Pizza Night

Dough (2 12” pizzas)

• 1000 G Flour

• 700g water

• 20 g Salt

• 1/4tsp instant yeast

• Cornmeal and flour for shaping

1. Mix the flour and water and lt rest for 30 minutes. Sprinkle salt and yeast on top of dough and mix by hand to evenly distribute the salt and yeast. Let it rest overnight (12 hours)

2. Divide into the desired number of pizzas a 500g ball will come out to a 12” pizza. Working gently to shape to a smooth ball

3. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours, at this point you can save the dough to use at any time in the next 2 days

4. Preheat your oven to 550F and if you have a pizza stone be sure this is preheating on your bottom rack

5. To shape the dough, first, create a circle with the dough using the side of your left index finger and the index and middle finger of your right hand, push the edges of the dough together to form a crust, working from the center spin and pull the dough to stretch it out, if your feeling bold you can toss the dough. To toss use the back of your knuckles to hold the dough and flick your wrist to rotate the dough and gently catch it with your knuckles. Tossing your dough takes some practice I find a combination of tossing and hand stretching works best.

6. Once shaped, place pizza on a pizza peel (if using a pizza stone or pizza pan with cornmeal dusting on the bottom to prevent sticking

7. From there, your pizza is ready to get topped, you can top a pizza with pretty much anything you want to eat, if you’d like a classic pizza sauce, use the recipe below but this works great for a margarita pizza, white pizza the sky is the limit

8. To bake with a stone, slide the pizza and cook for 3 minutes, you might need to rotate at this point if your oven has hot spots and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Finish this under the broiler to melt cheese for the caramelly goodness.

9. To bake with a stone slide your pizza pan in with your pizza and bake for 7 minutes and check to see if it needs rotating and cook for another 5 minutes, you might also want to finish this under the broiler as well.

   Notes

   A pizza stone or steel really converts your home kitchen to a pizzeria, they cost about $40, one use and you’ll be sold, we use the pizza steel from Nerd Chef

   The only real rule of topping pizza is oil any bare spots on the dough that don’t get the sauce, be sure to cover and oil or better yet a garlic and parsley oil blend.

   Some of our favorite pizzas are margarita and traditional with whatever leftover veggies and meats you have on hand plus a healthy amount of cheese.

Pizza Sauce

Sauce

• 1 large yellow onion

• 1 28oz can of whole peeled tomatoes

• 3 cloves of garlic minced

• salt and pepper to toast

• 1/2 large carrot

• olive oil

1. Julienne onions and sweat on low heat with chopped carrots, olive oil and salt until tender 10-12 minutes.

2. Add garlic, and brown

3. Right before the garlic browns add the can of tomato sauce and bring to boil, quickly reduce to simmer and stir, simmer for 20 minutes.

4. If you’d like a chunky sauce, crush the tomatoes with a metal spoon or potato smasher (be wary of splatter) or for a smooth sauce, blend on high in your blender for 1-2 minutes, be sure to hold the lid down to prevent a pizza sauce explosion from the built-up heat and pressure in the blender.

Fried Chicken and Mac N Cheese

Fried Chicken for 4

1 whole chickens cut into 10 piece cut

Brine

 Enough buttermilk to cover chickens (650g)
2 orange black tea bags
Few dashes of hot sauce

Batter

4900 g Flour
65g Cornmeal
20G Cornstarch
4 g garlic
4g onion
3 g chipotle or chili powder
4 g paprika

1. Brine the portioned chicken and buttermilk, tea, hot sauce over night

2. Combine all dry ingredients and reserve

3. Have a wired baking sheet ready, begin to bread the chicken, remove from brine and coat with dry mix rest on wire rack

4. Preheat oil to 350F depending on your frying method you may have to do 2 batches, adjust for cook times below

Thighs - 12 minutes
Breast - 8 minutes
Drumstick - 7 minutes
Wings - 5 minutes

Mac N Cheese Sauce

Makes 1 qt

265g milk
11 g sodium citrate
150 g aged cheese like cheddar
150 g non aged cheese (swiss, pepper jack)
100 g aged parmesan

1. Whisk together milk and sodium citrate in medium sauce pot

2. Bring to a boil and remove from heat

3. Using a immersion blender blend in all the cheese a little bit at a time

4. Season with salt and pepper

Notes

*Be sure to salt the chicken as soon as it is done frying
*Allow breading chicken to rest n the rack for 5-10 minutes prior to frying to let the breading better cling to the chicken
*If you don’t have a deep fryer a deep cast iron pot, dutch oven or wok is a great vessel for deep frying, just be sure to have your thermometer ready so you keep an eye on the oil’s temperature. 
*You can buy sodium citrate Amazon or at health food stores
*To reheat the sauce, do so slowly in a double boiler stirring regularly.

Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal Maple Bacon Bourbon Cookies

Here are 2 delicious cookie recipes to get you through a hard day, the first is my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, the second is a bit more adventurous Oatmeal Maple Bacon Bourbon cookies which I make for my family every Thanksgiving.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

200 g flour
2 g baking soda
4 g salt
200 g chocolate chips

1 stick butter
150 g white sugar
75 g brown sugar
1 egg
6 g vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 f

2. Cream butter, sugars, egg and vanilla together

3. Silt in dry ingredients minus chocolate chips

4. Stir in chocolate chips

5. Shape into small balls on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes

6. Rotate trays and bake for 3 more minutes to cook evenly

Oatmeal Maple Bacon Bourbon Cookies

1 lb bacon

215 g flour
4 g salt
150 oats
Sea salt

110 g brown sugar
145 g sugar
2 eggs
230g bacon fat, butter mixture
10 g vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 425

2. Bake bacon for 20 minutes until crisp, remove from oven and use render fat for butter, bacon fat mix

3. Reduce oven temperature to 360F

4. Finely chop bacon pieces

5. Cream together sugars, butter, bacon fat, eggs and vanilla

6. Stir in salt, flour, oats, bacon

7. Cool cookie dough in the fridge for 5 minutes

8. Shape into small balls, top with a sprinkle of sea salt and for 8 minutes rotating trays and bake for 4 minutes or until cake tester can come out of cookie clean

Icing

200 g bourbon
100 g cider
50 g maple syrup
1 packet cream cheese

1. While cookies are baking you can start icing

2. Remove cream cheese and let stand at room temp to soften

3. Reduce bourbon in a saucepan and ignite with lighter to burn off the alcohol

4. Add cider and maple syrup and reduce until it is the consistency of maple syrup.

5. Combine cream cheese and syrup, top of cooled cookies

Our Favorite Cornbread

Ingredients

115g butter (1 stick)

20 g honey

2 eggs

265g buttermilk

2g baking soda

155g cornmeal

122g flour (spelt or local wheat ideally)

5g salt

5g ground chicos (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 375F

2. Mixing cornmeal, flour, salt, ground chicos, baking soda  in a bowl and set aside

3. Combine eggs and buttermilk in a bowl and set aside

4. Heat 1 12inch cast iron skillet on stovetop and melt butter and honey until brown, remove from heat

5. Working quickly add eggs and buttermilk to the pan, constantly whisking to form custard.

6. Add dry ingredients and mix with rubber spatula to completely mix.

7. Level off the ingredients and bake in oven for 20-25 minutes until a cake tester can easily be inserted and removed

Notes:

• Chicos are a smokey dried corn kernel native to New Mexican cooking it adds a wonderful smokiness to the cornbread

• If available good flour and cornbread really make this dish standout, if you don’t have a local supplier, Bob’s Red Mill Cornmeal and Spelt flour work really well.

• To me cornbread is best enjoyed with chili, especially Colorado Green Chili but it can be great as a snack or  mixed in with breakfast, turned into stuffing you have a lot of possibilities