suzy makes the pizza of all pizzas

a good pizza is a thing of beauty.

turns out, not that hard to make either, even if you only have a convection oven/microwave.

the trick? as far as i'm concerned, a good store-bought crust. essential, when you have a convection oven/microwave.

for those of you privileged enough to have a real oven, let me explain. in my pseudo-oven, frozen pizzas do not cook properly. in my former incarnation as the anti-cook, that was pizza (delivery is too expensive and too chancy). you go out, you buy a di giorno's or an amy's (if you're feeling expensive and not too hungry) or a tony's (if you're feeling cheap), and you throw it in the oven for ten or twelve or fifteen minutes and then you eat it.

not so, with the convection oven/microwave. a frozen pizza, no matter what the crust thickness or the brand name is, invariably comes out overcooked on the top and soggy on the bottom. why? you got me. something to do with the way the heat circulates is my guess.

so what's a gal to do? when there's no good delivery to be had outside of new york city, but you can't buy frozen?

WELL! i got a boboli (surprisingly good, i haven't had one in many many years) and got

1 small can black olives
1 green pepper
1 bell pepper
1 jar Roasted Garlic Ragu Spaghetti Sauce
1 package shredded Parmesan Cheese
1 package shredded Mozzerella Cheese

and cooked one of a standby in our apartment, Boca Bratwursts (you could also use their Italian Sausage). i layered however much of each of the above however i wanted them to go (i finished with the sausage and started with sauce, but it's fun to mix it up in between!), put it in the oven/microwave, hit Bake, and crossed my fingers.

and voila! the miracle of pizza you see above. just in case you've forgotten how glorious it was, here's another shot.

you're shaking your head, i know it. you're saying, that doesn't look all that exciting. well let me tell you -- we liked the taste so much that it didn't last long enough for me to get a picture of the full pie. and H and i were both independently asked, when we whipped out our lunches yesterday at our respective places of work, "where" we had gone to get the pizza. imagine the shock when told it came from home!

it's always nice to be appreciated.

suzy makes risotto on a tuesday, part 2

one of these days, someone is going to come along and say, "hey suzy, you know all those recipes that just didn't quite work out? the ones you refer to as 'edible but not that yummy'? yeah, well it's because you didn't follow the directions," and then walk away.

but until that happens, i can't seem to resist the urge to adapt. what does this have to do with baked risotto? well, i'll tell you.

the recipe (down below, by the way, maybe you all will have better luck with it) calls for four sessions of 15 minute baking, interspersed with stirring. at the third stirring, you're supposed to add more water and then pop it back into the oven for the last 15. well ...

let me interject at this point that i was dutifully following directions, letter for letter, up to this point. but like any cook, i cannot resist taste-testing at various points throughout the recipe. so i taste the risotto after i've added the water. and it seems to me, that the rice is now what the book refers to as "creamy". or at least, i couldn't imagine that the texture needs to be any softer than what it was at that point.

so i forego the final 15 minutes and add my vegetables. into a bowl, hey presto!, it's risotto.

except ... it's like the spaghetti carbonara. something tells me that this just isn't quite right. either that, or i apparently don't like risotto.

the rice is certainly "creamy", it's just that everything else around it is ... well, gloopy is really the word that comes to mind. sticky, gummy ... when i eat a spoonful of it, it reminds me of oatmeal, which can't be right.

now, i can't imagine that leaving it in the oven for another 15 minutes would have done anything other than make it mushy. but who knows.

but there is good news! i do not blame the cookbook! why not? because i have finally produced a dish worth eating out of it!

what dish, you ask? that's for me to post when i'm not late to work, and for you to read when you're bored at work.

in the meantime, if you want to try this out despite my, errm, glowing recommendation, here it is:

Baked Risotto, courtesy of Nava Atlas

1 1/2 c Arborio rice
2 15-oz cans vegetable stock
2 garlic cloves, very finely minced
about 1 1/2 c fresh vegetable of your choice (i used mushrooms and green and yellow peppers)
grated fresh Parmesan cheese for topping

-preheat the oven to 375
-combine the rice with the stock, 1 c water, and the garlic in a 2 qt casserole.
-cover and bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes
-at the third stirring, stir in 1 c water
-when done, the rice should have a tender and creamy texture
-stir in the vegetables, and let the risotto stand for 5 minutes before serving. pass around the parmesan cheese for topping.

suzy's first cheesecake

because i only had five recipes planned for this weekend's cooking session

-green bean casserole (yep, he asked for a repeat),
-crab cakes (as per previously discussed obsession),
-mushroom soup (see above),
-spaghetti carbonara (which i haven't made yet, but which you will certainly hear about), and
-browned mashed potatoes (see above)

i decided that it was time to try my hand at a dessert. ever since receiving my copy of Garlic and Sapphires, i've been dying to try her recipe for cheesecake:

New York Cheesecake

1 1/2 c graham cracker crumbs (about 6 oz)
1 c sugar
1/2 c melted unsalted butter
1 1/2 lbs cream cheese at room temperature
4 eggs
3 tsp vanilla
Grated zest of one lemon
2 c sour cream

-preheat oven to 350
-mix graham crackers with 1/4 c sugar and the melted butter and press into bottom and sides of a 9-inch ungreased springform pan. chill while preparing filling
-beat cream cheese, 1/2 c sugar, eggs, 2 tsp vanilla and lemon zest until smooth
-pour into chilled crust and bake 50 min to an hour, or until the cheese is set and starting to turn golden in spots
-remove from oven (leave oven on) and cool for about 15 min on wire rack
-stir together sour cream, remaining 1/4 c sugar, remaining tsp vanill and spread over cooled cake. return to oven for 12 min until glossy and set
-cool completely, cover, and chill at least 8 hours

now, for starters and as usual, i didn't end up following this line for line. i don't have a springform pan, of course, nor can i afford one. so i bought a 9" graham cracker "ready-crust" from the supermarket, and skipped the whole crust making part.

apparently, a 9" ready-crust is not nearly as deep as a 9" springform pan, because i had twice too much filling. god only knows what i am going to do with the extra -- probably attempt to bake it in a loaf-pan and claim it is custard. that's what i normally do with extra pie-filling anyway...

so that was the first glitch.

glitch number two came with the topping. so my pie was already to the top of the crust. no room for sour cream topping at all. so i have those ingredients still hanging around. maybe i will put them on top of the "custard"?

glitch number three wasn't so much a glitch as impatience on my part. i now entirely understand that last instruction -- "cool, cover, and chill for at least 8 hours". warm cheesecake is... well, weird. there's no other way to describe it. i got impatient and took a tiny slice, and it was the strangest tasting thing with the most bizarre texture i have ever eaten.

actually that was glitch number four. glitch number three was (as you can see above) life intervening and calling me away from my oven when there was still 30 min left on the timer. now, i have an oven that automatically turns itself off after bake time, but that doesn't mean it's not still hot in there. so when i returned from my unexpected 40 minute diversion, i found that, well, it had got past that whole "turning golden in spots" part.

ah well. i had a teensy tiny sliver this morning, and it tasted fabulous! it's not too sweet, which is my usual criticism of cheesecake, and the texture now that it's cold is, well, cheese-cakey.

and that, my friends, is the story of suzy's first cheesecake.

suzy and the paella

wikipedia has this to say about paella:

Paella is usually garnished with vegetables and meat or seafood. The three main ingredients are rice, saffron, and olive oil.

and also this:

Paella is generally cooked in a paella pot, which is a large, shallow, flat pan. First the meat, and then the vegetables are stir fried in olive oil and the rice is added so as to be suffused in the oil. Boiling stock is then added to the paella pan, and reduced by boiling. Once the rice is nearly done, the paella is removed from the heat and left to absorb the remaining water. The paella is ready to be served after having cooled for several minutes.

all of which lead me to believe that betty crocker knows nothing about paella, since artichoke and kidney bean paella has pretty much nothing to do with anything mentioned above.

maybe someone wanted to write a recipe involving artichokes, kidney beans, and rice, and they got a little creative with the name. maybe it originally started out as a paella recipe, and through successive editing got turned into a "rice with stuff" recipe. but as far as i can tell, it fails entirely to have anything to do with paella.

it's not that the recipe is hard. in fact, it's pretty easy. the only adventure i had was that i don't have any turmeric, and didn't feel like buying any, so i ended up using celery salt to give it some kick (also, they tell you to use two drops of hot sauce. i used two tablespoons, and it's still not that hot, so i don't know what kind of hot sauce betty crocker uses but i sure ain't buying it).

but when all is said and done, and it gets transferred from the pan to the tupperware, it's just rice with stuff. rice with tasty stuff, but still.

i guess it just goes to show that betty crocker is good for the basics, but she don't know paella from a panful of rice.

suzy invents an omelet

the mysteries of the omelet have always eluded me. luckily, the one area of cooking my husband excels at is breakfast. i have never met (or eaten with) anyone with more aptitude for inventing tasty breakfasts than him. so normally, it doesn't matter; he makes me breakfast, i make everything else. it's a fine arrangement, especially since early in the morning, i'm not capable of much.

however, now that his work schedule has changed, there are certain days i'm left to fend for myself. i tried forlornly wandering around the kitchen, glaring at things, but that just left me hungry and eye-sore. and there is only so much you can do with toast before getting heartily sick of it, no matter what is spread on top.

but wait! epicurious -- which i normally find a little too pretentious and the recipes too full of expensive and frightening ingredients -- has apparently wised up to the fact that their readers are not all ruth reichl and mimi sheraton. along with the redesign of their page (which came hand in hand with redesigns of bettycrocker.com and allrecipes.com; is there some sort of cooking webpage schedule? or maybe a secret network of informers? or some all-powerful web designer, who dictates these things?) they have posted how-to videos, apparently entirely for my benefit.

and so, last week in my despair, i thought, "well suzy, you watched that how-to video on making an omelet. maybe you should try it out!"

only this thought came right on the heels of a weekend vacation, leading to a week in which i had done no shopping and we had very little food in the house. so i ransacked the fridge and pantry and came up with ... parmesan and nutmeg.

parmesan and nutmeg?

yep, parmesan and nutmeg.

i figured, hey, if it turns out to be inedible, i can always make toast. bread is something we always have on hand (though, i should mention that my husband has an unfortunate taste for white breads; at least he's happy with potato bread. i, on the other hand, much prefer rye and wheat).

so there went nothing, but voila! not only was it edible, but i have made it consistently since and enjoyed it every single time. there's something about the combination of parmesan and nutmeg that is so decadent -- rich, oily, and so satisfying during the cold.

so! watch the video "how to make an omelet", throw some eggs in a pan, top with grated parmesan and ground nutmeg, and enjoy!

suzy feels reasonably successful

the best part is, i forgot to mention one other recipe that i was planning on making as well -- a "vegetable paella" recipe from bettycrocker.com. but let's begin at the beginning, shall we?

purple mashed potatoes

my friend wasn't kidding when she said these were purple. neither was the guy at whole foods (i couldn't find them at my grocery store or at wild oats, otherwise i wouldn't have gone to what my friends and i affectionately refer to as "whole paycheck") when he told me they were deep purple. the photo really doesn't do them justice.

these are potatoes that are purple. naturally purple! sadly, wikipedia has nothing useful to say on the topic. but take my word for it. if you thought purple ketchup was fun, you will love these things. they are purple peruvian potatoes (i found them fingerling style, but i imagine normal looking ones are out there as well).

the mashed potatoes are excellent! i'm not sure if it's the potato or the fact that i started using half and half, but they have the smokiest taste, and the skins are a great crunch factor.

the crunch factor is very important, by the way. i'm thinking of going back to school just so i can write a thesis on the two texture factors i have just identified this week: the crunch, and the pop. you will all be the first to read it, i promise you.

next up? ah yes, marinated chicken with vegetables. this was not exactly a recipe; more of a throwback to how i first started cooking. my very first recipes in married life were of the chicken-in-the-crockpot variety. you can't really mess that up, can you? this time, it was actually the tastiest i think i've ever done. i call it crock o' havana:

1 pkg boneless skinless chicken breast filets
1 bottle Lawry's Havana Garlic marinade
1/2 pkg mushrooms, sliced
1/2 jar silver/pearl onions

-Layer marinade, filets, and onions in the crockpot, reserving some marinade for the mushrooms
-Plug in crockpot, let sit for 5ish hours
-Immediately before serving, saute mushrooms in marinade and spoon over filets on the plate
-Serve with purple peruvian mashed potatoes

the only thing i wish were different is how salty Lawry's marinades are. if only i could figure out how to make them minus the intense sodium... something for a rainy day?

crab cakes italiano have already been documented extensively. my only addition to that topic is, use actual breadcrumbs (i used Progresso) instead of smushed-up croutons. the patties stay together much better.

same goes for ruth's mushroom soup. make this recipe NOW! it is the perfect fall recipe. warm, soothing, comforting, infinitely tasty... but hey, you already know i'm obsessed with it.

green bean casserole? what, that thing that comes out of the microwave thanksgiving day because you're pressed for time? yeah, that.

it turns out that, the way that i am obsessed with mushroom soup, my husband is obsessed with green bean casserole -- only he's been that way apparently since childhood. i should have remembered the casserole incident last thanksgiving: this is one of my aunt's pride-and-joy dishes. she's wonderful in so many ways, just not gourmet. she is also consistently mocked for her pride in this recipe. last thanksgiving, there was quite a lot left over, and my husband begged to take it home with us. ah, the tears of joy....

in any case, i thought this one would be a snap. little did i know that the fresh green beans at the supermarket would be, ahem, less than fresh (read: covered with white slime). also, i don't feel like the small can of soup plus milk cut it--they seem a little low in sauce to me. in any case, he's eaten it all already, so i guess his obsession is not exactly picky. i think i found the recipe on allrecipes.com, but i wouldn't swear to it. in any case, my only advice is don't EVER used canned green beans. that is just wrong.

stay tuned for: suzy wonders about paella!

suzy gets ambitious

the proposed menu (proposed by myself, i should specify) for making over the weekend (since i don't have much time to cook during the week):

-purple mashed potatoes - no food coloring involved
-marinated chicken breasts with accompanying vegetable
-crab cakes italiano - my husband demands them on a regular basis now
-ruth's mushroom soup - i demand this on a regular basis now
-green bean casserole - a favorite from my husband's childhood
-rosemary potatoes - a mutual favorite

and, due to time restraints, these will all have to be cooked saturday afternoon or sometime on sunday.

am i insane? probably! but the thing that makes me feel like this is at all doable in the first place is

a) i am already familiar with four out of the six recipes
b) two require almost no prep and another almost no cook time
c) almost (note: almost) all of the recipes i've made recently have turned out well

so! stay tuned for updates. will suzy sink under the weight of her own ambition? will her tiny convection/microwave oven refuse to work past recipe number three? will her two pans stand up to the task of being used in almost every recipe?

suzy falls in love

i dreamed about mushrooms last night.

soft, white, pillowy button mushrooms replaced my pillow and then dared me to eat them. big meaty portabellas wafted through the air, borne on their own aroma. shiitake mushrooms danced in the corner, bowed and then scurried off. varietals that i must have made up, because those are the only types of mushrooms i can identify, whirled round me in the finest display of fungal acrobatics ever seen in dreamland.

i blame ruth reichl.

ever since reading Comfort Me with Apples, i have become obsessed with her recipe for mushroom soup (which i promise to post later, right now i don't have access to the book). i have made it twice. the first time i discovered that i was hesitant to follow it to the letter--that much half and half is more likely to prevent me from enoying something than enriching the experience for me. so i put a little more broth in, much less half and half, and stirred with a worried frown. i did not let it boil, and followed all of her instructions to the letter.

except for the one about not putting the mushrooms in until the foam from the butter has dispersed. how long does that take? what heat does that take? i almost burned the butter before i gave up on that step.

it didn't matter. it was amazing.

the second time i made it, i followed my little alterations. but then, to my shame, i let it boil. just a little, and just very briefly, and my defense is that i was finishing the book at the same time, but still.

it didn't matter. it is amazing.

i have never dreamed of food before, much less gone to bed smelling it (hours after i had last touched the stuff), woken up craving it, and thinking about it in between.

this food is, for me, what i imagine crack is for other people.

i am in love...

suzy gets a self-esteem boost

so i've been completely taken over by the need to read food writing -- calvin trillin, ruth reichl, ed levine... that is, i would read some ed levine if only the library had it. i am severely handicapped, in fact, by the library system. so far i've managed to unearth Garlic and Sapphires, Comfort Me with Apples, Feeding a Yen, and The Tummy Trilogy, but that seems to have exhausted the possibilities.

of course, part of the problem is that i have no idea who to look up in the catalog. i love my library, it has been very good to me. i just don't know where to look (or at least, that is what i will assume until further notice).

hopefully some diligent online research will tell me who else i should read. it will be hard to find someone to match the insights of reichl and the down-to-earth humor of trillin, but it can't hurt to try.

but i digress. last night, as we sipped our (cheap but tasty) wine and watched Leaving Las Vegas (cinematography: excellent; direction: pretty good; acting: great except for elizabeth shue), my husband turned to me and said:

you know, if someone had told me that getting married would mean eating at a four star restaurant every night, i would have done it a lot sooner. i hope you know how much i love your cooking--i feel like maybe i don't express that.

i am, quite possibly, the happiest woman alive. despite the stomach virus and interminable mediocre dishes of cous cous, i am appreciated and making some progress with my cookery.

the recipes that provoked this outpouring of support? tune in next time...

suzy wastes food

i have a confession to make. i was brought up just like everyone else, told to eat my peas because there were starving children in china, taking leftovers to school for lunch in empty "i can't believe it's not butter" containers, and never knowing what an in-sink garbage disposal was for.

but sometimes, all that training just doesn't cut it. the stomach virus has come and gone, and left me with extra food-money (when you eat nothing but bread and cashews for two weeks, you can really see it in the budget) and three containers of cous cous.

the first container is half-full of pesto, squash, and zucchini cous cous adapted from bettycrocker.com. i made it right before the stomach virus struck, and it is wonderful. it's rich, it's fragrant, it's tasty, it's insanely easy to make... and it's totally incompatible with stomach viruses. so now, two and a half weeks later, i can't bring myself to believe that it's still good.

the second container holds the remains of my invention, stomach-virus friendly cous cous. i ate it for breakfast and lunch for a week, and managed not to fall fully prey to the virus. but now... i look at it and then i look away.

the third container is the most dismal, because it contains a classic example of what kept me from cooking for so long--one of my inventions that is, well, not very good. we were tired of the ginger mint dish, but still not ready for heavy foods again. so, flushed with the success of the ginger mint recipe, i threw together tomatoes (and not very good ones either), apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, and cous cous. the result is, well, vinegar-ee. surprised? me neither. like most of my failed inventions, it's not inedible; it just doesn't taste very good.

it reminds me very strongly of the summer during college that i spent working and living alone in los angeles. in my sublet studio apartment i did nothing but read everything i could get my hands on and cook from the Vegetarian 5 Ingredient Gourmet. i don't blame the cookbook at all. i don't know what happened. but every recipe i made turned out wrong. they were all edible, and i ate them, but i didn't enjoy it much. that summer is the reason that it took three years for me to open a cookbook.

so here i am, surrounded by unwanted food. my husband and i are tired of cous cous, no matter how gentle it is on our stomachs. what do i do?

i say, to hell with it and the ghost of summers past!, and throw it all away. it's a grand gesture, one that carries a bit of guilt but a lot of freedom. and despite the guilt, i feel like i'm throwing away more than just mediocre food--i'm also letting go of childhood frustration, college culinary failure, and the last remnants of the evil virus.

so long, cous cous. i'm sure we'll meet again.

suzy and the crab

did you ever wonder what, exactly, imitation crab is made of? i like to think that this little guy, weird-looking as he is (or she? i have yet to learn the fine art of crustacean gender identification), is happy that i use it, instead of real crab. but then again, it's mostly because i can't afford to buy a pound of actual crab. so look out, buddy--just wait till i get my raise.

wikipedia has this to say about imitation crab: " a type of processed sea food made of surimi, or finely pulverized white fish flesh, that has been shaped and cured to vaguely resemble snow crab legs... The primary ingredient in most crab stick is Alaska pollock from the North Pacific."

so pollock it was. why, you may be asking? do we care?

because, in what i consider one of my finest successes to date this week, i decided to try to make crab cakes. imitation crab cakes. vaguely cake-like congolmerations of imitation crab. you know what i mean.

what possessed me to do this? oh, the dangers of having betty crocker's recipe of the day! there it was, on my google home page, just one click away: Crab Cakes Italiano. mind you, most bettycrocker.com recipes are called things like "Impossibly Easy Spinach Pie", and involve Bisquick. so you can perhaps understand my impulse, given that a five year old with a measuring cup could make most of their recipes. which is why i have an account on the site in the first place.

but crab cakes? impossibly easy crab cakes? and what makes them italiano, anyway? is there such a thing as an italian crab? did the recipe involve bisquick? so many questions... how could i pass that up?

i did not! but, friends, it was not that simple. the ingredients themselves were easy enough to get, and the recipe is very short and simple. that is, until you get to the part about the crab.

1lb fresh lump crabmeat, cleaned and rinsed, or imitation crabmeat, shredded, it demands. shredded? i looked at my imitation crab. it was arranged in cute little rolls, pink on the outside and white on the inside. shredded? i actually (believe it or not) picked one up, unrolled it by hand, and picked it apart. that, i decided, would take hours.

is there such a thing as an imitation crabmeat shredder? if so, please send one post haste. i have never been so stumped in my life. i ended up mashing it about with a fork until it looked less roll-like and more... piece-like is really the only way to describe it.

which, i think, is what led to difficulties later on. i have never in my life had such a weird experience attempting to turn something into a cohesive patty. did i not use enough breadcrumbs (for breadcrumbs, read smushed up croutons)? too little mayonnaise? too much pesto? god only knows, but it was a miracle that they even looked as crappy as this:


and so, aspiring crab-cake makers, take it from me. no matter what it takes, shred that crab. the agonies of getting these into the pan to fry were ... well, agonizing!

the fact that they stayed (mostly) together at all was, i believe, divine intervention. thank you, oh patron saint of bad cooks who try advanced recipes without the proper equipment. thank you thank you thank you.

but, believe it or not, these were an intense success! they were tasty--much chewier than real crab, but i guess that's the imitation part--my husband ate two and had to be forcibly restrained from eating more, and considers it my finest creation to date. which may not be saying a lot, but feels good nonetheless.

so the moral of the story? crab cakes are yummy, imitation crab cakes are yummy too, but god help you if the crab, imitation or otherwise, is not shredded.

suzy meets the kitchen

it's the first thing you discover when you realize that you can either

a) eat ramen and frozen food for the rest of your life,
b) go out to eat every single night and be poor, or
c) start cooking.

you go into that kitchen, and you look around, and you realize that you have no idea what you need, and even less idea of what you have.

so, if you're like me, you start by picking recipes at random and substituting one kitchen implement for another when you run into a problem. for an example: i have been seriously attempting to cook for close to seven months now, and i still don't have a grater. i chop all things that need grating--cheese, garlic, whatever. it gets chopped.

on the plus side, i did buy myself a set of three nice knives. those, i've found, make all the difference.

so what is this cook-in-training's arsenal?

i have

• a largish non-stick pot (how sad, i don't even know how many quarts it holds)
• a smallish once non-stick pan
• a giant baking pan (think your grandmother's lasagna)
• a small brownie pan

and that's pretty much it, aside from some utensils like measuring cups (of which somehow i only have a full cup and a half cup), measuring spoons, a potato peeler, and a cutting board.

and yet, if there's one thing i've learned, it's that with a lot of patience and a big sense of humor, you can make just about anything with just about nothing.