Almond Flour Pizza Crust

When this appeared on my feed in the app I use for my dietary treatment I was very curious to try it because I really missed pizza. Sure, my local pizza place is confused but obliges when I ask if they can make me a dish of sauce and melted cheese and toppings, but I still sometimes miss pizza with crust.

Notes:

• The recipe calls for almond meal (which is a term some people use to specifically designate that it contains the skins of the nuts). I used almod flour with skins because I had it on hand but I think they want you to use the kind without the skins, or at least that's what the picture makes it look like. HOWEVER. I have a feeling they used a picture of a regular ass non-keto pizza on the recipe in my app, and not the product of this recipe, though I haven't tried it with the other kind of almond flour yet to be sure.
• I use the large holes of my grater to shred the cheese, though since you're melting it other sizes would probably work fine too. DO NOT buy pre-shredded cheese since it is coated in something that may interfere with melting and might also be carbs.
• I mix in the egg with my hands because it's kind of hard to do with a spoon.
• For toppings, I use about 1/2 cup jarred marinara sauce, about 2-3 oz shredded mozzarella cheese, and any keto-friendly cooked meats and vegetables. I made my own Italian sausage with ground pork and this herb/spice mixture to ensure it didn't contain sugar or starch.
• For future reference: if not adding extra salt, the crust + 2 oz cheese for topping has ~1800 mg sodium for the whole pizza.
  

Verdict: I was surprised at how much it behaves like bread dough before you put the egg in! It's not quite the same as regular pizza dough obviously but it's rather good. I would absolutely have it again, and I really want to try it with the other kind of almond flour once my flour-with-skins runs out. Posting the full recipe below because my phone falls asleep every 5 minutes and it kicks me all the way out of the app every single time I want to look at the recipe again.

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RECIPE:

Almond Flour Pizza Dough
Makes 6 servings

6 oz (170 g) mozzarella cheese, shredded (plus more for topping the pizza, I usually use about 2-3 oz more)
3/4 cup (75 g) almond meal or almond flour
1 large egg
2 tbsp (1 oz, 28 g) cream cheese
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp oregano or Italian seasoning

Preheat oven to 425 F. Mix the shredded cheese, almond meal, and cream cheese in a microwavable bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Stir, then microwave for an additional 30 seconds. Add egg, salt, and spices and stir gently until combined.

On a cutting board, place ball of dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll into a circle about 1/8 inch thick and about 12 inches in diameter. Remove the top piece of parchment paper and poke holes with a fork all over to prevent bubbles from forming while baking.

Place pizza dough (still on the parchment paper) on a baking tray or pizza stone and bake for 13-15 minutes or until browned around the edges. For a crisper crust, flip the pizza dough over before adding toppings. Add toppings of choice, return pizza to oven and bake for an additional 5 minutes or until toppings are warm and cheese (if added) is melted.

Italian Rice and Peas (Risi e Bisi)

This is a dish I'd been meaning to try for a while, and it was additionally a good use of leftover Thanksgiving ham.

Verdict: Homey, comforting, and not hard to make though it was a bit time consuming. If I had the ingredients on hand I'd make it again.

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RECIPE: Risi e Bisi (Hank Shaw, Simply Recipes)

Pomarola (Tuscan Style Tomato Sauce)

Someone at my partner's work brought a giant box to share of San Marzano tomatoes they'd grown, and I ended up with a couple of pounds of them and decided to make this sauce.

Notes:

• I used fresh tomatoes rather than canned, and did not remove the skins.
  
• I didn't have fresh basil so I used dried oregano. I did put in the garlic because I had fresh garlic on hand and didn't have quite enough onion as the recipe called for.
  
• I blended the sauce at the end for a smooth texture.
  

Verdict: Pretty easy to make and tasted great! We ate it with gnocchi. If I ever found myself with a lot of the right kind of fresh tomatoes again, I would definitely make it.

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RECIPE: Pomarola (Filippo Trapella, PhilosoKitchen)

Plum Almond Cake

Another try on my quest for the perfect plum cake for me. My first attempt had nice flavors but was maybe a bit too dry and needed just a little more sweetness. I have generally had good luck with Leite's Culinaria recipes before and plum + almond is a fantastic combination so I decided to give this a try.

Verdict: I think I messed this up because it seemed underdone/a little raw in the middle. The almond topping just melted and baked into the rest of the cake, which was disappointing. It was just almonds, butter, and sugar though and I think it needed some kind of flour to soak up the butter and keep its shape as crumbles. Maybe the butter from the topping melting into the cake is why it seemed underdone (especially since I used 1.5 times the recipe for topping). I might try it again because I really liked the flavors, but I might also just keep looking elsewhere for my forever plum cake.

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RECIPE: Plum Almond Cake (Leite's Culinaria)

Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter

Recording this so that I remember that I tried it.

I had been wanting to try this recipe for a very long time, and finally got around to it. I was really underwhelmed though, and not just because I'd been waiting forever to try it. Maybe with premium ingredients it would have been better since it's so simple, but I'm not sure I'll go to the trouble again. Even Smitten Kitchen has a few duds I guess.

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RECIPE: Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter (Smitten Kitchen)

Focaccia and Pizza Dough

I make this with a bread machine from a cookbook that my mom got with a different bread machine in the 90s. Something's wrong with the heating element on mine so I only use it for doughs (because anything that's supposed to be baked inside the machine doesn't turn out right).

Verdict: Absolutely delicious. I would love to make it again. I will have to find another way when my bread machine finally gives out, but until then this is how I'm going to do it.

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RECIPE:

Pizza Dough / Focaccia
from Salton/MAXIM Housewares bread machine cookbook, 1998
makes 1-2 lb

for 1 lb (makes 12" pizza):
3/4 cup warm water
1 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp yeast

for 1.5 lb (makes 15" pizza):
1 1/8 cups warm water
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp yeast

for 2 lb (makes two 12" pizzas):
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt
4 1/4 cups (531 g) all purpose flour
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp yeast

All purpose flour, for dusting

For pizza (per 12" pizza; you'll need slightly more of everything for a 15" pizza)
- 1/2 cup pizza sauce
- 1 to 1 1/4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- Toppings of your choice (suggestions: cooked Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, spinach, bell peppers, sliced olives, chopped fresh tomato, cooked bacon)

For focaccia (per 1 lb dough)
- 3-4 tbsp olive oil
- 2-3 tsp fresh or dried herbs of your choice (suggestions: Italian seasoning, rosemary, oregano, basil)
- 2-3 tbsp grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder (optional)
- Freshly ground black pepper (optional)

Place liquid ingredients in bottom of bread machine pan, then add flour and other dry ingredients on top. Set machine to Dough cycle and let run until done (mine takes 1 hr 30 min). If using immediately, transfer dough to a floured board. If saving for later, place in a bowl greased with olive oil, turn dough over to coat it in the oil, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.

For pizza dough: Heat oven to 400°F. If you made 2 lb dough, divide it into two equal pieces. Pat with your hands or roll the dough with a floured rolling pin into a 12 in or 15 in circle (depending on the size of your batch of dough). Transfer to a baking sheet or pizza peel/stone dusted with cornmeal or flour. Spread pizza sauce over dough, leaving at least 1/2" at the outer edge. Sprinkle cheese in an even layer over the top of the sauce. Place toppings over the cheese. Bake for 13-17 minutes or until edges are lightly golden brown and cheese is bubbly.

For focaccia: Heat oven to 400°F. On a board or other surface dusted with flour, pat the dough into a circle about 1/2 in thick. Place on a baking sheet dusted with cornmeal or flour. Spread 2 tbsp olive oil on the top surface of the dough with your hands and dimple the top of the dough with your fingertips (deep enough so that oil will pool in the indentations). Once done, drizzle 1-2 more tbsp of olive oil over the top and sprinkle herbs, cheese, salt, and any optional toppings over the top. Let rise for 15-20 minutes. Bake until golden brown (this took about 20-22 minutes for 1 lb dough in my oven). Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

Eggplant Parmesan Melts

Our neighbors invited us to come pick their vegetables while they were away last week, and the eggplants were in full swing. I am still learning how to cook eggplant in ways that I like it, and I thought this would be a sure bet. I cooked it exactly as written.

Verdict: Breading and frying things is a lot of work, but 100% worth how it tastes. Absolutely delicious. Would definitely make it again if I felt up to the task.

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RECIPE: Eggplant Parmesan Melts (Smitten Kitchen)

Pasta with Ricotta and Vegetables

What do you do with a large surplus of ricotta? Make this! It's a super quick pasta dish and really versatile. 

Notes:

• Spinach is one of my favorite vegetables to put in this instead of snap peas. Even better with some cherry tomatoes or sun-dried tomatoes in there too if you have them.
  
• I've used other pasta shapes with success (penne, campanelle, fusilli).
  

Verdict: I think I made this 3 or 4 times within 2 weeks. It is a good, quick, reasonably healthy meal to keep in the regular rotation.

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RECIPE: Bowties with Sugar Snaps, Lemon, and Ricotta (Smitten Kitchen)

Mushroom Marsala Pasta Bake

Something about this sounded really good to me when it scrolled by on the Smitten Kitchen Instagram, so I made a trip to the store to get the ingredients.

Verdict: I love it, and so does my partner! It's not difficult to make and is pretty simple and satisfying to make, with a healthy ratio of vegetables to other ingredients.

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RECIPE: Mushroom Marsala Pasta Bake (Smitten Kitchen)

Risotto Milanese

I first learned about risotto as an adult. The closest thing I had to it as a child, which I LOVED, was what my mom called "souped-up Minute Rice" which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like -- Minute Rice (the instant microwaveable parcooked rice) cooked in canned soup, usually cream of chicken (my favorite) or cream of mushroom (ew). (Side note: I made this as an adult and it sadly did not live up to the childhood memories. I'm going to pretend I didn't and choose to just remember that it was delicious.)

My first experience with actual risotto was when my boyfriend (now husband) made it for me in college. He would buy the packaged just-add-water-and-butter kind since it was something he could cook quickly and easily in his apartment. He mixed in sausage at the end. Once he met me and started having me over for meals, I cooked vegetables to mix in too -- while he didn't go to the effort to buy and cook vegetables for himself, he would gladly eat them if they were there, which is more than a lot of Midwestern college boys would do. We watched Hell's Kitchen because that was a thing at the time, and I laughed when I saw that it was served in their restaurant. Would macaroni and cheese be served in Hell's Kitchen? Probably not. So is risotto not fancy or really fancy?

Then one of my college roommates clued me into the fact that you could make it from scratch. She gave me some that she had cooked. Mind blown. This also opened me up to the world of alcohol as a food flavoring (AMAZING). While the packaged version doesn't taste bad, the process of cooking it from scratch is not really any harder than the packet version (though you need to have more ingredients on hand), and it tastes much better.

Risotto is what you make of it. You can make it fancy, or not. You can serve it all by itself as a side, or mix in meat and/or vegetables for a one-pot meal.

Notes:

• Using Arborio rice is important. It will not turn out the same if you use a different type of rice.
• If serving it as a side, the package I got the recipe from says it goes well with meats in a red sauce or wine sauce such as osso buco.
• The saffron is what makes it authentic Milan-style risotto. You can leave it out if that's not what you're going for, especially if you're mixing other stuff into it.
• If possible, use cheese that is not already grated; the cellulose on pre-grated cheese that keeps it from clumping will interfere with the creamy texture you want.
• Suggestions for add-ins: cooked meats/seafood (shredded chicken, browned link sausage, chopped ham, bacon crumbles, cooked shrimp), vegetables (cooked/prepared: broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, peas, asparagus, zucchini, cubed winter squash, chopped sun-dried tomatoes; fresh: chopped tomato, spinach leaves), fresh herbs (parsley, basil, marjoram). If you cook frozen vegetables, make sure they are well drained before adding them to the risotto. The version pictured above has chopped ham and peas mixed in.
• This can be made vegetarian by using a mild flavored vegetable based broth instead of chicken broth.
• You might like to vary the type of broth based on what kind of add-ins you are using (for example, a seafood broth if adding shrimp).
• You may not need extra salt. I find that Parmesan cheese and especially salty add-ins like sausage or ham lend enough salt to the dish on their own. If you plan to add salt, I recommend waiting until after the cheese is added, then tasting to see if it needs more salt. 

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RECIPE:

Risotto Milanese

adapted from a recipe I found on a box of arborio rice

Serves 2-4

2 cups chicken, seafood, or vegetable broth

Water, if needed

2 tbsp butter

3 tbsp onion, finely chopped

1 cup uncooked arborio rice

1/3 cup dry white wine'

A pinch of toasted saffron

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded or grated

Salt to taste (optional)

Place broth in a medium sized saucepan and keep heated on low on the stove. Keep a small cup of room temperature water next to the stove in case it is needed. In another larger saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. When the butter foams, add onion and cook for several minutes, until it is translucent. Add rice and stir for about 30 seconds, until everything is completely coated in the butter. Add the wine and saffron to the pan and cook, stirring frequently, until the wine is completely absorbed, about 3-5 minutes. Pour in just enough broth from the smaller pan to cover the rice and cook until the broth is absorbed, stirring often. Repeat with the rest of the broth until the rice is cooked through but still firm to the bite, about 20 minutes. If you run out of broth and the rice is still not ready, continue the above process with more broth or water until it has reached the desired  texture. When the rice has reached the proper texture, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the Parmesan cheese until it has melted slightly. Taste and add salt if you think it needs it. At this point, if using additional ingredients, stir them in until mostly evenly incorporated. Serve immediately with additional Parmesan cheese.

Lemon Polenta Cake

A former coworker introduced me to this recipe. She had been on vacation in Italy and this cake was served at the breakfast buffet at her hotel. She had one bite and fell in love. She and her husband went down to breakfast early the next day to make sure they wouldn't run out before she got all that she wanted to eat. After she returned home, she made this cake and brought it into work to share, and promptly hooked all of us on this delicious treat too. I knew she liked to make Nigella Lawson's recipes (chocolate fruit cake was another recipe she always made for holiday parties), so when I went looking for lemon polenta cake recipe and saw Nigella Lawson had a recipe for it I knew this was the right one.

She passed away four years ago today, but I always think of Barbara when I make lemon polenta cake, and I like to think her joy lives on each time I introduce someone else to it.

Notes:

• I like to serve it with fresh berries on top.
• You can also top the cake with lemon curd, which is 100% unnecessary but it definitely tastes good.

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RECIPE: Lemon Polenta Cake

Smitten Kitchen's Perfect Meatballs and Spaghetti

I'm on a roll with the Smitten Kitchen recipes lately! I saw this on her Instagram recently and had to try it because it looks delicious, the meatballs are baked in the oven (the only way to do it as far as I'm concerned), and both my husband and I are big fans of spaghetti and meatballs.

Changes/deviations:

• I used half ground chuck (beef) and half ground pork for the meat.
• I doubled the meatballs because I wanted leftovers and there wasn't a good way to only buy 1/2 pound of each type of meat when I was buying it. I used 3 eggs (doubled would have been 4).
• Used angel hair pasta instead of spaghetti because it's what I had
• Cooked meatballs for ~15 minutes because they weren't done after 12 minutes, and I think it's because I made mine bigger than the recipe asked. Apparently my estimation of 2 inches is a lot bigger than 2 inches, haha. I ended up with 16 large meatballs (doubled recipe) while the recipe photos show 12 meatballs for a single batch. whep.
• Accidentally doubled the garlic in the sauce even though I wasn't doubling the sauce. Sometimes too much garlic can ruin a dish but a couple extra cloves' worth was fine here.

Verdict: Definitely will make again. It's a little more fussy than what I'm used to (! lol because this is supposed to be easy, and it was) but well worth the effort. The meatball mixture felt kind of soft but they cooked really nicely and smelled wonderful. You can really smell the cheese in them. Since I was only making it for two people I might cut back on the pasta next time, though I also don't want to prepare pasta 2-3 times for this. I had never made pasta like this where you heat it again with some of the sauce and reserved pasta water and it was great! This would be a really good, easy thing to make for a dinner party.

RECIPE: Perfect Meatballs and Spaghetti

Cannoli Pound Cake

The more I read about New York the more jealous I am of all the Italian deli type places they have, because Italian food is delicious and it seems so easy to get good Italian foods there. I have been to New York City once and cannot wait to go back.

I've never had cannoli before but something about the look of this cake plus its combination of orange, lemon, pistachio, and chocolate drew me to try it.

Notes and observations

• I bought Marsala wine just for this. I had never had it before in my life. It tastes like liquid raisins. I'm in love.

Verdict: I liked it and would make it again if I got a hankering for loaf cake! I'm also motivated to seek out actual cannoli now.

RECIPE: Cannoli Pound Cake