Calzone From Scratch

Made with our own home-made ricotta!

'
Just like in the lasagna, the ricotta was so good in the calzone! Mmmm! 'Nuf said!

Summer Pizza

There's a holiday in Israel that's dedicated to love. On that day, it is said, young ladies in biblical times used to dress in white dresses and go to the meadows, so that young men can chase them in some sort of a courtship game. This holiday is not supposed to happen yet (I think in around 3 weeks) but it is a symbol of summer. The white pizza we had last night reminded me of it.



It filled the house with wonderful scents of oregano and thyme...

Green Pasta, Herbed Pizza and a Pizza Pretzel

Mark finally got his pasta machine. It was a long and frustrating story, which I will make short here, in favor of pictures. He got one at a World Market store back in NC, which was a cheap piece of crap that broke even before you we used it. Then we ordered one online as a wedding gift to ourselves, thinking it was the good kind. But when we opened the box, we found it was the same cheap piece of crap and had to return it. Apparently the vendor didn't know that the wrong one was shipped. Anyway, Mark finally ordered another one online, this time making sure that what we get is the one that's made in Italy and not in China (even though the Chinese were the ones to invent pasta!). And when it got here he anxiously opened the box, afraid of being disappointed again. The machine was lighter than it should be (indicating possible cheaper materials), but it was still made in Italy. He tried it on, and it seems to be working well!

So we had homemade pasta for dinner!

We had some leftover spinach, but no ricotta, so instead of spinach ravioli, we had some green fettuccine.



One is supposed to chop the pasta in a food processor, which we don't have, so the consistency of the pasta is a bit chunky. Mark thought it tasted too eggy, so next time he will try to make it with less eggs.

The day after he made pretzels - his specialty! I decided that I wanted to have a pizza-style pretzel, so I topped it with tomato sauce, basil and cheese:



They're very good as-is, of course!

And last night we had to use some leftover yogurt pizza dough, but we didn't have any spinach, and we didn't have fresh mozzarella cheese, so I suggested a herb pizza with goat cheese:



Mmmm... the thyme and oregano scents that filled the house!

Basil

Last week we got a new basil plant, of a fairly large size. Being realistic, I know it won't last very long with my methods of cultivation, so we decided to eat as much of it while it's still alive. The first thing we used it for was this yummy fresh mozzarella pizza on yogurt crust.



I didn't care much for the tomatoes - they weren't as sweet as they're supposed to be, will probably be better to use those little sweet cherry tomatoes. But it still was very good - the crust crusty as ever, and the fresh mozzarella, with its pleasant texture but bland flavor, allows for the basil to shine.

Simple Delicious Dinner

If you ever want to have something quick and yummy - make some ravioli! All you need is a couple of ricotta cheese containers, some mozzarella, Parmesan or any other cheese to your liking, some spinach if you like, or mushrooms, or whatever! mix it all together and fill with it a bunch of egg roll wraps. We found that getting them instead of won ton wraps makes it much easier to fill: you cut them in half and fold them in half. (1.5 pk of ricotta left 5 big wraps unfilled, for a total of 30 ravioli.) Very quick and easy! Cook them in 2 minutes and top them with your favorite pasta sauce!


Of course, we had with freshly baked bread, spread with goat cheese and topped with marinated artichoke. Mmmm....yum!

Rolling a Pumpkin

Last Friday Mark made a pumpkin roll. This is one of his favorite types of cake - he doesn't have many, so it's an honor just to be on the list.
It's filled with low-fat and fat-free cream cheese mixed with sugar and a bit of lemon juice.



On Sunday we made gnocchi again, this time with regular potatoes - and it was just yummy. I don't crave restaurant gnocchi anymore - they were never really good - at least, not as good as one can make at home - now that I know we can make it ourselves.

I was so hungry and impatient to try the sauce, that I completely forgot about taking a picture. So here are the leftovers, ready to be our lunches for the next day.

This time we decided to use the gorgonzola we had, before it gets any greener, for the sauce. But we never have cream or even half and half, and all the recipes for gorgonzola sauce recommend using cream. So how can you make a creamless creamy sauce? Here's the answer:

3/4 cup milk (we only have fat free)
1/4 cup white wine
2 tsp corn starch
gorgonzola (about the size of a small piece of cake), crumbled
salt & crushed peppercorn to taste

mix 3 first ingredients on medium heat, add cheese when liquid is warm, stir till it melts.
It's very yummy, although I'm sure not as rich as sauce with real cream. But I think the cheese is fatty and strongly-flavoured enough to make it a healthy-though-deliciuos choice.

Mmmm... Homemade Yummies...

Though we still don't have a pasta maker (we got one from a store, but it was defective; then we got another one online, and they sent us the wrong kind) we decided that it shouldn't stop us from having homemade ravioli. So we got won-ton wraps and filled them with ricotta and spinach, and after 3 minutes of cooking we got these yummy creations:



Served with our homemade tomato sauce and a couple of slices of freshly made bread, spread with Gorgonzola, this was a real Sunday night treat.

On Friday Mark made this amazing peanut butter banana bread with a recipe taken from the Vegetarian Times. He, of course, omitted the oil and used more bananas, and the result was so good, even days later (I had a piece yesterday).



In between, we colored eggs for Easter:



That was fun!

In Italy Again...

This past weekend we had two Italian baked goods: calzone and pizza. Calzone in Italian is "trouser" or "stocking", according to Wikipedia, and it's originally pronounced "kal-tso-nay". Ours was filled with loads of mozzarella and ricotta cheeses, spiced with roasted garlic and herbs, and topped with our homemade tomato sauce.


The calzone featured in this picture is the one we didn't eat yet - I was so ready to eat that I forgot to take a picture of the one with the sauce... We'll have this one sometime this week!

Last night we had Sicilian pizza again - and it was just as yummy as it was before!



But there were some differences - this time it was topped with onion and basil!
Mmm... we have some more of that as well!

Guh-No-Chee

This is the way you're NOT suppose to pronounce it. We made them last weekend out of sweet potatoes and drowned them with creamy tomato sauce (as always, careful about fat and calories, we used fat free half-n-half!)


It was yammy! Just the way they should be - soft and melting in your mouth. Mark Made the dough, but this time I helped by shaping them.

Baking-Busy Christmas

Mark wanted to use the days off for baking this Christmas - so we stayed home and baked, and it ended up being a lot of fun, and, well, very yummy!
First, we wanted to make bolobies, which is the name we gave to the khatchapuries, a traditional Georgian (as in former USSR Georgia, not on-my-mind Georgia) cheese-filled bread. It is one of my favorite foods ever. I recently found out that one of my friends in Israel also likes this dish very much, as she gets to eat it at the parents of her sister-in-laws', who came to Israel from Georgia. Small world, isn't it? We found this delightful bread in the book "The World Encyclopedia of Bread and Bread Making" by Christine Ingram and Jenni Shapter.
So Mark made them, of course, and, as usual - they turned out deliciously great!
This is what they look like from the outside:

And inside there's a rich mixture of cheeses:

I'm glad we have 2 more leftover - we're going to have them tonight!
Hooray!

Then Christmas came, and with it some unexpected gifts. Mark wouldn't let me open the gifts till Christmas Day. Where would you put the unopened gifts if you don't have a Christmas tree? On the Christmas chair, of course!
So I decorated the Christmas Chair and this is how it turned out:

Note the little star made out of a wrap of Crembo, a favorite Israeli snack.
Of course, a chair is not a bread, so you may ask - what is it doing in a bread blog?
Luckily, I used the word "mostly" in the title, which entitles me to add non-bread items occasionally. ha ha.

To go with the festive chair, we decided to build a gingerbread house. We had no idea how challenging this might be! We followed the very simple instructions in this website:
http://www.recipelink.com/cookbooks/2000/0688156797_1.html
and this is what we got:

Pretty traditional, don't you think? I like the pond in the back and the rosemary trees.
Unfortunately, I got the wrong kind of cereal: topped with vanilla creme icing, instead of just regular icing. Hence the dirty-colored snow on the roof...

We also added some untraditional items to the house, though:

Like a gigantic bluebird and an outhouse.
The back side of the house, however, is a complete craziness:


After the house was done Mark went on with the baking and made a veggie pizza for Christmas Eve dinner. He took care to use Christmas colors, with red and green peppers, red onion (although in reality it is purple), green olives and red tomatoes.
It was as scrumptious as it looks, if not more so: the crust was crispy and just as sweet as I like it, and the toppings added juiciness to nicely compliment the crispiness.


Mark also made an apple pie and 3-garlic pasta, but this entry is getting too long already.
All in all - it was a very busy and breadful extended weekend!

Scents from Sicily

Mark used the Sicilian half of his genome and made a very fragrant Sicilian pizza last night. The aromas of thyme, oregano and tomato filled the house, and it's unfortunate they cannot be posted on this blog.

The crust is sweet and crusty, although I like it with a bit more honey. Last time he made this pizza it was just PERFECT and now my standards are way too high.