Whenever you guys get sick of my recipe-writing, just remember that them who loves it is them what talks the loudest. So now I will tell you what I cooked today and give you the blessed recipe, hurrah!

Holy Shit There Is Such A Thing As Fried Pizza

This is an experiment for me. I googled around, and found some recipes, but none like what my eye-talian sister-in-law described, so I'm making it as she described it. It was a very exciting culinary adventure because (a) pizza; (b) fried. Need I say more? It's Snakes-on-a-Plane explanatory. Ready? Okay!

So first you make some pizza dough.

Okay wait no - first you scrub your hands within an inch of their little digitted lives, scouring with the nail-brush, until it occurs to you that d'oh! You need music! So you take out the Decembrists album you got in there and start wondering if you have anything Italian. Then you hunt for like 10 minutes through your recently-organized cd's and don't find the one disk of Italy-inspired classical music that you got a zillion years ago. Then you find it finally in the pile of To-Be-Tossed stuff, and pop it in, hurray! Now we're ready to make pizza!

So you go back, wash your hands, and in the middle of drying them you realize why this cd was in the To-Be-Tossed pile. Back to contaminate the hands, slip the cd back in the box next to A Breath of Snow And Ashes (unless someone wants that tripe? speak up) and fret over how Yves Montand just won't do, this one cd of opera would sorta work but not really, maybe some Lyle Lovett? No. Butthole Surfers? Nah. Not Sinead, not Franz Ferdinand, oh hell - go back to the first rule of modern music: When in doubt, put on the Shins. They're like the little black dress of music, how they go with everything.

Once you got that, go scrub your damn hands again and begin!

And fuck up the first batch of dough because for some reason you never wrote down how much water goes in it. Idiot. This is what you get for scribbling down recipes randomly and sticking them in the single cookbook you own, which you totally only keep around for the pictures. Anyway, toss out that doughy ball o'crap, then google "pizza dough recipe" and go with Emeril's, since though you may not be a fan, you're pretty sure he won't give a bad recipe.

Also, it's easy. Mix the following:

1 packet of dried yeast (that's 1/4 of an ounce, FYI)
1 cup of warm water ("warm" means "like a good, not-too-hot bath")
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil

So mix all that in a good sized mixing bowl. I used my medium one, and yes I do in fact still love my mixing bowls with a love that borders on the clinically insane. Anyway, you stir it to dissolve the yeast and let it sit for like 5-10 minutes.

Then gradually you mix in 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour. And by "gradually", I mean 1 cup, then mix with a wooden spoon, then dump the rest flour in there and mix it with your over-washed hands. Once it all hangs together, dump it out on your washed-with-bleach-water-then-rinsed-and-coated-in-flour countertop. Keep the bag of flour right there and don't make any plans, because ladies and gentlemen, it is time to knead.

Oh yes. There will be much kneading.

I used to wonder exactly HOW you're supposed to knead. Like there's some precise movement or something. I don't worry about that anymore. You basically just press with the heel of your hands, then fold it over on itself, repeat repeat repeat. Then your arms start getting tired, so you check to see how much time is left to this kneading and OH MY GOD IT'S ONLY BEEN TWO MINUTES. But eventually, you get in your groove and the 7 minutes are done. You knead, sprinkling more flour as needed to gradually get rid of the ticky feel, until it's silky-smooth-like. Until it reminds you of chubby baby butts and legs and the little soft dimpled arms, the kind you just want to eat up because they are so frikken soft.

So basically, your going for a baby-flesh texture here. This is not to be confused with the boobie quality texture, which comes about mid-way through the kneading. You'll find yourself thinking Oh. OH, I get it now, why men like boobs so much. It's just so lush and squishable but not mooshy and really a comforting sort of feel to it, really very sensual and hey I hope I get to where it starts feeling like baby butts soon or I might go lesbo.

So then you put it in a bowl and let it rise for about an hour. (Oil it, yeah, and cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in a warm but not hot spot.) This makes enough for two 12" pizzas, so I cut mine in half and froze one half before the rising part of things.

When it's done, you take it out , flatten it, and start rolling. I for one do not have a rolling pin, which is only one of a long list of kitchen supplies that I just don't have and manage to do without, no biggie. I took the bottle of Rose's lime out of the fridge, wrapped it in plastic wrap, and we're in business. Now, I'll be the last to ever say that rolling out pizza dough is easy, especially when you only have one frying pan and it is hardly the size of a standard pizza. So I used a little less than 1/4 of the dough recipe. You can make em smaller, even, but I think at least the size of a saucer is good. Bread-plate size is perfect. And you want it thin. I'm not so good at measurements, but I guess it's like a quarter of an inch. If that. As thin as you can get it without putting holes in it and/or making it stick to the counter.

Okay, so then put some vegetable oil in a pan and get it really, really hot. Maybe about a half-inch of oil. Shallow frying, here, not deep-fry. Have your plate and fork (or I used tongs, actually) and toppings ready, because this is like 2 minutes in the pan, if that. Slide your dough in and it immediately begins to bubble and puff up and looks just gorgeous. After it's been bubbling for maybe 30 seconds or so, flip it to cook the other side. You're going for golden-brown here. No darker, no lighter. It's that perfect beautiful color that fried dough gets sometimes, and you'll know it when you see it because your soul will rejoice. Seriously. Thundering applause beneath the breastbone. Leave the second side in the oil for another 30-60 seconds, then pull it out and slap it on the plate.

Now you gotta work FAST because this is The Moment You've Been Waiting for: spread on your sauce and your toppings and roll it all up. The end.

I topped mine with a simple tomato-garlic-basil sauce, some thinly sliced mozzarella, and some fresh basil leaves. A margherita, if you will. I make my own sauce (cheaper, and I'm sure it comes out well), but if you don't wanna bother, I like the Barilla tomato-basil one. All of theirs are good, that I've tried. For cheese - because we all know how I feel about cheese - I use Stella. Which is now only in my grocer's deli case, weirdly enough, and pretty expensive. But way less expensive than actual bufalo mozzarella - and omg DON'T buy anything claiming to be bufalo mozzarella in the states, because you're more than a little likely to pay $18/lb for something that's not even made from buffalo milk or, if it is, is far older than 4 days. And it should never be a single minute older than 4 days. Anyway, Stella isn't tasteless and rubbery, as so many mozzarellas are, so that's what I get. It's worth it.

So is it good, you're wondering?

Oh. My. God. I think it wins for my favorite new comfort food. Supposedly in Naples, they sell these on the street corners - you choose your toppings and bim bam boom, there ya go. Fast food, Naples-style. And it really has all the qualities of great fast food: just salty enough and just greasy enough and you feel slightly guilty but defiant and you really, really shouldn't eat another but well I mean there's all this dough left and it won't last forever and it's just so good and it leaves you with this sorta dreamy expression, like a kid after a long night of trick-or-treating followed by candy-sorting and gorging on the fun-size bars. Ya know? That feeling.

That's all for this episode of Beth's Heart-Healthy Recipes For The Modern Woman. Join us next time when I eat my weight in brie-and-butter sandwiches.

Oh - and this would go so PERFECTLY with a cold beer. Man, I wish I had some.

Cooking 102!

Thanks to Evil Auntie Pearl, who asked after the one pasta dish that has less ingredients than pasta con brodo. The broth one, I make in the winter when I want something easy, fast, and cheap. In the summer, I make this pasta for the same reasons - except it's not a soup, see, and therefore more fitting for summertime and the livin' is easy.

Okay, so for beginning cook-types, you'll need:

• A large frying pan
• A large pot of boiling water (for the spaghetti)
• A strainer (or as we call it, a colander)
• A wooden-like stirring implement
• Also - a knife
• Chopping board is optional
• The Best of the Gipsy Kings which okay I guess is TECHNICALLY optional, but is so totally the right music for this endeavor
  

Ready? Here we go!

Spaghetti Aglio Olio

And I guess it should be "aglio e olio" but I never say it that way. You just kinda slur it all together in this alYOHlyo sorta way. Unless you're from Rome or Naples and then it's more like aye-oh or al-ole-o or yippy-kie-ay and rin-tin-tin. Whatever, who cares, just eat it, man.

Step 1: Bring a lot of well-salted water to a boil and throw in your spaghetti
Step 2: Sauté (DO NOT FEAR THE TECHINCAL TERMS! You CAN sautée, I promise!) some chopped garlic in olive oil until golden brown.
Step 3: Drain the pasta when it's done and then dump it into the pan with the oil-n-garlic.

The end. Three steps! See - so easy!

Now for the breakdown:

Pot!
Not THAT. I mean to put your pasta in. Many times have I thought I could just cook a long pasta (linguine, spaghetti) in a small pot because I was just make a little bit of pasta, so really who needs the big pot? Every time, I was wrong. Just get a big-ass pot. Little saucepan = big woes. Trust me.

Pasta!
It should be spaghetti - or spaghettini or capellini, whatever - but it has to be spaghetti-like in shape. No penne or bowties or whatever else on this one, y'all. You need long and thin. I like the angel hair, personally. And if you're making enough for just one person, then about 1/4th of the box should do it. As always, follow the directions on the box for cooking time. Please don't be like my mom and cook it at least 3 minutes longer until it becomes moosh. Please. It hurts me when another pasta noodle dies a senseless death in this way. Don't do this to me, I beg of you.

Salt!
I only mention this because it's normally not a big deal if you don't salt the water. But in this case, it'll be really bland if you don't. How much salt? I dunno, a handful? Yeah, that seems right - about a tablespoon or so. Also, a factoid (which I will call a factoid even though I dunno if it's really a fact or just an Italian old wives tale but I don't feel like googling to find out): adding salt to the water does not, as most people seem to think, make it come to a boil more quickly; rather, salt makes the water boil hotter and faster. (Tom, if you read this, please de-bunk at will, thanks.)

Garlic!
It should really go without saying that the garlic absolutely has to be fresh. I prefer the roughly-cut chunks o'garlic on this one, but you can do it with the whole clove, or you can mince it up small - just depends on what kinda flavor you're after. Experiment, you bold experimenting beast, you! But here's my method for a good full garlic taste, PLUS it's way fast: take the cloves (I use like 3 per person, minimum) and put em on the cutting board, skin and all. Then whack em with the Big Knife. They get a lil crushed and split, which makes it easy to just whip the skins off. Then there they are, all naked and wounded. So you must put them outta their misery by, well, hacking them up. It's a kind of mercy killing at that point. I coarsely chop - takes like 5 seconds. Whack, chop chop chop, the end.

Olive Oil!
I dunno how much I use. I guess about… oh, half an ounce or so? Like a generous tablespoon? Per person, I mean. Also, the more virgin it is (virgin, extra virgin, superextrahyper virgin now with more hymen, etc), the better it is for eating raw. Supreme virgins go on salads. Plain ole virgins are good for the frying pan.

Sautée!
So lotsa people - really really big deal important professional cooking-type people, even - insist that you have to get the oil hot first, and then put in the garlic. I call bullshit. I have cooked many a sauce with many an Italian by my side, and I see em do it any way they like, very often without heating the oil first. I almost never heat the oil first and it's all perfectly fine. I mean Jesus Christ, it's not like you're deep-frying here. Sheesh. So I turn on the fire and put the garlic right in, no waiting. It's best to do this on medium heat - not too high or it'll too easily burn. It's also best to time it so that you're doing this in the last 2 minutes-ish of the pasta cooking.

Put in the garlic and watch. Stand there with your wooden implement (I dunno why, but I have to always cook every sauce with a flat wooden spatula thing, though a wooden spoon will do, too) and watch for the little bubbles to start gathering around the garlic pieces. Once things start hissing and simmering like that, start looking for the color to change. Only takes a minute or so. It'll go from that fresh yellowish-white to a kind of antique parchment color, like it's aging before your eyes. And here's how you don't burn it: take it off the heat the second the color starts to turn, the second you notice it getting a bit more translucent. "It's changing!" you'll say, and then you will immediately turn off the heat. The oil is still hot and will continue to cook it long after the fire is gone. Stir it up a bit, so that the garlic gets golden on more than one side, see. You don't want it black; you don't want it dark brown - or even medium-dark. Light brown. Gold - that's what you want. You can do it!

Add!
Here's the secret to a good pasta-with-oil dish, or so my Italian friends absolutely insist: put the pasta into the oil. Not vice versa! Do NOT put the oil into the pasta (as you would a sauce) and stir it up. No no no no! You just dump the pasta into the pan with the oil, and then kinda toss it about with a fork, coating it with the oil. Et voilà.

Tips and Variations!

• Well see, I actually always make this with hot pepper flakes. You know, the crushed red pepper? Always. You put it in the oil just as the garlic starts to go golden. Yummers.
• Also, you can (and really should) stir a handful of chopped Italian parsley into the finished dish. Has to be fresh, though, and not dried - which is why I rarely do it. I tend to make this dish when I'm completely out of everything, including fresh herbs. (Note to self: really need to get a parsley plant for the windowsill.)
• Furthermore, some freshly grated parmesan sprinkled on top? Bliss.
• If the garlic is getting too brown and you're like all panicking and like ahhh ahhh AHH NO I am RUINING it the garlic is gone BEYOND GOLDEN, nooooooooo why god WHY, make it STOP! Then all you gotta do is take the garlic out of the oil. Seriously, just fish it out with a fork - or my favorite trick is to gather all the garlic on one side of the pan and then tilt the oil away from it, and stand there like a dumbass.
  
• But you know, the Naples way to do this (and actually how they tend to do all their garlic-based sauce stuff) is to sautée the whole clove and then throw it out when it's all golden brown. This is a kind of quick-infusion method. It's a more subtle taste, and has its place. It works well here, but I'd suggest using a ton of garlic, if you're gonna toss it instead of eating it.
• For that matter, if you like it REALLY garlicky, you can just use garlic-infused olive oil. (Not IN PLACE OF the fresh garlic - just as a boost, in addition to the fresh.) You don't have to go out and buy some fancy bottle of it either. Just get a small jar or bottle, fill it with olive oil, and plop a few peeled garlic cloves in there. Come back in a few days, and there ya go. Easy-peasey.
• An alternative to the Gypsy Kings might be the Decembrists version of The Tain. But not until you get really used to the garlic-sautéeing part of things.

Okay, I'll let you know when Chas tries it. will report back.

Cooking 101!

Okay, so my friend Chas, see, he doesn't cook. Like, ever. At all. He has condiments in his fridge and cobwebs in his stove. He might go so far as to assemble a sammich, but that's all. No cooking.

I find this very, very upsetting. Therefore, I have long campaigned that he learn just some basic stuff. (But secretly, deep down? I want to turn him into a four-star chef. I have lofty goals.) And so finally I was all like "YOU MUST BEGIN!!" And I gave him directions for pasta con brodo with a little straciatelli action, and he made it.

HURRAY!!

This is, seriously, the like happiest thing in my life right now. So sorry if you preferred not to have your culinary inexperience bandied about on the internet, Chazzy, but it's the lone Good in my sea of Bleh, so I will shout it to blogland.

So here's how you make it, even though I think I blogged it once before but I can't find it.

Do you not know how to cook? Do you fear the kitchen? Come forth and learn to cook with Chas!

Pasta con brodo
Otherwise known as Pasta con Frodo, because Chas revels in silliness, lor' love 'im.
(Also otherwise known as one of my favorite comfort foods, especially when I'm sick.)

Step 1: Bring broth to a boil
Step 2: Drop some small pasta into the boiling broth, and cook for however long it says on the package.
Step 3: Beat an egg
Step 4: Take pasta off the heat, pour in the egg while stirring
Step 5: Dollop some olive oil and parmesan on there, and mangia, baby, mangia.

Further commentary:

• Broth! I use the Knorr Vegetable bouillon cubes, one cube for 2 cups of water, but you can use whatever you like. Chicken is the generally accepted meat version. And it doesn't have to be bouillon - you can make it even easier by buying a can of broth from the soup aisle! Same thing, just none of that "add water" business.
• Pasta! Macaroni is typical, but I really prefer orzo. Ditalini are good, too, but you can use anything that's not bigger than macaroni. And it should be like 1 part pasta to 2 parts broth. Ish. (This is not precise, but you don't want the pasta to soak up ALL the broth.)
  
• Egg! Is actually an advanced maneuver, so feel free to skip it if you're overwhelmed. Or if you don't like egg. But you can be all fancy-schmancy, like Chas, and use a whisk, or you can be like lazy Beth and just use a fork.
  
• Stirring! If you do put in the egg, there are a coupla ways to do this. You can stir rapidly, which is my preferred method - it's sort of a thickening effect. But you can also stir in this sort of smooth, slow, sweeping way - which creates these thin little sheets of egg-ish stuff, not unlike an eggdrop soup. This is what Italians (in the particular region I lived in) call "straciatelli". Which is way fun to say.
  
• Parmesan! Olive Oil! Can be skipped, but lord jesus christ almighty god and father - why would you WANT to? That's just crazytalk.
  

So there. Go try it. Chas did! And he deemed it a rousing success! He called it - and I quote "very, very tasty." He cooked! From a recipe! Involving a raw egg! On a stove! WOOOOO!

So now I gotta think of something else. Cooking Lesson #2. I think I may go with pasta again. Pasta is so brill to learn cooking on, because it's so versatile and you can get familiar with the basics in their many forms. Plus it's way easy. I always say, give a man a dollar and he can buy a fish; teach a man to fish and he'll eat for life; teach a man to cook pasta, and I'll be over for dinner around six.

(Okay, in case you are a cooking beginner or otherwise have questions or suggestions or whatever, comments are open.)

SBD!

It's just me and Kate and jmc. The rest of youse are slacks. (And I don't mean trousers, 'kay?)


In Defense Of The Scourge

Scourge of Romance novel covers, that is. Because romance readers are always complaining about the bodice-ripping horrors that appear on the covers. And I mean, look - you think I'M happy that maybe the Best Romance Novel Ever Written Ever In The History Of Ever has a cover that makes me literally whoop with laughter when I merely think of it? (Incidentally, if you disagree with the brilliance of that book, take it elsewhere because maybe you think oooh yummy disagreement cakes! but let me tell you: not only will I not listen to anything you say, I will pretty much consider you, um, what's that word? Oh yeah - retarded. So don't waste your breath, but know that I pity you.)

But here's the thing with the covers, aside from the fact that they provide excellent fodder for les Salopes Originales: at least you have no doubt about what you're getting.

And let's face it: with the state of books being what it is - namely, that there is more and more copycat crap on the shelves every damn day, pale imitations of true imagination written to make a buck, any buck, step right up for your fresh-n-forgettable pablum - it's maybe a good thing to have lowered expectations.

(And let's face even more: I am apparently in love with the colon tonight.)

I was thinking of this because of a convo with Snookie t'other day, which went like:

Snooks: Oh I gotta tell you about this book I got from the lye-berry, called The Secret History of the Pink Carnation.
(Beth wonders if it's botanical.)
Snooks: Okay, so there was like the Scarlet Pimpernel, you'll recall?
me: I recall, yes.
Snooks: And after him was apparently the Purple Gentian.
me: Which sounds so gay. And not the good, homosexual kind of gay.
Snooks: And after the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian-- incidentally, if you read this book, you'll never stop saying gentian in your head. Gentian. Gentiangentiangentian.
me: Gentian, jen-shun, gentiangentiangentiahhhhhh.
Snooks: After them there was the Pink Carnation.
me: Pink!
Snooks: And so there's this woman and she's studying them and uncovers the secret history of the Pink Carnation and then it flashes back to like 18th century London.
me: Oh thank goodness - no time travel, just a flashback.
Snooks: Yeah, but get this - it's a romance novel.
me: Not a novel-novel?
Snooks: No! I'm like reading it, right, and of course it has this cover with some detail of an old portrait on it, all sophisticated and historical fiction-looking, and there's this girl reading about the Scarlet Pimpernel and then ALL OF A SUDDEN we flip back in time and IT IS A ROMANCE NOVEL. And it's not even a GOOD romance novel, it's a BAD ROMANCE NOVEL and I couldn't BELIEVE it, like what the fuck are they trying to pull off here? Who do they think they're kidding?
me: Further evidence of poo on the shelves. Put it in a pretty cover, but it's still poo.
Snooks: Crap, I'm sorry, I gotta go. I woke up the baby with my passionate hatred of the Purple Gentian Carnation Instant Breakfast whatever piece of shit.

So then I look on Amazon and it says in the PW review that it's a romance, but then a glance through the other review and the comments sorta muddies the waters - it doesn't look like it was marketed as romance, but Amazon isn't so helpful with these things. Snooks said it wasn't marked as romance anywhere. Being in a library and not a bookstore, I spose it's hard to tell where it gets shelved in a commercial venue.

But I think my point here is that it doesn't matter: I want romance novels to somehow clearly indicate that they are, in fact, romance novels. If there's not a tawdry cover to tell me what to expect, then I'd like it in small print on the spine or inside flap or something. Shiny foil lettering is always a nice tip-off. Say what you will about how a cover like this helps to demean the integrity of the genre yatta-yatta-bla-bla, but at least you're not going to confuse it for a legal thriller.

Thinking about it - Snooks wouldn't have been outraged (because seriously, she was outraged) at how bad the book was if it'd been up-front about being Romance. It would've just been business as usual because though she reads a lot in the genre, she truly enjoys very little. It's sad how we've both lowered our expectations so very far, but really - raising them would only lead to disappointment. Write ROMANCE really big on the book somewhere, and then we'll just shrug if it's awful, and be pleasantly surprised if it's halfway decent.

(Yes, I know a lot of Romance writers read this blog, and maybe they're offended that I paint the whole genre as this crapfest. But it pretty much is a crapfest, see. And yeah, probably other genres are too - I dunno because I don't read em as extensively. But I do know that though I'm frequently disappointed by lit-fic and mainstream, it's not constant and dismal disappointment, and they never leave me as thoroughly disgusted as romance does. So there ya go.)

Anyway, if I'm venturing into genre romance territory, it's just good manners to forewarn me. I'd be just as put out if Highland Lord turned out to be the biography of an actual Highland lord, dig?

Auntie Beth's beauty tip: So at the spas they (allegedly, because like I've ever gone to a spa?) have this salt scrub, a "skin polishing" treatment, and they'll like scrub your whole body with it and it leaves your skin smooth and silky and blah blah. This is an especially great thing if you tend to get those nubbly ingrown hairs on your legs from shaving. Which my niece does, and so we gave her the at-home salt scrub treatment.

And I don't mean some $60 jar from a salon that you take home. Here's what you do: 2 handfuls of Epsom salts and then enough olive oil to make it a kinda paste. Take that, stand in the tub, and scrub the hell out of your legs. Rinse, pat dry. Voila the $4 spa treatment. It's awesome, it works , and it's cheap. Learned it from my Italian friend Rita.

You're welcome.