Olive Flatbread
- At January 20, 2011
- By megan
- In pizza, pizza dough, Savory Spice Shop
1
Is it pizza or is it flatbread? I don’t really know. I think I’d call it pizza if it had one or two more ingredients on it, but this simple pizza-like flatbread was just brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with Spanish Roasted Black Olive Sea Salt (which you can find, of course, at Savory Spice Shop), some sliced olives (I got a mixed container of olives from the olive bar at Whole Foods), and some grated parmesan cheese.
So, maybe it’s a flatbread. But, I used a pizza crust recipe…. hmmm…
For my crust:
In a large pyrex measuring cup, mix 1 1/3 cup warm water, 1 TB yeast, and a spoon full of sugar. Let this dissolve and sit for approximately 10 minutes. Your yeast should get nice and frothy, which lets you know it is alive.
In your stand mixer with the dough hook attachment, measure out 3 cups unbleached bread flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour, a pinch of sea salt, and some freshly ground black pepper. Mix this for a few seconds with the dough hook before slowly adding the liquid and a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Knead this in the mixer, adding a little more flour as needed, for 10 minutes or so until it is a nice, smooth dough ball that isn’t sticky.
Then cover the bowl- I usually put wax paper over the bowl and then cover that with a dish towel. Place the bowl in a warm area (not a hot oven) to double in size over the next hour or so. Then, punch it down and start rolling out crusts, or flatbreads.
I like baking my pizzas and flatbreads on a baking stone in a 425 degree oven. They cook in no time. Enjoy!
Roasted Pumpkin Peanut Curry Soup
- At December 22, 2010
- By megan
- In curry, favorites, peanuts, pumpkin, Savory Spice Shop, Soup, Vita-Mix
- 0
I love pumpkins, peanuts, and curry, and, I think they combine perfectly for a hearty, healthy, flavorful soup. I enjoy making a pumpkin peanut curry soup at least once each fall. There is something about it that brings me back to a small cafe in Siem Reap, Cambodia, where I specifically recall tasting a pumpkin-peanut curry soup for the first time. After the first spoonful I remember thinking I had stumbled upon a flavor gold-mine. So, if you’re skeptical, give it a try. Let me know what you think.
But, first things first- my recipe:
Ingredients:
- one pie pumpkin
- 1 cup unsalted peanuts
- peanut oil
- 2 yellow onions
- 2-3 cups water
- 2 TB soy sauce
- 3-4 TB maple syrup
- 1-2 TB Vietnamese Sweet Lemongrass Curry (a Savory Spice Shop blend)
Start by roasting a pie pumpkin. I like to cut them in half and drizzle them with something good, like peanut oil for this recipe. Put the pumpkin cut-side-down in a baking dish with the peeled and quartered onions and a little water. Roast this at 400 for 30 minutes or so until you can pierce it easily with a fork or knife.
I roasted a cup of peanuts, so it might be a good idea to spread them on a baking tray and roast them for 5-10 minutes while the oven is heating up. As long as you’re paying attention, this way of roasting peanuts will work just fine. However, if you’re even the least bit scatter-brained in the kitchen, you just might forget about the peanuts and they’ll burn (I’m guilty of this!). So, you decide if you’d prefer to roast the peanuts separately at 250 until golden brown.
Then, into the Vita-Mix go the peanuts to make fresh peanut butter. I know what some people are thinking: “But wait. Why can’t I just use peanut butter?” That’s fine too. I always like to do things the long way, and ever since buying my Vita-Mix, I don’t purchase nut butters since I easily make them at home. So, the next step is to make peanut butter.
Then, add the cooked pumpkin flesh to the vita-mix with a couple cups of water, soy sauce, maple syrup, and blend, starting on low and slowly moving up to high, until it is a smooth puree. Add a little more water if it is too thick.
Transfer the soup to a stock pot and cook until heated through. Add the Vietnamese Sweet Lemongrass Curry from nowhere other than Savory Spice Shop. Mix well.
I had some cooked kale ready to go, so I gave it a coarse chop and added it to my bowl. De-li-cious.
Chocolate en Fuego
I asked my friend Evan Faber, the illustrious Beverage Director at Boulder’s now-famous SALT the Bistro (and master-mind behind The Cocktail Element), for a must-try holiday cocktail recipe. Evan gave me a recipe for one of his favorites, and, I must say- he has good taste. This is definitely a seasonal beverage that I’ll be enjoying throughout the winter, not just over the holidays.
Ingredients:
- 1.5 oz Reposado Tequila
- .5 oz Peppermint Schnapps or Rumple Minze
- a cup of rich hot chocolate
- dash of cayenne
When I first read this recipe I was a little unsure of the tequila-peppermint combination. It didn’t sound like it intuitively went together, and, though I didn’t doubt Evan per se, I didn’t exactly rush out to buy Rumple Minze right away. But, I should have! I could have been enjoying this now for a couple weeks!
I used some Savory Spice Shop hot chocolate, which is a rich, smooth, and chocolately hot chocolate. I’ll need to stock up on cocoa because “Chocolate en Fuego” is officially my new favorite winter-time drink… after Maple Scotch, of course!
Cheers!
Maple Scotch
There is something so seasonal about sipping maple scotch on cold nights, and it always reminds me of my dad’s bar, which is one of my favorite places to go. I plan to have some maple scotch in stock all winter. Here’s how I made it…
In a non-reactive sauce pan, bring the following to a boil:
- 1 cup pure (bottled, filtered) water
- 1/3 cup maple sugar (you can buy some at Savory Spice Shop)
- 1/4-1/3 cup evaporated cane juice (use a little less if you want it less sweet)
- 2/3 cup pure maple syrup
- 6 or 7 whole allspice berries (which you can definitely find at SSS)
- 1/4 tsp caraway seeds (you know where I got mine…)
I boiled the allspice berries and caraway seeds in a reusable herb sack to keep them all together.
Boil this mixture until the sugar dissolves. Then let it cool completely before combining a 750ml bottle of scotch with the maple mixture. I used Ballantine’s and poured it into two different Ball jars, adding 2 cinnamon sticks to the smaller jar just to experiment. In the larger jar, I kept the seed sack to allow the flavors to blend.
This will be ready to drink in a couple weeks, but the longer it sits, the better. You also might want to remove the cinnamon sticks after a couple weeks to avoid making it too cinnaminy.
Enjoy!
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