They probably would have survived without an entree, too, but I didn't want to give anyone the opportunity to do the Midwest back bite. This may be a middle class Anglo-Saxon affliction or maybe just Minnesotan (not being anything else myself, I am not sure if other cultures do this or not). This is where the food is served, eaten, enjoyed, and maybe even praised, but when the car door shuts on the way back home, there is the question: "Can you believe she only served us snacks and pie?" I don't know if they would have done this or not, but I didn't want to give them the opportunity.
Antipasti is apparently the plural of antipasto. Translated, it means, before the meal. It is traditionally various meats, cheeses, and vegetables that are placed on the table as an indication that the meal has begun. There were no meats or cheeses on my antipasti platter. It was all just fun vegetables that we don't normally just eat outside of salads and martinis.
Cherry pie is one of my husband's greatest food-loves. Couple that with the fact that Jennifer doesn't like cooked apples, the choice of apple or cherry pie filling for the dessert recipe this week, it was a no-brainer. I personally prefer chocolate in a dessert, but this whole experiment is about expanding my horizons.
The original recipe for the fruit turnover called for that dreaded refrigerator dough again. I have made myself a solemn vow to never purchase that vile product again. It is gooey and sticky, and it never seems to bake all the way through when you add toppings or fillings. And what good is it if there are no toppings or fillings?
I thought I would start out my preparations by doubling the flat bread recipe for the antipasti, but I forgot what I was doing and didn't double it. I had to make a separate preparation for the dessert dough. I debated about adding something sweet to the dough to round out the whole dessert experience, but I was curious to see what it would be like without it. It was probably a good thing that I had to make a separate batch of dough for the dessert, because the flat bread recipe had more salt in it than I would care to use in a dessert.
FLAT BREAD
1 teaspoon sugar
1½ cups warm water
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
3½ cups bread flour
2 teaspoons salt
olive oil
In a small bowl, dissolve the sugar in the warm water. Add the yeast and set aside for at least 5 minutes. Stir the flour and salt together in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the yeast mixture and stir until the dough clings to the hook in one cohesive mass. Remove dough from bowl and knead a couple of times by hand on a floured board until dough is smooth and elastic, adding extra flour if necessary to keep the dough from sticking. Set dough aside in a greased bowl. Smooth a little olive oil over the top of the dough as well to keep it from drying out. Place a towel over the bowl and put the bowl in a warm, dry place for about three hours.
Preheat the oven to 375º F. Generously oil the bottom and sides of a 10x15 jelly roll pan with olive oil. Roll and stretch the dough to fit in the prepared pan. Brush the top with more olive oil. Bake until golden brown, about 35 minutes.
I started out (mostly) following the recipe in the book, but I found that the dough was much too moist with the 3¼ cups of flour that it called for. I ended up adding another quarter cup before I was able to pull it out of the mixer bowl and work it into a ball.
BASIC PIZZA DOUGH
Adapted from James McNair's Vegetarian Pizza
Adapted from James McNair's Vegetarian Pizza
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 cup warm water
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
3¼ cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup olive oil
Combine the sugar, water, and yeast together in a small bowl. Set aside for at least five minutes. Stir the flour and salt together in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the olive oil and the yeast mixture and stir until the dough clings to the hook in one cohesive mass. Remove dough from bowl and knead a couple of times by hand on a floured board until dough is smooth and elastic, adding extra flour, if necessary, to keep the dough from sticking. Set dough aside in a greased bowl. Smooth a little olive oil over the top of the dough as well to keep it from drying out. Place a towel over the bowl and put the bowl in a warm, dry place for at least an hour. Shape and bake as directed in the pizza recipe.
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ANTIPASTI
There is no one single way to make antipasti. It is basically just whatever you want it to be. There is no real formula for it, so exact measurements are pretty worthless, but here is the closest I could get to explaining what I did.
1 large ripe red tomato
½ of a large red onion
1 small purple bell pepper (or red, if that is what you can find)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon garlic infused red wine vinegar
Coarsely ground sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Marinated artichoke hearts (see recipe below)
Mild pepperoncini peppers
"Italian-Style" olives
Hot dill pickle spears
Slice the tomato, onion, and bell peppers as thinly as you can. Lay one slice of tomato, a few rings of a slice of onion, and a slice of pepper decoratively on a platter. Continue this pattern until you run out of tomatoes, onions, and purple peppers. Drizzle the olive oil and vinegar over the top of them and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Arrange
For the antipasti part of things, I was really hoping most of the vegetables could have come from my garden, but my garden was not cooperating with the plan. The few tomatoes that have started to turn orange or slightly red have been pulled off of the plant, gnawed on, and thrown aside by some hideous creature. I suspect squirrels or chipmunks, but it could be anything. It might be time to get Pele out there to police the area.I lucked out at Cub this week, though. In their produce section, there was a small crate of gorgeous, glossy red, luscious tomatoes. There was a sign above them, telling me that they were just brought in that day from a local farm. I wish I could remember the name of the farm, because they were spectacular in looks, texture, and taste.
I had a couple of really tiny red peppers, but since my tomato was so big and beautiful, I decided to go with the one purple bell I harvested that morning. I wanted the size and shape of my slices of pepper to match those of the tomato and the red onion. They still fell short, but at least they were a closer match than the dinky red ones.
I sliced everything as thin as I possibly could. I wanted that magnificent tomato to go as far as it could. I wanted to make sure that everyone got to try it. The onion was very strong, so that had to be thin, too, and my one pepper had to keep up with the tomato. I sliced everything up and alternated tomatoes, onions, and peppers on one half of my platter. I drizzled it with olive oil and garlic-infused red wine vinegar and dusted them with salt and pepper.
Marinated artichoke hearts turned out to be an issue for me. I knew I had seen them at Cub before. I knew I had even purchased them before. And, I could even remember where I found them in the store. However, the store had been rearranged since I had purchased any, and I wasn't sure where to find them now. I checked in the "Ethnic" section, where the Italian items were, and I got a little sidetracked and never found them nor did I remember that I was looking for them. I think it was when I saw the olives.
I wasn't sure what Italian style olives were - I know the Greeks like Kalamatas, and Manzanilla olives come from Spain. I know that Italians eat a lot of olives, but quite frankly, I didn't know that they had their own style of olives. Lucky for me, Cub had a jar labeled Italian Olive Antipasto! That must be what I needed. It had green (Manzanilla) olives in it, but it also had garlic and peppers, and sun dried tomatoes, and some herbs. It was all delicious.
So, I didn't buy the marinated artichoke hearts. I had some regular old canned artichoke hearts at home. I decided to marinate those. A little research on the Internet and a little tweaking of my own, and they were marinating.
MARINATED ARTICHOKE HEARTS
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard
1 14-ounce can artichoke hearts, drained
Combine all ingredients, except artichoke hearts in a small jar or container with a lid. Whisk the ingredients together. Add the artichokes and shake to coat. Let stand for at least 30 minutes.
For the peperoncini, I wanted to make sure that I got mild ones when I went to the grocery store. It seems like there have been times when I have gotten really hot ones before. I did some research on line and there seems to be quite a difference between what Italians call peperoncini (and another Italian pepper "peperoni") and what Americans call peperoncini. It would also seem that in different parts of this great land of ours, they vary on the heat levels. Usually when I buy them here in Minnesota, they are mild, but I didn't want to take the chance with the ones that weren't marked either way.
The pickles were hot Kosher dills. And these were HOT. I like a little heat now and then, and I am no wimp when it comes to spicy, but these made me tear up a little. I imagine that they are not going to be a big seller in our little corner of Suburbia. I like them, don't get me wrong, and I will probably buy them again, but I cannot eat them in large doses, and I don't know many people that could.
My platter wasn't as beautiful as I had envisioned in my mind's eye, but I thought it was looking pretty good. I probably should have gotten some Kalamatas (even though they were labeled Greek) or even some regular black olives (do those have a name?) to vary the color pattern a little, but the four different greens had some merit.
With that assembles, I was ready to tend to my doughs. The flat bread dough was just going to be baked naked with a coating of olive oil on it. It had risen quite a bit and was trying to climb out of its bowl when I got to it. There is something satisfying about being able to punch that marshmallow down and watch it collapse on itself.
Deflated, it was ready to stretch into my oiled bar pan. It took a bit of work to get it to come near the edges of the pan. It was a little uneven in places and didn't necessarily come to the corner of the pan, but I liked it.
FRUIT PIZZA TURNOVERS
Adapted from the Everything Pizza Book by Belinda Hulin
1 recipe basic pizza dough (see above)
1 15-ounce container whole-milk ricotta cheese
½ cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 15-ounce can cherry pie filling
Cooking spray
Preheat oven to 350º F. Divide dough in half and roll each piece out to a 12x12 square. Mix the ricotta, sugar, and vanilla together in a medium bowl. Spread the mixture over one half of each square, but on the diagonal, so the filling forms a triangle. Pour fruit filling over the ricotta mixture and spread to cover the ricotta. Fold the undressed half of the dough over the filling and pinch the edges together to seal. You may have to brush with a little water to seal. Spray a baking sheet with non-stick spray and place the turnovers on it. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until crust sounds slightly hollow when tapped.
The Liggetts arrived just as I was assembling them. I had two squares all lined up and had just finished mixing the ricotta, sugar, and vanilla when they walked in with two giant pizzas from Aldi's. Apparently, there was a sale and apparently lack of bargain resistance runs in the family.
I spread the cheese mixture over the dough, making sure to clean all of the creamy goodness out of the bowl before throwing it in the sink. I handed the spoon to Gracie. She gave me a concerned look like I might be trying to trick her into eating something gross. I said, "try it, it's sweet". She took a timid sweep of the tip of the spoon with her finger and hesitantly put it in her mouth. Suddenly her eyes danced, and the corners of her mouth curled upward into a smile. She greedily licked the rest of the spoon clean.
Her eyes lit up again when I opened the can of cherry filling. She leaned over me to peer into the can, reaching her finger and thumb forward like a crab claw to pluck a cherry right out of its nest of syrupy gel. At this point, her brother walked in, saw what she was eating and said he wanted some, too. I told him he could have the can when I was done. Apparently, this was the wrong thing to say, because then Gracie thought he was getting more than she was, and an argument ensued.
While I was sealing up the turnovers, Jennifer tried to start in on drink duty. Unfortunately, we were missing a key ingredient to the drink I had originally chosen for the night. It took me a little searching through the book to find a recipe for which we had everything or a facsimile thereof. I finally settled on something called "Aviation".
AVIATION
2½ measures gin
½ measure maraschino liqueur
½ measure lemon juice
Shake ingredients well with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
We each took a sip and smiled. This was good. Jennifer suggested that we had this drink previously. It tasted similar to something, I wasn't sure what, but I was pretty sure we hadn't had this specific combination before. I looked it up later, and it seems very close to the Beachcomber drink we had in July, but that was rum instead of gin and that had a hint of orange to it. The gin in the Aviation gave it just a little more bite than the Beachcomber, and also kept it a little less sweet. This was an equally refreshing and citrusy drink with less ingredients. The lemon made it just a little brighter than the Beachcomber was. Whatever the Aviation was, it was gone in a flash. After we had gotten her two pizzas in the oven, we had to refill before sitting down with the crowd for the antipasti.
The antipasti was a pleasant surprise. That little bit of olive oil and vinegar on the tomatoes, onions, and peppers transformed them (or at least seemed to, maybe it was the Aviation talking). Those three items stacked on the flat bread were fantastic. We could have made a meal out of these. Jennifer even enjoyed it, despite her aversion to tomatoes (I think she even had seconds or thirds). We tried all kinds of different combinations on the flat bread: olive, artichoke, peperoncini; tomato, olive, pickle; everything all at once.
Jennifer and Roger's $5 pizzas were truly a bargain, too. They got a meat-lovers with sausage, pepperoni, and salami and an everything pizza with pepperoni, three different kinds of peppers, and mushrooms. They were both great. They had a thin, slightly crispy crust. The sauce was just a hint on both, but enough to impart a nice tangy hint of tomato. The pepperoni and salami were flavorful and had crisped up perfectly.The biggest hit of the evening, though, was the cherry turnover. It didn't look pretty. The crust was a little pasty looking - I should have given it a butter or egg wash or something - and I had forgotten to dust it with powdered sugar once it came out of the oven. Of course, I didn't remember that until later... It was heavenly, though. I think I would have loved it even if it didn't have the cherry filling in it. The sweetened ricotta with the vanilla was just fabulous all by itself. Cooking the cheese had blended those three ingredients together so smoothly it seemed like they were destined to be combined. It was rich and sweet and warm. The cherries were a nice touch but just interfered with my enjoyment of the ricotta. The kids (and Jeff) loved it and asked for seconds. We polished off one entire turnover (even after we ate some Aldi cookies that were also on sale), and I sent the second one home with them.
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