Dorie's Provençal Olive Fougasse

It's been one of those weeks where I start to consider bringing a paper bag everywhere I go, just, you know, so I can deal with all of my hyperventilating. We're gearing up for both Hallowe'en and Remembrance Day at school (although, we've been banned from using the word Hallowe'en) - both of which were things I didn't involve myself in before, but as one of teachers attached to the student council, I'm involved in all of their activities this year, And, since my drama class was doing the bulk of the work for Remembrance Day, I decided that it was easier and less stressful for me to manage the whole thing.

We'll see if that thought holds true.

We also got news that we'd have a news crew at our school for the Remembrance Day assembly, so the pressure is on!

I used to find the stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas to be the longest and most painful to teach, but being so busy this year is making the time fly by too quickly. I never thought I'd hear myself beg for more weeks of school, but I could definitely do with some extra days.

Alas, my own schooling is taking up a ton of my time. We had both Saturday and Wednesday classes this week, so I'm thoroughly looking forward to a weekend that's longer than one day. I will say that, if I have to be in school on top of working, there's no place I'd rather be than taking drama. Yesterday I realized how sad I'll be to have this drama class be my last at the university/teacher's college level. It's nice to meet new people, learn lots and bond in a short period of time!

Knowing how little time I'd have to myself this week, I made some bread on Sunday with the intention of munching on it throughout the week. I returned Mario Batali's Molto Italiano to the library and took out Dorie's Around My French Table, and was immediately taken with her recipe for Provençal Olive Fougasse.

You've probably noticed my love of dough by this point (bread is so easy to make, and everyone is terribly impressed when you do it because they think it's hard) and my love of olives means that I spend way too much on Whole Foods' olive bar... I wish I could quit it, I really do. They're just so bloody tasty.

Turning bread into shapes (other than little round buns) isn't something I'd tried before. Fougasse typically has slashes through it to make it resemble a leaf. Again, easily done, and it makes the bread dead easy to pull apart.

You can find the recipe and directions here. I made absolutely no adjustment to the recipe, though next time, I'll go for the orange rind instead of the lemon, I think. And, I'd love to try this out with green olives too.

An Inauthentic Flammekueche

Lately, I've been really trying hard to steer clear of cheese. As much as I love it, it just doesn't seem to love me. And when cheese goes... well... I've tried to love pizza without the cheese, but I just haven't been successful.

Enter the Alsatian dish: Flammekueche.

Flammekueche (or Flammekuchen in German) roughly translates into baked in fire... which means you're required to get that oven piping hot. It's a thin crust, topped with fromage blanc (or, in my inauthentic case, full fat sour cream), onions and cooked bacon.

I like mine with a beer crust.

Beer. Bacon. Shallots. It's a winner based on those ingredients alone.

Flammekueche

(adapted from bonjourlafrance.com)

serves 4-6

Ingredients

2¼ cups all purpose flour, divided
¼ cup warm water (100º-110ºF)
1 tbsp granulated sugar
2¼ tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp kosher salt
¼ cup dark beer
6 tbsp milk

1 cup sour cream
½ tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
3 pinches ground nutmeg (crucial to the dish)
3 slices bacon, chopped into ¼"-½" wide strips
4 large shallots, peeled and thinly sliced

Directions

1. In a large bowl, mix together ¼ cup flour with water, sugar and yeast. Set aside for 30 minutes, or until bubbly. Stir in remaining flour, 1 tsp kosher salt, beer and milk. Turn ingredients onto a lightly floured surface and knead until you have a smooth, elastic ball. Place in a greased bowl, turning dough all over to coat. Cover with a tea towel and set aside in a draft free location, and let rise for 1 hour, or until doubled in bulk. Punch down and let rise again for 1 more hour.

2. Meanwhile, with a rack in the middle, preheat oven to 475º and line your largest square baking sheet with parchment paper.

3. In a bowl, stir together sour cream, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Set aside

4. Heat a skillet over medium heat and fry bacon until crispy. Remove bacon and drain off all but ½ tbsp fat. Fry shallots in fat until golden and brown, about 5 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.

5. Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface until  as thin as you can manage to transfer. Transfer to baking sheet, cover with tea towel and let rest for 5 - 10 minutes.

6. Spread sour cream mixture over surface of dough, leaving a ½" border on all sides. Sprinkle with shallots and bacon. Fold up sides of dough.

7. Bake for 15 minutes, or until bottom is golden. Let cool on rack for 5 minutes before cutting and serving.

Best enjoyed with beer, in my opinion.

Hamburger Buns

After I'd gotten home from doing the grocery shopping yesterday, I'd realized I'd forgotten to pick up both the eggs (I had one) and butter required to make what look like the most amazing hamburger buns ever. Because, you know, I needed something awesome to go with last night's awesome burgers.

In spite of the fact that I had to go out again to Korea town to pick up some kimchee, I knew I wasn't going to be picking up the butter and eggs there. So, I had to throw out the old plan and come up with a new one.

Enter Epicurious. Of course, once finding a recipe that didn't have butter or eggs in it, I was hit with the challenge of milk. I only had 1% in the fridge and their recipe called for half and half AND 1 cup of whipping cream. While I'm sure the cream makes the buns insanely delicious, I'd prefer to spend my calories on the burger, you know?

This recipe takes a while, though most of that time is spent waiting for the dough to rise. Actual hands on time is about 15-20 minutes.

Hamburger Buns

(adapted and scaled down from Epicurious)

Ingredients

1 cup + 2 tbsp milk
2 tbsp warm water (105º-110º)
1¼ tsp active dry yeast
2 tbsp granulated sugar
2½ cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt

1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp sesame seeds
1 tsp coarse salt



Directions

1. Warm milk either in a pot or in the microwave until just below simmering. Set aside and let cool to 105º-115º (any warmer and you'll kill the yeast).

2. In the bowl of your stand mixer (or in a large mixing bowl if you don't want to use a stand mixer), mix together the warm water and sugar. Sprinkle yeast over top and let proof. Mixture will be bubbly. Add in flour, salt and warmed milk mixture, scraping down the side of the bowl as necessary until the flour is all incorporated. Knead with dough hook for 6 minutes. The mixture will be sticky, and that's exactly what you want.

3. Set aside in a greased bowl (remember to turn dough to coat all over with grease), cover and let rise in a draft free place until doubled in bulk 1-2 hours.

4. Once doubled, punch dough down and turn onto a lightly floured surface. Roll (lightly) with a rolling pin into a circle that's about ½" thick. Using a sharp 3-4" cookie cutter (you can use a glass, which is what I did, but you'll be forcing a seal on the edge of the buns that way and they won't rise as well as they could), cut out as many rounds as possible. Gather scraps and re-roll and cut out more rounds. Discard any excess dough after the re-rolling. Place dough rounds on 3" apart on parchment or silpat lined baking sheets.

5. Loosely cover dough with plastic wrap that has been greased (the dough will still be sticky) and let rise again in a warm, draft free location for 2 hours.

6. Preheat oven to 375º, with racks in both upper and lower thirds of the oven. Brush dough with egg and sprinkle with sesame seeds and coarse salt. Bake for 20-25 minutes, rotating the position of pans in the oven half way through. Buns are finished when they sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Transfer to racks to let cool completely.

Makes 9-12 buns, depending on the size of your cookie cutter!

Thin Crust Pizza and Easy-Peasy Tomato Sauce

When I received Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook My Father's Daughter for Easter, I found myself surprised by two things in it.

1) I really, really like her philosophy about food. It's meant to bring people together, shouldn't leave you frustrated in the kitchen, and, really, no one needs to get all pretentious about it. Love this, especially the idea of a pretension free kitchen. I think I've made my feelings pretty clear about those bloggers who are strictly in this business so they can become the next Pioneer Woman and those who feel that when it comes to food and recipes, there's a clear right and wrong.

I just don't have time for that nonsense. Since I believe food is all about bringing people together, I hardly see how snobbery fits with that.

Bring in the love, push out the jive.

So, I love that a big name actress with a big name husband subscribes to the same philosophy. Awesome. If only everyone got on board. I guess there'll always be haters, and those who need to feel superior by hurting others.

2) Gwyneth Paltrow is SO not afraid of the fat. I'm insanely jealous of how gorgeously thin she is, because, let me tell you, this is no low cal recipe. It is, however, honest and totally, totally amazing. So, I find myself wanting to hate her guts, but can't bring myself to do it. She rocks my world right now.

Tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella, basil, olive oil. YES.

Gwyneth Paltrow's Wood Oven Pizza (without the wood oven)

(from My Father's Daughter)

Ingredients

2¼ cups warm water, divided
2 tbsp white sugar
2 tbsp + 1 tsp active dry yeast (3 packages)
5 cups all-purpose flour (Gwyneth uses bread flour, but I was out)
1½ tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp coarse salt

Directions

1. Mix 3/4 cup warm water with white sugar in a large bowl until it is dissolved. Sprinkle surface with yeast. Set aside to proof.

2. Once it has proofed, stir in remaining water, 3½ cups flour, olive oil and salt. Add in additional flour, ½ cup at a time, until mixture no longer sticks to the side of the bowl. Dump onto a generously floured work space and knead for about 8 minutes, incorporating more flour if needed (1 tbsp at a time), until dough is smooth and elastic.

If there are fewer than, say 4 of you eating, divide the dough in two and put one half in a freezer bag and store for later use. To use, place in the fridge to thaw and rise the night before you want to use.

3. Place (remaining) dough ball in a greased bowl, tossing to coat completely. Cover and set aside at room temperature until doubled (or place in the fridge to rise for several hours).

4. If you're like me and don't have a wood burning oven in your garden, preheat your oven, with your pizza stone in it, to the hottest it will go. Let the stone heat up in there for the better part of 1 hour.

5. To make bases, divide the dough into either 8 pieces (if you didn't put half into the freezer) or 4 pieces (if you did set dough aside for later). Stretch with your hands until dough is quite thin.

It's important to NOT use a rolling pin here, because you'll crush all those delicious air bubbles if you do.

6. Place dough on a floured pizza peel (or make-shift peel) before topping with sauce and toppings. Transfer to pizza stone and bake until slightly charred, with a bubbling top, about 6-7 minutes (if your oven is better than ours, and I assume it is, it will take less time).

See all those bubbles? That's where happiness lies.

Doesn't that sauce look fantastic? Make it while the dough is rising. It's dead easy. AND, it makes more than enough, so you can put some in the freezer for a later date.

Also, if I may... buffalo mozzarella, where have you been all my life? YUM.

Gwyneth Paltrow's Pizza Sauce

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole
1 28-oz can whole peeled tomatoes with their juices
1 tsp coarse salt

Directions

1. Heat oil and garlic in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the tomatoes, their juices and salt and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for an hour, until sauce has reduced and has thickened. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Once cooled, puree in a blender to desired consistency.

See? Easy.

I will never buy sauce again.

We made 4 kinds of pizza: salami (Rowe Farms) and buffalo mozzarella (Nancy's Cheese), 3 cheese (mozzarella, Bleu Bénédictin and Parmesan) with white truffle oil (my favourite), mozzarella and basil with a drizzle of olive oil and a salami, mozzarella and blue cheese number.

That was a TON of pizza for the two of us.

Or at least, I thought it was a ton. My husband thought it was just right.

I'd say it serves 4-6 regular human being with a salad on the side. On its own, 3-4.

Hot Cross Buns

The first year we were living in Toronto, the Cobs bakery chain left about 10 coupons for free Hot Cross Buns in the mail boxes of our and our neighbours' mail boxes. Luckily for my husband and I, our neighbours kept throwing their coupons into the recycle bin by the boxes.

So we probably ate 7-8 free Hot Cross buns that year. It was fantastic. I love free food!

Now, as sad as I am that there haven't been coupons for the past couple of years, I have to admit, while Cobs' buns are good, they're not the best I've ever had.

Homemade is always better - especially because it'll fill your home with the sweet smell of cinnamon.

My version has no candied peel in it, but a combination of currants and sultanas along with the zest of an orange and lemon.

Hot Cross Buns

(adapted from Canadian Living and Martha Stewart)

Ingredients

Dough

3-1/2 cups all purpo½ 1/2cup cupgranulated sugar
1/4 cup warm water ¼ 1/4cup cupwarm water
1 pkg (15ml) active dry yeast 2¼ tsp pkg (15ml)active dry yeast (one package)
2 tbsp 2 2tbsp tbspcinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg 1 1tsp tspnutmeg
1/2 tsp salt ½ 1/2tsp (2 mL) salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves ¼ 1/4tsp tsp(1 mL) ground cloves
3/4 cup milk , warmed3/4 3/4cup (175 mL) milk, warmed
1/4 cup melted butter ¼ 1/4cupc (50 mL) melted butter
1 egg 1 1eggeggs
1 egg yolk 1 1egg yolkegg yolks 
zest of one large orange
zest of one large lemon
3½ 3-1/2cups (875 mL) all purpose flour
1/2 cup dried currants ¼ 1/2cup eachcup (125 mL) dried currants and sultanas

1/4 cup chopped candied pe 
Glaze

2 tbsp granulated sugar 2 2tbsp (25 mL) granulated sugar
2 tbsp water 2 2tbsp tbspwater 

Icing

1/2 cup icing sugar ½ 1/2cup (125 mL) icing sugar
2 tsp water ½ - 1 tbsp fresh (10 mL) lemon juice

Directions

1. Mix 1 tbsp sugar, warm water and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer. Let stand for 5 minutes, until yeast proofs. Using the dough hook, stir in remaining sugar with next 10 ingredients (through lemon zest). 

2. Add flour, one cup at a time until a soft dough is formed. Add currants and sultanas and beat for about a minute. Remove dough from bowl and knead just to evenly distribute the fruit. Place in a greased bowl, tossing to grease all over. Cover with a tea towel and set aside in a warm, draft free location to rise until doubled in bulk, about an hour.

3. Divide dough into 10 equal sections. Form each into a smooth tight ball, stretching and pinching dough underneath to make tops smooth. Place 2 inches apart on a parchment lined baking sheet. Cover with tea towel and let rise again for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400º.

4. Using a serrated knife or a pair of scissors, slice a cross into the top of each bun. Bake in oven for approximately 15 minutes or until golden brown.

5. Meanwhile, whisk glaze ingredients together in a small saucepan, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Immediately after removing buns from oven, brush them with glaze. Let them cool on the pan.

The glaze gives the buns a lovely sheen.

6. Stir together icing ingredients until smooth and pipe a cross on top of each cooled bun. If you don't have a piping bag, don't stress. Just fill a plastic sandwich bag with icing and cut off a small portion of one corner and then pipe out the icing.

Enjoy licking the sticky sweetness off your fingers!

My new favourite pizza toppings

I've gotta be honest, I wasn't sure how this would pan out.

My husband was equally skeptical of the broccoli.

But, when added along with olives, marinated mushrooms, with aged Gruyere, Emmental, Fourme D'Ambert blue cheese (zomg) along with my favourite pizza base (which is best made the night before), this was one of the finest pizzas I've had in a long time.. You'll note we did half the pizza with pesto and the other half with Mediterranean Pizza Sauce. Yum!

We picked up the blue cheese from my favourite cheese shop: Nancy's Cheese. Love the woman, love the cheese, love the pizza.

My Favourite Pizza Base

(based on Cooking Light's)

Ingredients


1 cup warm water, divided
12 ounce all purpose flour (about 2½ cups) plus more for dusting
1 package dry yeast (about 2 1/4 teaspoons)
1 tsp honey
4 teaspoons  olive oil
3/4 teaspoon  kosher salt
Cooking spray


Directions

1. In a bowl, mix 3/4 cup warm water with flour until it forms a ragged dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 20 minutes.

2. After the water-flour mixture has been sitting for about 15 minutes, mix together the remaining ¼ cup warm water with honey. Stir to dissolve and sprinkle yeast on top. Let proof (meaning, let the yeast bubble up) which will take about 5 more minutes.

3. Stir yeast mixture, oil and salt into flour. This will form a sticky dough, dump onto a lightly floured counter and knead, adding more flour, one tablespoon at a time until a soft dough forms.

4. Spray a large bowl with cooking spray. Put dough into bowl, turning to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and place in fridge for 24 hours.

5. Remove dough from fridge, let come to room temperature (about an hour) before punching down. Press or roll into a 12" circle, crimp edges and cover with plastic wrap.

6. Top as desired. Bake on a preheated pizza stone (if available) on the bottom rack of a 500º oven for about 15 minutes.

BBQ Chicken Pizza

They key here is really in the sauce. Heck, you can throw whatever toppings you want on, but it ain't bbq pizza without the bold spicy sauce.

I`m sorry about the picture. I took it while eating at the same time!

I had chicken thighs, peppers, onion and stuffed olives on hand, so that's what went on our pizza.

Oh, and some potent sheep's milk cheese. Stinking up the fridge. Strong enough to stand up to this bold pizza.

Yar.

Dough

3/4 cup warm water
2 tsp honey
2¼ tsp yeast (1 package)
½ tsp salt
2 cups + ¼ cup flour
cornmeal (I use a small handful to dust my baking sheet)

Stir together water and honey. Sprinkle yeast on top. Set aside until yeast begins to bubble, about 5 minutes.

In mixer, stir together salt and 2 cups flour. Stir in yeast mixture. Let machine run on level 2 until dough has come together and is smooth and elastic. (Alternatively get your elbows prepped for some serious kneading - about 10 minutes worth). Sprinkle work surface with a little flour, and knead the dough a few times just to pull it all together.

Grease a large bowl. Throw the dough in (gently! Gently!), toss around to grease all sides. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit in warm area to rise until double in bulk, about 1 hour.

Sprinkle cornmeal on baking sheet. Roll dough out on sheet until desired size. Cover with plastic wrap and place in fridge for ½ hour.

Meanwhile, get started on the sauce!

Sriracha. If you don't have it in your pantry, you should!

Sauce

½ cup BBQ sauce (I find a milder one works best, but all I had on hand was a dark, bold one, so that's what I used)
1 tbsp sriracha hot sauce
1 tbsp honey

Stir ingredients together in bowl.

Voila. Sauce.

You knew it was going to be that easy, right? Right?

The ½ hour has passed, which means you have dough, sauce and presumably some toppings. So, preheat the oven to 450, pull the crust out of the fridge. Remove plastic wrap (it seems so obvious, really), sauce that bad boy up and top however you wish.

Once the oven is heated, put the pizza in for 18 minutes.

Eighteen. It's the magic number. Don`t forget it. At minute 19 your pizza will burst into flames.

Maybe it won`t, but do you really want to chance it? Really?

You monster. Stick with 18 minutes.

When the 18 minutes is up, pull out the pizza, and let it stand for 5 minutes on its baking sheet. Cut. Serve. Enjoy.

You can thank me later.