Magnificent Zucchini

I found this recipe in The Ultimate Vegetarian Cookbook, by Roz Denny.

I was surprised this week when my wife, along with our oldest daughter, came in bearing unexpected fruits from what I thought was our dormant garden.  Living in the Mojave desert, the summertime sun is just B-R-U-T-A-L.  We stopped getting any yields from our garden a month or so ago.  But rather than tear it all up, I decided to leave the plants in there, and to continue to water them, partly just to see what would happen, and partly due to sheer laziness.  It's too stinking hot out there to do any real work!

Anyway, in comes this zucchini squash the size of my forearm.  (I'm 6ft tall and weigh 200 lbs., down from 216 at the beginning of this year, BTW)  I had no idea the plants would produce in such heat, but there you have it!  The only thing I ever really knew to do with zucchini was to saute it or shred it into a quick bread.  This recipe looked very inviting.  And, WOW was it yummy!

3 cups cooked pasta shells or elbows
a 3-4 lb zucchini
1 onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, seeded and chopped (I used a red one)
1 TBS fresh, grated ginger root (I have no idea how to grate it, so I minced it)
2 garlic cloves, crushed ( I used 4 and minced them)
3 TBS sunflower oil (I didn't have any, I used olive oil)
salt and black pepper to taste
1/2 cup pine nuts
cheese, grated to serve (We're on a plant based diet, so I used nutritional yeast for that cheesy flavor)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. cook the pasta according to package instructions, drain and set aside.
2. Cut the zucchini in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds.  These can be discarded.  Use a small sharp knife and spoon to scoop out the zucchini flesh.  Chop the flesh roughly.
3. Fry the onion, pepper, garlic and ginger in the oil for 5 minutes, then add the zucchini flesh, tomatoes and seasoning.  Cover and cook for 10 minutes.
4. Add to the pan the pasta, pine nuts and basil.  stir well and set aside.  (I used too small a pan, had to put it all in a giant mixing bowl.)
5. Meanwhile, place the zucchini halves in a roasting pan.  Add a small amount of water in order to create steam.  Drizzle with oil, add salt and a little bit of pepper.  Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 15 minutes.  I would suggest doing this at step 3, when everything else starts to cook. If timed correctly, the zucchini should come out of the oven right when you're done mixing all the other ingredients together.  Hey, it's a busy house.  If we can shorten the prep time for any of these dishes, it's a good thing.
6. When the zucchini is finished roasting, remove from oven, discard the water, and fill the shells with the vegetable/pasta mixture.  Re-cover with the foil and return to the oven for 25-30 minutes.
7. If you wish, you can serve this dish topped with grated cheese.  As mentioned above, we enjoy a plant-based diet.  As a substitute, I mixed into the vegetable mixture 2 TBS of nutritional yeast instead.  

Near Perfect Pizza Dough!

I call this "near" perfect because everyone's tastes are subjective. But this recipe makes a darned good one!

I've never liked homemade pizza for one simple reason, the crust always sucked. I happened to be channel surfing with my (then) 3 year old son one afternoon, and he told me to stop when he saw Emeril. Yeah, I think my boy's gonna be a chef someday. Emeril was showing how to make this pizza crust, and whaddya know, it works! I've been using this one for a couple years now. I've also been tweaking it here and there to get it just the way I like it. I'll just give you the basic recipe and then tell about the adjustments I made after that.

First:
1 cup hot water (between 105 and 100 degrees [F])
1 package, or 1 tsp of quick rise yeast
1 tsp sugar
stir together in a small bowl and let the yeast activate for 10 minutes. You'll see that it will begin to get foamy.

Then:
in a mixer (I use a Cuisinart) put in
1.5 cups of flour
1 TBS olive oil
1 tbs salt

Add the activated yeast mixture to the dry ingredients and mix (With the Cuisinart's "K" attachment) until smooth.

(Then switch to the Cuisinarts "dough" attachment and) add
1.5 cups of flour
slowly to the mixture. When it's all in there, turn up the mixer to a somewhat high speed and mix for about 3 minutes more. You may have to add a little more water or flour to get the consistency right. You don't want it too dry where the flour doesn't all absorb. You don't want it too wet where it's sloppy. It should be all together and just a tiny bit sticky. Nothing should be sticking to the sides of the bowl.

Smear 1 TBS olive oil in a large bowl (I use the same cuisinart bowl. Why dirty up another one?) and place the dough ball in it. Roll it around to get it all covered in the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in a warm, quiet place for 90 minutes. I use a slightly warm oven. BE CAREFUL! You're shooting for an oven temperature of about 110 degrees to start. Then just keep the oven off, with the temperature slowly decreasing over the course of the 90 minutes. I've found that the yeast really likes the slightly warmer than room temp. to keep working. If you start off at more than 110 degrees the yeast die off because it's too hot.

After 90 minutes, the dough will have just about doubled in size. Place it on a well floured surface and LIGHTLY punch down. Let the dough rest again for 10 minutes. At this point you can spin or roll the dough into whatever shap you want (square, round, oval, whatever). Add your toppings and bake at 475 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

I have used this recipe for all sorts of pizza crust: Round, Square, deep-dish, thin, calzones, stromboli...

For calzones, don't use sauce. Add all your toppings, carefully fold it over to make a "pizza pocket" and press down the edges to seal. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Have warm sauce on the side for dipping.

For stromboli, you can use sauce (traditional) or you can have it later on the side for dipping (I like that better because it's not as sloppy an end result, and besides, my kids like to dip!) , your choice. Basically, make a pizza and roll it into a "loaf". Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

I've found that a 100% whole wheat crust is really difficult to pull off. It's just too heavy and doesn't rise very well. The best "straight up" whole wheat crust I've been able to make has been a 50-50% mixture of whole wheat and white flour.

I also have ben experimenting with corn flour and gluten flour. Corn flour adds a nice flavor but it's lack of gluten destroys the texture and elasticity of the dough. It can't stick together and falls apart. Gluten flour is great because it adds sooo much protein to the dough, but it tends to make the dough TOO elasticky (is that a word?), making the dough difficult to shape into a large enough pie. You'll stretch out the dough to cover the pan, and you can just watch the dough shrink right back down to the original size of the dough ball.

I also have been experimenting with adding nutritional yeast to the dough to give it more protein and B vitamins, as well as imparting a great parmesan cheese-like flavor.

If you are going to substitute any of the flour quantity with corn flour or nutritional yeast, you'll have to also substitute into the recipe some gluten flour, at a 2:1 ratio. Example: This recipe calls for 3 cups of flour. Substituting 1/2 cup nutritional yeast, you will also need to substitute in 1 cup gluten flour, with 1 and 1/2 cups of white or whole wheat flour remaining.