Little Elephants » In the Kitchen

Tomas’ bread & pizza dough recipe

Veronique Christensen — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:56:12 +0000

Ingredients:
3 cups of water (mix half hot from a kettle and half cold from tap)
1 tbsp active dry yeast
6.5 cups of flour
1.5 tbsp salt

In a large bowl, add the 3 cups of lukewarm water. Stir in 1 tablespoon of yeast. I usually buy the yeast in a jar, most supermarkets have one or two brands in the baking isle. If you have the yeast packets, use two of those.

Now add all the flour and sprinkle the salt on top. Now the fun part. Make a claw with your mixing hand, and dip it right into the middle of the flour, to the bottom. With your fingers spread apart start mixing in circles. It’ll be rather gooey. Continue mixing and scraping the sides with your fingers for about a minute until all the dry flour is incorporated into the liquid, and the dough comes away from the sides. That’s it! You’ll need to scrape the remaining dough off your fingers.

Now wash your hands (cleanliness is next to Godliness) and cover the bowl either with a damp dish towel or plastic wrap. Put bowl in a non-drafty place. Let rise for at least one hour or for as long as you wish.

When you’re ready to bake, if you have a pizza stone, put it in the oven, and pre-heat oven to 450F.

Flour a large cutting board and pour the wet yeast out onto the board.

Sprinkle some more flour on the dough and flatten it. Fold in the sides, flatten again and repeat a few times until it feels a little firmer.

Shape it into a ball or a long loaf.

Cut the dough into two pieces and place on a well floured cutting board or a pizza paddle and cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap.

After 20-30 mintues, the oven should be pre-heated and the dough should have risen a bit.

Open the oven and slide the dough onto the pizza stone. You can also try to lift the dough with your hands and dump it on, but that can be a bit tricky. If you want you can slice some gashes into the top of the dough at this point, though it’s not necessary. Bake for 30-40 minutes.

You know it’s done when you lift the bread up and knock on the bottom and it makes a thunking sound, like when you bonk the side of your skull. If the bread is getting too dark or burnt, you can cover it with aluminum foil or lower the heat to 350F. Every oven is different.

For Pizza
I just use my bread recipe and sometimes add a tablespoon or two of honey to the dough.

Divide the dough in two, and cover one with the cloth. Now divide the remaining piece into eight, for individual size pizzas. Knead and pinch each one until it forms a little ball. Cover. Repeat with the other half. If you need to save these, you can store them each in plastic wrap that’s twisted shut, in the fridge. When you’re ready to use, just roll them out on a well floured pizza paddle.

That’s it!

Making me happy

Veronique Christensen — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:18:47 +0000

I’ve started making prettier food just so I could display it on this cake stand I got at Target right before Christmas. Even ugly food looks good on it.

Easy chicken curry

Veronique Christensen — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:53:48 +0000

I made this after searching for a recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala. When I went to the store I forgot to bring the recipes I’d found so had to wing it when I got home — this is a combo of maybe three or four different recipes I’d read. I used red wine because it’s what I had on hand to de-glaze my pan, it ended up adding a lovely depth to the dish.

Ingredients:
table spoon each of butter & vegetable oil
Boneless chicken thighs
Pint heavy cream
Cup red wine
Garam massala
Curry powder
Tumeric (mostly for the lovely color)
Salt & fresh cracked pepper

How to:
Heat up oil & butter in a heavy bottomed pan (I like cast iron) till hot then add spices to your taste (I do a few dashes of each).
Brown your chicken thighs in batches, setting done pieces aside in a dish
Deglaze your pan with the red wine & reduce until the liquid is syrupy
Return the chicken to the pan and cover in heavy cream
Simmer for about 30 minutes, adding more spices, salt, and pepper to taste. Your cream will have reduced to a nice, rich consistency.
Serve with white rice and a garnish of cilantro if you have any.

Impromptu snow cones

Veronique Christensen — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 18:32:17 +0000

The kids begged and pleaded to make snow cones from the fresh powder that covered the landscape yesterday morning. I hemmed & hawed … we had no syrups in the house & wasn’t snow bad for you?

Well, it probably would have been bad for me in New York City where I grew up, but out here? It was pristine.

So I handed them a squeeze bottle of honey & told them to have at.

They were thrilled, and I had an extra few minutes of quiet to putter about the house.

Super easy chicken burritos

Veronique Christensen — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 13:14:30 +0000

I’m always on the look-out for easy meals to prepare & decided to give burritos a try the other day. I was thrilled with the results — it was easy (check!) and tasty (check, check).

You’ll need:

One rotisserie chicken (don’t get BBQ — too smoky
Burrito sized soft flour tortillas
Yellow rice
Kidney beans (or black, this is to taste)
Diced tomato
Sour cream & salsa to taste
Cheddar cheese

How to:

Ahead of time

Shred your chicken
Cook rice
Cook beans

Assembly

Lay out your burrito
Fill it to order
Roll tightly & use a toothpick to hold it together, tuck in your ends

Cooking (the easiest part)

Either heat up in oven at 350 degrees F. or nuke in your microwave for a minute (long enough to melt your cheese).
I sprinkle chopped cilantro over the whole things for extra zing

Bodil’s vegetable soup

Veronique Christensen — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:57:13 +0000

This summer Maggie insisted that her Grandma teach her how to make her very special & extra delicious veggie soup. I’m so glad she did!

You’ll need…

A large soup pot
An immersion blender
8 carrots
2 potatoes
2 red peppers
11 celery sticks
1 celery root (2 if small), if you can’t find celery root use celery sticks
4 cloves of garlic
2 cups of chicken broth
1 onion
Powdered spices to taste (we use cayenne pepper, coriander, cumin, tumeric, garlic powder, paprika, and ginger paste)
Salt and pepper

This will make about ten servings

How-to:

1. Peel carrots and potatoes and chop up all veggies into bite- sized pieces
2. Put into pot and cover with chicken broth and water
3. Add four pinches of salt
4. Put on stove and bring to a boil
5. Once boiled, lower heat and continue simmering
6. Simmer until it reaches desired consistency (about 25:00 min)
7. Once finished simmering blend with immersion blender
8. Once done blending add spices, salt and pepper, NO herbs
9. Simmer again for about 20:00min
10. EAT and ENJOY

From little kid to young hostess

Veronique Christensen — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:07:40 +0000

Tomas and I were playing around with iPhoto’s book-making tool & one of the pages it made from our photos jumped out at me. My daughter, Maggie is eleven now and has really glommed on to the social arts (I can’t think of any other term for it, so feel free to help my English).

One of her favorite things to do when we have guests or will be a big group for a meal, is to help set the table, she always comes up with the prettiest arrangements for flowers, simple, natural, and lovely. {yep. I’m her Mom – super proud- can you tell?}

The last picture in that row is of a desert she and Bjørn (9) invented: fruit salad in tartlettes, topped with home made whipped cream and a yummy chocolate.

Mazarine pie

Veronique Christensen — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:44:40 +0000

I make this every year, it’s based off of a pie my parents used to buy at the Danish Pastry shop in our town that burned down years ago. This is the closest I’ve gotten to replicating the recipe, but I’m determined to track down the original baker to see if he’ll share his with me (my son’s third grade teacher’s lawn guy is his son, so I’m sure I can reach him) — I tease the kids that I married a Dane because I love this pie so much. Funny thing is it turns out the baker’s name is Christensen, too! I also still dream of his almond macaroons – swoon!

You’ll need:

One pie crust (I but the frozen kind)
7 ounces of almond paste
8 tablespoons of butter (chilled)
3 eggs
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 dash almond extract
1 dash vanilla extract

Set out the pie crust to defrost.
Preheat the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Coarsely grate the almond paste and butter.
Set aside.
In a large bowl stir eggs, sugar, and extracts with a fork.
Again with a fork, mix in the butter, and almond paste.
When combined, add in the flour and baking powder.
Mix until the flour clumps are incorporated — it’s totally ok, desired even, to have butter and almond paste clumps.
Pour in the batter into your pie crust.
Lower oven temp to 350 degrees.
Cook for 40 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean

Decorate with melted chocolate and almonds.

Ricotta with maple syrup and walnuts

Veronique Christensen — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:20:40 +0000

Yesterday, I had a ricotta emergency and, naturally, tweeted it. Tomas had bought way more ricotta for the Lazagna I’d made a few days earlier and I knew it was doomed to curdle if I didn’t take action quickly. My Tweeps and Facebook pals came out en force with some wonderful suggestions. I opted for the one I had all the ingredients on hand for, and which I could easily recruit a kiddo or two to help prepare.

What’s funny in retrospect is that I was so tired by the time I got to it, that I had it in my head that she’d said syrup, not honey, so we have an unexpectedly original recipe

@VetrinaGirl suggested: Mix it with honey and walnuts. #heaven OR Mix it with lemon yogurt. Yum!

What I did: Mixed the ricotta with maple syrup and chrumbled walnuts. Added the syrup to Maggie’s taste which was way sweeter than to my taste.

What others suggested:

@FuzzySheep: Tyler’s Gnocchi w/ Peas, Prosciutto and Ricotta. http://trunc.it/3fu3k So fresh, easy and VERY yummy!

@Stacerella: Ricotta cheese cake. I make them in small springform pans or in a tort pan if I have 1/3-1/2 of the ingredient volume onhand.

@Dorie93950: Homemade cannoli’s. A dessert w/crisp pastry tubes filled w/sweet vanilla-flavored ricotta. Buy empty Shells @ Italian bakeries

@KimLachance: Connolis! Yum. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/mario-batali/cannoli-di-ricotta-recipe/index.html

Heedan: panna cotta? but then again I’m all about dessert

Ursula: I got it!! I made a pumpkin cheese cake the other day for a pie contest .. it was delish… made fluffy with Ricotta!

Linda: lemon ricotta cookies … search food channel ? sounded deeeelicious

Nina: des crepes! trouve une recette Polonaise pour des “naleshnikis” fourrees de fromage blanc. C’est a n’en pas revenir! {Véro’s translation: crepes! look up a Polish recipe for “naleshnikis” stuffed with ricotta}

All of these sound wonderful, don’t they?

Click over to @veroniquec if you’d like to join me on Twitter

Tomas’ shrimp pil pil

Veronique Christensen — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:30:19 +0000

This is so incredibly delicious, you are going to want to run out & buy shrimp right away.

For reals.

Shrimp Pil Pil is one of our family’s favorite dishes & whenever I need a pick-me-up I have Tomas make it for me (I make sure to keep frozen shrimp in stock at all times & buy extra whenever it’s on sale).

You’ll need:

2 pounds of medium-large shrimp, peel on
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1 cup olive oil
6-7 cloves of garlic
Red pepper flakes
Paprika
Sal & Pepper

To do:

Heat olive oil, add garlic and spices until hot (30 seconds or so), then add the shrimp. Cook on meduim-high until pink all the way through – a couple minutes on each side. When done toss in the parsley and serve with crusty baguette and a salad tossed in a simple vinaigrette.

Serves my family of five with no leftovers.