Curried Lamb Turnovers; Miniature Deep Dish Pizza; Caruso

     I chose the Caruso, because mint is a common accompaniment with lamb.  Now, I wasn't sure what that would do with lamb that was "curried," but I was willing to find out.

CARUSO

1 measure gin

1 measure dry vermouth

1 measure green creme de menthe

Shake all ingredients together in a cocktail shaker and strain into a cocktail glass.

     After work on Wednesday, I had to force myself to be motivated.  I decided to do a sudoku puzzle before I got started to clear my mind of the day's (month's, quarter's, whatever's) ugliness.  It took less than five minutes for me to fall asleep.  I was awoken by kitten teeth embedded into my arm.  Apparently, it wasn't time for sleeping, it was time for paying attention to Pele.  I gave him a vigorous scrunching and forced myself to get up and move into the kitchen.

     Once I had reviewed the recipes, I recalled that there needed to be "roast lamb."  I had found legs of lamb at Wal-Mart, of all places.  I was quite surprised.  They had a large amount of them.  I wondered how many were sacrificed on a regular basis for their legs.  Or, were these just the parts that no one wanted and the rest of the parts were just sold first?

     Anyway, I had never cooked a leg of lamb before.  I was hoping that Jeff was going to be here to enjoy the fruits of my experiment, because lamb is one of his favorite meats.  Alas, he had left me on Monday, not to return until sometime on Thursday, so he would only be able to experience it in pizza form.

     Before I could do anything, though, I had to change two light bulbs that had burnt out in my kitchen.  They had died three days ago, but I was too lazy and unmotivated to change them right away.  I thought I could get away with it for another day, but I couldn't stand it any longer.  Every time I came into the room, I flipped the light switch, trying to get more light in the room.  I grabbed my kitty litter bucket, which had become my flour bucket after a thorough washing and a plastic bag liner.  It also doubles as my kitchen step-stool.  I climbed on top of it and removed the globe covering the two defunct bulbs.  I had the globe in one hand and was reaching into a cupboard with the other hand to get the fresh bulbs I saw in there, when my world came crashing down around me.  Oh wait, no!  It was me that came crashing down around the world!  The lid of the bucket had finally succumbed to the repeated stress of large adults standing on it, and simply gave out.  It was so sudden and shocking that I was no longer in the least bit sleepy.  No, quite the opposite -  wide awake and motivated to lose weight. Or have a drink.  I was glad that the flour was inside a bag inside the bucket, though.  I think that saved my floor from a dust storm and me from having to buy a new 25lb bag of flour.

     My friend, Debi, frequently cooks lamb shank in her pressure cooker.  Once I realized that all of the roasting recipes took upwards of an hour and a half, I decided, I, too, would try my hand at pressure cooking.  The recipe called for cutting the shank into three pieces.  I was not about to do that.  How does one cut through a shank-bone without a bone saw?  I might have tried it if Jeff were here, 9 and 1 already pressed on his phone, ready to add the last digit as soon as I lost one of mine.  However, Wednesday was not that day.  Once I heated up the oil and threw the shank into the pressure cooker to brown on all sides, I realized why the recipe wanted the shank in smaller pieces - so it would fit in the bottom of the pan.  I supposed I could have switched to a larger pressure cooker at that point, since I do have a couple other ones to chose from, but where's the fun in that?
     The browning process was a disaster.  I had heated the oil and forced the shank in there, and then added the garlic.  The shank didn't end up browning, and the garlic was burning.  I feared for the little lamb, so I quickly poured the wine in to keep the garlic from ruining everything. 

     The recipe had also called for two tomatoes, but since my tomato plants are only 2 inches high, it was unlikely that they had any fruits to bear.  I chose to get some freezer points by using a bag of tomatoes from last summer's crop.  Once I cut the bag from the frozen block, I tossed the tomatoes into the pan in one big chunk.  I dumped in some rosemary, salt, and pepper, and sealed the cooker.  It took a little over five minutes for it to come to pressure, at which time, I turned the heat down a to medium-high and set the timer for 20 minutes.

      I had half a recipe of no-yeast crusts in the freezer that were left over from the batch I made for last week's meat pies, so I took those out and put them in the fridge to thaw.  I was going to start working on the "speed-scratch sauce," so I took out a sauce pan and brought the garlic and olive oil over to the stove to be prepared.  When I grabbed the pasta sauce out of the cupboard, I wondered why I would take pre-made pasta sauce and add tomatoes and spices to it to make pasta sauce?  I decided that my chunky garden pasta sauce was going to do just fine on its own without messing with it.  In addition, I could also use some of it for the Miniature deep dish pizzas.  Viola! Two sauces done at once!

     After whipping up the dough for the mini pizzas, I was ready to tackle the lamb.  After the twenty minutes on the heat, I had moved the pan off of the heat and let it sit for ten more minutes.  By then, the pressure was off, and I was able to remove the lid without any scalding. 
     The shank looked completely different than when it had gone in.  The meat had shrunk up to one end of the bone, and it looked like a meat lollipop.  Now that the bone was exposed, I saw how thin it was and considered that maybe cutting through the bone wouldn't have been as hard as I thought.

     I was able to pull most of the meat off of the bone with my fingers.  It was moist and slick, and I couldn't help putting some of it in my mouth.  It was as moist as it looked, and the meat was tender and gamey.  I definitely should have put more salt into the mixture, but that would probably be a moot point once the curry seasoning was added.  I pulled as much meat off as I could and cut some of the rest off of the bone.    I didn't measure it, but I didn't think that I had a full three cups of meat (especially after some of it had fallen into my stomach).  It looked more like two and a quarter - maybe just a little over two cups.  Most of the recipes from the calzone section of this book seemed to make too much filling anyway.

    

     While the lamb was pressurizing, I started in on the dough for the deep dish pizzas.  In my bleary-eyed state, I was mesmerized by the twirling of my dough hook.  It always amazes me that it just does its thing without any help from me and turns a pile of flour with a wet spot into a nice ball of dough.

     Once I had all of the meat shredded and the dough safely tucked into its plastic zipper bag for the night, I was ready to call it a night myself.  I knew I was going to get home a little early on Thursday, because I had a doctor's appointment at 4pm on my side of town, so I was counting on it taking only a few minutes, and I could be home just before five instead of 5:30 (or whenever, depending on how busy the end of my day was).

     Unfortunately, the world was against me.  My appointment took longer than I had intended - actually the appointment itself was as short as I thought it should be, but they didn't call me in until almost 4:30pm.  It made me wonder why they bother with appointment times.  Actually, it didn't.  It just made me crabbier than I already was after a long day at work. 

     My employers, who had sent me a letter earlier in the month that said my last day would be the 31st were now telling me that, not only was that NOT going to be my last day, they wanted me to work all weekend (7am-6pm on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) with no assurances that there would be continued employment following this gruelling weekend.  I had pressed the CFO for answers Thursday morning, and he said that he was going to call a meeting that day.  I reminded him that I had a doctor's appointment and would be leaving at  3:45.  He assured me that the meeting would be long before that. It hadn't happened before I left.  That started the crabbiness before I even got to the doctor's office.

     Then, there were those irritating blue hairs I encountered on the way home.  They were driving 5 miles below the speed limit, side by side in the only two lanes going my direction.  Didn't they know I was in a hurry?  Why did they insist on being in my way?  When I got home, the front screen door was locked from the inside, and I there are no keys (that I know of) to this door.  I had to go around back, unlock the padlock on the fence, and go in through the back door.  It is little aggravations like this that drive people over the edge.

     After I took a few deep breaths, I started in on the dough for the deep dish pizzas.  I squished it into a log that I could easily divide into 6 pieces.  The recipe said to divide it into 8 pieces, but I never did find the pot pie tins.  Pot pies are not something I eat, so I didn't have anything laying around, and wasn't willing to buy the pot pies just to obtain them.  I didn't really have anything similar, so I decided on my oval ramekins or au gratin dishes.  Since they were oblong and seemed to be larger than I imagined a pot pie to be, I decided 6 would be the right amount.  That, and the fact that there were going to be 5 adults and two children, so I figured each adult could have one, and if the kids wanted some, they could split one.

     Once I had them in somewhat of an oval shape, I stretched them and laid them into their oval white beds.  The sides of the dishes were very slick and upright, so I wasn't able to get the crust to stay along the edge.  My hope was that in the rising, the dough would reach the top of the dish.

     While those were resting, I went to work on the filling for the turnovers.  I started with my "speed-scratch" sauce and added parsley.  The parsley, in my opinion doesn't really add much flavor to a dish, especially if it is added before cooking, but it does brighten the look of whatever it goes into.

     I had purchased fresh mint from Cub, which just killed me, because mint overtakes my yard in the summer.  I cannot get rid of the stuff, but it hadn't come up yet, and I needed it now.  I didn't look at the label before I threw the package away, but this was like no other mint I had seen before.  It was wispy, the leaves were round instead of spiked, and they grew on the stem differently than my back yard mint.  It looked more like watercress to me.

Mint from Cub

Normal Mint

     If it didn't smell minty, I would have believed that the package was mislabeled.  Technically, it was, because it didn't list grass as part of the ingredients, and that was definitely in there, too.

     I decided to leave that part out of the turnovers.
     After the mint went into the bowl, I added my 2½ cups of lamb.  It wasn't finely minced.  That seemed like a lot of work, and I did want there to be some texture, a little bit of chew, to the meat.  The lamb was so tender, it was falling apart anyway.

     I piled on the garlic.  The recipe called for two cloves, minced.  I put in two heaping teaspoons of the pre-chopped, jarred garlic.  Okay, maybe I put in three or four.  My theory is: you can never have too much garlic.

     The jalapeno that I purchased from Cub was huge.  I wasn't sure whether or not to keep the seeds or leave them out.  I knew that the kids weren't even going to try this dish, and Roger was hit or miss.  I decided to take out half of the seeds, just in case.

     After I added the green onions, cumin, and curry powder, it was time to stir things up.

     Rolling out the dough, especially this pie-type dough that the turnovers called for, was becoming Jennifer's specialty.  I didn't want to stand in the way of that, so I gave her the task of rolling and filling the turnovers while I worked on the mini pizzas.

     She was able to get all of the filling into the dough, pinch it, and still remembered to brush it with the melted butter.

     For the pizzas, I only used some of the optional ingredients.  I put on onions, peppers, and olives.  My pizza sauce was the same "speed-scratch" sauce that I used for the lamb.  I put the cheese over these items, sprinkled it with oregano and granulated garlic.  I skipped the Parmesan step, because I didn't have any.

     Once everything was in the oven, we turned our attention to the Caruso.  Jennifer built the drinks, and we all took a sip.  It was VERY minty and very green.  I wanted mint, and I got it.  I think the three of us were all over the map in rating the drink.  Jennifer loved it.  Pam hated it, and I thought it was okay, it just needed much less mint and (of course) more gin.

   Jonah and Gracie spent this time trying to master flying Jeff's remote controlled helicopter.  I think the goal was to master the technique and torture the cat with it.  Or each other.  Or both.

     I got my wish with the mini pizzas.  The crust certainly did fill the pan.  The cheese was browned nicely, and all of the "toppings" were nestled in nicely with the cheese and the doughy crust.  They were beautiful!

     The turnovers, however, weren't as pretty.  They were a delicious golden brown color, but the seals had popped open. The stuffing was leaking out of them, and they looked like dying cartoon clams.

     They had wonderful flavor, though.  The crust was crisp and buttery.  The filling had a building heat that was more of a suggestion than an actual heat.  It was meaty and flavorful, and I could taste the brightness that the green onions and mint had added to the equation.
     The mini pizzas were fabulous, too!  They reminded me of my childhood, when Pam used to make these giant, doughy pizzas in a 9x12 pan, and there was more bread than toppings.  The dough was soft, and the toppings shone through their cheesy blankets in perfect harmony.  This was the pizza that comes to mind when the word "pizza" is mentioned.  It was true comfort food, and it was just what I needed.

 

Natchitoches Meat Pies; Pita Pizza; Maiden's Blush

     At first, I was going to pick a drink to match our entrees (at least theme-wise), like I did last week.  However, I scoured my two drink books and could find nothing referring to Texas, which I find very strange.  Do they not drink hard alcohol in Texas?  I did find some interesting recipes on the Internet, but since I have waited until the last minute to decide what I am going to make, I was limited to what I had in stock at home, so I scrapped the themed idea and went for the Maiden's Blush.

MAIDEN'S BLUSH

2 measures gin

1 measure absinthe

¼ measure grenadine

Shake all ingredients together in a shaker filled with ice.  Strain into a cocktail glass and serve.



     With that decided, I started in on the pita recipe.  Easy enough - once the yeast had sat in the water for 5 minutes or more, I threw it into the Kitchen Aide with the rest of the ingredients and let the machine do the work.  While the pita dough was rising, I began working on the no-yeast dough. 

PITA BREAD

2 cups unbleached all-purpose white flour

1 pkg. dry yeast

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. sugar

3/4 cup luke warm water

     Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm water and set aside for 5 minutes.  Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.  Make a depression in the flour and pour in the yeast mixture.  Mix well and turn out onto a floured board.  Knead the dough for 8-10 minutes.

     Dust the top of the dough with flour and place it in a clean bowl, cover with a clean dish towel and set it in a warm, draft-free place to rise for 1½ hours.  Punch the dough down and let it rise for another 45 minutes.

     After the second rising period, knead the dough for 2 minutes and form it into 8 balls of equal size.  Cover the balls and let them  rise for another half hour.  Preheat the oven for 15 minutes to 500º (or the highest setting your oven has).  After they have risen, flatten the dough balls with the palm of your hand.  They should be about 1/4" thick.  Lightly flour a baking sheet and back 1 or two of the pieces of dough at a time for 3-4 minutes on each side.

     Pita will be light brown in color when it is done.  The loaves will puff as they bake.

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NO YEAST CRUST

5 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup lard

1½ teaspoons salt

½ cup ice-cold water

1 egg, beaten

     In a large bowl, pour flour and whisk to break up any lumps.  Add lard and salt and work into flour with a pastry blender.  Continue combining until mixture resembles small peas.

     Add cold water and egg to the mixture and stir.  Work with hands until mixture is well-blended and holds together in a ball.  Divide ball into four equal portions.

    

______________________________________

     It sounded a lot like a pie crust to me.  I opted for the lard substitution option, since I had lard (lots of it, and some in the freezer, too), and I had no vegetable shortening.  I added the cup of lard to the flour, and it hardly made any change.  Once I had worked it all into the flour, it still looked like a bowl of flour.  I added the egg and the 1/2 cup of water.

     It took quite a bit of water to get the dough to come together.  I think I ended up adding at least an additional quarter of a cup.  Once I finally got it to a consistency that allowed me to form it into a ball, I put half of it into a bag in the fridge and the other half I halved again and put them into the freezer.
     By this time, the pita dough was climbing out of the bowl I had set it in. I divided it into 8 pieces and rolled them into little circles.  I hastened the recipe a little bit by skipping a second rising of the whole dough, and just letting the disks have another go at rising.

     I probably didn't let them go as long as I should have.  I let them sit for moments while I browned the hamburger.

    

     The pita breads looked pretty, they had some nice browning spots, and they looked almost fluffy, but I was really sceptical that we would be able split them as instructed.  With the bread done and the meat browned, I figured I could quit for the evening.  The rest of the recipes were chopping and mixing and building.

     On Thursday, I was going to start in on the filling for the meat pies, when I read Parsley on the ingredient list.  I started explaining to Jennifer that I didn't remember seeing that on the ingredient list and therefore didn't buy any this week.  I told her I was going to skip it.  Then, I reached in my vegetable drawer to get the green onions out, and found a bag of some kind of herb.  I pulled it out.  It tuned out to be some gargantuan parsley that I must have purchased last week and forgotten about. 

     I chopped up the parsley and worked on the rest of the ingredients while Jennifer worked on the pita pizzas.  I gave her the option of splitting 4 of the pitas, as was the recipe's intent, or just using all 8 pitas as they were.  She tried to split one and was unsuccessful, so she scrapped that idea and went for the whole pita option and worked on rolling the dough for the meat pies, instead.
     I was going to leave the seeds in the jalapenos, but I was afraid Roger wouldn't eat it if it were too spicy.  I asked Jennifer, just to make sure, whether the kids would eat it either way.  She said they wouldn't.  She had brought a wonderful chicken Alfredo pizza that she had made out of a Cooking Light magazine, so they wouldn't be interested in the "weird" things I was making.

     Of course, we had to sample her pizza while we were working on the rest of the dinner.  It was lovely.  The crust was crisp and buttery, and the sauce creamy and garlic-laden.  The chicken was tender and the bacon on top just added a perfect amount of saltiness and crunch.       I decided to take out half of the seeds of the jalapeno.  I added that to my container of meat from the day before.  When I had gotten home from the grocery store earlier in the week, I looked at my ingredient list again and realized it didn't call for barbecue sauce - I was supposed to make my own.  I decided I was just going to skip that step this time and had zeroed in on the sauces we bought on Sunday.  I chose vidalia onion barbecue sauce from Sweet Baby Ray's.  I poured that into my hamburger along with some minced garlic, the chopped green onions and the cumin.

  

     I handed the filling off to Jennifer, since she had all of the little circles rolled out for the meat pies.  I let her continue with loading them up and sealing them, while I worked on the little pitas.  They went together quickly, and we able to take a moment before I fried up the meat pies.  Jennifer was our bartender that night while Roger supervised.

     Pam didn't waste any time with hers, even though she said she really didn't care for the licorice undertones.  I really liked that aspect of the drink.  It was zingy, almost numbing my tongue as it went down.  The sweetness of the grenadine smoothed it out and left me wanting another sip.

     The meat pies came out a beautiful golden brown.  The exterior was crisp and flavorful (go, pork fat!).  The filling was almost sweet on the first taste, but the subtle hint of green onion peeked through, and the heat from the jalapeno reared up after the bite was already gone.  They were delicious.

  

     The pita pizzas were also a big hit.  Again, they just proved to me how sometimes the simplest ingredients can really come together to create something amazing.  The crusts were pillowy but sturdy.  The cheese browned almost uniformly on all the little pies, adding that brown toasty flavor to the whole thing, not to mention holding it all together.  I had skipped adding the Parmesan to the mix, simply because I had forgotten to prepare for that ingredient, but I don't think it was missed.