Home made from scratch pizza

 

My long journey in making Pizza from scratch was inspired by the below recipe from BuzzFeed. I watch it once every time I make pizza at home.

The Best Homemade Pizza You'll Ever Eat

Here are my changes to above recipe:

a. For making the dough is I use 5 cups of all-purpose flour and 2 cups of bread flour

b. Another option is to use 00 flour from Italy instead of 5 cups of all-purpose flour. With this flour your pizza can be extremely thin with crust.

c. The 7 cups makes 4 large pizzas. You can cut the recipe into half to make 2 pizzas.

Making the pizza:

- Apply little bit of olive oil on the pizza pan

- Roll the crust on the pan

- Spread a thin layer of the sauce (tomato or basil pesto); Once you like basil pesto, you will never go back to tomato sauce!

- Sprinkle a little bit of mozzarella cheese

- Start layering your toppings; do not pile up too much of each topping. For a vegetarian pizza the toppings we use include

○ Finely chopped red onion

○ Cut bell pepper (any color)

○ Pineapple pieces (canned)

○ Green olives (canned) each cut into half

○ Tomatoes cut into small pieces. Alternate is slices.

○ Mushrooms sliced

- We add chopped pickled Jalapenos, crushed red pepper, chopped garlic. Also I add chopped fresh rosemary and oregano

- Sprinkle Italian seasoning (ours is from Costco) evenly on the top of the pizza

- Finally add 1-2 teaspoons of olive oil, sprinkled across the pizza on the top

Baking the pizza:

Every oven can cook differently. Here are the settings I use.

- Pre-heat to 400 degrees F

- Place your pizza in the oven and cook for 12 minutes

- Upon completion, turn on BROIL mode in high heat and cook for 3 minutes

- Remove your pizza IMMEDIATELY and cut into slices after a couple of minutes of cooling

Topping after cooking:

- Sometimes we would use tomato slices on top of each pizza slice

- Sprinkle fresh chopped basil on each slice

Enjoy your pizza

Mexican style black bean - eat with quesadilla and guacamole

 Recipe for 4 people

 

Ingredients:

 

Black Beans - 2 cups (Safeway has organic black beans)

 

Jalapeno peppers 1 or 2

Taco Seasoning - 1st choice Safeway organic seasoning, 2nd choice Trader Joes

 

Large red onion 1

Large tomato - 1

Cilantro chopped 2-3 table spoons

Green lime - 1/2

Garlic 2 pods

 

Procedure

After dinned or before going to bed, In instant pot, place the black beans , rinse and wash once an drain

Add 5 cups water

1/2 teaspoon salt

 

Set Instant Pot to Pressure Cook 25 minutes, hit delay start and cancel stay warm

 

Next day morning in a pan add 2 tsp cooking oil and add the chopped onions and fry 2 minutes

Add the chopped garlic, Jalapenos split into 2 and tomato

Add 2 teaspoons of Taco Seasoning

Add 1 teaspoon salt

 

Mix well and cook for 5 minutes

 

Turn off heat and add the cilantro and give a good mix

 

Add the onion/tomato mixture fried into the instant pot and mix well. Add water if consistency needs adjustments

 

At this point you can hit the slow cook button and let is simmer till lunch time for 3-4 hours.

Alternately you can pour the black beans into the pan with onion/tomato mixture, heat up for 2-3 minutes.

 

Squeeze half a lime and mix, your black bean is ready to eat.

 

Enjoy your black beans with quesadilla and guacamole

 

You can also make a nice Mexican style salad with the black beans

Super quick Baingan Bhartha (Eggplant Curry Masala)

 

Ingredients

Large Purple Eggplant (baingan) - 2

Large red (or yellow) onion - 1

Large tomatoes - 2

Garlic pods - 2-3

Ginger - 1 inch piece

Green chilly - 1

Cilantro - 2 tablespoons chopped

Fennel seeds (saunf)

Red chilly powder - about 1/8th teaspoon

Curry powder OR MDH Sabji Masala OR MDH Kitchen King OR Garam Masala - 1.5 teaspoons

Procedure - preparation - 5 minutes

Wash the 2 Eggplants, dry them and using a knife make a couple of cuts on the eggplant. Do not cut the eggplant, just make incisions to let the steam escape.

Preheat oven to 400 F and place the 2 eggplants on a oven safe pan or container; bake for 60 minutes

After 60 minutes, remove the eggplant and let it cool. If you want to use the next day, let the eggplant cool fully and refrigerate.

For a workday, I cook the eggplant during dinner time, let cool and refrigerate it. Next morning finishing takes 5 minutes.

Finishing procedure - about 5-7 minutes

Coarse cut the onions and tomatoes and keep separately

Chop the garlic, green chilly and ginger

Cut the top of the cooked eggplant and gently remove the skin. On the cutting board coarse cut the cooked eggplant (without skin)

Heat a pan, add 2 teaspoons of cooking oil

Add fennel seeds, as they are turning slightly brown add the onions, ginger, garlic and green chilly

Fry till the onions are cooked. Add a teaspoon of ghee to make the onions (and the dish) aromatic.

Add the tomatoes, Curry/Sabji Masala/Kitchen King powders and add 2 teaspoons of cooking oil

Also add the red chilly powder (do not add with Kitchen King as it is already spicy)

On medium heat, mix the tomatoes, onions, spice powers etc and cook till it get mushy. Turn off heat at this time.

Add the cut eggplant to the mix above. Use a handle blender to coarse blend the eggplant, onion-tomato mix. Add chopped cilantro to this.

Bring the pan to medium heat and stir the mix for 1-2 minutes.

At this point your Baingan Bhartha or Eggplant Curry Masala is ready to be enjoyed with roti, naan or any bread of your choice. If you have cooked basmati rice, you can add a plain dal to enjoy the rice with the Bhartha.