Grilled Pizza with Fingerling Potatoes, Blue Cheese and Caramelized Onions - Vegetarian Recipe

Grilled Pizza with Fingerling Potatoes, Blue Cheese and Caramelized Onions

I've been working on my grilled pizza technique for a few summers now, and I think I've finally hit on a system that works well. When I make one just right, it tastes very much like those coming out of the ovens at our traditional Neapolitan pizza joints here in Seattle (Tutta Bella, Via Tribunali), with a flavorful, slightly charred crust that is paper thin in the middle and a bit thicker and chewy at the edges.

For most pizza pies, I like to use a light scatter of toppings, but this one I loaded up a little, with a combination of fingerling potatoes, caramelized onions and blue cheese. My wife, Sarina, called for that combo and it was a winner.

Here are my thoughts on technique:

For the crust, it really helps to get your hands on 00 (double-zero) flour. (If you are in Seattle, it is available at Big John's / PFI.) Then follow this perfected dough recipe to the letter, preferably by weight instead of volume. Pay particular attention to the times, rests and speed if you use your stand mixer. This allows time for the dough to hydrate properly.

My grill is a Big Green Egg, which is this insanely cadillac ceramic smoker/grill. I've got to be one of about 7 vegetarians in the world who have one, because its main purpose in life is to slow smoke meat. But it also gets up to crazy high temperatures, which makes it work quite well for pizza. So you'll need to experiment with your own setup.

What I find works best for me is to not use a pizza stone, cooking directly on the grate, and use the flip maneuver: grill the naked dough on one side until starting to char, flip, and immediately apply toppings. Close the top for just a minute, open and remove. That way you don't run the risk of having a cooked bottom of the crust but unpleasant doughy interior around the edges. It also helps to have the toppings preheated, or at least at room temperature. If they are cold, they won't have enough time to get hot.

If you can get to your grill grate with it, a pizza peel is the best tool to work with. If not, because the grate is below the level of the grill edge, a very large spatula with an offset helps. In any case, please be very careful and don't do anything you aren't comfortable with or aren't sure you can do safely. I'm not responsible if you burn yourself!

The dough recipe above will make four crusts (and doubles easily), but the recipe below is for just two 12" pizzas; I'm assuming that you will want to make several varieties.

Grilled Pizza with Fingerling Potatoes, Blue Cheese and Caramelized Onions
Vegetarian
Makes two 12" thin-crust pizzas

• 3 medium onions, sliced moderately thin
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• salt
• 3/4 pound fingerling potatoes
• 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese of your choice, brought to room temperature
• two balls of pizza dough, about 200 grams each, fully risen and ready to bake
• optional: a drizzle of syrupy aged balsamic vinegar, leaves of fresh thyme

1. Preheat your grill to a very high temperature, but allow the flames to die down. You want very hot embers.
2. At the same time, in your largest skillet, over a medium flame, heat the vegetable oil. Add the onions and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Cook slowly, tossing occasionally and adjusting the heat so that they don't scorch, until deeply caramelized, at least 30 minutes. Longer is better if you have time, the flavor just grows more complex.
3. Meanwhile, boil the potatoes until tender, cool until you can handle them, and slice lengthwise in 1/4" slabs.
4. Have everything prepared and in easy range of your grill, as you will have to work quickly. You'll also need a very large spatula. You can't Grab a ball of dough, and stretch it out into a roughly 12" circle. It doesn't need to be perfectly round. It should be nearly transparent in the middle and maybe 1/4" thick at the edges. It works best to do this in the air, just stretching and allowing gravity to work.
5. Place the dough on the grill grate. It won't stick because the grate is so hot, it will cook immediately. Cook about 1 minute, until slightly charred in spots. Keep peeking with a spatula. Flip the crust and immediately add a nice layer of caramelized onion, half of the blue cheese, several slices of potato, and more caramelized onions. Close the lid for about one minute.
6. Keep checking the bottom of the crust, and when it is done and starting to char in spots, quickly but carefully remove it and serve immediately, garnishing with the balsamic and/or thyme if you so choose.

One-Bowl Banana Muffins - Great For Baking With Kids - Recipe

One-Bowl Banana Muffins

I wasn't planning to write a post about these banana muffins. They were just something me and the kiddos were whipping up on a Saturday morning. Pretty much every food blogger and their Great Aunt Estelle has published a banana muffin recipe, so why would I? Two reasons: (1) they were unusually delicious (B) I worked out a way to make them in a single bowl, which cuts down the mess and makes it easier with munchkins.

The trick to using a single bowl is trivial. I get all the wet ingredients and the salt thoroughly mixed. Then the flour and leavening is combined in a sieve and sifted directly into the wet. By the time you fold them together, the leavening is distributed just fine. That might not be good enough for a layer cake you are hoping to medal with at the state fair, but in these muffins you'll never know the difference.

Here's a good tip for baking with very young kids: get out all the ingredients and tools you need first, before you have them join you. That way you won't be rooting around in the cabinets while they threaten to dump softened butter on the cat.

If we have bananas that have gotten too ripe to eat out of hand, I always freeze them for banana muffins or banana bread. If you are using frozen, just defrost them in the microwave first. Otherwise, if you are using fresh, you'll see that I still microwave them a bit along with the butter, to make them mash more evenly.

We used lots of vanilla and a good amount of salt to bring out the banana flavor. If you want to add chopped and roasted nuts or chocolate chips, you certainly have my blessing! Just fold them in at the end.

One-Bowl Banana Muffins
Vegetarian; not vegan nor gluten-free
Yields 10 good sized muffins

• 2 large ripe bananas, peeled
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1. Preheat the oven to 375, convection if you have it. Line 10 muffins tins with muffin/cupcake liners.
2. Put the bananas in a large, microwave safe bowl. Microwave on high for 1 minute. Add the butter and microwave 20 seconds at a time until the butter is softened but not melted. (It is fine if a little bit of it melts).
3. Using a potato masher or whatever you have to hand, mash the bananas and butter together until there isn't a lot of lumpiness left.
4. Thoroughly stir in the sugar, beaten egg, milk, vanilla extract, and salt.
5. Place a sieve over the bowl and fill it with the flour, baking power and baking soda. Sift the contents into the wet ingredients, trying to stir the sieve as you go to distribute the leaveners.
6. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet. Stop when they are just moistened. We'd rather have a couple lumps than risk overbeating it and having tough muffins.
7. Distribute the batter into the tins. Bake until quite dark brown, and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out dry, rotating once about halfway through baking. Total baking time in my convection oven was about 25 minutes.

Chocolate-Chunk Bread Pudding - Recipe

Bread pudding with molten pockets of bittersweet chocolate

I love to make sweet bread puddings with leftover challah or brioche, because they are already rich. Today's version is filled with molten chunks of bittersweet chocolate. Let's just say I find myself eating less challah on Friday night because I'm hoping there will be enough left to make this for dessert the next day.

The critical understanding of bread pudding is that it is a custard, albeit heavily garnished with bread. Once you realize that, and treat it appropriately in terms of ratios and temperatures, you have a lot of freedom to tweak the components and be assured of making a great dessert.

Speaking of ratios, I recently read Mark Ruhlman's Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking and have found it very valuable. While the idea of basic ratios for custards, pastry, sauces and so on isn't new to me, I've found it much easier to remember them and improvise. For example, I know now that 2 large eggs : 1 cup of milk is a reliable ratio for a free-standing custard like flan, and it works just fine for bread pudding as well.

I chose to bake this in one large dish. To avoid overcooking the edges, I do it covered in a relatively slow oven. Individual ramekins would be a fine choice as well; you could even put them in a water bath the way you do for flan or creme brulee.

Chocolate-chunk Bread Pudding
Serves 6-8
Lacto-ovo vegetarian

• 1 tablespoon sweet butter
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups whole milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup sugar
• big pinch of salt
• 14 ounces challah or brioche, preferably slightly stale, most of the crust removed and cut into 3/4" cubes
• 7 ounces high quality bittersweet chocolate, in the 70% range, cut into good sized chunks - not a whole mouthful but a lot bigger than a chocolate chip

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F., using convection if you have it.
2. Butter a large shallow baking dish, around 8" x 12".
3. Beat the eggs. Whisk in the milk, starting with just a little at a time until the eggs are well distributed. Whisk in the vanilla extract, sugar, and salt.
4. Place the cubed bread in the pan. Pour the custard evenly over the bread and toss lightly, trying to get it to absorb without squashing the bread too much..
5. Add the chocolate chunks and again toss gently to distribute.
6. Cover the pan with tin foil and cook until it reaches an internal temperature in the center of 185 F. For me this took about one hour and fifteen minutes. You can also check for doneness with a fork, and as it gets close, by taking a bite. You want it to be well set, but not overcooked and rubbery.
7. Let rest ten minutes and serve it forth. A bit of whipped cream, a drizzle of heavy cream, or a scoop of vanilla ice cream are all very welcome. If you want to whisk a bit of good bourbon into that cream, don't let me stop you.