Mexi-Pizza...

That was interesting! I had our pizza post all ready to go after dinner last night... but when I went to hit publish, I looked down to see our cable modem was out! It just came back a few minutes ago, so I apologize for the tardy pizza!

However, it does give me a second to show you what we woke up to...

Get ready, winter is coming early! Actually, it wasn't much more than a dusting, but it is darn cold out here!

With inspiration from south of the border, we needed to do a little extra work to get last night's Friday Night Pizza on the table. Instead of buying prepared chorizo for this Mexi-Pizza, we went ahead and tried our hand at a quick homemade version!

I went with this pizza mainly because I had a scant pound of pork I needed to get used up - you can use already-ground pork if you like, but I cubed what I had on hand and whirled it in the food processor to grind it down. When you grind meat like this, you want the cubes to be cold and on the smaller side, about 1/4" to 1/2" or so in size. Using the pulse button is best as it goes pretty quick and you want some control on how ground it ends up - you are not looking to make meat paste after all! When the blade had diced the meat into fine pieces, we added the seasonings - three cloves of minced garlic (which can be dropped in the food processor first... let it do the work!), an ample amount of paprika (smoked - for not only is robust color, but depth), cumin, oregano, crushed red pepper for heat and a tiny pinch of cinnamon.

While we let that hang out for a few minutes to mingle, we took a few poblano peppers and set them under the broiler until they were well-charred all over. We don't have a gas stove, but if you do, you could blister them on top using a burner - just note that the peppers will be crisper and not as "cooked-through" as they get when you roast them in the oven. Done to make the skins slip off the peppers, this also gives them a bit more character with a slightly sweeter, smokier aspect. When you pull them out of the oven, stick them in a heat-proof bowl and cover them with plastic wrap (tossing them in a heavy zip-loc bag works too) - this traps in the moisture, creating a warm steam bath to make the skins practically fall off. Don't drive yourself crazy trying to pull off each and every dark bit - if it comes off, great, if some are stubborn, C'est la vie. Just don't run them under water - you'll be washing your work down the drain!

Cooked in a hot skillet to crumble the chorizo, we scattered the meat over our favorite whole-wheat pizza dough, partially-baked, giving us a solid platform for this pizza. Finely chopped red onion went on next, followed by shredded Monterey Jack cheese and the roasted poblanos that we chopped. Jeff can be funny about peppers, so slice the peppers how you like - if they are left in strips, he's more likely to just pick them off... so chopped it was! Baked to melt the cheese and finish crisping the crust, when we pulled the pie out of the oven, we gave the pizza a more cheesy note by throwing on little pebbles of queso fresco! If you've never had this type of fresh, snowy-white Mexican cheese before, it is a little salty, a touch tangy and very crumbly - great for salads and quesadillas as well! If you can't find this, a firm, block-style ricotta salata could be used instead.

Dandy as is, we still had one more ingredient to use on this pizza - fresh lime juice! It fits with the theme and all I guess, but you don't often see it used on pizza, that's for sure! The juice cut through some of the richness in the cheese and chorizo, while adding a delightful zip that was refreshing and clean. We used the twelve ounce version of our dough recipe, which gave us a crust that was fairly thin and crispy - if you wanted a base that was thicker with a bit more chew, try using a pound of dough instead.

Recipes
Mexi-Pizza

Melon Panzanella...

Panzanella is traditional known as a bread salad that has fresh tomatoes in it, but recently we made a version of the popular dish that swapped out the tomatoes for an unexpected ingredient. While playing on the sweetness the tomatoes would have added, this Melon Panzanella called for using any type of firm, ripe melon - in our case, it happened to be cantaloupe!

Honeydew, casaba or even watermelon were recommended and while our market had most of them on sale, the scent and texture of the pale tangerine fleshed cantaloupe was the best of the bunch. Rather than using stale bread, we took a few slices of a hearty whole-wheat, cubed them and let them dry out in the oven set at a fairly low temperature. You're not looking for them to gain color and toast, but just firm up and dry out enough that they can absorb a dressing and not turn into mush.

To give the oil used in the dressing a bit more bang-for-the-buck, it was first heated and used to sizzle strips of salty prosciutto, turning them light and crispy. This also gave us a chance to remove the raw harshness from a couple cloves worth of minced garlic by tossing them in to soften when the prosciutto was done. The warmed dressing was then completed by stirring in red wine vinegar and seasoning it with salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Tender leaves of baby spinach were our green of choice, though peppery arugula would be an excellent option if you can find it in your market. Tossed with the melon, sliced into cubes, the salad was completed by adding in chopped fresh basil, the barely toasted bread and the prosciutto mixture. To give the magic of the dressing time to work, you'll want to set the salad aside, giving the bread time to soak in the flavors and soften slightly - which comes in handy when you need extra time to give the main dish attention! So refreshing and light, I loved the excitement this produced when we served this to a couple friends we had over - different enough that one is surprised, yet still familiar that was is comforted and inspired by the simplicity!

Recipes
Melon Panzanella

Jalapeño Popper Mac 'n' Cheese

For dinner tonight, we worked two types of chiles into one of our favorite pasta dishes... Mac 'n Cheese! Besides the intriguing use of chiles, the method used to make the cheese sauce is definitely not your typical fashion either... let's jump right on in and see what we had to do to turn out this Jalapeño Popper Mac 'n' Cheese!

After we dropped the long, curly pasta called cavatappi (which also conveniently has ridges on it to grab onto the sauce) into the salty sea of boiling water, I had another skillet going to take care of the chiles. The amount may seem excessive once you see your pile from slicing the jalapeños and serranos, but don't be alarmed! The duo won't be added in raw - they are softened first in a slick of oil, along with a couple cloves of garlic, which will help pull their rich chile flavor out and tame their heat levels (though a bit too much in our minds... you'll see in a minute!).

After scooping the chiles and garlic out, we used the same saucepan to create the simple sauce by heating together milk and cubes of cream cheese. Yup, that's all it takes! Well, almost. For a little onion-y bite, a couple tablespoons of dried minced onion are also tossed in - however, if you wanted to use fresh, just grate a bit of onion in. This way you'll end up with mostly juice and tiny bits of onion, which won't end up as crunchy uncooked nuggets. When the cubes of cream cheese have melted in, thickening the mixture to create a velvet-y smooth sauce, it was combined with the now-drained pasta and chiles.

This is a Mac 'n Cheese after all, so you know cream cheese can't be it, right? You know it and another half pound of cheese was added in the form of mild Mexican-blend cheese! Monterey Jack would also be work well (and was originally called for), but I used what we had in the refrigerator. Now, you could have this as is out of the saucepan, but to give the top a bit of color, the cheesy concoction was placed into a dish and set under the broiler for just a few minutes.

So, back to that mound of chiles... did it make this too spicy? Quite the contrary! By removing the seeds and ribs of the chiles, you are left with their potent flavor, yet you won't have to deal with the fiery punch if you would have left them in. However, it almost seemed a bit too mild for us and we would have liked a touch of spiciness - maybe if we chopped one of the chiles whole it would have satisfied our lust for heat? When we go to make this again, there is one more thing I would do different - a crunchy breadcrumb topping (probably using panko) would be an excellent way to dress this up and provide a bit of contrast to the lush creaminess underneath.

Recipes
Jalapeño Popper Mac 'n' Cheese

Brown Sugar-Apple Cheesecake...

We've been without the Weekly Wednesday Treat Day for now, what, two weeks? I was excited to jump back in, but what to make? With fall definitely showing its color and cool attitude around here, along with its bounty of apples flooding the market, it wasn't a tough choice once I came upon this Brown Sugar-Apple Cheesecake!

Because this cheesecake is fairly substantial, we needed a solid crust to give it sturdy legs. A graham cracker crust would be nice, especially using ones already laced with cinnamon, but we went with a spicer route and ground up crunchy gingersnaps! If either of those two wouldn't work for you, we've used animal crackers before with much success. With a touch of brown sugar, cinnamon and a pinch of salt added to the crumbs, we moistened the mass with just enough melted butter to bind. Pressed over the bottom and up the sides of a large springform pan, we placed the pan into the freezer while the oven heated up. The crust then needs to slip into the oven for just a few minutes, setting the crust and turning it a light golden hue.

Before I could get my hands dirty making the cheesecake batter, we needed to deal with autumn's natural sweet treat - the apples! Using peeled and sliced Golden Delicious apples (try Fuji here if you like), we tossed half the amount into a skillet of melted butter and left them to cook briefly, turning just a single time, until they gained a touch of color. A very light dose of brown sugar later, the apples were ready to be turned out onto a plate to start cooling down with the next batch going in to cook. Be sure the second batch has enough time to cool as you don't want to try and layer hot apples into the batter!

Luxuriously smooth and dotted with specs from our favorite fragrant Vietnamese cinnamon, the cheesecake batter is an extravagant combination of cream cheese, sour cream and heavy cream, sweetened with brown and granulated sugar. Along with the aforementioned cinnamon, vanilla and a shot or two from our fall staple, apple cider, were also blended into the batter with a few eggs to finish it out. Once the first egg is dropped in, mix the batter long enough to just mix the egg in before adding the next - you don't want to overwork the batter at this point.

Enough of this tan, thick liquid is poured into the cooled crust to cover the bottom, then those caramelized apples are arranged over to form a hidden surprise layer inside. The rest of the cream cheese mixture is added into the pan and sent off to bake in the oven until the cheesecake is almost completely set - you should have just a bare jiggle in the center when it's ready. Plenty of cheesecakes are baked in a water bath for a gentle heating, but I've had a few that even being well-wrapped with heavy duty foil still end up with a soggy crust from water somehow leaking inside. I've gone to a method here where you simply put a pan of heated water on the rack directly below the cheesecake and let it work its magic - however, if you are more comfortable with setting your wrapped pan in a direct water bath, feel free!

As with most cheesecakes, this one too is best left to rest at room temperature until completely cool, then stashed away in the refrigerator overnight to completely chill down. You can get away with a 6 or so hour stint in the refrigerator, but the extra time allowing the flavors to develop and letting the texture settle down is worth it, in my opinion.

Dense, so creamy and seriously pleasing, Jeff and I decided to share a piece so he would have more to take in. Talk about a war with forks - it was a battle between savoring each forkful, before realizing that if you didn't get your next bite ready, all you might hear is the clank when the tines hit an empty plate! As if the cheesecake wasn't enough, that layer of soft buttered apples inside was just what this guilt-inducing cake needed to round it out. It you want to fancy up the top, warm up a few tablespoons of apple jelly and brush the top for a shiny glaze. With as good as this was, neither of us gave it a second thought as to what it looked like though!

Recipes
Brown Sugar-Apple Cheesecake

Cinnamon-Oat Pancakes...

We had both been craving a breakfast-for-dinner night for a couple weeks now and I got around to working one into the menu. I was originally leaning towards waffles, but Jeff swayed me to pancakes... which is why I ended up making these Cinnamon-Oat Pancakes tonight!

One of the main reasons I decided on this recipe was it had a large yield, meaning I knew we would have plenty of leftovers to pop in the toaster oven for quick breakfasts! Rather than using completely all-purpose flour for the dry ingredients, which one can certainly do, I swapped half of it for whole-wheat pastry flour to nudge the nutritional value up. If you have access to it, white whole-wheat flour would also fit in well here without worry about weighing the pancakes down.

You may look through the instructions and wonder what's up with calling for a food processor... why the use of heavy duty equipment for just pancakes? To make them a bit more hearty, a couple cups of oats will be added into the mix. However, a portion of the oats are added with the dry ingredients and are then whirled in the processor to coarsely grind them down. This way, you'll end up with contrasting textures between the ground oats and ones left whole.

To create the batter, milk, eggs and a little oil were swirled into the dry ingredients, which we did while we waited for our griddle to come to temperature. You can make these plate-sized pancakes with a couple extra minutes on the pan, but we kept them smaller - using around three tablespoons of batter, we ended up with pancakes that were roughly 3 1/2" to 4" across... about the size of my palm.

The pancakes do have a heft to them from the oats, but they weren't too dense or gummy - they cooked to a decent thickness with a fluffy interior. If you wanted to embellish them a bit more, cinnamon chips to echo the flavor in them already or even a handful of chocolate chips (um, yes!) would be nice to toss in. Or, once you drop the batter onto the skillet, arrange some sliced bananas over the top! Even without any of those add-ins, as we did tonight, these pancakes did not disappoint with their nutty notes - a pat or two of butter and a drizzle of pure maple syrup later and our stomachs were happy and content!

Recipes
Cinnamon-Oat Pancakes

Crunchy Peanut Butter Cookies

With all that time off from our kitchen while we were in Disney, I'm sure you can imagine that I couldn't wait to jump in and get to work! We haven't had a chance to hit the market yet, so I knew I would have to ensure I would only need pantry staples to get a treat together. I was aiming for cookies and was happy to find we already had everything to get a batch of these Crunchy Peanut Butter Cookies in the oven!

You'll always find copious amounts of butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar here as I keep us overstocked in that department and the only other ingredients I needed for these cookies were flour, baking soda, salt, an egg, vanilla and peanut butter, of the crunchy variety. Yep, I always have those somewhere too - though not always the crunchy peanut butter as we are really creamy fans (it was on sale... couldn't help it!). I do actually make our own peanut butter for everyday uses, however for baking purposes, I usually stick with commercial brands as the natural peanut butter I turn out (just peanuts and salt) doesn't always react the same in recipes that are not tailored for it.

After bringing the dough together using our stand mixer, I noticed the dough was soft enough that one could just as well use a single bowl and a sturdy wooden spoon - besides, it'd be a good workout for your arm muscles! Using a tablespoon cookie scoop to turn out balls of the peanut dough, we then made the classic criss-cross topping to the cookies by smooshing (technical, huh?) the balls down using the tines of a fork. You can use the bottom of a glass, dipped in sugar, if you like or even whip out a potato masher and go to town for a more unique topping - you're just looking to flatten the dough.

Taking the cookies to the point where they are just golden on the bottom, while leaving the tops with barely any additional color, gave us cookies that had a slight crispness around the edges, leading to their centers that were soft and chewy. While creamy peanut will always have its place, I do have to mention how much we enjoyed the nibblets of nuts from the peanut butter - they imparted a nice contrast with their crunch and made the cookies feel more hearty.

Recipes
Crunchy Peanut Butter Cookies

Disney 2009...

As we decompress from the trip down to Florida, we thought we would take some time and share a few random pictures from our trip to Disney! Back to the food world tomorrow.

Here is where we stayed - the Beach Club resort. Beautiful location with a couple minutes walk to Epcot and a short jot to Hollywood Studios. Excellent pool and we took advantage of the movies at night time shown on the beach - too cool!

I did arrange for a special surprise when Jeff walked into the room - it seems Mickey had some extra time on his hands to come by and drop off some gifts! In addition to the items in the picture below, he also had a huge gift box with a stuffed Mickey, a Happy Birthday banner on the wall and a special light-up lanyard that let the world know it was his birthday - Jeff got a kick of all the attention he was getting from that and his birthday button! Inside the small white box was a two-tiered chocolate "cake" (and I mean literally it was just all chocolate!).
Just to make sure Jeff knew it was the mouse who came to visit, Mickey left behind some footprints...

We were lucky enough to score tickets ahead of time to go to a party!

This event - Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party - happens several times (it is held at nighttime) through the months of September and October. They "close" down Magic Kingdom and only let people who purchased the event tickets stay to enjoy the activities and rides, so it was a much smaller crowd. They even made sure to dress up the place for the occasion - also to be seen was a new parade and fireworks show.

They had all sorts of new statues out too in celebration...

Here's the castle - see what I mean by smaller crowds? We were able to get a shot without a thousand people in front of it!

Being a Halloween celebration, they encouraged anyone and everyone to grab a trick-or-treat bag and load up on the candy! We were surprised by how much candy we ended up with - just about 6 pounds worth! They did make sure to give out plenty of raisin boxes, you know, to off-set the good stuff. We even got a couple of snazzy electric toothbrushes in our bags to clean all that sugary goodness away!

In all our trips, we've never seen this guy at Magic Kingdom...

So, Jeff definitely made a point to stop and get a handshake and picture with the mayor! And before you ask, yes he wore those darn pirate ears almost the whole trip! They were even hand carried on the plane so no chance of being damaged (his birthday does fall on International Talk Like a Pirate Day after all).

I also convinced Jeff to finally check out this place... he enjoyed the show and wondered why he never wanted to go before!

They also had a celebration parade during the day where we snapped this picture.

They had everyone who was celebrating come out and dance! I tried to push Jeff out there, but he wasn't having any of that - too bad, would have been an excellent picture for black mail! Hee hee!

We went on this so many times... and each trip was just a little bit different. Never a dull moment!

Last year, they opened the new Pixar area in Hollywood studios, but we were there just before they let people in. We got to check it out this time!

There isn't a ton of stuff there, but the most popular place was this...

You can't see it, but the wait time for the game was 60 minutes... and this was an hour after they opened the park with the "fast pass" tickets almost all gone for the day by 11am!

We ate at way too many places to talk about, but I think the highlight of the trip was the birthday meal at the California Grill at the Contemporary Resort. Jeff had the Oak-fired Filet of Beef while I had the Stone Bass with hazelnut romesco, fire-roasted tomatillos, fregola pasta, madjool dates with a Serrano ham dust. No photographs because we simply devoured it too fast and thought about it afterwards. Definitely a "show stopper" type of dinner.

We ended up with just about 800 pictures, but we don't have the time or space here to talk about most of them. We may put up a link to our Flickr account like we did last year if you care to browse through the rest of them. Needless to say, it was quite the trip (10 days!) and we definitely needed the break from the daily grind. We even spied Mickey and friends taking some time off to relax!

And for those who were wondering, we haven't sold the house - while we have had a little activity, nothing promising has come along yet. We won't be buying until we get a bite on this house, so this whole process may take quite some time unlike our other moves!

Almost back to business!

As you've noticed, we have been absent... but it wasn't suppose to be so silent around here! Jeff and I just got back from a long vacation spent hanging out with this mouse...

Yes, we've been in Disney World as I took Jeff there in celebration of his birthday (and this should surprise no one!). I had some posts scheduled to go up while we were gone, but apparently something went awry and none of them happened. I'm sorry about that. We are doing fine (though tired!) - thank you for all of the notes wondering what happened! We flew back last night, but it was a long flight with delays and we caught a cold on the last day in Orlando... so we were pretty zonked out by the time we finally walked through the door. I'll need a day or two to get caught up and back on track, but we'll let you know how the trip went and get back to posting as normal then!

Sloppy Joe Spaghetti Cups...

Before we get to tonight's dish, I have to tell you about what we picked up at the market yesterday. I knew this item was coming out this year and have been eagerly waiting to catch it - the new SweeTango Apple!

This comes from the same group that brought us the infamous Honeycrisp and this apple, in fact, is a cross between the Honeycrisp and Zestar apples. Here's my thought process as I ate through my first apple - "Woo! This just might beat Honeycrisp in the crispy department - now wait a second... dang, this is so sweet too!". Then, I wiped my chin as juice was dribbling down, my next mouthful led me to a fascinating tangy finish that was not quite as powerful as a Granny Smith pucker, but still had some pull. I haven't tried baking with it yet, but I'll be interested to see how it holds up to heat - it might make for one sweet apple pie! There is one downside... as they are so new and limited, the apples were darn pricey - three medium-sized ones were just over $5.

Okay, time to move on! Tonight's dinner was definitely one of the more fun recipes we've made in awhile! Think Sloppy Joes and spaghetti, except made in a form that could be picked up with your hands and eaten more like a muffin... yup, that would be Sloppy Joe Spaghetti Cups!

After starting with lean ground sirloin, cooked with chopped onion until the beef was cooked through and had turned into crumbles, we then started layering in flavor by tossing in a couple minced cloves of garlic. One quick note on the meat - using the sirloin, there wasn't much extra fat that needed to be drained away. If you use ground beef with more than 10% fat, you'll need to drain away the excess grease before you add the garlic. Also, this would work just fine with ground chicken, turkey or even soy crumbles if you fancy them.

Stirring the meat mixture around until the garlic was fragrant, Worcestershire sauce, cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika were the next ingredients added to spice up what will become the filling. Dollops of tomato paste are also added now... which brings us to my tomato paste plead. In dishes like this, or when you're using paste in other soups and stews, let the tomato paste hang out in the pan for a minute or two before you start adding liquids. The heat will start to caramelize the paste, adding character by developing the more subtle nuances. The filling then comes together when a cup of water is added and is left to simmer and concentrate down.

While that was happening, we had a half pound of whole-wheat spaghetti, that I snapped in half, cooking away in its salty bath. Breaking the strands in two will make it easier to fit them into the muffin cups shortly! To cool the pasta down quickly and stop it from continuing to cook, it was rinsed with cold water, then drained well. To get that pasta to bind together enough to hold the cup form, we tossed it with a mixture of sour cream, an egg and a bit of sharp white cheddar. Taking a small pile of the coated pasta, we placed it in one of the open wells of a muffin tin and used a spoon to compact it in. A small portion of the thickened Sloppy Joe filling was then scooped into the center of each pasta-filled well, followed by another dose of the cheddar. Once all the wells were filled, the pan was placed into the oven to bake until the cups had warmed through and firmed up.

The original recipe was decidedly different in the seasoning section - it didn't have fresh onions, garlic or Worcestershire sauce and just added a purchased Sloppy Joe mix. As you can see, we didn't go for that, but kept the theme in mind - however, if you have mouths to feed that like food on the plain side, I can see why one may want to go in that direction. Using the nuttier whole-wheat spaghetti adds plenty of nutrition, but it would of course be fine using regular - saying that, because of the way this is put together, I bet one could sneak this by if you don't regularly use whole-wheat. You could even use half whole-wheat and half white if you'd like to slowly start working it in.

If you have small helpers around, you could definitely get them involved with making these snazzy pasta cups - hand them a cookie scoop and let them fill up with the meaty sauce or give them the honor of being the Official Cheese Sprinkler and have them add a few shreds on top of each one!

Recipes
Sloppy Joe Spaghetti Cups

New spin on Zucchini Bread...

Besides apples, the next sweet ingredient that pops into my mind when fall time comes around is always pure maple syrup! Our pantry is never without a bottle of that rich, sticky syrup - besides its everyday use on pancakes, we use it in several different recipes like bread, cake, a wicked peanut brittle, and the syrup has even made it's way into savory dishes like those pork medallions and spiced tenderloin.

Since we're posting this on a Tuesday, I bet you can guess where we used it this time... you got it, the Weekly Wednesday Treat Day! Maple syrup even plays two roles in this Zucchini Maple Bread with Cream Cheese Maple Butter we made - once in the bread and the other in a decadent spread!

While we didn't plant any zucchini this year, we had no problems finding a friend who was wanting to get rid of bunch - no surprise there! Using the classic quick-bread method, the batter for this bread came together quickly with little mess as you just need pouring the wet ingredients into the dry and stir to combine - no creaming involved. You can even make this a one-bowl batter if you like to reduce clean up by making a well in the center of the flour mixture, pouring in the wet and then mixing the liquids together as you pull the flour in from the side. Out of habit, I just do the two separately and then marry them together - works great either way!

While brown sugar is used for structure and to sweeten, a couple glugs from our jar of maple syrup adds another depth of sweetness, yet won't make the bread seem like candy. Using a generous amount of shredded zucchini, the loaves were also spiced up with fragrant ground ginger. I say "loaves" because while the recipe is written for one loaf, I made double the recipe and split it between two pans. To accommodate different tastes at Jeff's office, we thought we would try one of each optional add-ins (being chopped toasted walnuts and chopped dates) in separate loaves. Feel free to add both of them into one loaf or just skip them entirely if you don't like either - we found this bread to be pretty open to interpretation!

While the batter was in the oven baking away, I had cleaned out the mixing bowl to start on the maple butter we were going to have in a separate crock on the side to serve with these. Using softened cream cheese and butter (can't go wrong there!), we dosed the two with more maple syrup and just a touch of brown sugar. You can do this with a wooden spoon, but to whip in plenty of air to give this a light and fluffy texture, I pulled out our mixer and let it go to town. My plan is to hold this in the refrigerator overnight, but will make sure it sits out for a bit to take the chill off before he brings it in.

With all the moisture added from the zucchini, the loaves do take awhile to bake - it was over an hour before they released a wooden skewer that was mostly clean. You don't want any wet batter on the skewer, just a couple moist crumbs that cling! Give them just a few minutes to set up in the pan before turning them out - just like muffins, quick breads can sometimes get a tough crust if left to steam in the pan while cooling down. I'll be slicing these in the morning to arrange them on the tray Jeff uses to carry them in, but I did take off a few pieces tonight from each version we made - for pictures and of course, quality control, as Jeff calls it!

The bread with the walnuts was Jeff's favorite - the little crunchy nuggets in the bread fit in well with the maple and zucchini; just be sure to toast them first so they have more stage presence and don't fall away into the background! I think I preferred the date version just for the fact you don't see them used that much in breads like this anymore - the pockets they dotted the slices with gave off a unique sweetness that grabbed my attention and didn't let me forget. Both of us thought they would make a killer bread when all combined into one loaf though, especially with a dollop (or two...) of that creamy maple concoction spread over!

Recipes
Zucchini Maple Bread with Cream Cheese Maple Butter

Banana and Black Bean Empanadas

Every so often I'll come across a unique looking recipe (at least to us) and stash it in my "to-try" stacks with the hope I'll be ambitious enough to try it. I usually end up passing them by quickly though when I'm trying to pick out recipes for the week... but this time I made sure to pick out at least one to make. That's how these Banana and Black Bean Empanadas ended up on our table for dinner tonight!

To wrap around the filling, we had to get the pastry together to use as the crust. Using a combination of all-purpose flour and whole-wheat flour, spiked with chili powder to add a note of spice, I used my fingers to work in a few cubes of cold butter. A pastry blender or a couple knives would work, but since it was just a few tablespoons, my fingers took care of the job quickly. To bring the dry ingredients together, applesauce and a splash of vinegar were stirred in to moisten and form the dough. Keep a small bowl of icy water handy when you do this - if the dough appears to be crumbly or dry, add sprinkles of the water until it holds together. To settle the gluten down, allow the flour to finish absorbing the moisture and firm the butter back up, the dough now needs to chill out in the refrigerator for at least an hour - if you're ambitious enough, feel free to make this the day before to get this part out of the way.

While that rested, the most intriguing part of the recipe came into play - black beans and bananas! I realized this isn't a new combination to some, but to us it is... we would have never thought to put these two together. After softening a handful of onions, black beans and minced garlic were tossed in and brought up to temperature. Diced bananas were then tossed in (at this point, Jeff left the room as he really couldn't believe I did that) and the mixture was seasoned with smoky cumin, cayenne pepper and a dash of ground coriander. To preserve texture, once the bananas go in, the skillet doesn't stay over the heat for too long - just enough to lightly toast the spices and begin to break down the bananas. Off heat, the filling was freshened up with a sprinkling of fresh cilantro and given a controlled dose of heat with a shot or two of cayenne pepper sauce.

You do want to set this aside and let it come to room temperature before you begin filling the pastry - if you added it warm, it would heat the butter in the pastry up and become fairly difficult to work with. To not waste any of the crust with leftover scraps, instead of rolling the whole shebang out and cutting it out into rounds, we divvied the disc of dough into twelve pieces (this is when having a kitchen scale comes in handy!), then rolled out each into circles. Do this all at the same time, then keep the circles in stacks with parchment or wax paper in between them so you can breeze through the assembly. Filled and sealed into half-circles, for one more layer of insurance to keep the bean-y mixture inside, use a fork to crimp the edges of each together.

What a nifty little pocket meal! The sweetness of the banana didn't strike me as pushy as I thought and with the spice in the filling and crust, it worked to balance the dish well. While empanadas are often fried, these were baked and rank pretty high on the health meter - however, they didn't taste like they should be! You may not get an exceptionally flaky crust with the combination of butter and applesauce in the pastry (that wasn't my change, it was how the recipe was written), but the texture was still acceptable. Vegetarian as is, you could easily turn this vegan if need be - change out the butter in the pastry for a soy margarine or use a product like those Earth Balance buttery sticks.

Recipes
Banana and Black Bean Empanadas

Raisin-Rosemary Rye Bread...

It had been way too long since I put my hands to work kneading a stretchy ball of bread dough, so even though it was the weekend, I set the alarm last night so I'd get an early start on this Raisin-Rosemary Rye Bread I made today.

Besides being attracted to the rye (I have a bunch in the freezer I need to make a dent in!), what I liked about this recipe when I was picking through my choices was how it used a variety of dry ingredients - sturdy bread flour, whole-wheat flour, the rye flour and for a bit of texture, cornmeal! Mixing those together with instant yeast, sugar, nonfat dry milk, salt and freshly ground black pepper (that may seem odd, but don't leave it out!), the dough was formed by mixing in plenty of warmed water mixed with a few drops of olive oil.

I use instant yeast (kept in the freezer to extend freshness) just for the fact it doesn't need to be proofed first. If you'd rather use active-dry, use the same amount called for (which is conveniently the same amount that comes in one of those handy packets), but instead of mixing the yeast with the dry ingredients, dissolve it into the water, along with the sugar called for, and let it stand for 5 to 10 minutes.

Because you'll be holding back on some of the bread flour, the dough will be on the stickier side right away - this is exactly what you want because it is much easier to add more flour if needed, than to try and knead in water. Add enough extra flour to keep the dough from sticking to your fingers, but not enough to make it dry - it should feel just tacky to the touch and feel like it wants to grip your work surface. Once the dough is elastic and supple, the time has come to work in the fun ingredients - toasted walnuts, raisins and just because Jeff loves it in rye bread, a pinch of caraway seed.

The dough now needed to rise - depending on the temperature in your house, it should take about an hour to double in bulk. If your house is exceptionally cool, keep in mind that it may take longer. You could speed up the process by placing the covered dough into an oven (left turned off!) with the oven light lit to raise the temperature enough - however, with a slower rise, more flavor is allowed to develop! Instead of shaping this into a loaf, after letting some of the air out from the risen dough, we re-shaped the ball into a tight round and set it into a pie plate to rise once more. This time it should rise a bit faster, usually 15 minutes, depending on how active the yeast has gotten.

During this time, make sure you get the oven on to give it plenty of time to come up to temperature - you want a very warm, even heat for bread! Just before placing the dough into the oven, to give it room to grow, a sharp knife is used to make a few slashes on top - you can do a large X or a few parallel lines, but we tried a diamond shape (which I apparently still need to work on... hee hee!). You can take the temperature of the bread to check for doneness if you like (it should read around 190 to 200 degrees), or just use your hand to tap on the bottom - you should hear a hollow thump.

As with most breads, for the best texture (and yes, I know just how hard it is to resist warm, fresh baked bread!) you should really let it rest and cool for at least an hour before slicing into it. I don't always follow this, but I try! The rye flavor was there, and was bolstered by the caraway, but it wasn't as prominent as Jeff or I would have preferred - maybe up the rye and decrease the whole-wheat next time?. The sweetness coming from the raisins was a delightful contrast to the more savory rosemary, while the walnuts injected an engaging nutty crunch. Tasty enough by itself, but sent through the toaster made the hearty slices sing, especially with a pat of butter smoothed over the top!

Recipes
Raisin-Rosemary Rye Bread

Chicken, Red Grape and Pesto Pizza...

I can't believe we've been doing this Friday Night Pizza for a little over a year now and we're still chuggin' along with new recipes! To bring this work week to a close, we went with a slightly unusual Chicken, Red Grape and Pesto Pizza. "Slightly unusual" because when one thinks of pizza, I don't think red grapes are the first ingredient that comes to mind!

No surprise I'm sure, but hauling out our food processor to prepare our favorite whole-wheat pizza dough got us going tonight. And, as always, you don't have to make your own dough to enjoy homemade pizza - many local pizza shops let you buy their prepared house-made dough or you could pick up one from the market. Thinking ahead about the moisture content of the toppings, after we stretched out the dough, we went ahead and tossed it onto the pre-heated stone to partially bake through - just long enough to set the top and give the bottom a light golden hue.

Instead of a red sauce, we slathered the base of the pizza in a healthy layer of thick basil pesto - I had just cut back the basil plants in the garden to zap together a batch the other day (have to get the stash in the freezer going for winter use!) and set enough aside for this pizza. I rarely make the exact same pesto, but what I tend to follow is plenty of fresh basil, toasted nuts (pine nuts, walnuts or sometimes even pepitas), a clove or two of garlic, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and enough oil to process. If I need a lighter pesto, I'll hold back some of the oil (usually adding at least 2 to 3 tablespoons) and make up the rest with broth.

Once the pesto was on, we scattered halved red grapes over, followed by shredded cooked chicken that we had simply seasoned with salt and fresh ground black pepper beforehand. If you don't want to cook up a couple chicken breasts yourself for this, a rotisserie one from the market would work - just shred up the whole bird and save the extra in the freezer for the next time you need it. We dotted the top of the pizza with thin slices of fresh garlic and then it was finally time for cheese - fresh mozzarella and just a touch of Romano.

Fresh ground black pepper was the last touch before we slid the pizza back in to finish baking. After it came out, for a mild onion-y bite, we sprinkled thinly sliced scallions over the gooey cheese just before we took our handy pizza rocker and sliced the crust into wedges. Tangy, sweet, savory and quite simply put in one word, delicious, we went a little crazy and forgot about the salad I made to go with and just settled in with way too many slices. Grapes may sound weird (though not so much to us after we made that focaccia), but it is really no different than putting pineapple on pizza... same concept with each lending their juicy, sweet and slightly tart punches. Three garlic cloves may sound like a lot to put on the pizza raw, but don't skimp - by thinly slicing it, the heat of the oven works its magic to mellow them out, calming their harshness. I think we'll up it to four or maybe five (if small) cloves next time.

Recipes
Chicken, Red Grape and Pesto Pizza