I did make the dough for the crust, though. I was a little worried about it, because my recent pie crust constructions had been less than successful, but I pressed forward anyway. I keep my lard in the freezer, because it is something I don't use all that often. I brought it out and cut the tube in half. It looked like about half of the tube would be about a cup. I was a little concerned about cutting it while it was frozen, but I wanted it to be as cold as possible, because that supposedly makes the flakiest crust. It turns out it wasn't as difficult to cut frozen as I thought it would be. I was expecting it to be so solid I wouldn't be able to get my knife through it effectively. I had visions of me exerting a tremendous amount of pressure on the knife to get it through and having the roll of fat slide out from underneath the knife, sending the knife and all my pressure in an odd direction and cleanly severing a finger or a hand. That didn't happen. The knife went right through it, and I was able to make nice little pieces to add to my flour.
The directions said to cut the lard in with two knives. That wasn't very descriptive, and I am not quite sure how you would do it. I used a pastry blender and just smashed into it. I found this process somewhat frustrating, though, because when I thought it resembled "coarse meal", I took my pastry blender out, and there were still lumps of lard clinging to the tines. Then, I took the lumps off and plopped them into my coarse meal, and started over re-working those pieces into the flour. This happened about three times before I was (mostly) satisfied with the texture. I added a little cold water, and the dough came together beautifully. I tossed it in a zip-top bag and threw it in the fridge for the night. That was the extent of my preparation for the pasty.
On Sunday, at the grocery store, I had picked out a pineapple. They were $3.89 each. As we strolled through the produce aisle, Jeff picked up a container pre-cored and "peeled" pineapple and asked why I didn't just buy that. I told him I needed to make spears, so I could put them on the grill without falling through the grates, and that was pre-sliced. Besides, it was more expensive. His next argument was that the particular container he was holding wasn't sliced, so I could easily cut it into spears; it was only a dollar more; and wouldn't it take me a long time to remove all of the eyes and skin? He sold me.
So, on Wednesday, I cut the pineapple into spears and brought it outside to the grill.
It was actually a fairly decent day for Minnesota in November. It was about 55 degrees, anyway. I would like to say it was sunny, but the sun had set a couple of hours ago. I preheated and cleaned the grill before placing my spears on the grates. I wondered why the recipe specified spears for this task. I thought slices would grill just as easily, and since I was cutting them into chunks afterword anyway, what difference would it have made? I thought thick slices would be less likely to fall through, too. Not that any did (this time), but it was a strong possibility. Getting grill marks on the spears took longer than I thought it would. I think I had them on the grill for about 15 minutes, before some started appearing. Then, I flipped them onto another side and waited a while again. Then, because they were spears there was a THIRD side, so I flipped them again and waited. The grill marks I did get still weren't as pretty or as prominent as I was hoping, but I was mentally done with this part of the project. Maybe my grill wasn't preheated enough?
I pulled them off of the grill, and the smell that wafted up to me was wonderful! It was caramel-ly and sweet and warm all at once. I couldn't resist snapping an end off of a spear and popping it into my mouth. It was wonderful. The little bit of char played well against the deep citrusy, acidic flavor of the pineapple, and it brought the sweetness to the surface. I would definitely fix a side of this at my next summer barbecue!
I cut up the rest of the pineapple, chopped the Canadian bacon and the red pepper, and put everything in the fridge. Then, I sliced the provolone, took some slow-simmered tomato sauce out of the freezer, and made sure that there was mozzarella and cheddar in the fridge.
Now it was me-time. I took the little bit of juice from the bottom of the original pineapple container and poured it into a shaker with a little bit of Chambord and a shot of vodka. I couldn't waste it, right? If I closed my eyes, I could almost believe it was still summer and forget that snow would be coming soon.
We were going to have a full house for pizza night. My parents were going to go to Mexico for a week on Saturday, and my husband convinced them to drive to the cities and spend a couple of days rather than flying from Brainerd to Minneapolis to Cancun, so my dad could help him on Friday with some projects for the store. They said they wold be in town early enough on Thursday to join us for dinner. What a treat! Jennifer and her family were all in town, and there were no sports or singing events that the children needed to attend, so all four of them were coming. Pam hadn't been called out on a trip yet, so she was also coming, possibly with her friend Sarah.
I had asked both Pam and Jennifer to bring something to share for dinner. I always estimate that each of my recipes on their own would feed two people, and since there was going to be 10 people, I didn't think it would stretch. Mom showed up with a giant "family" sized pizza from Papa Murphy's on Jennifer's behalf: pepperoni, sausage, and mushroom, and Pam showed up with a large Meat-Lover's from Pizza Hut. The Meat-Lover's we scarfed as an "appetizer" while preparing the two recipes I had chosen.
I put Mom to work, rolling out the crust for the pineapple pizza. Pam rolled out the crusts for the pasties, and Jennifer was on pasty filling duty. I had cut up most of the vegetables before they arrived with my handy-dandy kitchen chopper. I sliced the potatoes, onions, and turnips with the slicing blade in the machine. Then, I changed the blade to the dicing blade and sent them all through again, along with the baby carrots that were standing in for the one regular carrot.
I had thought about having Pam make the pasty dough into 7 or 8 circles, so each adult could have their own, but then I thought better of it. The cooking times would be different, one of the kids might have wanted some, and we could still cut the pasties in half and each only have a half. Also, I was afraid we wouldn't be able to use as much filling overall if we had 8 small pasties rather than 4 large ones.
I had thawed a package of beef tenderloin ends for the pasties, so Jen was cutting that up and added it to the veggies I had diced. It turned out to be quite a bit of filling. I tried to get her to cram it into the dough circles Pam had made, but she didn't think it would work. She put in as much as she thought each could hold, and we put the rest into a container for hash on Saturday morning. It was just enough for me and Jeff for breakfast. While she was loading the pasties, I assembled the Grilled Pineapple pizza: sauce, then provolone, mozzarella, pineapple, Canadian bacon, peppers, and topped with cheddar. I had pre-baked the crust on a preheated pizza stone to simulate the first cooking on the grill. I had flipped the crust over, so the crisper side was up, and placed the ingredients over that side, so when it went back in the oven, the less cooked side would be in direct contact with the hot stone.
-
My co-worker, Debi, had asked me earlier in the day what the "drink of the week" was going to be. I strained to remember, since I had picked it out last Sunday and hadn't thought about it since. I knew that I had purchased something for it on Sunday. I closed my eyes and tried to picture the recipe. I remember seeing "Sparkling" in the ingredient list. I told her I thought it had champagne in it and it was supposed to have "Cherryade" in it, but I couldn't find anything like that at Cub, so I bough diet black cherry soda (I couldn't find any regular cherry soda) and made some pink lemonade. I figured I would combine the two.
When it came time to actually making the drink, I started thinking about whether or not I had some sparkling wine. I went downstairs and there were three bottles in the fridge. One was a rose, and it wasn't all that familiar to me. Jeff wasn't home yet, so I couldn't ask him how much it was or whether it would be a shame to mix it or not. I would hate to mix a wine with fruit juice and other stuff and then find out later it was a special, expensive bottle that he was saving for something. There was a little bottle of Rosa Regale, but that, I knew, was a little on the expensive side, and it was a half bottle, so I wasn't sure it would be enough. Then, I looked on the bottom shelf, and there it was. The mother lode. It was a giant bottle of Cook's. It is one of the cheapest sparklings I know of, and we probably have had it sitting for 15 years. As a matter of fact, I think we bought it for our wedding in 1996. It is a sweet champagne (Spumante), and Jeff and I have grown out of the sweeter wines, so it has sat there. I was willing to give it a try, since we were just mixing it anyway.
I brought it upstairs and grabbed a kitchen towel to put over the cork so it wouldn't fly all over the kitchen. I twisted and pulled and twisted and pulled and pulled some more. I couldn't get the thing to budge. Pam made fun of me, asked "would you like me to get that for you, little girl?" Smiling, I handed her the bottle and the towel. She gripped the bottom of it with her knees and twisted and pulled and twisted and pulled and pulled some more. Ha! I called Dad in to take over. He worked at it for at least five minutes before he was able to pull the (plastic) cork out. It made no noise, and his face contorted into the expression I saw once when he realized I had memorized his credit card number. I asked what was wrong, and he said he didn't think it had any fizz. I poured a little sample to see if it was still drinkable and still had fizz. Yes to both. Amazing!
At this point, I took a look at the recipe. White grape juice (check - Pam was making that); vodka (check); sparkling cherryade (diet cherry soda and lemonade - check). Wait! Where was the sparkling wine? I reread the recipe. Nope, it wasn't in there. I must have remembered seeing the word "sparkling" and somehow transformed that in my brain as "Sparkling Wine" and put myself on a purposeless mission. Since Pam and Mom weren't drinking and Jeff and Dad were only drinking whiskey and Roger always turns down the "drink-of-the-week" or wine if other things are available, Jennifer and I had a big job ahead of us to finish the drink AND a magnum of Cook's.
The drink itself, though, was tasty. It was fruity and fizzy and a little sweet. And, it was a lovely pink color. We decided to have another with dinner but made with Cook's instead of the white grape juice. That was good, too.
 |
| Graffiti: 1½ measures vodka; 2 measures white grape juice; 2 measures sparkling "cherryade" |
I had preheated the oven to 425º as per the instructions on the pizza that Mom had brought, but after having it in the oven for a few minutes, we were ready to add the pineapple pizza and the pasties. I switched the oven to convection mode, hoping that the heat would circulate around each item better this way for more even cooking. When the pepperoni mushroom sausage (or PMS pizza, as I like to call it) appeared to be done, I pulled it out of the oven and started slicing. The whole family then headed into the dining room to start in on the first course.
When we started dishing it out, it was evident that the crust didn't crisp up as it should have. The pizza was floppy, but it was good - salty, meaty, greasy. I guess next time, thought, I should either employ two ovens or put this one on the bottom, closer to the heating element. I could have put it on a preheated pizza stone, I suppose, but I don't think I have one that big. Even though Jonah didn't have any (he doesn't like pepperoni or mushrooms) and Grace was saving her room for the pasties, we managed to eat most of it.
Next course was the pineapple pizza. This was really good. The slow-simmered sauce that I had made the week prior, with homemade dried pepper flakes instead of the regular red pepper flakes, had a slow, building heat to it. It was just an undertone with all of the other things that were happening on there. The bottom cheeses made the pizza hold together nicely, but I didn't really detect any great flavor contribution from them. The sweet pineapple and the salty ham with a sweet pepper kicker was harmony, and the sharp cheddar on top provided even more stability. I loved it. Jeff wolfed down his two pieces. Dad ate it and commented that it had some heat, and Pam, Mom, and Jen seemed to really enjoy it. Roger said that it was too spicy. Jonah wouldn't try it because there were peppers on it, and Gracie was still holding out for the pasties.
No comments:
Post a Comment