Ricotta pesto pizza - weeknight friendly meal

My basil plants are growing like crazy. What am I to do with all of this pesto? Well, I recently had something of a "pizza week" and the first pizza on the menu was ricotta, pesto and tomato. This would fall into the "white pizza" category. If you're not familiar, that means it doesn't have any tomato sauce on it but ricotta cheese serves as the sauce, which is not particularly low calorie but tasty none-the-less.

This is a very simple pizza combination and perfect for a weeknight meal and another use of fresh pesto you might have (directions here) from a basil explosion. I used a pre-made Pillsbury crust but if I were doing this on a weekend I would try to make my own dough because I found the pre-made crust to be adequate but not delicious.

Ingredients

1 ½ cups of ricotta

2 Tb of thyme

½ cup of Parmesan cheese

1 Pillsbury thin pizza crust *or other, note that Pillsbury crusts must be pre-baked for 5 minutes

1 medium tomato, sliced

Rough directions:

Mix thyme with ricotta and spread on prepared pizza crust and sprinkle with Parmesan. Place small spoonfuls of pesto on top of ricotta and finish by spreading sliced tomatoes on top. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 400 degrees or according to the directions for the pizza crust.

Looks good doesn't it? While one full-sized pizza is a too much for even two meals, this was quick and easy to make, making a single person friendly.

Homemade mac & cheese

Cheese. Pasta. Yum.

My friend Abby was having a dinner party for her birthday, she is a serious gourmet. She has made her own ricotta cheese and despite my reservations about eating a homemade dairy product, it was pretty good (I'm told it's actually pretty easy to make ricotta). So what do I take to the party of a fellow experimental chef? For some reason, in the middle of DC summer heat, mac and cheese was the first idea I had. I had never made mac and cheese from scratch, it was a 97 degrees outside with 90% humidity but for whatever reason a casserole dish full of comfort food seemed entirely logical. As I write this, it's starting to sound delicious all over again.

So, how does one make mac and cheese with out a box from Kraft? Good question! Actually, I was surprised how easy it was! The recipe below is something I concocted after spending 30 minutes or so browsing different mac and cheese recipes. It's a little bit Martha, a little bit allrecipes.com and a little bit Lacey.

I read one recipe that called for 'pasteurized cheese product food' - not cheese but cheese product food. Ew. You might as well just buy a box if you aren't going to use actual cheese. There is nothing from that recipe in my version.

Homemade Mac & Cheese
8-10 oz whole grain macaroni - cooked according to package directions and drained
4 oz shredded extra sharp white cheedar
4 oz shredded Gruyere
1 oz grated Romano cheese
1/4 butter
2 cups 1% milk
3 Tb flour

*Note measurements are approximate, I did not measure when I made this but it seems pretty hard to mess it up, so you can play by ear a little bit. Also if you don't want to shred the cheese, or don't own a cheese grater (but really why wouldn't you?), you can cut it up into small pieces.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt butter in small sauce pan, when it's completely melted mixed in flour. Add milk and stirring frequently, allow to simmer until it begins to thicken. Add cheese one handful at a time, reserving about 1/2 cup total of the cheeses. Mix pasta into cheese mixture and pour into a casserole dish. Top with remaining cheeses and sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake for 30 minutes.

Aside from possibly needing some paprika and garlic (you know me and my garlic), this was tasty and in spite of inhospitable summer weather, a huge hit at the dinner party, considering all the tasty items Abby served up, I consider that a major accomplishment.

Fresh pesto

Basil leaves are so aromatic they call your name as you walk past, or so I assume, I've never walked past without stopping for a sniff. The plants trumpet the delights of fresh pesto, caprese salad and real napoli pizza.

My basil plant started growing like crazy, especially considering the small pot it calls home. It was growing so much, I had to buy a food processor, seriously, it was a requirement. Plus I found an amazing deal for a small Cuisinart food processor online and now I can make hummus too.

I made just enough to use for one large serving of pasta or about a 1/4 cup.

Ingredients:
20-30 basil leaves
1 clove of garlic
~3 tablespoons of olive oile
2 tablespoons of pine nuts (or walnuts)
1/4 Parmesan or Romano cheese
sprinkling of sea salt

equipment: food processor

Place nuts and garlic and cheese in food process and chop them up. When they are corsely chopped, add salt and basil leaves and pour small amount of olive on top, reserving additional oil to add later (it helps coat the leaves and get them to settle down toward the blades). Chop until fine and well mixed, adding additional olive oil as needed.

Perfection. Or it will be next time - I used way too much garlic, as in 3 cloves, so all I could taste was garlic. When I was breaking apart the head of garlic three stray cloves broke off and I just decided to use them all, because I like crazy amounts of garlic but not that much. I have hope for the next rendition and am contemplating buying another basil plant.

Look for my end of summer post on how to preserve pesto for use during the winter months, after the of season basil harvest.

Pesto is great on pasta, sandwiches, toast with cheese and a variety of other uses. Enjoy the summer!

The complete opposite of Italian pizza

I recently went on a business trip to Chicago and I must say I was thoroughly impressed not just with the city's breath-taking architecture but high quality eateries. Okay, it's a little heavy on the pizzerias, but they are good pizzerias. I found myself thinking, "too bad it's SO cold in the winter!"

As luck would have it, the hotel I was staying at was in the Magnificent Mile area and just a few blocks from the original Pizzeria Uno, the birthplace of Chicago's deep dish. Which, was of course super busy, and just around the corner from their second location Pizzeria Due, a significantly less crowded incarnation.

I had never had real Chicago deep dish and was of course keen to partake! I went with a colleague of mine, who is from the UK and was unfamiliar with this Chicago treat. In the UK and Europe, pizza is more often the flatter, more authentic, Italian style. We Americans monkey around with everything. I briefed my colleague on deep dish on the walk to the restaurant, "imagine the complete opposite of Italian pizza - that is deep dish." I also included some historical information on the immigration waves to the US from Italy and how this led to rise of different regional pizza styles, very thorough.

We chose an amazing spinach and broccoli topped (stuffed?) pizza, and it was delicious. The bread was crispy the toppings pouring out all over the plate and lots and lots of cheese! I mean, look at that big slab of deliciousness! I'm not sure I'd want to eat a meat topped deep dish pizza though...too dense. The veggies were a nice counterbalance.

I highly recommend the deep dish! But you need to be willing to accept is as a different entity than Italian or even New York style pizza.

Turkey spinach meatloaf

On my way back from Puerto Rico, I was reading trashy magazines on the plane. Don't judge me too much, I was on vacation and I had read the Omnivore's Dilemma, while on the beach (incidentally, it's very good if you are interested in food issues). One of the magazines I read was the May issue of Self, which had a tasty looking recipe for low-calorie turkey meatloaf.

I actually don't like meatloaf normally. The idea of eating a big slab of greasy meat never really appealed to me but this looked delicious! Maybe it was because it had spinach in it. Plus I had about 2 lbs of ground turkey in the freezer from when my dad visited and all the other ingredients on hand too, except for the spinach.

When I started to mix up the ingredients, one thing was abundantly clear - the recipe did not call for nearly enough bread crumbs. I imagine this is make it healthier, since it's part of Self's weight-loss program, the Self challenge. I was also really tempted to pour some red wine over the meatloaf, Portuguese style, but I did not, maybe next time. It also called for feta, which I don't know, seemed weird to me, maybe I'll give it a shot some time.

Turkey Spinach Meatloaf (with my adaptations, original is here)

1 lb ground turkey
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
2 eggs
3/4 cup chopped spinach
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 Tb of Oregano
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. Grease small glass baking pan (circa 9x11). Form meat mixture into a loaf and place in greased pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes.

This was super delicious, I ate significantly more than I should have. One note for the singletons, this will make 3-4 servings. If you wanted to pare it down, you could use half a pound of meat, 1 egg and adjust everything else accordingly to get two smaller servings but it is by no means huge if you follow the directions above.

Following the Self recipe exactly, a 1/4 of the meatloaf is 270 calories, taking out the feta will definitely lower that a little but since I increased the bread crumbs, I'd imagine it to come out about even. So long as you pair it with a healthy side, you are looking at a very low calorie dinner - unless you eat as much of it as I did!

Taste: A
Cost: A+ (ground turkey is much less expensive than other meat options)
Waste: A+ (The ingredients are basic and should be easy to use any extras)

Urban Gardening: Update!

I'm just getting started getting things planted in the garden. I was surprised how late the last frost in DC is! I also did not want to plant things right before I left on vacation, so I had to wait. It was torturous passing all the plants Home Depot had on display every day on my way to and from work.

But now, I have plants. And a growing awareness that I don't have a clue what I'm doing. I felt a tiny bit overwhelmed surveying all of my options for pot sizes, tomato varieties and potting soil.

By the way does anyone know if there is a USDA standard for organic potting soil? I could not figure out if there actually was a difference looking at the package. I'd rather use something the compost-derived nitrogen than petroleum. Please let me know if you have any information.

I decided to start small, I bought two pots which I hope are big enough (the next size up looked huge) a cherry tomato plant and a red pepper plant. I felt that I was most interested in these vegetables and they would take longest to fruit, though why I thought that I have no idea. I took my plants, soil and pots home and set to work. I gingerly placed my plants in there new homes on top of lots of soil. I sent my sister, an avid gardener, a photo of my accomplishment.

Later, when her and I were talking on the phone, she basically told me I screwed it all up. Apparently, I should've broken up the roots when replanting them, so that they take better to their new home. Apparently, there are also varieties of tomatoes bred for growing well in pots and I should have looked for one of those. Oh well, good thing I only started with two plants. Hopefully, they will still turn out alright.

Mofongo

One reason I haven't posted in a while, is that I was on vacation last week! I went to Puerto Rico with a friend and have come back very tan. You might be wondering, what are the tasty things to eat in Puerto Rico? Good question!

In the cab from the airport, my friend and I had the fortune to have a very dynamic driver. Not only did he point out all of the interesting sites we passed but he also recommended multiple restaurants. He told us the typical dish from Puerto Rico is monfongo - green (unripe) plantains mashed and stuffed with some kind of meat. You can stuff it with pork, chicken, beef or seafood. We went to one of the restaurants he recommended, called Raices, which had a whole mofongo menu.

I had mofongo with fried pork, delicious!