How Family Pizza Night Can Help Save the World

Have you read Barbara Kingsolver's wonderful book about how she and her family made a commitment to eat only locally grown food for an entire year? Whether you are vegetarian, vegan or omnivore you will enjoy this book as well as glean some useful if not scary information about how food is grown in today's corporate world of factory farming  and mono cropping. Animal Vegetable Miracle is a beautifully written and entertaining true story of their challenging adventure into local food-land.

It informs us about just how far we have drifted from thinking, acting or buying locally and the serious hazards this presents to us humans as a species and to our beautiful planet earth. Between the chemicals that are sprayed on fruits and vegetables, the corn and antibiotics that are pumped into livestock and the energy consumption involved in shipping food to every corner of the universe, we, along with our environment are headed for some serious trouble.

When people tell me that shopping at the local farmer's market is too expensive, I am amazed at the short sightedness of this comment.   By shopping at the farmers market, we are putting money back into the local economy and supporting  our neighbors. We are protecting the environment by buying food that did not have to be trucked in from California or Kalamazoo, and we are treating ourselves to eating non chemically sprayed, delightfully fresh food that is in season and more in harmony with what and how we should be eating.

I love our town's farm market and look forward to it every week. Not only can I expect to be pleasantly surprised by which just picked veggies will be available but I also have the opportunity to say hello to my neighbors and friends, eat some superbly delish Aba's falafel, and hear some fine music played by some great local musicians.  This is  an event that builds community in a practical and really truly festive way.

For our health, the environment and the sustainability of our local communities, shopping locally makes the most sense.

Eating strictly local food throughout the year when you live in the northeast would  be very challenging since our growing season only lasts half the year. The Kingsolver family has a very large garden in West Virginia, with a longer growing season than we do in the northeast. But even so, they knew that their larder of canned goods and root vegetables would dwindle toward the end of winter. 

For this reason, they built Pizza night into their weekly food plan. Every Friday night they would make pizza from scratch using their own home grown canned tomato sauce and locally made cheese. The pizza would be supplemented by a salad grown during the winter in a local greenhouse. 

This gave me the idea to do the same (sans the real cheese).  I was easily able to recruit my daughter and husband to participate in Family Pizza Night since they (like most people) both lovvvve pizza. Making homemade pizza dough  takes a few hours (including rising time for the dough) and is a great way to get the entire family involved in the process of doing something fun and nurturing together.

My daughter mixes and kneads the dough, my husband rolls it out and shapes it into pies, and I make the sauce and veggies to go on top of it.  We use Daiya mozzarella cheese substitute instead of  fresh mozzarella and voila! delicious homemade pizza.

There are a few tools you may want to get to make your pizza making easier, although you don't absolutely need any of them:

-A pizza stone is a good investment at under $15.00.  The stone is heated in the oven providing an instantly hot surface for the pizza, yielding greater crispiness.

-A french rolling pin, with its tapered ends, is essential for rolling the dough out properly, from the center of the dough, out to its edges. 

-A pizza wheel or cutter makes cutting the pie into slices much easier.

-A pizza peel or paddle for assembling the pizza and then sliding it into the oven onto the hot pizza stone.

There are a bizillion recipes available  (on line)for fresh pizza dough.  I like to use a mixture of unbleached white and whole wheat flour.  My friend Pam of the Garden Cafe let me know that one of the secrets to making the Garden Cafe pizza crust such crispy perfection was the addition of mashed potatoes. Another benefit to the Garden Cafe's great crust was that it was done on a large outdoor grill.

Here is one recipe I am pretty happy with but I am always experimenting and trying to get the crust thinner and crispier.

This amkes enough dough for 2, 12"-14" pies.

Preheat oven 450°F.

Put pizza stone in the oven to pre heat as well.

4 cups flour (I used 3cups unbleached white and 1 cup whole wheat)

1 1/4 cups lukewarm water

1 packet active dry yeast, or 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

2 tablespoons olive oil (any good brand), but extra virgin is best

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar, or 1 teaspoon agave 

1/4 cup water

1/2-3/4 cup mashed potatoes

1-2 cups homemade or canned tomato sauce

3-4 cups veggie toppings

2 cups grated Daiya Mozzarella cheese substitute

Use your favorite veggies as toppings. We like steamed broccoli, roasted garlic, roasted red peppers, sauteed mushrooms, carmelized onions, steamed brocolli rabe, spinach,fresh basil or other herbs, vegan sausage,  or whatever is in season in your favorite combinations. 

Using a large ceramic mixing bowl, or any suitable food safe bowl, add the flour, make a "well" in middle, and put in 1 teaspoon salt, stir to combine well. Set aside.

Prepare the starter: In a liquid measuring cup pour in 1 1/4 cups lukewarm water, 1 teaspoon sugar or honey, and one package of active dry yeast. Stir and set aside for 5 minutes. Allow to foam up (or proof).

Next, mix the starter (yeast water) and the water in the bowl containing the flour with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Mix in mashed potatoes. Stir together using a wooden spoon or clean hands.

Note: You will need additional flour to knead on the surface that you're working on. Knead for about 8 minutes or until you get a smooth elastic rubbery dough ball.

Set aside in bowl, drizzle with a little olive oil to keep the dough from drying out. Let dough sit covered lightly with plastic wrap or use a plate or damp clean towel to cover it.

Allow the dough to rise for 30 minutes to an hour. Cut the ball of dough in half. (This is enough for 2 pizzas so you can roll out other half and make a second pizza. We now have 2 pizza stones so we make 2 at a time. Making one at a time is not a problem though because pizza only takes 12-15 minutes to bake.) Flour a clean flat surface and roll out half the dough into a circle. Sprinkle a pizza paddle with cornmeal (to prevent the dough from sticking)  and assemble the pizza. 

If you don't have a paddle or stone on hand you can use flour or simply grease a  pan with olive oil and assemble the pizza right in the pan.

Top with your favorite tomato sauce, spreading it out using the back of a spoon, then add prepared veggies, tofu or vegan sausage, and sprinkle with Daiya mozzarella cheese substitute over the veggies. 

Sprinkle more cornmeal on the pizza stone and very carefully slide the pizza off of the paddle and onto the hot stone.

Bake for about 12-14 mins, but watch it carefully! You don't want this heavenly treat to burn.

When the bottom looks slightly browned and the pizza looks bubbly, remove it from the oven.

The pizza is a beautiful thing, a treat to the "olfactories", a color sensation for the eyes, and amazingly yummy for the taste buds. 

I can always tell when my family is really enjoying their food. At first, an ambiance of quiet concentration prevails.A few beats later someone will say something like, "Wow, this is really good." And we will all agree. The fact that we all had a hand in it, make this homey meal taste even better. 

I hope you enjoy the pizza and the contented smiles on the beautiful faces of your loved ones as you warm up together on a cold winter's night with all of this savory goodness.

Luv, R  

Meat, Potatoes, Mom and Portobellos

I owe a lot to my mother. When I was growing up, she diligently prepared a good 1950's style, meat and potatoes, nutritious dinner for our family every night of the week. She was not a born cook either.

At the time of my my parents' marriage, she had never cooked a thing. My grandmother, her mother, was a really good old fashioned, eastern european Jewish cook. Grandma Miriam made delicious chicken soup, completely from scratch Gefilte Fish, Chopped Liver, Pot Roast and Potato Kugel, among many other tasty dishes.

Ii seems odd that my Mom didn't learn to cook at her mother's side, since that was the usual way that girls of that era were taught.  But of the little I remember of my grandmother, she was withdrawn and silent,  with sad accusing eyes.  Perhaps she was too preoccupied to take the time and energy to teach my mother, the only girl of the six kids she had, to cook. Perhaps my mother, quiet girl that she must have been, was too timid to ask anything of her busy and unhappy mother.

Finding herself married in her early twenties, with a colicky newborn and a wayward husband (that's another story ), my mother taught herself to cook. My father liked to tell funny stories of her early cooking failures but I am amazed by her successes.

Ten or twelve years into their marriage, by the time I came around, she had become a good, meat and potatoes cook. She used fresh ingredients and  in spite of the popularity of canned and frozen vegetables, she often made fresh green vegetables in the waterless cookware my father had bought when they first got married.

My mother liked to say I was always a good eater and that is true to this day. I think I love food the way I do because of the good hearty food I grew up on. I remember very clearly that I always loved coming in from a hard day of play to  eat dinner. I was rarely, if ever disappointed in the food set before me and I ate my dinner with gusto as did my brothers.

I admire my mother for learning to cook on her own and I so appreciate the fact that she made the effort to do so. She developed a wonderful repertoire of homey and tasty meals that many family members and friends got to enjoy over the 30 some odd years of my parents' marriage.

I learned to cook by watching my mother. It was not a warm and fuzzy scene with the little me at her side where we wore matching aprons and laughed knowingly together, punctuating our experience with periodic hugs and knowing smiles. And yet it seems like it happened naturally, like osmosis.

I made the same things she did, like her delicious home made French Fries. She made them in a little pink enameled pot, 2/3 filled with sizzling vegetable oil.  She would peel and slice each spud individually and when the oil was just the right temperature, she'd throw them in and wait for them to turn golden brown.
Those fries would emerge as perfect specimens, so crispy and delicious that they didn't even need ketchup.

In the middle of winter, it is as natural to crave rich and hearty fare as it is to crave a cool crispy salad in the height of summer.  Winter is the time when I am most likely to wax nostalgic about the foods I was raised on.  I don't crave the meat. What I long for is the warm homeyness of a substantial tasty meal, prepared with love.

When I spied some very fine looking portobellos at the local produce market and recalled that I had some left over mashed potatoes in the fridge, I was inspired. I thought I would make a savory stuffing for the mushrooms by combining the potatoes with some veggies and herbs.

With their rich deep taste and their meaty texture, portobellos easily satisfy that craving for something filling and rich.  This dish lends itself to a lot of improvising, so try using other vegetables and herbs in the mashed potato stuffing like broccoli, zucchini, red peppers, thyme, rosemary, etc. You can also mix in or top with Daiya cheese substitute for added flavor.

Mashed Potato Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

4 large portobello mushroom caps
2 cups mashed potatoes***
2 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 carrot, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 lb cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced.
2 Tbs minced garlic
1/4 Cup Fresh Parsley, minced
2 Tbs fresh lemon juice
1 Tbs tamari

Pre heat oven or toaster oven to 350

Make a marinade for the mushrooms by combining 1 Tbs olive oil, 2 Tbs garlic, lemon juice and tamari.
Pour marinade over the mushroom caps and let them sit a few minutes while
you prepare the stuffing.

Meanwhile, sauté the onion in the remaining Olive Oil for a few minutes.
Add carrot and saute over low heat till onion and carrot are soft, about 5 minutes.
Add sliced mushrooms and garlic and saute 5 minutes more until mushrooms are soft.
Mix in the mashed potatoes and parsley and heat through.

While veggies are cooking as above, place the marinated Portobellos in a
baking dish and bake about 10- 15 minutes untl soft.
Remove from the oven and stuff each cap with 1/4 of the filling.
Turn the oven up to broil and place in oven for  just a few minutes, unti brown.

Even though my Mom has been gone for several years now, I still get the impulse to give her a call. I would show her this blog post if I could and I'd give her a hug and say thanks for all the planning, shopping, cooking and serving you did over the course of so many years. The fruit of your effort lives on.

Luv,
R