I got dough!

I have two recipes for you today!! Breakfast and dinner! We have been to Laurenzo's preetttty often.  This morning we had pizza fritte (I supposed you could call it fried dough, but its better than any fried dough I ever had0.  It was the first time I made it and it was legit. 

All you need for fried dough is a bag of dough (Laurenzo's carries it but you can also get it at most pizza shops if you aren't in North Miami Beach), vegetable oil, and a brown bag with sugar and cinnamon in it.
Also, have a plate with a paper towel on it and then a plate without it (for serving). Lastly, you will need an assistant (well you don't NEED one, but it would definitely be best to have one).

You can cut the bag open and let the dough rise.  After, in a large frying pan heat up some veggie oil (medium should suffice).  Cut a chunk of dough (scissors definitely work best), stretch it out, and place it in the frying pan.  The dough will get all puffy on the side thats face down in the oil.  Before it starts to look crispy or darker, flip the dough over and let the opposing side do the same.

When its done take it out and place it on the plate with the paper towel to allow some of the oil to drip off.  This is where your assistant comes in.  Have them take the piece(s) from the paper towel and put it in the brown bag and... SHAKE IT, to coat it in cinnamon and sugar.  You can do 3-4 at a time until the dough is gone.  So delish, one of my favorite childhood breakfasts.  Check out my lovely assistant below.

Enjoy it on the balcony :)

On to dinner.  I made pizza.  WOW.

1. I have never made pizza.
2. I had no recipe.
3. I made homemae sauce.

Ok, not like a cook all day pasta sauce (which I will be making when we get back from Thanksgiving in NY) but like a quick fresh sauce.  SHOP LOCAL.  For the crust, just grab another pound of fresh dough from the pizza shop or my dude Laurenzo.  Some of my ingredients may seem fairly random, but honestly we were just trying to use all of our veggies and stuff before we leave for the week.  For cheese we (I) used 1/2 a  pound of fresh mozzarella.

Sauce
7 grandma tomatoes (they are smaller, the nipple tomatoes, if you use the bigger tomatoes, the pizza will be soggier)
1/2 a cucumber
olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper
4 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon sugar
red pepper flakes
handful of fresh julienned basil(big cooking term for rolled up and chopped up)
1/3 cup of parmasean cheese

Cook the garlic in a large pan, in a little olive oil.  Dice up the tomatoes and cucumber half, salt and pepper, put it in the pan and cover over medium/high heat.  Add the balsamic vinegar, sugar, and 2 shakes of red pepper flakes.  Put in one pinch of the basil.

While this is cooking, carefully, evenly spead your dough on the cookie sheet.  Pre-heat the oven to 450.

When the sauce is just about done add the parmasean cheese, stir it in, cover, and turn down the heat.  When the oven is heated, put sauce on your dough and chop the mozzarella in even chunks and evenly distribute it over the sauce.  Sprinkle the last of the basil evenly over the entire pizza.

I checked on the pizza every 3 or 4 minutes and it was done in about 10 minutes (I think... bake until the crust looks crispy. 

My assistant, Nicky, expressed that he was PROUD of me it was soo good and I had about two pieces while the rest of the pizza rapidly disappeared.

Tomorrow, I head home to my leader, Val, my momma, to learn more of her ways :)

If I have time I'll probably be blogging what she cooks, because I cannot compare, nor would I dream of cooking during this week.  She makes so much food there's leftovers for DAYSSSSSSSS.

24 hour champagne diet and favorite dinners

Ok, yea right, don't I wish. I love champagne.  Anywho, compliments of my mom, Nick and I downed a bottle of champagne that we've been waiting to drink to celebrate getting jobs!  So I accepted one and he has a side job, so it was time!  Needless to say, I didn't cook anything. 

BUT, here is the recipe to Nick's favorite meal I have cooked for him to date, I know a big deal.

Tomato and zucchini sauce over pasta with Lemon Garlic Chicken (no pics, sorry!!)

Sauce
3 large tomatoes
1 zucchini (veggies from my boys at the farmers market)
2 cloves of garlic
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
Red pepper flakes
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

I used about 3/4 a lb of pasta.


Chicken
2 chicken breasts
1 cup of flour
1 teaspoon of pepper
olive oil (or veggie oil, I used olive oil but it cooks slower, I'm just partial)
2 cloves of garlic
1 lemon


In a large frying pan (that has a top) heat a very tiny bit of olive oil, just enough to heat the chopped up garlic.   Dice up the 3 tomatoes and cut up the zucchini.  You can remove the skins of tomatoes if you want but I didn't.  When the garlic starts to look a little transparent put the tomatoes and zucchini in the pan over medium heat and cover. Stir occasionally. While your waiting start the chicken.

In a smaller frying pan, do the same, heat a little olive oil (little more than above, enough to cover the pan) and heat the garlic in it. Cut the chicken breasts into 2 inch chunks (approx., obv.).  Combine the pepper and flour in a bowl.

Put water for pasta onto boil and add pasta when in boils (obviously).

Go back to your sauce add a couple splashes of balsamic vinger (optional and to your own taste), and the sugar and red pepper flakes (same as balsamic, a couple of shakes).  Tomatoes should be coming together like a very chunky sauce while zucchini stay in the chunks you cut them in.

Back to the chicken.  Dip each piece of chicken in the bowl and cover in flour and place in the smaller frying pan.   Let cook and flip each piece.  Cut your lemon into a couple wheels and large chunks (keep skin on).  When the chicken is cooked thru but still a little light, probably about 2 to 3 minutes before you would take it off the heat, squeeze all the juice out of them lemon, and put the squeezed lemons in the pan with the chicken.  Cover, and let it cook for it's last couple minutes

At this point your sauce should be just about done, add the Parmesan cheese and reduce heat.

ASSEMBLE YOUR MEAL!! and MANGIA!

Nick said it was his favorite thing I have every cooked for him.  I was surprised, but it also could've been the food and the sounds of the live salsa band playing next door that we could hear by just opening the door to the balcony. 

goood night!

the cookie monster took over

I boycotted cooking today due to ANOTHER day of way too many hours spent in the car.  Conveniantly, we stopped at the farmer's market just before we closed.  Another invaluable lesson learned.  When you do not feeling like cooking stop at the Hallendale Beach Farmers Market because they make their own dinners including meatball, meatloaf, salmon, stuffed artichokes, etc.  They will just throw them out at the end of the day so we got a pound of cooked salmon in some green herbs, for half off, $3.50!! So I put it in the oven at the same time as some italian bread I sliced put butter and garlic on.  A quick capese salad, dinner done! No pics, nothing, no blog material. What to do?

There was this little recipe, hiding in my fridge, that I have looked at everyday.  Unlike myself, Nick doesn't really have a sweet tooth.  I do.  As I was saying, this little tiny recipe, is on the little tiny box, for butter.

Almond Sugar Cookies with FROSTING
Ingredients for the cookies:
3/4 cup sweet cream unsalted butter (Publix)
1/2 cup sugar (I put a tablespoon less and added a tablespoon of brown sugar)
1 egg
1 teaspoon of almond extract
2 cups all purpose flour

Ingredients for the frosting:
2 tablespoons sweet cream unsalted butter
1 1/4 cup confectionary sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
1-2 tablespoons milk

Preheat the oven at 350, at this point the anticipation is killing me.  I knew I could cook, against all my immediate family, friends', and boyfriend's opinion, but its common knowledge, a known fact, that I cannot bake.  Anywho, combine the softened/melted butter and sugar until smooth.  Add the egg and almond extract.  Please refrain from tasting the batter at this point because of the raw egg.  Slowly mix in the flour. 
Roll the dough in to tiny one inch balls.  With a tiny glass juice cup, flatten the balls.  You can use sugar to on the bottom of the glass so the raw cookies don't stick to the glass. 

The recipe said to cook for 10-12 minutes.  I would say 8 minutes should suffice.  While they were cooking I put together the frosting. Mix the confectionary sugar, almond extract, and butter and slowly add milk to desired consistency. 

I waited until each round of cookies cooled before I frosted them.

I should've went to the gym.  I am exhausted and I ate too much cookie dough. 

num, num, num, food comaaaa..........

better than a salami sandwich...

oh, LEFTOVERS!  After another day of being out of the house all day, we planned on leftovers.  Looking in fridge to decide what to eat and while trying to create a diversion so we didn't end up eating cold sandwiches via Nick was definitely a challenge. 

First, with the leftover dough, I decided to try to make a small calzone/sausage roll sans sausage. Preheat the oven to about 350.  After letting it rise some I worked it out evenly and put it on a greased (buttered) cookie sheet.  I cut up two pieces of ham (just regular lunch meat ham), four pieces of salami (from Laurennnnzo), and two slices of meunster cheese.  Given, it was small but we would just split it and go back to the fridge, more left overs.  Spead the cut up meat and cheese leaving about an inch of dough on each side.  Roll up the sides, trying not to do it too tight so it bursts while cooking but making sure that it is sealed. 

Meanwhile... as Nick is racing around our studio, between the phone and the balcony and the fridge and the laptop, I wanted to eat the leftover chili over pasta.  Oh no... no, no, I could not eat the chili.  He wanted to eat it with chips... yes, chips.  WELL, conveniantly, I LOVE nachos, and I remembered this awesome taco dip from my friend Matty that had cucumbers in it. 

The first layer was what we use as a substitute for sour cream.  It's called Fage yogurt (via Sarah Mayer, thanks boo).  It is greek, strained, all natural yogurt.  If you tried it you would understand how it could be instead of sour cream. Then came a layer of chopped cucumbers.  While I was cutting the cucumbers, heated the chili with shredded cheese spinkled over the top.  I put the chili with cheese over the cucumbers and yogurt, and topped it off with a little salsa.

This took us all of 9 seconds to inhale.  We even ended up eating it with a fork.  Ideally, I would've have it over lettuce like a salad but I think Nick would've have tried to eat his arm or a plain salami sandwich had I put more than 2 minutes of thought into this.

Conveniantly, the calzone/ham, salami, and cheese roll was just ready to come out of the oven. 



No, leaks and a very light crust!  Even more exciting, when we cut into it!

                                  



Success!!

Ok, alright, personally I have no issues with leftovers like some do.  Nick would be just as happy eating cold chicken, or cold anything from the fridge for that matter.  I believe I maximized the leftoverness today.  Definitely better than a salami sandwich.

Even my drink is happy :)

Cutting corners with Laurenzo

After spending about 5 hours in the car today, Nicky and me, were nearing home and contemplating dinner.  The farmer's market closest to home was closed, however, Laurenzo's Italtian-American Market was OPEN!  We got some good buys.  Did I mention, I thoroughly enjoy, perhaps even... L O V E, grocery shopping.  Could be because of my deep love for shopping for anything, but thats neither here, nor there.  Here is what we left with:
1/2 lb gorgonzola stuffed olives (I know, amazing, there's a place at home that uses this kind for dirty martinis aka heaven, where's my vermouth?) for under $4
1 lb genoa salami for under $4
1 lb FRESH mozzarella $7 (at Publix its like $8 for maybbbeee half a pound)
FRESH DOUGH 1lb for $2.50(umm, jackpot, can you hear the inner italian fat kid, I had to dragged away from the pastry section)
and last but not least to corner cutter
3 lbs premarinated chicken for $4... mystery flavor....

Ok maybe it wasn't mystery flavor, from first picking it up it looked like olive oil and lots of green herbs, after eating it I would guess lemon, garlic, rosemary (?), parsley, whatever it was light and delicious.  We baked it at 325 for about an hour. (hint, hint shop local)

MEANWHILE, I let the dough rise and cut most of the dough into nine 2inch squares, strechted them out and tied them in knots for garlic knots.  I baked them for about 7 or 8 minutes right as the chicken was finishing.  In a bowl I melted a teaspoon of butter, added a splash of olive oil, and smashed a clove of garlic in it.  When the rolls came out I tossed them in the mixture.  (All 9 rolls are gone already, no leftovers).

The last part of our meal was one large tomate sliced with slices of fresh mozarella in between.  I shredded basil from one of Nicks babies (he grows basil, mint, and an aloe plant on our balcony), and drizzled olive oil and a little balsamic vingerette.  A couple twists of salt and a tinnnnyyyy shake of pepper. 

Ok, so I can't take credit for the chicken, but overall for a last minute dinner after being in the car all day.  Definite success.  All the ingredients for this meal were bought from local farmers markets and Laurenzo.

Considering we have leftovers tonight for the first time since we've been here, tomorrow just may be some recipe from last week, pre-blog, but definitely a goodie.

Save money, shop local <3

Mac N CHEESE

Well, obviously this post isn't solely about macaroni and cheese, however it was after making my first baked macaroni and cheese I have decided to share my new found joy of cooking.  Now, the history, I... was (I suppose its past tense at this point) pretty anti-domestic for the majority of my short adulthood.  This has all done a 180 and I have now found myself living in a 600 sq ft studio, on the beach in Miami, with my beautiful boyfriend who is blessed with a large appetite and a doubt in my inner domestic goddess, hence, feeding Nicky.  Conveniently, my mother cooked... A LOT, when we lived home in upstate New York, which spoiled him and left me with some LARGE shoes to fill.  In three weeks, I have only set off the fire alarm in our place... room... apartment... home, ONCE!

Not that I feel I am not this fantastic, gourmet, sous chef by any means.  However, we (I) have made some very yummy, dinners, lunches, and snacks (he makes breakfast) that are very easy and would like to share with you, and anyone that lives alone, or is in college, or lives in a tiny studio on the beach, or a house in Rome, NY (shout out to the boys that eat frozen food on Van Buren) :)  They are mostly recipes from our mothers that we tweak.

Which brings me to today.  I woke up around 10am and thought to myself, Sunday... well at home Val (my  mom) usually makes pasta and sauce or chili or chicken soup.  Sooo chili was the plan today.
Below is my mom's recipe, with our substitutions in parentheses.  Ours definitely has a little more kick... you'll see.

Chili, best for rainy (or snowy) days, and Sundays.
1# hamburg (my package was a tiny more than a pound)
1 lg onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 can 16 oz diced tomatoes (3 medium diced fresh tomatoes from the farmers' market)
2 medium celery stalks
2-3 tablespoons chili powder (go hard or go home, 3 tbl spoons)
2 teaspoons salt (definitely did about 4 sprinkles, not full teaspoons)
1 teaspoon sugar (a large pinch)
1 teaspoon woozy aka worchester sauce (organic woozy from the farmers market)
1/2 teaspoon red pepper sauce (1 habenaro, 1 hot yellow pepper, and 1 short green pepper, they were labelled like, assorted peppers at the farmers market, and we may have gone overboard here, so worth it)
1 can 16 oz of kidney beans (left it out)
8 oz can of tomato sauce (we used a 6 oz can of tomato paste)

Ok, the directions with my ingredients.  Brown the meat in a large sauce pan.  While the meat is cooking cut up the onion, celery, and garlic. Add to the meat.  While the celery, onions, and garlic cook dice the three tomatoes and the three peppers. After the celery and onions begin to look more transparent add all the spices, then the peppers and tomatoes.  Bring everything to a boil and the turn down the heat.  We then left to cook out and watch football leaving the chili on low heat for about.... 7 hours.  I ate mine with muenster cheese melted over the top.  DOUBLE YOU OH DOUBLE YOU. Sooo good.

Which brings me to the Mac and Cheese. Football, hamburgers, hot dogs, sausage, 78 and sunny, and mac and cheese.  Quicker, much (ch)easier than the chili. 
Boil water (duh). Add 2 cups of roni's, elbows, whichever.  While your water is boiling, or before if you are more prepared than me, slice up or grate 1 lb of sharp chedda cheeeese.  In another pan melt 3 tablespoons or butter mix with 3 tablespoons of flour.  When the flour and butter are blended add 2 cups of milk and stir while it thinckens. Add the cheese and stir periodically until all melty and blended.  Now drain the pasta and add to casserole dish (who really has these, we didn't we used a reg baking pan).  Pour cheese and cover all the elbows.  Bread crumbs sprinkled on top are optional but I melted some butter in a frying pan and added bread crumbs to toast them.  Sprinkle the bread crumbs on top and bake at 350 until it bubbles (15-30 min)
YEAAA cook out in November in Florida.

Not only did we have the staple grill food AND mac n cheese, but we got real tailgate with it and were living the High Life.  Nick made Skippys, which is the 2 oz. the beer of your choice (we had high life), a shot of vodka, and about 6-8 oz lemonade. We brought the upstate NY so SoFlo today kids.

Well this post is pretty lengthy, I do apologize. But you did get TWO of our more unhealthy meals and a Skppy! it's Sunday and there was sunshine and football though so its ok.  xo