Pizza vera

I have made pizza before and it was decent but the crust was totally faking it. And honestly, it was tasty, but not really good pizza, you know? More like glorified takeout. Recently, I finally made my own crust and dignified it with good ingredients, and the results were awesome. It's incredibly easy to make your own pizza dough--I don't know why I wasn't sold on it earlier in life.For your pizza dough, mix 1 teaspoon instant yeast with 2 ½ cups bread flour (or regular flour if that's what you have on hand), plus ½ cup of cornmeal and 2 teaspoons salt. Add in 1 cup water and 2 generous tablespoons olive oil. Mix it all up well... It should very quickly coalesce into a raggedy lump. Turn out the dough on floured surface and knead it once or twice, shaping it into a ball:knead, knead...and...ball!Set the dough in an oiled bowl, cover it with a dishtowel and let rise for about 1 hour somewhere warm, such as your summertime in georgia porch. You can slow it down by putting it in the fridge if need be. After an hour or so (it can sit for up to two hours and be fine, probably) divide the dough in two and form a couple of tidy little balls. Now let them take a second, shorter rise, covered on your countertop for another 10-20 minutes. At this point, you have enough for two nice pizzas. Stretch and shape the dough to fit on an oiled pan (I always lay it out on the back side of a cookie sheet) and layer a thin coat of sauce over the surface. And then the toppings are up to you! The only rule is to use a light hand so you don't get a soggy pie. I made a rucola e prosciutto pizza: thin slices of fresh mozzarella plus prosciutto and arugula.By the way, real quick, here's what I usually make for a pizza sauce: sauté 1 small, minced yellow onion in olive oil until lightly golden and soft (about 10 - 15 minues), then add 2 minced cloves of garlic. Stir all together for another minute, then sauté the contents of one small can of tomato paste for 1-2 additional minutes before adding red pepper flakes, a half-can of whole, peeled roma tomatoes (they come in a big, jumbo 48 ounce can of which I use half), 2 teaspoons sugar and about 1/3 cup of red wine. Simmer it all together, stirring frequently, and allow it to get somewhat reduced and thick. After about 30 minutes, take off heat and put it through a food mill to get a nice, smooth thick puree. You can do it while your dough is rising. After the pizza bakes for about 20 minutes, I use this crazy mezzaluna tool to cut it into squares:Another great combination is thinly sliced chorizo and pineapple together.It has that irresistible salty-sweet thing going on.

Basil vodka martini

What do you do with a bumper crop of basil? Maybe you go get some really good vodka and make this excellent drink for the rest of the lazy days of summer.Get a couple good, big handfuls of basil off your porch or out of your yard or your neighbor's yard. Crush it up until it is bruised and fragrant.Combine the basil with 3 teaspoons sugar and 3 shots of great vodka in a martini shaker with ice. Shake the hell out of it until the dogs bark at you and chase you around the room. Get it good and icey. Strain it into two glasses (with sugared rims if you're feeling fancy) and be amazed by the cool green color.As is, this drink will knock you on your ass and is best suited for slow sipping on weekend nights or as anesthesia. You can mix it with seltzer or something for a lighter mixed drink.

Fried chickpeas with rosemary

Here is the perfect crunchy/salty/aromatic snack--fried ceci with rosemary and sea salt! Chickpeas go through an amazing transformation when rolled around in hot oil--they develop a lovely crispy shell enveloping a nutty, creamy bite inside. Add some coarse salt and pungent rosemary and you have the perfect cocktail nibble for before dinner. And you can totally use canned chickpeas, I don't judge.Drain one can and rinse them well. Be sure to dry them off thoroughly because you'll be popping them in hot oil and want to minimize your splattering.Heat up 3 tablespoons olive oil in a heavy pan until it makes that crispy sound when you drop a chickpea into it. Add your dried off chickpeas and stir them around gently until they develop nice brown bits all over (you're not making hot hummus here, so don't mash them!). This takes about 5 minutes, but keep an eye on them so they don't burn up over the high heat.After they're nice and crispy, add in about 2 healthy sprigs worth of chopped fresh rosemary and keep frying.Toss them once with a liberal tablespoon of coarse salt (kosher or sea salt in big flakes), then set out for your guests while still a little bit warm.Make sure everyone has a glass of wine or a cocktail. That's just good advice in general though.

Red sauce for new parents

There is a trend in my life right now...lots of pregnant friends and family and brand-new babies turning up left and right. Melanie and Jeremy just had a lovely little guy themselves and so I made some seriously meaty red sauce for them to keep in their freezer for emergency dinnertime. If you have the same baby epidemic going on, try making your poor friends something delicious. They will thank you in an adorable, sleep-deprived way.I chopped up 2 big onions into dice......and about 6 cloves of garlic as well as a good 1/2 cup of parsley. I want this little baby to appreciate strong southern Italian flavors! The onions and garlic cooked in about 3 tablespoons olive oil over medium-low heat until soft, then I added in 3 pounds of ground meat to brown (one pound each of beef, veal and pork). After the onion was softened and the meats were browned, I put most of two big cans of peeled tomatoes through my food mill for a smoother sauce texture.I saved about a cup's worth to chop up so there would be some nice tomatoey bites in there too.The sauce bubbled away for about 2 hours so it got nice and full-flavored.Because I am a cheese monster, I made labels for the freezer bags that I froze the sauce in. This made just enough for 4 1-quart bags. It's a good size to be able to pull out of the freezer for dinner for 2.Lay them flat to freeze so they will store better. Here they are the next day, ready to be packed up for Mel.I ended up making a gift basket with some pasta, a wedge of parmesan and a much-needed bottle of wine.

Nutella-banana ice cream

This past Sunday there was a whole lot of crazy kitchen activity around here, culminating in the absolutely sinful homemade ice cream combination of nutella and banana. The velvety vanilla-cream base is very easy to make and lends itself to all kinds of creative possibilites. I see production of a zabaglione ice cream on the horizon...or a strawberries and cream, then maybe a lemon-blueberry...infinite variety to lazy summertime Sundays.

I had 3 frozen bananas in my freezer ready to go--they had been getting too ripe so I just peeled them and wrapped them in plastic until I had an opportunity to use them up. You could use fresh ones instead if you don't have any already frozen. These got sliced up into chips and set back in the freezer to wait their turn to be added into the ice cream.Whisk together 1 cup whole milk with 1/2 heaping cup sugar.After the sugar dissolves (about 1-2 minutes), stir in 2 cups heavy cream......and 1 teaspoon vanilla.At this point, this is your basic vanilla ice-cream base, suitable for many different add-ins. Pour this mixture into your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's directions. Mine is this little R2D2 Cuisinart, it takes about 25 minutes of mixing time.Added in the Nutella--about half of this container. Then after about 10 minutes of mix time, the frozen banana slices got added in as well.After the mixing time was through, it needs to get quickly packed into a container and returned to the freezer for at least 1 hour. It is tasty right away but the texture is very soft-serve--if you want it to be more like ice cream, you'll need to let it freeze up some.It was just a really great combination: tiny bites of banana and frozen chunks of Nutella in a light chocolatey-hazelnut base.

Grilled new potatoes

I got these fantastic little potatoes from the Morningside farmers market. I love the mixed bag of tiny new potatoes--purple potatoes, golden yellow ones...just all different colors and textures. I decided to make these adorable little guys on the grill alongside a new york strip steak and it was a really really good idea. I had just about 1 pound of these teeny potatoes: first pricked each one all over with a fork, then rolled them around in 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and at least 1 tablespoon of chopped fresh rosemary.I slapped them on the cooler end of a hot grill, being careful not to lose any of the especially small ones between the grates. I guess you could thread them on a skewer if you steamed them a bit first, but I just threw them on there as they were.They got their head start and eventually were joined by the steak, which I placed on the hotter side of the grill.I do recommend getting a taller grill if possible. Otherwise you might attract some unwanted dog attention.Turn the potatoes over a few times to get them nicely browned on all sides. If some are bigger than others, you may need to cut them down to the same size so they all cook at the same rate. Pull them off when they are cooked through and soft with a nicely crisped exterior; the timing here is quite variable depending on size of potatoes and your grill heat, but it should probably take somewhere between 30-45 minutes. Taste them as you go to see if they are done to your liking. Then roll them back in the same pan of olive oil-rosemary mixture so they get another coating of delicious flavor.This and a steak...they belong together.

Rooster chicken

I thought it would be interesting to show a work in progress for once, instead of a recipe that I feel totally confident in. A couple weeks ago I read a good article in the New York Times about Sriracha sauce and decided I wanted to try making a glaze for chicken. This will work really well on grilled chicken--the version I tried out here was roasted in the oven and basted with the sauce. It was tasty but I think glazing grilled chicken pieces (or better yet, a whole chicken on the grill) with this sauce would be even better. I whisked together Sriracha sauce with brown sugar, soy sauce, a little minced ginger and garlic.Brushed this over my chicken as it roasted in the oven...After it was fully roasted (thigh temperature at 170 degrees, which takes about 1 hour or so for a small bird in a 400 degree oven), I added one more coat of sauce then squeezed lime juice over everything as I sliced it.It makes a delicious, tangy, spicy bird done this way, but I plan to refine this further for the grill.

Octopus salad

My mother, who loves me very much, came to visit me recently. She cleaned my house, walked my dogs and we cooked. One night she made an excellent white bean-chicory stew and I decided to try to make an octopus salad based on what I had learned on my flight down to Puerto Rico last month. My seatmate described a simple salad with spicy tinned octopus (and some other sea creatures, possibly squid?) tossed together with avocado and other veggies. I decided to make mine with diced sweet onion on top of arugula, dressed simply in lemon juice and olive oil. On one of our wanderings through Rincon, I picked up a couple of these tins of octopus. Happily, they were not confiscated by the USDA on my return flight because these are great for delicious, no-heat summertime cooking. They probably sell the tinned octopus here in the states too, I just like bringing food back with me from trips as a sort of evanescent souvenir. One tin of octopus plus one avocado was the right amount as a first-course salad for two people. Cut up one avocado, slice into chunks and dress lightly with lime juice to prevent browning while you get the rest of the salad ready.Toss the octopus gently together in a bowl with your avocado and about 1/4 cup diced onion. I have tons of Vidalias right now due to living in Georgia so I used those. Something with more bite might be nice though. Or green onion...anyway. I added a little bit more lime juice, salt, pepper, a teeny pinch red pepper flakes as I combined them.Then I tossed some arugula with a drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice, then rested the octopus mixture on top. Perfect for an early summer dinner out on the porch.