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One Local Summer – Week 18

Posted on 15 September 2010
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Pizza.. AGAIN?! Oh yes, pizza again. It never gets old with the wide variety of toppings and ways to make the crust. This week we have a flatbread grilled pizza topped with Chevre, Red Onion, Asian Pears, and bacon. Bacon always makes everything better and again, no exception to that rule here. Asian Pears are FINALLY in season and I’ve been gathering them up from the market like the world is going to end, so they’ve ended up in everything I’ve made recently. Gotta love a pear you can eat like an apple. I’ll admit that the pizza was an experiment in combining flavors, but I liked how it came out – a little sweet, bacony, savory, pizza. The recipe is Bobby Flay’s for the flatbread and I’ve used this one a number of times, mixing half whole wheat pastry flour and half bread flour for the dough. Just make sure you’ve got the dough coated VERY WELL with olive oil before throwing it on the grill and it’ll work perfectly.

Grilled Flatbread Pizza:
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
Bread Flour – Mill at Anslema
Asian Pear – North Star Orchard
Onion – North Star Orchard
Chevre – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Bacon – Countrytime Farm
Non-local – Yeast, salt, olive oil.

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One Local Summer – Week 17

Posted on 8 September 2010
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Sister-in-law Brenda was in town this week and was flipping through the Cook’s Country compilation book for 2008. The husband had bought the book on super-sale at Amazon.com and we haven’t really made any of the recipes so far. So, when Brenda stumbled upon a recipe for Thin-Crust Skillet Pizza (August/September 2008, pg 18), I was more than happy to pull out the cast iron skillet and get cooking! The recipe calls for beer as the liquid in the dough, and we happened to have a homebrewed Hefeweizen on tap in the kegerator. It proved to be a good choice! The dough came out nice and crispy, and we had plenty of vegetables available for the topping. For me, this was easier and quicker than heating up the pizza stone, we didn’t have to wait for the dough to rise (no yeast – just beer and baking powder), and it was a delicious lunch to enjoy out on the patio.

Thin-Crust Skillet Pizza:
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour – Mill at Anselma
Bread Flour – Mill at Anselma
Zucchini – Smith’s Produce
Mushrooms – Oley Valley Mushrooms. Crimini
Tomatoes – My Garden. These are Super Italian Paste Tomatoes
Cheese – Birchrun Hills Farm.  Clipper variety.
Sharp I Chevre – Shellbark Hollow Farm
Basil – My Garden
Onion – North Star Orchard
Non-local – Baking powder, sugar, salt, beer, olive oil

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OLS: Week 8

Posted on 25 July 2009
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Pizza for Week Eight!  I saw the post on FarmToPhilly.com about making pizza and I just *had* to!  This has become a popular item in the house since the crust is actually done on the grill.  I usually do a big batch of them at once and then stick them in the freezer or fridge and throw toppings on later and stick them in the microwave or toaster oven to melt the cheese really quick.  It saves time, the crust comes out nice and crispy without using a pizza stone.  I’m giving credit to Bobby Flay for this one since we saw it on Food Network a while ago and I thought it was absolute genius.  Cooking in the house during the summer is just TOO hot sometimes, so taking everything outside to the grill is a great option.  The show featured this recipe, and I really just only use the flatbread part and make my own toppings.  On to the ingredients!

Crust: Whole Wheat pastry flour from the Mill at Anselma.  Non-local Olive Oil, Salt, Yeast
Toppings: Heirloom Tomatoes and onions (hiding underneath) from the North Star Orchard, Colby Cheese from Agape Acres, and a little basil from the back deck.  Couldn’t find a local Mozzarella, and really, all cheese is delicious in my humble opinion, so Colby it was.  I didn’t even bother with sauce since the tomatoes were nice and juicy.

The pizza made for a quick and easy meal.  I actually botched a batch of the pasta dough from last week by using a bad recipe that had me adding way too much water.  I decided to throw in some more flour and gave up after a certain point, added yeast, and let it sit to see if it would work for pizza dough.  Happily, it worked out just fine.  After the flatbread was grilled up, I turned the heat down low and set the flatbread with toppings off the direct heat, closed the lid, and came back in about 15 minutes.  The cheese had melted nicely and it looked perfect.

I have so many ideas for using local ingredients in meals, I feel like there won’t be enough weeks for all of them!

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