Thin Crust Pizza (p8 January/February 2011 Cook's Illustrated) (Shannon wants Chicken Alfredo, going to do a 3 day rise)
So I've done a few rises before where you get a nice crust to this, and even if it's a very simple dough recipe, it has has a lot better flavor then many of the pizzas that I've bought and baked at home. So the recipe says you can do the refrigerator rise for the pizza dough for 1-3 days. For me the flavor that has been developed after a day, really turned out quite wall, so with that thought, shouldn't a three day rise be better? Was it better? perhaps, but I'm comparing the memory of a taste verses the taste that I had to day, even so I do like this method of making dough.
So to make this, I whipped up a quick batch of alfredo sauce, while doing that, I cooked up a couple of chicken breasts with a bit of slat and pepper and some olive oil in the pan. And then on top of that, chopped some grape tomatoes.
The big difference, when putting together the pizza, was the dough was a whole lot easier to work with after 3 days then it was after 1 day. Or it could've been that it was out of the refrigerator for a bit longer then I normally would. Things went together well and after being cooked for ~12 minutes it made for quite the delicious dinner. There were a couple of problems. First I think there was too much Alfredo, I probably should have just made a single batch (I made a double with 1 cup of cream and going from there). Second, I should have chopped the chicken a bit smaller. Occasionally you would run across a larger piece that didn't give the right mouth feel cause it was just a bit too big for the pizza. And third, the tomatoes. The tomatoes may have added a bit too liquid to the top of the pizza, so maybe I should have sauteed them first to get rid of some of the liquid of the tomatoes before putting them on the pizza, or put them on after the fact.
So it ended up being a fork style pizza for the most part, but it was good and certainly contained a bunch of things that Shannon is a big fan of. Maybe a Ruben pizza next time? Think I could get that past Shannon?
Stuffed Veal (free range, grass fed) Burgers
I added some spices, and cut up some jalapeno jack cheese, and cooked them slowly. It turned out pretty well. And now there is no more veal in the freezer...
Quick Mushroom Ragu (p13 March/April 2011 Cook's Illustrated)
I want to know how they define "quick". I assume that it's "quick" in comparison to cooking something for twelve hours, but it took a while longer. This was a dangerous play for our house. Neither Shannon, nor I are huge fans of mushrooms. Even though I doubled the amount of tomatoes, it was still a bit too mushroomy. I cut the mushrooms pretty small and even with that the chunks just got tiring after a while. It tasted good, I can't deny it, but every once in a while you hit a bigger chunk of mushroom, you get that spongy texture that I'm not a big fan of. Maybe if the sauce were blended it would be better.
Bean Burritos
So I started with half a red onion, then added some garlic to the pan. After they were done, I added some diced tomatoes and some black beans. I added some spices (couldn't tell you want) and then let it simmer while I prepared the other things for the burrito. It turned out pretty well, I think I should have mashed up some of the beans like I have done in the past. It still worked though.
Bratwurst
Sometimes, you don't really want to go the extra mile...and there you go. I do love Brats though, they remind me of my childhood.