In the Kitchen With Mattie

Archive for November, 2009

You will notice that in a lot of my recipes I use stocks. I used to be a big user of butter in all my cooking and I still use butter, but I have found that stock adds lots of flavor to lots of different dishes and it cuts down on all the butter we used to go through.
Making stock is simple, especially if you have access to a pressure cooker. You can make a decent stock in the pressure cooker in about 30 minutes, but 60 minutes makes an even more intense flavored stock, you can then use this stock to make soups, gravy, all kinds of sauces, moisten the bread for your stuffing etc. It is a versital item to have on hand, if you looked in my freezer at any given time you would find all different kinds of stocks in various containers, I go through lots of it in my cooking.
There are many ways to make a proper stock but I am a simple girl cooking simple food for my family and this is what I do.
Take out your largest pressure cooker  and add whatever chicken parts you have available, wings, backs, thighs etc. Fill the pot halfway with the chicken, add a large onion with the root end cut off, 2 broken in half celery stalks, 2 carrots broken in half, some peppercorns and 2 bay leaves to it, add water to come a little over the chicken but never fill the pot more than 3/4 full. Close the pot and bring the pressure to high, set timer to at least 60 minutes, adjust the heat as needed to maintain pressure. remove from the heat and let the pressure go down by itself when the time is finished, open the pot and strain the broth through a fine mesh strainer or a strainer lined with cheesecloth. Discard the solids or give the meat to your pets (they will love you for it, and you can’t use it any other way). Pour the stock into small containers and refridgerate overnight, remove the layer of fat from the top when it is thoroughly chilled and then freeze the stock in useable portions.
You will notice I don’t add salt or many seasonings to my stock, Hubby has high blood pressure so I have stopped salting foods pretty much when I am cooking them, I can always add it later but can’t remove it once I put it in, I don’t put anything else into the stock until I actually use it, I don’t want it to taste too herby in certain dishes.
I make pork and beef stocks the same way and have those on hand in the freezer too. You can also roast the meat and bones you use for stock making if you have the time , and make a little richer stock from them but, at this stage in life I am all for any shortcuts I can take and still produce some good meals so I usually do this quick version. The longer you can let the stock cook if you have to use a stove top regular stock pot, instead of a pressure cooker, the more flavor it will have, but the pressure cooker extracts the most flavor from the ingredients.
You can also do this on the stovetop in a regular stockpot, bring it to a low boil and skim it frequently, never let it come to a full boil. It will produce a nice stock in a few hours time and then proceed as above and chill then freeze it.
If you want to save time however, run and get yourself a pressure cooker, make sure it is tight when it is sealed, take good care of it, especially the gasket and safety seals, and it will last you a lifetime and save you tons of time in the kitchen. You will make great healthy meals quickly, compared to conventional cooking methods and can spend the saved time doing something you love, if unlike me you don’t love cooking and spending time in the kitchen.

     If you use one of the newer digital pressure cookers follow the basic instructions and adjust them to your particular cooker.
Mattie

We love pizza and I love making it here at home. I know you want a recipe but there are literally millions out there on the web. Our pizza is made similar to what we grew up on in NYC but that you can’t find in the deep south. It was the major thing we missed when we moved down years ago. I can tell you that it took me forever………..ok, maybe more like months of trying every other day to get to where I am now, which is a pizza that tastes like what we grew up on. At first it was frustrating, I was covered with more dough than I managed to form into a pizza. Once I relaxed about it and started having fun with it, well, then it all started to really come together for me. I now work with a much looser dough and the resulting pizzas come out crisp on the bottom, yet light and airy inside. Decide beforehand that you will have fun with this, your own type of perfect pizza will come with time……….enjoy the process. You will learn something new about it all each time you do it, I still do and I’ve been making pizza for years now.

Due to the humid conditions here in the south there is no way for me to give you a definite recipe for my pizza but I can tell you the procedure I use. We have a small pizza oven that goes to 800 degrees but I know many don’t, if you use the home stove oven then you will need to use a different flour than I do, the flour I use only works in a high temp enviornment, you can substitute bread flour or a combination of bread and all purpose.

I use a Cuisinart 11 cup food processor to mix my dough, into the work bowl i put                

                          5 cups Tipo 00 flour

                          2 teaspoons salt

                          1/2 teaspoon diastatic malt

                         2 teaspoons yeast

                         2 1/4-2 3/4  cups cool water

I place the top on the machine and pulse it a few times to mix it all up. Because of the humidity where we live the flour often has a lot of moisture in it, though it looks and feels dry, for that reason my liquid measure might not work for you if your climate is dry. It took me a long time to figure all this out and it will probably take you some time too. Don’t give up though, you can and will turn out a good pizza if you don’t quit.

With the machine running, I start pouring water slowly into the chute until the dough starts to come together. Once it comes together I let the machine run about 15 seconds and then check the texture of the dough, if it still feels dry (you don’t want pie crust texture here, you want a dough) I run the machine again and add a little more water. If it feels too wet I add a little more flour by teaspoons. You are looking for a soft not too wet and not dry dough. I can usually tell by looking but it took a long time for me to be able to do that. When you reach the right dough then turn the machine on and let it run for about 30-45 seconds. The dough should be well mixed.

Remove the dough from the machine and knead it on the counter about 5 times to make sure it is well mixed. Divide it into small balls, I make them a little smaller than my fist because our little oven will only bake a maximum 12 inch pizza, if you are baking in a regular kitchen oven you can make them a little bigger. I store the balls in Glad Wear or Ziplock bowls that I lightly oil, the containers are round and about 4-5 inchs deep. They go into the fridge at least 24 hours to develop flavor and for a slow rise, after the dough is in them.

Probably the most important thing you will need is a stone for your oven and the patience to allow it to heat up until it is extremely hot….. it takes at least an hour with your oven at maximum. When I did use my regular oven for our pizza I pre-heated it for an hour at least and then turned on the broiler for 15 minutes to make sure that stone was HOT, I then turned it back to the bake cycle before I put a pizza in it.

When you are ready to bake a pizza, remove the dough from the fridge an hour or two before to allow it to come to room temp.. Put a pile of flour on the counter and place a dough ball into it to help it not stick to you, as you do this more and more you will need less flour but when first starting out I used a lot of it. Start stretching out your dough trying to make a circle, don’t worry if it’s not perfect, you had to see my first ones…..but they still tasted good, mis-shapen as they were! Once the dough is stretched place it on your floured peel and top it with your choice of ingredients……..now you’re ready for the oven. If you don’t have a pizza peel you can use an overturned cookie sheet as a way to transport it into your oven. You can also form and top your pizza on parchment paper, this is a great thing for beginners, it takes a lot of the fear out of the whole process of placing the pie in the oven. If you are baking it in a regular oven and you have let the stone get properly heated it will probably take anywhere from 5-10 minutes for your pizza to bake, in our little oven they are well done in under 2 minutes. Until you do this a few times you will be nervous about getting everything perfect……….relax and enjoy it all, life doesn’t hinge on being able to create a perfect pizza. Have fun with it and enjoy eating it, it’s great to assemble your friends and kids and make a little party out of it, everybody can make their own and top them the way they like, it becomes a reasonably less expensive way for a little entertainment in these economic tough times.

  If like us you happen to live in a place where the flour choices are slim or if you want some of the best flours for making pizza and bread you really have to go to  www.NYBakers.com , Stan offers superior flour at fair prices with quick shipping to boot, seriously, it’s the only place I will order flour from ………….picky old lady that I am.  Stan also carries some equiptment for bakers and also sourdough starters and the malt that I use in my dough, go visit him and check it out.  Tell him Mattie sent you.                                                             Mattie

I have had some emails asking about the sauce I use for my pizza. I use a 28 ounce can of San Marzano Tomatoes, either the crushed or the whole, whichever I can find locally. I drain the tomatoes and taste them for bitterness, if they are a little bitter I add about 1 teaspoon or less of sugar to them. Place the drained tomatoes into the workbowl of a food processer and add 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, 1 teaspoon salt and 2 teaspoons of oregano, place the cover on the machine and pulse it a few times to get a semi chunky consistancy, don’t puree it down to a liquid. If you like basil you can also add that to it too, I usually don’t but I do put fresh shredded basil on the top of a cooked pizza when the mood hits me. You can also sprinkle some fresh grated parmesan on top before you bake it for a little different taste. I also make a pizza with a gorgonzola cream topping mixed with roasted fresh garlic cloves, another is made with fresh roasted roma tomatoes that are marinated overnight. There are so many variations you can make with the basic dough…………your only limit is your imagination! Remember to have fun with it, you will continue to improve everytime you make pizza and soon you will be a pro.

You can also make a potato pizza, follow the dough diections and top with very thinly sliced potatoes, slice them on a mandoline to get them thin enough to cook thru, you can put a thin layer of cheese (try Ementhaler or a nice imported Fontina, maybe a little Gorgonzola) beneath the potatoes, some thin sliced onions on top go very nice with it too, drizzle a little olive oil on top and bake until the top browns nicely. Pizza doesn’t just have to be red sauce and cheese anymore!  Try any combination that strikes your fancy, just remember when making thin crust pizza that less is more when it comes to the toppings.

When I have the good fortune to have lots of ripe plum (roma) tomatoes, I take them and slice in half and place on a sheet pan, top with a little fresh garlic, salt, pepper and some thyme or oregano and drizzle with olive oil and roast them for about 30-45 minutes at 400 degrees. Let them cool on the pan then pack in containers, and use with roast chicken or top a pizza with mozzarella, roast tomatoes and thin slivers of onion, it makes an excellent pie. Soooooo many great combinations to dream up………………

I think I should tell you first that I am not someone who buys stuff from infomercials. I prefer to see and hold my purchases in my hand before I plunk down my money. That being said I saw this item at Sams on a recent shopping trip and said to my husband, I wonder if the boys would like these for themselves and their children. I picked it up off the shelf and the first thing I noticed is that although it is made of plastic (what isn’t these days?) it seemed to be made of a high quality thick sturdy plastic.

I belong to several Yahoo cooking groups and one of the owners of those lists then opened a group for the appliance so I joined the group. I listened for  actual users comments and noticed that they were happy with it’s performance, there wasn’t one complaint but most were just using it for smoothies. I monitored the group for almost a week.

On our next trip to Sams I put one in the cart, hubby just rolled his eyes. I knew what he was thinking…….in a house overcrowded with kitchen gadgets and machines why was I buying this.

On arriving home I unpacked the machine and various containers and washed them up. After they were dry I tried crushing ice, the machine performed flawlessly if a little loudly, but you would expect that level of noise as it is crushing/chopping ice. Next I peeled an onion and cut it in quarters, a few quick pulses and voila, finely chopped onion pieces and no mush or water. Onto celery, again a few quick taps and I had a chunky dice, a few more and I had finely chopped celery and no mush or water. I was beginning to love this machine!

Onto the potato test. We love potato pancakes…….real potato pancakes that is. You know the kind your grandmom made by shredding the potatoes on an old fashioned knuckle busting box grater. I have several other food processors here, and have never been able to turn out a pancake with any kind of distinction from any of them, they all over processed the potatoes, resulting in gluey pancakes no matter how carefully I monitored the machine, one extra pulse and glue was the result, one less pulse and you ened up with hard chunks of potato in the pancakes, I didn’t really expect this little Ninja to be able to do any better to tell the truth. I peeled a few potatoes and cut them into large chunks, dropped them into the blender jar and attached the motor. I was able to get a nice textured batter with a few taps of the hand. Were the pancakes the same as hand grated? Honestly, no. What they were, was a quite acceptable substitute when you have to make them for a crowd or your hands are a little tired from age. I had never been able to achieve a consistancy that close to hand grated before with any machine, and I have tried to for years.

Next I made a smoothie for hubby, he suddenly realized this house had a definite need for this new machine. His smoothie was SMOOTH with no ice chunks, just pure creamy texture from start to finish.

So I would say this has a definite place in the home if you like smoothies or protein shakes, or if you have a need for some quickly chopped celery, carrots, onion and so on. It is simple to operate and simple to clean, and even better, it does what it says it will!

 By the way it also made wonderful vegetable cream cheese in under 15 seconds, I won’t be paying almost $7 a container for it at the deli anymore!

Get one, you will love it

Mattie

Today I’ve decided to make a pork tenderloin for dinner. They are quick to cook, versatile and tend not to dry out like regular pork chops do. A package of them also feeds us for dinner with enough left over for hubby to take some for lunch the next day. I don’t like the already flavored ones, I prefer to season them myself. A look in the fridge and I already know a quick trip to the grocery is needed. Hubby likes the dish with sweet peppers and I’m out, hopefully I’ll manage to get out of the store without a basket full of stuff…….but you know how that goes. You go to the store for one thing and you end up with a cart full, an empty wallet and without the one thing you went for. So wish me luck on making it through the store with only my peppers.

For this dish you will need a large saute or frying pan, mine is a large stainless one, I’m not real fond of non stick.

                 Tenderloin and Peppers

1 Package of pork Tenderloins

2 Whole peppers, I used one red and one yellow, cut in strips

1 large onion, cut in thin wedges

either pork stock or a can of chicken broth

salt, pepper and some rosemary, a little oil

2 tablespoons cornstarch, mix into 1/2 cup of the broth

Separate tenderloins and cut on an angle, season with the salt, pepper and rosemary. Place pan on medium heat and let it get hot, add the oil and let it heat. When it is hot add the meat to the pan, don’t crowd it, do it in batches. When the meat is done remove it to a plate and add the peppers and onions to the pan, add a little more oil if you need to, saute the vegetables until they take on a little color. Add the meat back to the pan and continue to saute it all  together for 3-5 minutes, add most of the can of broth or the stock if you have it, scrape the fond off the bottom of the pan. Add the cornstarch mixture and mix all together, let simmer about 5 minutes until sauce thickens. We had this over rice and it was a nice light meal.

And no, I didn’t make it out of the store with just those peppers……honestly, things just seemed to fall into my cart!

I thought it might be fun to list some of my favorite useful things in my kitchen, but the list will evolve over time. Gadgets seem to go through cycles with me….for weeks at a time I will utilize one of them and then suddenly another will become the most used. There is no ryhme or reason to it but I think most people are the same, at least if they love to cook they are. Right now I seem to be obsessed with that new Ninja Master Prep Deluxe. I picked mine up at Sams a week ago and have probably used it at least a dozen times or more already. I’ve made vegetable cream cheese, potato pancakes, herb butter and chopped endless amounts of onions, celery and carrots. Seriously, I love this little gadget, it has become my new best friend in the kitchen and I find myself trying to think of even more things to do with it.

I know if my boys were still home they would have had some unusual uses for it already! They were VERY rambunctious and the middle one had a fear of nothing, whenever something would happen around the house it got so everyone would yell “Matt did it” and 99% of the time he did. My family used to say that if I raised him to adulthood and both he and I made it through I would be gauranteed cannonization by the church…….thinking back I think they might have been right although I don’t see a halo above me. As I said we have three sons, Chris is the oldest, he was always quiet and sort of timid growing up, he always seemed to question things around him but was a little fearful of checking out anything. Matt is in the middle, he was born without fear of any kind, I knew we were in trouble the minute I saw him after he was born. I remember turning to my husband and saying “I think we’re in for it now, look at those eyes on him”.  Our youngest is Mike, I have never seen a 2 year old with a definite idea of what he would wear…..he was born with a sense of style and still has it to this day, his older brothers were happy with a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and being boys they didn’t even care if you washed them…….not Mike, he picked out his own stuff since the time he was two, if he didn’t like something it would soon disappear, and his favorites had to always be ready for him or he wouldn’t go out. He preferred totally co-ordinated outfits, no jeans and T’s for him, heaven forbid. Have you ever seen a two or three year old who insisted that his clothes be ironed? If it had a wrinkle in it, it wasn’t going on his little body. I must admit though, it was nice to have at least one boy who took care with the way he looked…….it took his brothers until their teen years to really care……about the time they discovered girls.

One little escapade stands out in my mind, I had just worked an 18 hour shift, work was super busy and I was exhausted. I got home at 6 am and hubby got up to get ready for work and get the boys ready for school, the school bus picked them up on the corner. I waited until they were outside and collapsed into my bed without even removing my makeup. I felt myself start to go into a deep sleep when I suddenly heard all these sirens, I got up and looked out the window at the bus stop and the kids were already gone, back to bed I fell and just collapsed. A few minutes went by and there was a really loud pounding on the door, I figured it was a salesman or something so I chose to ignore it, the pounding got louder and then was also going on on the back door too. I dragged myself out of bed again and went to the front door. There in all their glory stood a batallion of firemen, axes in hand and really mad looks on their faces. I opened the door with the makeup smeared all over my face and they took one look at me and backed up, I guess I was a pretty sight they were’nt ready for. They asked “Do you have 2 sons named Chris and Matt” I said yes they are my sons but they are in school, I still wasn’t connecting all those firetrucks with my little angels. It seems our corner had an old fire alarm box that had not been disconnected yet and while they waited for the bus Chris had said to Matt, “I wonder what happens if you pull that lever” Matt being Matt and having no fear decided to find out……so he pulled it. Nothing happened so he proceeded to pull it again……..still nothing so he pulled it again….and again…….and again…in all a total of 10 times, with each ring calling for another truck to help fight this enormous fire that must be happening. When the trucks showed up and the boys  saw them and realized what they had done they went and hid under our house. They came out after the firemen had left and they mustered up enough courage to face the rath of Mom. Chris was in tears……..Matt just said “hey mom, did you know that those old boxes on the corner really work” He couldn’t understand why my face was so twisted and when I told him he was grounded until he was 40 his only reply was “Does that mean I get no food?” The firemen came back later that day to talk to them about the dangers of calling out the trucks when there isn’t an actual fire happening and we never had another truck incident. I should mention that in their defense they had never seen a fire alarm before we moved south. Life with my boys was never dull, that’s for sure. I remember hearing one of the firemen as they walked down off the porch saying to one of his guys “Those poor kids, did you see that mother……she must hang out in bars all night….that’s one rough looking woman” Ahhhhh yes, the joys of motherhood with 3 rambunctious boys.

Mattie