Sweet Basil

I had heard good things about Sweet Basil Pizza in Westlake, OH here and there.  Billing itself as Neopolitan style pizza, I've been wanting to give it a try since I don't think I'll be heading to Naples any time soon, much to my dismay.  So I asked my friend and occasional partner in food crime, Tom over at Exploring Food My Way, if he wanted to give it a try with me.  He did, so we did :)

Sweet Basil Pizza is located at 26235 Center Ridge Rd., Westlake, OH.  It's not exactly around the corner from where I live, but a good pizza should be worth the trip.  When we walked in we were immediately drawn to the specials board... one in particular really, the goat cheese, roasted red pepper sauce and spinach pizza.  Hmmm.... we'll keep that in mind.  The decor is minimal but you can see the dough being hand tossed from any seat in the place.  That was pretty cool.  Oh hell, the fact that it's an actual pizzeria, one where you can go in and sit down, order, have a drink and enjoy your pizza there was pretty fantastic.   It seems that the art of the pizzeria is dying in favor of take out.  Everyone is always in such a damn hurry anymore.  I loved that we could just go in and enjoy the atmosphere, talk (because it wasn't too loud even though the music choices left much to be desired in my opinion!) and enjoy dinner. 

We decided to order two 12 inch pizzas, the goat cheese one we were eying earlier and the meat lovers (sausage, ground sirloin, bacon and pepperoni).  But first we wanted to try the bread sticks and I am SO glad we did!

They were delish and piping hot from the oven.  Four bread sticks were perfect for the two of us and we pretty much devoured them in no time flat.  In fact, I am shocked we even got a photo!   They were definitely garlicky, but in my world that is not a bad thing (sorry Mom).  The marinara that was served with them was also pretty tasty and I usually skip it.  It was chunky and complimented the bread well.  I honestly could have made a meal out of these chewy, yummy breadsticks.

And then it was time for the pizza.   It is thin to win and does not take long to bake so it doesn't take long for it to arrive, and bubbly hot from the oven.  Let's start with the goat....

The sauce is good and again, garlicky.  In fact, maybe they should change then name from Sweet Basil to Aromatic Garlic.  They were not shy with it and that is not a complaint.  I very much enjoy garlic in large (but edible) quantities.  I'm not exactly sure what the spice was in this pizza, perhaps red pepper flakes in the sauce, but it wasn't too hot.  It was just a nice bit of spice.  I loved the crust.  Thin to win with just the right amount of crunch and the right amount of chew. 

Next up is the Meat Lovers...

 

Looks yummy doesn't it?  Well it was!  It was.  The meats were all thinly sliced and crisped up nicely.  The sauce was nice.  There wasn't a lot of cheese, but that didn't matter with all that tasty meat on it.  You can't get much better than crispy pepperoni and crispy bacon.  

All in all, I think Sweet Basil was definitely worth the drive and I would definitely go again.  Who's in?

Grandma's Easter Bread - Revisited

As Easter approached, it was once again time to think about making Grandma's Easter Bread. Last year, if you recall, it was quite an undertaking. The recipe was huge, and even cut down it was huge. This year with the help of Nick and my friend Tom, it was cut down again. And this year, the whole process was much more manageable.

But I had more help this year. It was the use of Grandma's Kitchen Aid. I had it last year, but I hadn't cleaned it yet. Truth is, it took me about a year and a half after she passed away to actually do more than look at it sitting on my counter. But one day I finally decided to start using it and cleaned it top to bottom. She wanted me to have it so the least I could do is use it. Year after year she made Easter bread with that Kitchen Aid so it only seemed right to use it for that purpose again. Hers is much older than mine, but these are machines that are built to last.


So this time, I started out with a much more logical amount of yeast, 1 1/2 teaspoons, dissolved in 1/4 cup of warm water.


While the yeast is proofing, take 2 cups of milk and put it in a pan on the stove and scald it, which basically means heat it but don't boil it. Then off the heat take the lard... you remember the lard right? Honest to goodness, real, it comes from a pig, lard. Not shortening. LARD. So take your 1/2 lb. of lard and put it in a pan on the stove with 2 cups of milk and 1/4 stick of margarine (2 Tablespoons). Stir so it all melts together.


After it's all melted, then add 6 beaten eggs and 2 cups of sugar. Mix well. Then add that to the Kitchen Aid that already has your proofing yeast. To that add 1/8 cup of anise seeds. You can use more if you like, I did.


Now it's time to add the dry ingredients and this time it will all fit in the Kitchen Aid! You will need 1 Tablespoon of salt, 2 teaspoons of baking powder and 3 3/4 lbs of flour. It all fits, trust me! And look how beautifully it came together.


It was absolutely perfect. So then take a damp towel, place it over the top of the dough in the bowl still and let it rest for about 30 minutes. Don't forget the damp towel or the top of your dough will be all crusty and that doesn't appeal.

Once the dough has rested, it's time to shape them. You can shape them like this...


Or with eggs.


I color the raw eggs and then put them gently in the dough. But this is the last year I will be making them with eggs. As it turns out, no matter how pretty they are to look at, the majority of people I give these out to do not want the egg. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20 - 30 minutes. But watch them. You do not want to overcook them because they can dry out easily.

Once they are done, it's time to ice. Place the cookies on wire racks and then inside a cookie sheet. All it takes is some powdered sugar and some lemon juice. You want the icing to be thick but still run. So just use your instincts and stir small amounts of lemon juice into about 2 lbs. of powdered sugar until you get the right consistency. It's easy to add too much juice and get a watery icing but all you have to do is add more powdered sugar. Once it's right, drizzle over the cookies and immediately top with sprinkles. If you don't sprinkle immediately, the icing will dry and the sprinkles will not stick.


And yes, I still like to lick the icing and sprinkles off the bottom of the pans :)

It Worked! It Really Really Worked!

I admit it, I was skeptical. The phenomenon of baking a loaf of bread in a heavy duty enamel over cast iron pot seemed like a load of bunk to me. How could this possibly work? I tried to talk myself into explanations... the pot steams the bread, making the crust what you would expect to find in a high end bakery. Is that true? I'm not sure, but I suspect it to be at least partially true, now. Now that I've tried it and become a believer!

The first time I heard of this magical bread was on America's Test Kitchen, where the people who bring us the fab mag Cook's Illustrated show us how to make all kind of incredible dishes. It stayed in the back of mind to try sometime. Then I saw it again in two different cooking demos that I went to last year. It's like it was taunting me... calling to me. Make that bread! So I gave in and tried it. And I'm a damn fool for not having done it sooner!

The recipe I use is from America's Test Kitchen. Start off with 3 cups of unbleached all purpose flour in a large bowl. Add 1/4 teaspoon of instant or rapid rise yeast. I'm not positive the yeast I have is the quick kind. I buy it in bulk since I make so much foccacia for customers so I put it in an airtight container in my fridge. So considering that, I used about a full teaspoon and a half. Also add 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt. IMO, it could use a touch more. I think I'll go with 2 teaspoons next time. But by all means, try it with 1 1/2 first! Combine these ingredients with a whisk.


To the dry ingredients, add 3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons (7 oz) of room temperature water, 1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons (3 ounces) of lager beer and 1 Tablespoon of white vinegar.




Do you like the big econo jug of white vinegar? It's got many many household uses ;)

All you need is a rubber spatula to mix the dough. Fold the ingredients together and make sure to scrap the sides of the bowl. When you are doing this, it's going to look like a complete mess. And if you panic, like I did, you may find yourself putting the whole thing in the Kitchen Aid and mixing it together. I admit it, I did it. I couldn't help myself! I think it was probably unnecessary, but it made me feel better about how terrible the dough looks. The recipe calls it a shaggy ball. That's pretty much exactly what it is. Even after a minute in the Kitchen Aid, it didn't look much better, but I put it in the bowl to rise. Cover with plastic wrap and set at room temperature for, get this... 8 to 18 hours!




I gave it about 8-9 hours. After that amount of time it really doesn't look all that much better. But then you put it on a lightly floured surface and knead it about 10 times or so, forming it into a ball. Then place your now beautiful and smooth ball in a parchment paper lined skillet (I used my cast iron). Make sure your parchment is bigger than the skillet, you will need that overhang later and spray it with nonstick cooking spray. Put the dough seam side down.



Can you believe how that dough came together!? It was shocked, especially because it really didn't rise all that much in that 8-9 hours I had it sitting out. But a few kneads and it was this perfectly smooth ball of dough. Once it's in the skillet, spray the top with nonstick cooking spray and then cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for about 2 hours. The second rise only took a little over one hour for me.

Now, about half an hour before you're ready to bake you need to get your pot hot. The recipe says to adjust the oven rack to the lowest position. I didn't do this and my bread turned out amazing, so use your judgment on whether or not you think you need to. The pot needed for this must be a heavy bottomed 6-8 quart pot with a lid.




You may remember my glorious pot from such blogs as this one or this one. With the lid on, place the pot in a 500 degree oven for 30 minutes before baking the bread. Yeah it's hot. Screaming hot! After that 30 minutes, take the plastic off your dough and score the top with a sharp knife or a razor blade, about 6 inches long ad 1/2 an inch deep. And sprinkle with flour.



Yes, I'm well aware that it looks like a big ass of dough! So after your pot has been heating for half an hour, take your own ass of dough and lift it by the parchment and carefully put it in your extremely hot pot, then put on the lid. Reduce oven temperature to 425 and put the pot back in the oven for 30 minutes. After that time, take the lid off the pot.




Bake another 20-30 minutes without the lid on so the crust can get a nice brown. You most likely will not need the full 30 minutes. I pulled mine out after 15 minutes. Remove the bread from the pot carefully. Remember how hot that pan is. Lift with parchment paper and place on a cooling rack.




Can you even stand how gorgeous that bread is!? The recipe says to let cool for 2 hours. I dare you to try that! I was slicing into this bread about 5 minutes after it came out of the oven! It's really really incredible!

This Blog is Not for Diane!!

Don't read it Diane! I'm warning you right now. The pictures alone will probably make you woozy. My friend Diane, for those who don't know her, has as big an aversion to bananas as I do to oranges. For everyone else, this Banana Bread is A.Maze.Ing! Probably the best I've ever made or had.

Start out by taking a non-stick loaf pan. Butter and flour the bottom and sides well. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.



Banana bread is one of those things I make when I have overripe bananas. (Look away Diane!)




I happen to have had four of them. The recipe (which I believe is from Cook's Illustrated) calls for three bananas, but using four only made it better in my opinion. So take your bananas, peel and then mash them up well.



Leave them a little lumpy though. You don't want them smooth or you might as well just use baby food! To the bananas, add 2 eggs (beaten), 6 Tablespoons of melted butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1/4 cup of buttermilk.



In another bowl, mix your dry ingredients: 2 cups of all purpose flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup toasted chopped walnuts (Nick's crazy for nuts so I often add more, this being no exception. I probably used 3/4 cup or even more), 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.



Pour your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients and gently fold the mixture until the flour is thoroughly moistened.



Then pour the mixture into your prepared loaf pan.


Bake for 45-50 minutes.

YUM!






Now, in the interest of full disclosure I have to admit that I got the whole thing into the loaf pan and had forgotten to add the eggs. How did I do such a thing? Well I blame Madonna. No not the singer. My friend Madonna happened to call me while I was making the bread and I lost track of the ingredients. Luckily for me, after putting it in the loaf pan I looked down at the recipe and realized I did not add the eggs. So I took it out of the loaf pan, back into the bowl and mixed in the eggs. The bread was no worse for the wear!

This bread is really moist and delicious. I think though, if I were to change anything it would be to add some nutmeg. Otherwise, I wouldn't change a thing!

Ingredient List:

Dry:
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup toasted chopped walnuts
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet:
2 large eggs, beaten
6 Tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup buttermilk (or plain yogurt)
3 ripe bananas, mashed

Kalamata Olive Foccacia!

Now we're talkin my language! I love foccacia bread. Garlic and rosemary is my favorite. I've made variations before but I'm always looking for another. I don't know why, because no matter what I put on it, not matter how much I love those ingredients, it still doesn't get better than garlic/rosemary in my book. But I continue to experiment. Hey that's what cooking is all about though right? I knew I wanted to try the bread with kalamata olives. Seriously, how good does that sound?? Kalamata olive foccacia bread. Well damn, it sounds awesome to me!

But what else should go with it? This was my dilemma. I wanted to make sure the olives were highlighted. No other strong flavors. So no rosemary this time. I googled and found that some recipes for olive foccacia had sundried tomatoes as well. No. That wasn't going to work for me. I love them, but they are also a strong flavor. Sundried tomato foccacia would be for another day.

I decided on garlic and then after consulting with my foodie guru Madonna to see what she would pair with garlic and olives. I was thinking an herb, but her suggestion was lemon. Interesting! I decided to give it a go.

First things first. Roast the garlic. I always roast my garlic for foccacia now because the first time I made it, it called for chopped garlic on top and it all burned. Burned garlic is not yummy. So cut the top of a head of garlic. Place it on several layers of aluminum foil and then drizzle with olive oil.


Wrap the garlic up and place in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes. When it's done, remove and let cool.

Now we need to get started on the bread. This bread recipe takes time, so make sure you have a lot of it before you start. Attach the dough hook to your Kitchen Aid mixer. If you don't have one, poor you! Start by making a sponge, which is just another way of saying a dough starter. It consists of yeast, warm water and flour, mixed together with the dough hook on your mixer. The sponge needs to rise for one hour (place in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic and then a towel). When it's risen it pretty much looks like a sponge, thus the name.

Before the sponge is done rising, make the actual dough. Again, yeast, warm water, flour, but to the dough you also add some olive oil and salt.


Get the dough well mixed and then add the sponge to the mixer and mix together. When the dough cleans the mixing bowl all by itself, it's perfect. You may have to add more flour to get to this point. I needed to add flour several times yesterday because it was so humid out.


By the way, aren't my mixer action shots cool?

The dough and sponge come together as one and then need to rise as one. You can knead a little before you set it to rise, but with the Kitchen Aid doing all the work for you, you really don't need to knead. Again, place the dough in a oiled boil, wrap with plastic wrap and then cover with a towel. Set it aside to rise for about an hour, or until it's doubled in size.


Once it's risen, spread the dough out on sheet pan, cover with plastic and a towel again and let rise a third time. I said it takes time, but it's worth the efforts so quit complaining! The third rise should only take about 30 - 40 minutes. In the meantime, get your toppings ready. Your garlic should be cool enough to handle by now so squeeze all those lovely little cloves out and into a bowl.


Add about 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil. Then add the zest of one lemon.



With a fork, mash the garlic with the oil and the zest so it resembles a paste. Normally I would add salt here, but since I'm using olives I decided not to. Which leads me to the star of our show, the olives! I bought pitted kalamata's, but you can buy them unpitted and pit them yourself. Then give them a rough chop.



When the dough is done rising, with two clean hands, make dimples in the dough. Don't be shy! Dimple that dough all over!!!



Then take the topping and dump it on the dough, then spread it out evenly with a knife, a spreader, or a brush. I use a brush because I want to make sure that the dough gets a nice shine of olive oil all over it.


Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Check it and make sure it's browning lightly on the bottom and very lightly on the top. You do not want to overcook it or burn any of the yummy toppings.


It's delish! I still think it could use a fresh herb though. Maybe thyme? I'm not sure. I'll continue to experiment though.

(Full bread recipe can be found here)

Grandma's Easter Bread

Pull up a chair, this one is going to take awhile. This was my families first Easter without my Grandma. The reality of it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I don't know why I didn't think it would be hard. I miss her so much. I can hardly talk about her with anyone without crying, even now. But Christmas came and went and while there was some emotional moments, it didn't compare to how much more emotional I got as Easter approached. Maybe it's because I decided this year I would make the traditional Easter bread that she made every year. I promised her that I would keep her traditions going and I would never break that promise. It was important to her and it's important to me.

After she passed away, there were several things that she wanted me to have, that I retrieved from her house. Her very old Kitchen Aid mixer, the notebooks that Grandma kept her recipes in and a newer item, her kitchen scale. They are just regular notebooks that she either wrote recipes in or if she found a recipe she liked, she would glue it into the notebook. There are four of them.



Somewhere in these notebooks is the recipe for the Easter bread. She called it, in her Sicilian dialect, (and phonetically spelled because I have no idea how it would really be spelled), bahs do dee. I've searched online for any reference to anything close to this term, but came up blank. And while it is technically bread, we always called them cookies because Grandma made each family member their own individual bread and it looked more like a cookie.

Here's a picture of my Grandfather in April of 1960, showing all the bread/cookies that my Grandma had made that year to pass out to friends and family.



And here is a picture of our Easter table, 1971. If you click the picture to enlarge, you can actually see that each place setting has a cookie on it's plate. This is how it was every year that Grandma cooked Easter brunch.




So I began to search for the recipe in her notebooks. I found it, about five or six different times, with different measurements. All of them HUGE!




Then again, she made an enormous amount of these cookies every year so of course the measurements would be huge. When I told my mom about these large recipes she said she had one that was scaled down some and she would just give me her recipe. So I took it, and didn't bother to look at it when she handed it to me. When I got it home and actually did look at it, the recipe still was huge, calling for 2 lbs of sugar and a whopping 15 pounds of flour! Clearly the recipe had to be cut down some more. Nick did that, cutting it in half. That still left me with 7 and a half pounds of flour! But I decided to just go for it.

So you start by dissolving three packages of yeast (I buy yeast in bulk, so I used three Tablespoons, probably should have used teaspoons!) in one half cup of warm water.


While the yeast is proofing, scald one quart of milk. Turn off the heat and add one pound of lard and 1/2 stick of margarine to the milk.




Lard. Not shortening. Not butter. But real old fashioned, it comes from rendered pig fat, lard. This was the first time I ever purchased honest to goodness lard.



Gross isn't it? And let me tell you, the smell is really interesting. Because it smells like pork. So while I'm stirring my pot of milk, margarine and lard, the aroma is all pork roast. Freaky!

Once the lard is all melted add 12 lightly beaten eggs.



Then two pounds of sugar and mix well. Add the yeast mixture and 1/3 cup of anise seed.



Now it's time to add the dry ingredients. Four Tablespoons of baking powder, two Tablespoons of salt and (hold onto your hats) the previously mentioned seven and a half pounds of flour!




Needless to say, this is far too much dough for a Kitchen Aid (even two Kitchen Aids as I have now). A regular old mixing bowl isn't going to cut it either. I had to use my biggest stock pot because it's the biggest thing I own that I could mix this much dough in.



And I couldn't use a wooden spoon because it would have broken from the weight of the dough. So I did it how Grandma always did, and put my hands in there and got busy! And I used another one of her tricks. I put the pot of dough on one of my dining room chairs while I mixed it. She was really short and the big bowl on the counter was too difficult for her to mix. Well I'm not giant either, so I tried it this way and it worked out perfectly! And hand mixing worked great! The dough mixed together beautifully and evenly. Once it's all mixed, let the dough rest for 30 minutes with a damp towel over the top to keep it from drying out.

And now the fun part. Time to shape the bread into the classic twist with the dyed egg in the middle. I had dyed my eggs the day before. I did it the same way Grandma does, raw. Since you put the egg in the bread, if you boiled them first, they get overcooked and not very edible. But putting them in the dough raw lets them bake in the oven along with the bread.



You may recall that I said I probably should have used only two Tablespoons of yeast. This is why....


The bread puffed up so big in the oven on the first batch that they looked more like cloven hooves then bread! And then I was really sad to see that the egg dye had run onto the bread itself.


My mom assured me that this always happened to Grandma too, so I didn't feel so bad after that. If it happened the expert too, then it's OK!

I shaped and shaped, some with eggs, some without. Some small, some big. Some huge! The dough never got smaller. The yeast in it made it keep growing and growing and I felt like I was never going to run out! So I made them bigger and bigger.



And finally, the end was near. My back was aching, my arms were sore and I still had to ice them. At least once an hour I looked up to the heavens and said, "Grandma! How on earth did you do this every year!" And a new surge of energy would go through me. All I wanted to do was make her proud and let her know I was keeping her tradition alive.

I got out my old fashioned juicer (you know, the old Pyrex kind because that's what she used) and a few lemons. With that juice and about two pounds of powdered sugar, the icing is made. It's should be thick, but not overly so. It should still run off the spoon easily.



All you do is drizzle the cookies/bread with the icing and then sprinkle with multi-colored nonpareils. Make sure you sprinkle immediately before the icing dries.





When I was a kid, my mom and I would go to Grandma's and help her make them. Grandma had them on a big table in her basement (like the black and white picture above). You do know that most Italians have two kitchens right? The main one and then the one in the basement. Anyway, they were on a white sheet on a big long table and big blobs of icing and sprinkles would dry on the sheet where the run off was. And my favorite thing to do was pick off those bits of icing and eat them. Some things never change.




And so, here they are. All done and ready to be distributed to any and all family and friends. And might I add that they came out absolutely delicious! I, on the other hand, needed to soak in a tub of Epsom salts, take a bunch of Ibuprofin and have my arms rubbed down with Ben-Gay! Here's looking to next year when I do it all over again!




Ingredient list:

1/2 cup warm water
1 lb. lard
1 quart milk
2 lbs. sugar
1 dozen eggs
4 Tablespoons baking powder
3 pkgs. yeast
2 Tablespoons salt
1/3 cup anise seed
1/2 stick margarine
7.5 lbs. flour