(photos by Hubert Bonnet) Just this week Zoe appeared in Lavender Magazine here in the Twin Cities– in a terrific article on Minneapolis-St. Paul’s rising young pastry chefs. Above, she’s showing off her signature desserts, created for Tilia in Minneapolis, now one of the hottest tables in town. Zoe was showcased as “best-selling author, blogger, [and] rising celebrity chef…” (click to view the full article).
Thanks for being patient with my roasted red pepper obsession. Above, dropping the scorched peppers into a bowl to steam (see last week’s post on roasting your own peppers). But now the embarrassing part: I shot the video on a different day from pepper-roasting time, so I stuffed the fougasse with with tomato and cheese. So it’s really fougasse in the pizza margherita style. But you get the picture, or at least, the video:
(photo by Mark Luinenburg) If you’ve read any of our books, you know that this particularly photogenic fruit (or is it a vegetable?) seems to have captured our imagination. After a year of perfecting the basic tomato/basil/mozzarella topping, I did (believe it or not) get tired of Pizza Margherita. Enter the smoky and savory roasted red pepper. Continue reading
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| by zoe, January 31, 2012 In addition to making pizza on superbowl sunday, I propose that you shake things up a bit with these Spiced Lamb Pitas. This is one of my favorite recipes in our new book. I love it for many reasons, but the story behind my first bite of Lahmacun is as rich as the bread itself.
I arrived in Istanbul with my husband and two sons (9 & 11 at the time), after a long trip from Minneapolis. As we entered into the city, with the sweetest cabby in the world, and the fastest driver I have ever seen, we realized we were not in the Midwest anymore. It was a feast of the senses. To say we were overwhelmed by the beauty, smells, sounds and traffic, would have been a gross understatement. No sooner had we put our bags down in the hotel, then the concierge called the room to say I had a “friend” waiting for me in the lobby. He whispered into the phone and said “Please, be careful of people who claim to be your friend in a new city.” His way of warning me about something. I didn’t know anyone in the city, and hadn’t made plans to meet up with anyone, so I heeded his warning and sent my husband to the lobby to find out who this mysterious “friend” might be. It was indeed a friend, a dear sweet woman named Serap, who I’d met in the States. She owns a delightful Turkish restaurant called Depot 62 in Manchester, Vermont. I had told her I’d be in Istanbul, asked her for tips on where to eat, but that was all I ever expected to hear. Here she was, the loveliest surprise in the world. She was visiting her sister in istanbul, and they took the day to give us a tour of the city. They fed us the most glorious foods and she introduced me to her favorite Turkish food; Lahmacun. I will never forget that day and this flatbread is forever linked with one of my most precious memories. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
This thin pita is topped with Spiced lamb, quickly baked, so it is still soft, topped with chopped onions, parsley and a squeeze of lemon, then it is rolled up like a crepe. Continue reading
From the editors of Mother Earth News…
This pizza is so thin and crackly that light shines through it! It’s much easier to achieve perfection with this Tuscan specialty than you might think. Plus, our TV segment in Charlotte, North Carolina, with former Saturday Night Live cast-member Colin Quinn. Continue reading
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| by zoe, January 10, 2012 The beauty of a pullman loaf is the perfectly shaped slices. If you don’t want to take a chance on a loaf that has a slightly irregular shape, then this is the pan for you. It make for a perfectly square sandwich loaf or movie-worthy toast. Any of our bread doughs will work in this pan, but some rise more than others, so you will have to adjust the amounts. In this post I used a 100% whole grain oat bread from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which will rise less than our recipes using only white flour from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. You may need to experiment a little, but I will walk you through the process below.
Jeff and I are back on the road to bake pizzas. We are teaching a few classes on the way and would love for you to join us. There are a couple of spots left in our class in Atlanta if you are free to join us on 1/14, for more information visit our events page. Continue reading
(photo by Mark Luinenburg) It has been suggested to me that the real reason I like to throw pizza dough into the air when I teach a class is not because throwing the dough improves the pizza, but because I am an incorrigible show-off. I will neither confirm nor deny this beastly rumor. But having now thrown a lot of dough, I truly can say how beautifully it thins the dough and relaxes the gluten. There’s more on this in Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day, but here are some photos a video that show how it’s done. Continue reading
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| by zoe, December 20, 2011 This week is Chanukah and it is all about frying our food, which brings me great joy. I am constantly trying to come up with something new to add to our menu of latkes, jelly doughnuts and all the other traditional fare. These savory doughnuts were inspired by the fried pizzas I had in Naples. We ate them as snacks during the day, to tide us over to the next pizza. Most of the pizzarias sold them outside their front doors to people waiting in long lines or folks on the run. Pizza dough stuffed with ricotta and deep friend; simple, but perfect. My boys love them stuffed with a variety of fillings, so use your imagination and create your own savory doughnuts. Continue reading
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