Saturday, February 14, 2009

Love is Pizza


When is food more than food?  When it comes in fun shapes!  American culture doesn't exactly put the greatest emphasis on presentation - except in magazines telling you how to get your kids to eat healthy food - but it sure adds a special touch.  

This year we celebrated Valentine's Day by eating at home.  We had heart-shaped egg sandwiches for breakfast, heart-shaped pizza for lunch, and spaghetti and meatballs for dinner - comfort food all the way!  And it really was food from the heart.  The bread and cheese were homemade, and the eggs, bacon and beef came from local farms.  We topped it off with a box of out-of-this-world artisan chocolates from Farmstead.  Now that's love.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heart-shaped pizza? What fun! My son and I are making heart-shaped banana muffins today.

Unknown said...

That lucky man, as I always say.

Alicia said...

Hello again! I totally appreciate your help with getting my sourdough started. But one more question. When I remove a cup or two of starter do I add more flour and water right then and there? Can you explain the process? Also, do you have any sourdough recipes you love?

Stephen said...

Yes, Eunia, I am very lucky!

Deborah said...

Alicia,
When I use the starter, I don't feed it until just before my next batch of bread. I find that it tastes better the more frequently it's refreshed, and it seemed to be a waste to feed it when I'm not going to use it right away.
I'm afraid I won't be much help if you're looking to make an attractive slice-able loaf, but my favorite recipes are for flatbread (http://wildhoneybee.blogspot.com/2008/10/no-frills-flatbread.html) and rolls (http://wildhoneybee.blogspot.com/2008/09/our-daily-bread.html).
The flatbread has replaced the rolls as the "Daily Bread" of our house. I make two jelly-roll-pan-sized loaves at a time, cut them up into squares and pop them into the freezer. I feed the starter twice on day 1, mix the dough on day 2, put it in the fridge for 8 hours immediately after mixing, then leave it at room temp for 4 hours and pop it back in the fridge until ready to bake. To bake, I roll it out 1/2" thick, let it rise an hour and then bake 25-30 minutes at 450 F. This flatbread recipe is also great for pizza, especially on weekends. After the 4-hour rise on day 2, I can keep a batch of dough in the fridge and bake fresh bread for every meal. If you're interested in the science of cold fermentation, Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads Book explains it very well. Hope this helps!

Unknown said...

Yes, Stephen. This is a consistent theme in your marriage.