Vegan Pizza

For this pizza I needed a little help as you well know, yeast hates me and Samantha is still in Europe and unable to help. I went to Breadsmith where they will sell you unbaked pizza dough in a ball from the refrigerator. They sell white and whole wheat and I have used both and both work well in this recipe but the picture is of the white.

The first recipe I need to give you is for the pesto...you can make it vegan or you can make it traditionally but then you don't have a vegan pizza! The pesto will keep in the freezer for longer than you can leave it in there because it is so good you will be using it a lot of other dishes.

Pesto:
2 C packed basil leaves
1/4 C toasted pine nuts
3 garlic cloves
1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper
2/3 C olive oil
2-3 T nutritional yeast to taste or if you are not vegan you can use 1/2 C parmigiano reggiano

Blend the basil leaves, pine nuts, garlic, salt, and pepper in a food processor then through the top drizzle the olive oil in slowly until smooth. Stir in the nutritional yeast or for non-vegan 1/2 C grated parmigiano reggiano. Pour into ziplock container and freeze or use.

Roasted Tomatoes:
2 or 3 pounds roma tomatoes
olive oil
kosher salt, pepper, dried oregano, dried basil and garlic powder

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Slice tomatoes and place in a shallow metal baking dish (like a jelly roll pan) slightly overlapping. Sprinkle with olive oil then shake on the salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and garlic powder. Place the pan in the oven uncovered for 5 or 6 hours. They will shrivel up but don't let them burn. Let them cool and place in a ziplock container and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.

Now for the pizza:

Pizza dough
Pesto
Roasted Tomatoes
1/4 C toasted pine nuts
1 small can black olives sliced
2 t  fresh chopped rosemary
5 large basil leaves sliced or chopped

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees with pizza brick in the oven.
Roll out the rested pizza dough on a floured surface to about 1/8 of an inch. Place the dough on the pizza brick in the oven and poke holes with a fork and cook for about 5 min. It should be slightly browned on top of some of the bubbles and the edges.Take it out and evenly spread on the pesto on the dough then add some chopped fresh rosemary. Place the roasted tomatoes on top and then sprinkle on some black olives and toasted pine nuts. Add the fresh basil on top and put back in the oven for about 5 more minutes until edges are well browned. Remove and cool slightly to serve.

Mexican Chocolate Caramel Cake

My youngest daughter has deferred college for a bit while she travels the world and right now she is along the southern Pacific coast of Mexico in Puerto Escondido. It is so beautiful and warm there that I am seriously considering selling everything I own to buy a house and live out the rest of my days in pure paradise!

All this got me thinking about chocolate cake! I wanted to make a cake that captured the essence of Mexico and I wanted it to taste like Mexican hot chocolate which I love so much. Scarlet had brought me some Mexican coffee the last time she had come back from one of her trips to Mexico and I still had it in the freezer unopened. I was going to use a simple base chocolate cake that called for coffee and used mayonnaise. I decided to doctor up the coffee to get the flavor I wanted so I added cinnamon and Mexican vanilla and then brewed it up...I used a french press. It smelled amazing...just what I needed to get the flavor that I wanted!

Then I thought what else can I add to evoke that Mexican flavor experience and thoughts of dulce de leche ice cream crossed my mind. So I decided to make a caramel sauce that I could pour over the cake like a tres leches cake.

Here is the recipe I came up with:

11/2 C flour ( I used Gold Medal unbleached flour)
1 C sugar
1/2 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/2 C dutch processed cocoa
2 ounces 60% cocoa bittersweet baking chocolate bar chopped fine
1 C hot coffee brewed with 1 T cinnamon, 2 t Mexican vanilla or any premium vanilla, and  4 T sugar in a french press
2/3 C mayonnaise
1 large egg
2 t  Mexican vanilla or any premium vanilla like Madagascar
sifted powdered sugar and cinnamon for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter an 8 in. square baking dish.Whisk flour,sugar,baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl pour hot coffee over the chocolate and whisk till smooth then add the mayo, egg, and vanilla and whisk again. Add chocolate mixture to the flour mixture and whisk till just combined and smooth. Pour into the baking dish and bake in middle of the oven for 30 to 35 min. or a wooden pick comes out almost clean when inserted into the middle of the cake.

Caramel Sauce:
4 T unsalted butter
1 C light brown sugar packed
pinch of salt
1 C heavy cream
1 T Triple Sec orange liqueur

Melt butter in a small pot on the stove over med. high heat. Whisk in the brown sugar and salt till smooth and cook until darkened for about 3 to 4 min. Add part of the cream whisk smooth then add the rest along with the Tripple Sec and reduce the heat to low and simmer about 3 min. till bubbly on top.

Dust the top of the cake with cinnamon sugar and poke holes all around the top of the cake while still warm. Pour the half of the caramel sauce over the cake taking care to get some in each hole.

Pour remaining caramel sauce over slices of cake when you serve them. This cake can be served warm or room temperature. Just warm up the sauce to serve.

Blackeyed Peas and Wild Rice

Happy New Year!

I remember my Mom making blackeyed peas every new year and she would force one bite down me so we wouldn't be destitute for the next year. She was very superstitious, you know, turning around if a black cat crossed our path, never venturing under a ladder, and having to say "cut the butter" if we had to split up walking around a pole. I am not superstitious at all but I like the tradition and comfort of having certain foods at designated times.
 I sort of look at food as seasonal even though my girls say that what I do is completely arbitrary. Some examples are that I like to save oatmeal cookies and pot roast for fall, tres leches cake and fish tacos for summer and toffee and beef burgundy for winter.
New years day equals blackeyed peas so I had to come up with a recipe that would make me want to eat them. An old boyfriend introduced me to a blackeyed pea casserole that I couldn't stop eating. Unfortunately, it relied on bacon and bacon fat so I clearly had to come up with something new when my daughters got older and opinionated.

Here is the recipe we are all happy with:

1 onion chopped
3 cloves of garlic minced
1 large sprig of fresh rosemary chopped
1 15.8 oz. can of blackeyed peas drained ( I used Bush's)
1 C homemade vegetable broth
salt and pepper to taste
1 C wild rice cooked in homemade vegetable broth cooked according to instructions (I used Lundberg Wild Blend)

In a med. sized pot cook the wild rice in vegetable broth according to the package instructions.

Drizzle olive oil in a skillet on high heat and then add the chopped onion and salt and pepper. Saute until edges are browned. Turn down heat to med high and add the rosemary and cook for a minute or two then add the garlic for just a few seconds. Add in the broth and blackeyed peas that have been drained and salt and pepper again then reduce a bit.
When the wild rice is done pour the blackeyed pea mixture over the rice and mix.

You can add sauteed mushrooms if you like...just slice a handful of mushrooms and saute them in butter till browned in the skillet before you add the onion then follow the recipe as usual.

Savory Cinnamon Rolls

I often make cinnamon rolls on Sunday morning because that is the day I allow myself to eat anything I want.
This morning I decided that I wasn't in the mood for something sweet so I thought I have never tried making my cinnamon rolls savory and I should. I decided that caramelized onions were a must and I would have to use butter but not just any butter, it had to be homemade herb butter and one more component...cheese but which one? I decided on smoked gouda because it would give me a smokey flavor I needed since I wasn't going to use bacon.

I am not going to use bacon because my oldest daughter Samantha would disapprove and even though she is not here and no longer lives with me she has made me feel incredibly sad for pigs. She claims they have the intelligence of about a 5 yr.old and are not treated properly while they are alive and then butchered. Now I have heard people make the case that pigs are disgusting in that they like living in filth and roll in the mud as well as their own feces but then I thought wouldn't 5 yr.old boys too, if you let them?

I also remember a time when I was at the livestock show with my girls and as we passed by the pens of pigs I noticed one that was particularly cute. I began talking to it in my usual baby talk that I reserve for animals and petted it. It looked like it was in hog heaven...pardon my pun. When I began to walk away it got so excited that it followed me along the fence line as far as it could grunting loudly the whole time. As I moved away from the pen all together it started to squeal and tried to climb completely out of its pen. This pig was massive and its weight and desire to stay with me was taking a toll on this makeshift fence they had put up for the show. The young man that owned this pig asked me to wait for a minute while he contained his pig and exclaimed he had never seen it act like that..so I am convinced that we made a connection that day and they must be quite intelligent!

But you can use bacon if you want and I think it would be delicious.

I am going to tell you right now that yeast hates me and that when I use dough for anything I cheat. I buy frozen dough loaves from the grocery store and thaw them overnight in the refrigerator. My daughter Samantha is the bread maker in the family and yeast loves her! She bakes the most beautiful breads you have ever seen and they are scrumptious but as I mentioned earlier she no longer lives with me...she is currently in London with her fiance.

Just look at that challah bread Samantha made from scratch...I am so jealous!

Now for the recipe:

1 loaf frozen dough thawed
1 large sweet yellow onion sliced thinly and caramelized in butter for about 20 min on low until golden, seasoned with salt and pepper
Smoked Gouda cheese sliced very thin, enough to cover the dough
Herb butter (butter softened and mixed with finely chopped fresh basil, oregano, garlic powder and salt to taste)
1 green onion using the green top chopped
Toasted Sesame Seeds

Roll out the thawed dough on a floured surface into about a 9x13 rectangle pushing out the air bubbles. Spread the herb butter over the dough getting close to the edge. Place thinly sliced cheese on top of the butter then pour on the onions and spread out evenly. Roll up the dough short side keeping the roll tight and pinch the seam tight to hold. You will be able to get about 6 rolls. Using a serrated knife gently cut through the dough to make the rolls.
Put them in a 9 in. round pan. Heat your oven to 170 degrees and then turn off. Put a pot of water to boil and when it starts to boil take it off the stove and set it in the oven. Place the rolls in the oven with a cloth covering them...Be Sure The Oven Is Off. Let rise about 45 min. remove the towel sprinkle the tops with scallions and toasted sesame seeds and Bake at 350 degrees for 20 min. Dot the tops with herb butter after you take them out of the oven.

I think smoked cheddar cheese would be good in this recipe..it might be a little bolder taste than the Gouda. If my daughters had been here I would probably have done both and had a taste off. I love doing that. I even had a taste off with my cats...put two different flavors out to see which one they finished first...it lasted for 2 weeks to make sure they weren't just excited about the new flavor but no...salmon over chicken... hands down!

Old English Toffee

I first came upon this recipe when I was visiting my great Aunt in Oklahoma City. She was a pack rat and so there were stacks of things and boxes everywhere to the point where you could barely navigate around her tiny little high rise apartment. She was always busy in the kitchen creating these delicious things to eat and I remember being told that prior to her recent move she had been working in Boston on a cooking show in some capacity.  I was an obnoxious 16 year old at the time and since the world clearly revolved around me the only part of the story I remembered was the part where Ted Kennedy used to flirt with her in the elevator of her apartment building in Boston (they lived in the same building).

Anyway, I was poking around her not quite unpacked Oklahoma apartment when it began to snow, and this south Texas girl only having seen snow once before in her life ventured out on the balcony to get a closer look. I will never forget it...it was spectacularly beautiful! While I was out there, I noticed this amazing looking candy stacked this way and that in sheet cake pans.  It was melted chocolate on top of something covered in toasted almonds. I grabbed a pan and went in to ask if I could have some and aunt Erma Lee laughed and said "of course, just break yourself off a piece" and so I did. It was the most mouth wateringly delicious thing I had ever eaten! I wondered why she just had it stacked outside on her balcony and she said because it was nice and cold outside and she had no room left inside...which was absolutely true!

I have cherished this recipe and have made it for years with rave reviews...it turned out perfectly every time, regardless of weather or amount ( I have a tendency to double recipes). Then one day, no matter what I did I could not get it to turn out properly.  The butter separated and floated on top...gag! I cannot tell you how many failed attempts there were.  Even one of my friends that I had shared the recipe with called me that year and exclaimed "I can't make toffee anymore...what am I doing wrong?" I commiserated with her but I had no answers.

I finally decided after a couple years and many failed batches of toffee, now mind you I tried everything from every different kind of butter to different kinds of sugar and many different temperatures, to never make toffee again! My husband at the time was crushed, he used to hoard it at his office sometimes until way into February. Then my middle daughter Alexandra gets married and her husband Michael starts in "can't you make toffee? Its my favorite!" Shit! I tell him my sad story but he insists it can be done.  We even try on a very cold day in Austin with low humidity and get  mixed results.  We mopped up some of the excess butter with paper towels but it wasn't the same. Finally after a couple more years, Hallelujah, I have made the perfect toffee, just like old times.  I was able to give it as gifts this year...I even gave some to my ex-husband!

Now, what you have been waiting for...the recipe.  And it works in hot and humid weather, with the windows open or closed, and the a/c on or off.


1 C unsalted butter
1 C light brown sugar firmly packed
1 T water
2  pinches coarse sea salt
1 C sliced toasted almonds
3 1.55oz or regular sized milk chocolate Hershey bars

Place a 9x12 piece of  parchment paper on the counter and sprinkle it with toasted almonds. Bring butter, brown sugar, water, and salt to a boil stirring slowly and constantly with a wooden spoon in a medium sized pot or sauce pan. When your mixture reaches 300 degrees on a candy thermometer pour out onto prepared surface evenly. Break up Hershey bars and place on top of hot toffee and let melt then spread evenly with a butter knife. Crush the almonds with your fingers and sprinkle the remaining nuts on top. Let set.  You can put it in the refrigerator, the chocolate will turn chalky looking but will return to normal when it gets back to room temp. Break it up into pieces to serve.

And so it begins...