Today as we were working in the garden, I was taking photos of the farm.
I took some pictures of the growing garlic.
I took some pictures of the growing leeks my sister and I planted in November.
And as I was wandering around, I saw our weedy mustard greens of mizuna and red giant mustard that were popping up in the beds because we let them go to seed and didn't pull them in time.
Tucked in amongst our cover crops we had seeded peas and the new pea shoots looked delicious.
We also had leeks that we planted last year and left them behind in the keyhole block since they were much to small to eat at the time.
I'm going to admit something to you, my dear readers, that might be somewhat of an annoyance for a food blog. I'll do my best to lessen the annoyance, but you might have to bear with me sometimes. The issue is this: I'm one of those cooks that hardly ever measures anything. I tend to trust my instincts when I cook and throw ingredients in left and right, a dash of this, a smidgen of that, oops a bit too much of the other. With salts and peppers and spices and herbs I tend to write a recipe as thus: add salt as needed, add pepper as needed, add this herb as desired. Perhaps if I went to culinary school they would kick me out immediately and tell me I am doing it all wrong, but I'll just say that for the most part I hardly ever use a recipe and if I do, I never use it to the letter and I have never made something that was unpalatable or inedible. So, my thought is that with this blog I will do my best to give as clear of instruction as I can, but for the most part I believe in the art of finding your own way in the kitchen, of using a recipe as a guide and not a blueprint, and that the art of cooking is always open to interpretation.
With all that said... let's get down to playing with ingredients and making some food.
The Pizza Dough:
Make a fresh pizza dough. If you don't make fresh pizza dough, then it's perfectly fine to buy pizza dough. You'd be surprised though that making your own pizza dough is ready in less than a half hour and you can do other things in the mean time while your pizza dough is rising (like doing the dishes or another chore).
Today I decided to experiment. I bought some coconut flour and thought it would be fun to try it in the dough instead of whole wheat flour. I also really like to use corn flour (not corn meal). I use a dough recipe that my sister-in-law uses for her family (another pizza aficionado that makes it homemade), but nowadays I just eyeball the proportions and go with it. But here's her recipe.
1 1/2 c white flour
2 1/4 tsp yeast
1c warm water (120F-130F)
mix above together and then add
1 c whole wheat flour
2 Tbsp olive ol
1/2 tsp salt
mix together again, put some flour on the board and knead for about 5 minutes. Put some oil in the same bowl you used for mixing and swirl your nice ball of dough into it. Then place in a warmed oven for half hour or longer to rise double in size.
The Soup:
This soup I decided to make with what we had in kitchen. Everything was chopped and sliced and then put into a soup pot to simmer with olive oil before I added the water and salt. This was brought to a boil and then the heat was turned off and allowed to simmer with the lid on until the rest of the meal was ready.
a half head of broccoli chopped
one leek sliced thin
a quarter of onion sliced thin
3 cloves of garlic sliced thin
a chunk of cabbage sliced very thin
a handful of thyme shoots
olive oil as desired
salt to taste
water enough to fill the soup pot
The Salad:
The salad greens and pea shoots were washed. The green part of a leek was sliced thinly and the flowers of calendula and rosemary were rinsed. I used a half of a meyer lemon and olive oil and salt as my dressing
a handful of spring pea shoots chopped
the green top of a leek sliced thinly
olive oil drizzled as desired
half of a meyer lemon squeezed over everything
salt lightly sprinkled
mix by hand all ingredients in the serving bowl
rosemary flowers removed from stems and placed sporadically in salad
whole calendula flowers placed sporadically and some as petals only
The Pizza:
By now your dough is ready and it's time to top it with your desired ingredients. I kneaded the dough a bit more and then with a bit of flour I rolled it out onto parchment paper. It was ready to be topped. Today I had some tromboncino squash that needed to be used, along with some king trumpet mushrooms, leeks, and I was going to use the tomato sauce my Dad made as the sauce for the pizza. I'll discuss the "pesto" in a bit.
tromboncino squash sliced extra thin
king trumpet mushrooms sliced thin
leek sliced thin
spread tomato sauce onto dough in thin layer
add some olive oil as desired and use spoon to spread it out
put into already hot oven at 350-500F depending on whether you have a pizza stone or are using a cooking sheet (for a cooking sheet use the lower temp and pizza stone use the higher temp)
let cook for a few minutes
add your sliced ingredients sporadically on top of the pizza
continue cooking until done, about 10-20 minutes depending on whether you are using a pizza stone or a baking sheet. Cook until golden brown.
The "Pesto":
I was given some very special peppers by a coworker and we are planning to grow them this year for the farm. They are huatusco peppers or comapeno peppers that are very tiny and dried. They have a nice spice to them. They are traditionally made into a salsa (a future post) made of peppers, garlic, olive oil and salt and used as a topping for dishes. Today I decided to experiment with two peppers and make a sort of pesto topping with them for the pizza.The peppers are browned to a golden color in olive oil in a pan and then ground up with the other ingredients.
two huatusco peppers
a small handful of rosemary shoots
a small handful of thyme shoots
one clove of garlic
olive oil
salt
Like I mentioned, we paired this meal with mixed olives and a bottle of Toulouse 2007 Pinot Noir. We had gotten it on our honeymoon to Mendocino along a side trip through Anderson Valley. We had the winery owner sign our bottle with a silver pen, "Chelsea + Chris Enjoy!` Vern"
We recently went back to Toulouse last year and Vern the winery owner and signer of the bottle said that that vintage would be ready to drink by this year. He was right.
In all the meal was delicious. The soup had plenty of fresh and hearty flavor, the salad was spicy and tangy, and the pizza had a sweetness brought in by the coconut flour and a light kick from the pepper, herb and garlic pesto.
Thank you for Feasting with Furlong Forest Farm.
