just over ten minutes.

Anyways, i cook very big amounts once and i have eat 2-3 evenings worth of hot meals. Also cheap, since you can use family size packages and then freeze what you got left after three days.
_________________
When life gives you lemons, some people make lemonade. I just eat them and make a sour face.

[sporko]

i am currently making a tomato-basil quiche!

you need:
frozen pie crust, thawed.
onion--sliced
tomato--sliced
three eggs
1/2 cup milk
1.5 cups shredded cheese (colby jack, cheddar, whatever. i used a mexican blend because it's all i have here)

bake a thawed frozen pie crust at 400 for 10 minutes.
sautee a sliced onion in oil on medium until soft. sprinkle tomato slices with flour & dried basil, and sautee a minute per side.
in a bowl, mix 3 eggs and a half cup of milk, and season with salt/pepper.
sprinkle a cup of shredded cheese on bottom of pie crust, cover with onion, cover that with tomato. pour egg mixture over and sprinkle half cup of cheese on top.

bake at 400 for 10 minutes, then at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

i added chopped fresh basil.

it's smelling good, and it was so easy!

****

edit: sooooo good. yum!
_________________

[Darqcyde]

damn, I've been slackin on this
_________________

...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.
http://12ozlb.blogspot.com

[Darqcyde]

Chocolate Chip Cookies(modified from the Ghirardelli recipe)
makes 4 doz.

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour (we used whole wheat)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup bitter-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup Other (More chips, toffee chips, peanut butter chips, m & m's, chopped nuts)

Preheat oven to 375°F.
Stir flour with baking soda and salt; set aside.
In a large mixing bowl beat butter with sugar and brown sugar at medium speed until creamy.
Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time, mix on low speed until incorporated.
Gradually blend dry mixture into creamed mixture. Stir in chocolate chips (and nuts or other).
Drop by table spoon onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake fo 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown.
_________________

...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.
http://12ozlb.blogspot.com

[Mr. Meddler]

To get it one step up from Darqcyde's recipe, replace 1/3 cup of [all-purpose] flour with Hershey's cocoa. Use peanut butter chips as the other and you'll have my renowned Chocolate Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Of course, it's not a truly triple c. chip, but that can be remedied with white chocolate chips.
_________________
WARNING: Microwave musclebear detection devices in use on these premises!

[jwing]

oooh! i can share the delicious recipe we had last week!!

in a crockpot or slow-cooker put:

diced carrot
sliced mushrooms
chopped cooked chicken (i used leftovers from a roast chicken that had been slathered in whipped garlic - i'll post that recipe once i find a new supply of whipped garlic) (i also supplemented it with a can of chicken)
chicken broth (about two boxes or three cans)
3/4 cup of rice

put on high for about 3 hours. about halfway through, i tasted it and it was kinda bland so i put in some Garlic Garni (again, need to find a link for you)

serve with fresh bread and mmmMMMMMmmmm.

gah. i'm hungry now. *wanders off for breakfast that sadly isn't chicken and rice soup*

[eureka00]

Almond Bark Cookies aka Those Peanut Butter Glob Things
2 lbs almond bark
2 cups peanut butter
5 cups rice krispies
2 cups mini marshmallows
Optional: you can use crunchy peanut butter instead or you can add a cup of peanuts.

Directions: Melt almond bark in microwave in large bowl (make sure you do this slowly with lots of stirring as written on package). Once all lumps are gone, stir in the other ingredients.

I usually cover an entire table with wax paper and then spoon out globs of the mixture. Size of globs depends on you. Let cool/stand for about 45 minutes and they are ready to go! Simple and yummy especially if you have some peanut butter lovers.
_________________
Eureka00: "Reminding you of your addictions" since 1982.
*Resident Anime Goddess*
Proud owner of Calisrue.

[Darqcyde]

I'm reserving this spot for a fudge recipe that I'll post after dinner.
_________________

...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.
http://12ozlb.blogspot.com

[SlinkyKat]

Ooh! When I get a chance, I am totally submitting my Hollandaise sauce!

I taught myself how to make eggs Benedict when I was 8 and omelettes when I was 11. I love making breakfast/brunch (brunch is better, 'cause you can serve alcohol!). Remember that next time there's a Sinfest Con! "SlinkyKat will make the morning feast!"