What's For Dinner?

Albany Tom said:
That sounds and looks great! With or without file? (with the little thing over the e that I don't know how to do) I like either way, but don't generally add it myself.
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With file’, of course. ;)

(‘Comma to the top’ was the best I could do, Tom)
 
Two days after stuffing ourselves on turkey and, well, stuffing, we decided we needed a break, so we did what every red-blooded American family would in our situation - fire up the pizza oven.

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At ~750degF these cook in about 2 1/2 minutes.

Nauga,
havin' some food and learnin' about Cuba
 
Kinda lame, tuna salad on wheat toast and the last of the mashed taters, stuffing, and gravy.

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We've been playing with using residual heat in the oven to cook the day (or so) after a pizza burn. This morning we baked biscuits and tonight will try empanadas. We have to keep the oven hot(-ish) for the next couple of days to dry it out well before any chance of deep freeze, so we'll take advantage of it.

Biscuits.jpg

Nauga,
heavily breaded
 
nauga said:
Two days after stuffing ourselves on turkey and, well, stuffing, we decided we needed a break, so we did what every red-blooded American family would in our situation - fire up the pizza oven.

View attachment 147664
#2/6

At ~750degF these cook in about 2 1/2 minutes.

Nauga,
havin' some food and learnin' about Cuba
Click to expand...
Looks yummy!

I'd been cooking a lot of pizzas in the 12" cast iron skillet, and for variety I wanted to try a few other styles. Over the course of a few weeks I made 4 distinct Midwestern-style pies, shown in the composite photo below. I did my best to find authentic regional recipes for each.

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Top left, Detroit style. Thick focaccia-style crust, brick cheese on top of that (mozzarella is a good substitute, it's hard to find brick outside of the midwest), then toppings, then the sauce is applied in stripes over the top. Cheese and sauce applied all the way to the edges. The pie is cut so that every slice has a bit of a sauce stripe.

Top right: Quad Cities style. Crust sweetened slightly with molasses and malt syrup (light corn syrup is a fair substitute), plus a touch of cayenne for balance. Multi-day dough rise before baking. Sweet fennel sausage is the traditional topping, and like the sauce, it goes under the cheese. These pies are traditionally cut into strips, then each strip is cut in half.

Bottom left: St Louis style. Dough is unleavened, so the pie has a thin, cracker-like crust. The sauce is slightly sweet, and spread almost all the way to the edge. The required cheese is Provel, also impossible to find outside the midwest, but the blend of cheddar, provolone, and Swiss can be replicated at home. No mozzarella in this one. The round pies are traditionally cut into square slices.

Bottom right: Chicago deep dish. The most challenging to get right. It starts with a lot of dough, which contains a fair bit of corn meal in addition to the flour. Mozzarella slices 1/2" thick cover the crust, and over the cheese goes a pound of ground sweet Italian sausage, then a layer of pepperoni. The sauce goes on top, in a very thick layer. It's chunky, made from a big can of plum tomatoes just barely broken up before being simmered with onion and spices. A dusting of grated parmesan cheese goes over the top before baking. This pie must have weighed 5 lbs...

All were good, we favored the Detroit and Quad City styles, though Chicago Deep Dish would have been right up there if it wasn't so hard to make.
 
Those look great! What are you cooking them in? I'm not good enough with temperature regulation to do thicker crust stuff. TBH I'd settle for nothing but Neapolitan and New York styles but should probably stretch out a bit.

GaryM said:
The required cheese is Provel, also impossible to find outside the midwest...
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And you all should be grateful for that.

Nauga,
and a box of bleached rubber erasers
 
nauga said:
Those look great! What are you cooking them in? I'm not good enough with temperature regulation to do thicker crust stuff. TBH I'd settle for nothing but Neapolitan and New York styles but should probably stretch out a bit.
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All were cooked in our oven, since we don't have a dedicated pizza oven.
For our cast iron skillet pizza, we bake at 450 for 20-22 minutes. The Chicago Deep Dish cooked in a stainless steel skillet resting on a preheated pizza stone, and it also cooked at 450, 20 minutes uncovered, and another 15 with a sheet of foil loosely covering it. Detroit style was in a 9 x 13 cake pan, on a preheated pizza stone, for 20 minutes at 450. 450F also for the Quad Cities pie, 15 minutes on an aluminum pizza pan (no stone). Finally, the St Louis style was baked on an aluminum pizza pan at 425 for just 10 minutes...that thin crust cooks fast!

Only the Quad Cities and St. Louis pies lend themselves to lifting the edge of the crust to check for doneness. The others require trusting the recipe and hoping the crust is actually done when the first slice is cut.
 
Lunch not dinner. Had a hankering for grilled cheese. Use mayo. Not butter.

Customer's Christmas party for dinner later.
 
Well, technically yesterday (should have been today, but my 9 year old was too anxious to wait another day). A garden raiding, fruit tree killing, brake line nibbling furry bastard of a rabbit.
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Half Fast said:
Looks like a good sized bunny, bigger than we have here in Florida.
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He darn well should be for how much of my garden him and his umpteen dozens of kin folk ate. (Normal mornings at sun rise there are easily twenty out and about the yard). I was raised that you wait until after the first heavy snow and a week of frigid weather before you eat them, so any that are sick or carrying anything die, and it came early this year. Now the hunt is on. The darn things breed like rabbits :)
 
I hit the LBS (local bbq store) today. I was pretty low on pork rub and lump charcoal. Next week might be 70F on Christmas so I’m cooking pork butts either the 26th or 27th. Can’t send my Christmas visitors home hungry.
 
Pulled pork tacos. After cooking a butt, there's quite a bit of leftover pulled pork. We vacuseal and freeze the leftovers and more often than not, it gets used to make tacos. Thaw the meat, chop it, and warm it with a little broth or stock.

I like to make one with just pork, barbecue sauce, and cheese, and a second with more traditional taco toppings.
 
FormerHangie said:
Pulled pork tacos. After cooking a butt, there's quite a bit of leftover pulled pork. We vacuseal and freeze the leftovers and more often than not, it gets used to make tacos. Thaw the meat, chop it, and warm it with a little broth or stock.

I like to make one with just pork, barbecue sauce, and cheese, and a second with more traditional taco toppings.
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I’ll toss leftover pulled pork into a dry pan and let it get a little crispy around the edges. Season with cumin or some taco seasonings, add a squeeze of lime juice, and call it my version of carnitas. It’s great wrapped in a tortilla with some homemade crema (sour cream, lime juice, chopped cilantro.)
 
Matthew said:
I’ll toss leftover pulled pork into a dry pan and let it get a little crispy around the edges. Season with cumin or some taco seasonings, add a squeeze of lime juice, and call it my version of carnitas. It’s great wrapped in a tortilla with some homemade crema (sour cream, lime juice, chopped cilantro.)
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I'm going to try that.
 
My version of stir-fry (for 2 with leftovers):

1 onion sliced
1 red pepper coarse chopped
4 oz sliced baby portobello mushrooms
8 oz or so leftover prime rib from Christmas (or whatever leftover chicken, pork, or steak)
3 oz (1.5 servings) whole grain penne
Japanese bbq sauce
1 TBS cornstarch stirred into enough water to make a slurry
Salt and pepper

Sauté mushrooms, then remove from pan.
Saute onion and pepper, then add mushrooms and meat, get good and hot. Add cooked pasta, add several TBS sauce, stir until everything is coated, then stir in the cornstarch slurry to thicken everything up. Use S&P as needed.

Done.

Edit: I topped with some Parmesan.

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