The Pizza Cone Experiment

Yesterday, I was out of ideas and needed a dinner solution that was quick and relatively inexpensive.

So, lured by the siren song of the "pizza cone" video making the rounds on Facebook, I attempted my own.

Shopping List

• 1 tube refrigerated pizza dough (I used Pillsbury brand)
• 1 jar pizza sauce
• 1 block mozzarella cheese (I used store brand, part-skim)
• meat topping (like pre-cooked meatballs, sausage, or pepperoni; I opted for frozen, pre-cooked turkey meatballs, in a 1" dice)

Recipe Review

Ease of Preparation

Easy-to-medium.

My sister could do this, but she might want a bit of help.

Specialty Equipment Required?

Yes.

First, you need to figure out a form for your dough-cones. I used heavy-duty aluminum foil; most videos will show wrapping a small paper cone cup (like the kind one might find near a water cooler) in foil. 

Second, it helps if you have a rolling pin, because you do want to roll your dough a bit thinner than it comes out of the can. Yes, OK, Pillsbury makes a "thin crust" pizza crust in a can, but I don't know that it would be worth it to use in this application. (I used a ginger beer bottle)

Third, parchment paper is a MUST unless you're big on greasing pans (I'm not.)

Last, many videos use oven-safe mugs for the post-filling melting step; the linked one uses a popover pan. I didn't and don't feel like there's anything missing - my fillings stayed inside the cone just fine, as the cones themselves were a bit misshapen, so there was a flat side. 

Regular Rotation-Worthy?

Yes, with a slight modification - I'll use less sauce inside the cone and provide (warmed) sauce for dipping.

Recipe Construction: Or, How Not to Put Red Sauce on Pasta ...

There are a lot of options for saucing pasta, but my "quick dinner" go-to is using marinara from a jar. 

We pause to allow the screams of horror from my Italian friends to echo fully in the vacuum caused by deigning to use something I didn't spend all Sunday tending on the stovetop.

I've said it before, and it bears repeating, I am not Italian. 

So, when tasked with making pasta "without red sauce" and remembering my husband could take or leave pesto, I found myself at a quandary.

But then the lightbulb switched on as I remembered a recipe for orichette with sausage & broccoli rabe that was lightened up by a celebrity chef ages ago on Food Network.

Broccoli rabe isn't my favorite vegetable to prepare at home (I find I need to blanch & shock it before sauteeing to leach out some of the bitterness) so I looked elsewhere in the same family to come up with ... spinach.

So, that's what I tapped into Google: pasta sausage spinach.

I read a few recipes and formulated a grocery list. All I needed to transform my lowly box of farfalle (a/k/a "bow tie" pasta) into a gourmet-inspired dish was a package of turkey sausage (casing removed, mild Italian seasoning), cheese, and spinach.

I keep garlic and olive oil on hand at all times. Pantry staples, so to speak.

While you boil the water for your pasta, break up the sausage into bite-sized pieces (should be roughly the size of apricot pits) and brown/render fat in a nonstick pan. Be sure to choose a pan with a well-fitting lid.

Scoop the sausage out with a slotted spoon & set aside. 

Drop heat to medium-low, add 1 Tbsp. olive oil to the pan with 1 clove of chopped garlic. Saute 'til garlic is fragrant (less than a minute on my stove; YMMV) and reduce heat to low. 

Add spinach (mine was in 9oz pre-washed packages; I used 2 pkgs, for 18oz), use tongs to coat in oil/sausage drippings/garlic mix at bottom of the pan. Add 1-3 Tbsp of water to the greens and cover.

While the pasta cooks, the greens should wilt. When the greens are wilted, add the sausage and 1/2 cup of shredded/grated Italian cheese (whatever you like; I used pecorino Romano.)

Cook pasta according to package directions for "al dente" or a little less. Before draining, reserve 1/2 cup pasta water.

Drain pasta, toss with greens, sausage, reserved pasta liquid, and cheese. Sauce won't be super-thick, but it will thicken a bit on standing as the pasta absorbs some of the liquid.

While the kid turned up her nose at it, the husband ate 2 portions.

OK then.

Recipe Review: Good Eats Chocolate Pudding

I don't know about you, but I really like chocolate.

So do the munchkin and husband.

The munchkin has been asking for chocolate pudding every time we're in the dairy aisle at Wegmans. While it's great to have it as a treat every once in a while, I'm not too keen on spending money on things I can make at home.

And, thanks to the Good Eats episode "Puddin' Head Blues," I've already got a couple of pudding recipes in my back pocket.

Including one for chocolate pudding.

Recipe Review

Shopping List

• Instant, nonfat, powdered milk
• heavy cream
• whole milk

Everything else was in my pantry.

Ease of preparation

The mix bit was quite easy, though I did neglect to add the powdered milk. (Oops!)

This is a stovetop-cooked pudding, so I'm rating the recipe as "medium" overall.

Even so, my sister could do this if someone watched her kids.

Specialty Equipment Required?

Yes. AB gives the dry ingredient measures in ounces, which means he'd rather you added them by weight and not by volume. 

I have a kitchen scale; I bought it for $15 several years ago. It's great for things like this.

He also calls for the cooked pudding to be run through a strainer to remove any stray lumps from the starch's gelatinization. This is a worthwhile, though messy, step!

Regular rotation-worthy?

Rather a big hit, I thought, so, yes.

RECIPE WIN. 

Recipe Review - Pork Chops with Sweet Onion Marmeletta

Today's recipe comes from Giada Di Laurentiis's cookbook Giada's Kitchen. The recipes are very well-written, easy to follow, and require a mid- to high- degree of kitchen competence, unlike the recipes in Everyday Italian, which are quite simple and won't crush a beginner's confidence.

That said, even a beginner who gives themselves a lot of time could certainly give these recipes a try. When I say Giada's recipes are "well-written," I mean it. I really enjoy cooking when I'm following Giada!

So, tonight we're going fancypants and serving up something that Giada describes as "the Italian version of pork chops and applesauce."

Yum.

Shopping List

Since I already had the pork chops and pantry staples, I only had to pick up a few things:

• fresh rosemary
• fresh thyme
• large onions (calls for 4; I got two very large Spanish onions)

Recipe Review

Ease of Preparation

Simple, though time-consuming - you need to caramelize onions, which takes a LONG time. (Though I have seen a method to do it in a slow cooker!)

It's also recommended to slice the onions Very Thin, so if your knife skills are still in the "beginner" stages, you might have trouble.

My sister might need help with this one.

Specialty Equipment Required

A grill pan or outdoor grill is nice for cooking the pork.

You'll need a larger pan than you think for cooking the onions.

And a plunger-style measuring cup is helpful for measuring the marmalade this recipe requires, but it's more of a "nice to have" than a "requirement."

Did my husband and daughter enjoy it?

While the kid wouldn't touch it (she knows where the peanut butter is, so she didn't starve) the husband enjoyed the pork, but not the marmeletta.

I enjoyed the marmeletta and would like to make a large batch of it ... and home-can it!

It's too much work to do the marmeletta on a weeknight, especially if I'm the only one eating it, but if I've got it pre-made (and canned!) grilling up some pork chops wouldn't be too hard.

MIXED VERDICT.

 

Recipe Review - Pork Spare Ribs

It's coming up on summer, which, for a lot of families, means ribs.

Ours is no exception. The husband and I have shot video of the munchkin eating BBQ ribs from the New Jersey State Barbecue Championships food vending area every year since she's been on solid foods. 

Every year, we have to coax her to eat them, but, once over the hump, she decides she loves ribs and ends up with several bones on the side of her plate and sauce all over herself. 

Recently, having no idea what to make for dinner and a very helpful sous chef, I stumbled on a recipe from Alex Guarnischelli's Old School Comfort Food for pork spare ribs that looked easy ... and something I could assemble using ingredients I already had in the house.

Shopping List

• 3 pounds of pork spare ribs 
• tamari (recipe called for "dark soy sauce," I figured this would do nicely)

(Really. I had everything else on hand.)

Recipe Review

Ease of Preparation

Could not be easier, though I recommend having a good chef's knife so you can cut a rack of spareribs into the smaller pieces you'll need in order to fit them into a pot.

My sister could do this. 

Specialty Equipment Required

Not really. A good chef's knife and a large, heavy pot (or Dutch oven) for braising your ribs, but these should be part of your everyday kitchen equipment anyway.

After getting through this recipe, I'd like to use a larger Dutch oven, but that's not a requirement. (For example, I could always switch to the pot I use for pasta and some soups because it's a bit wider at the bottom than my cast iron.)

Did my husband and daughter enjoy it?

Yup.

RECIPE WIN.

Also, if the other recipes in this cookbook are this easy, I think I know what to put on my WishList for Christmas.

Recipe Review - Nemo's No-Fish Tofu Tacos

Yep, we've gone Disney again.

After months of asking, I finally broke down and agreed to make the Nemo's No-Fish Tofu Tacos recipe from Dishes Inspired by Disney.

I always have panko on hand (for AB mac-and-cheese, among other things) and, of course, I had olive oil and garlic in the pantry, so the only ingredients we needed to purchase were tofu, cilantro, Asian slaw, tortillas, and limes. All of these are fairly inexpensive where we live, so even if the kid didn't eat one, we wouldn't have blown the grocery budget on the meal.

Recipe Review

Ease of Preparation

Easy. 

Even pressing the tofu was easy (you need to press the water out of it for the slabs to take up your marinade) because I've had several years to consider the best way to press tofu.

If my sister ate tofu, she'd be able to make this dish with no difficulty.

Specialty Equipment Required?

Yes and no. 

The recipe notes that one may use small cookie cutters to cut fish shapes out of the pressed tofu slabs - so they're no-fish fish shapes. Because this is fun, and small tin cookie cutters are relatively inexpensive, we bought two small whale-shaped cutters for $2.

Aww, they're so cute!

If you cannot get cookie cutters, you'd be fine marinating the slabs of tofu as-is, and then cutting them into smaller pieces before pressing them into the panko.

Did my husband and daughter enjoy it?

I already know my husband has given tofu several tries and he simply can't get past the texture. That's OK; more for me.

The kid, on the other hand, found the side of Star Wars shaped macaroni more appealing. But, she did ask to eat no-fish tacos this morning, so maybe there's hope.

Regular Rotation-Worthy?

I don't think so. It's not a lot of work to put in for just me, but I prefer not to have to make multiple dishes for a single meal.

It's not a fail, but not a win either.

Tasty, though!

Dinnertime. Yum!

Recipe Review - Pork Chops with Peaches & Almonds

This recipe came out of Michael Symon's excellent 5 in 5 cookbook, which (technically) belongs to my husband ... and in which we've flagged a lot of recipes.

I did modify the recipe, though, and for that I apologize - nectarines looked better than peaches at the grocery store; I didn't have sherry vinegar on hand (substituted rice vinegar); and I totally forgot to buy parsley - but I think it turned out OK.

Plated meal - pork chops with stone fruit & almonds, side of salad & pilaf.

Shopping List

• pork loin chops (calls for 6; I used 4)
• unsalted slivered almonds 
• 2 peaches (nectarines)
• unsalted butter

Recipe Review

Ease of Preparation

Very easy - the most complicated thing is pounding the chops, which my daughter helped me do.

My sister could do this.

Specialty Equipment Required?

None. While I used a meat mallet to pound the chops, you could use a heavy skillet to similar effect.

Speaking of skillets, though, I should have chosen a wider one.

Did my husband and daughter enjoy it?

The husband liked it; the kid refused to touch it.

Regular rotation-worthy?

Yes, I think so. The kid will come around.

RECIPE WIN.