South Beach Pizza
We eat a lot of pizza in this house; at least once a week I throw the dough together in the KitchenAid and let it rise for 24 hours in the refrigerator before I turn out a couple of personal pizzas for the guys. Of course personal-sized pizza for a teenage boy is about the size of a cookie sheet.
But here’s the thing, Dave and I can’t eat pizza every week…or rather we could but at some point we have to stop. Stop the crepes, the pancakes, cookies, muffins, cupcakes, pound cakes, pies, custards, etc…etc! It’s all because we’ve reached the fatty-bo-batty stage where our favorite jeans are too tight for comfort…and honestly comfort trumps carb-rich meals any day. It’s at that point that we return to phase one of the South Beach Diet. I say this grudgingly but in total acceptance of my fate…I must do it now before fruit season starts because once the berries and apples are in season there is no way I’m giving up their juicy goodness.
For those blessed enough to not have to know what South Beach phase one is I’ll give you the brief overview…you can eat any protein, green vegetables are your friends, dairy is okay. Fruits, potatoes, bread, and any sort of simple carb is off limits. That’s not so bad is it? No sugar, no flour, no potatoes, no fruit for at least two weeks. Oh, no wine…that’s the kicker!
On pizza night I made pizza for Dave and I with a chicken breast crust. We had to eat it with with a fork but the flavor was excellent and it was an almost pizza.
South Beach Pizza for 2
printer-friendly recipe
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup grated low fat mozzarella
1 Italian sausage
8 mushrooms, sliced medium thin
1/2 medium white onion, sliced thin
Pizza sauce
Preheat oven to 425°.
With a sharp knife butterfly the chicken breast at it’s thickest part in order to make it all the same thickness. Place the chicken between saran wrap and flatten it with a mallet or something similar. Repeat this procedure with the other breast.
Remove the casing from the sausage and break it into small, bite-sized chunks.
Heat a heavy skillet on a high flame and add a dab of olive oil. Sal the breast and place it in the hot pan. Let it brown and then flip it. Remove it from the pan once both sides have browned. Repeat with the other breast.
In that same pan, with the heat on medium, brown the Italian sausage. Remove it from the pan and rest it on a paper towel.
Place both of the chicken breasts on a baking sheet. Spread pizza sauce on both and then add the cheese. Top next with the sausage, onions, and mushrooms.
Bake in the oven until the cheese and toppings are bubbly and golden brown.
Obviously anytime I do South Beach I turn to Kalyn’s Kitchen for advice, and inspiration.
Steak tartar - forbidden food
While we were in Paris we dined on steak tartar and we loved it. It’s a shame that one can’t order this simple pleasure in a restaurant here in the states; but alas our government feels compelled to protect us from food…cigarettes and other carcinogens, not so much… food, but of course! I’ll leave it at that because if I contemplate it any further and attempt to write another word about it I’ll end up on a ranting screed. I’m sure you can guess how I feel about this issue.
Since we cannot enjoy this elsewhere I made it for dinner the other night. The thing about steak tartar is that there are so many recipes and I guess you just have to pick one and go with it. Some listed ketchup or mayonnaise as an ingredient and others listed anchovies. This is the recipe I used and I wasn’t crazy about it. Next time I will do it as per the instructions of Richard Olney in his book The French Menu Cookbook :
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8 oz beef, sirloin or filet
Salt and pepper
Dash of worcestershire sauce
Remove fat, tendon, and sinew from the meat. Chop the meat finely with a sharp knife. I used my cuisinart and it chopped it too fine…it was mushy. Toss all this together in a large bowl. Divide it into 2 servings and mound it on each plate. Put an egg yolk in a well atop each mound. Around the edge of the plate arrange:
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Red onions, diced fine
Cornichons, diced fine
Capers, chopped fine
Parsley, chopped fine
About 1 tablespoon of each should be sufficient. Also make available oil and vinegar, hot sauce, catsup, and dijon mustard. So each plate can be adjusted to the diner’s preferences.
Avocado, cucumber salad
I hate to admit it but I can lose a lot of time reading food blogs and drooling at food porn on Tastespotting. I can easily rationalize it as time well spent keeping up with my fellow food bloggers. I get my best ideas from food blogs and the more I read, the more creative I get.
This salad is a riff on Kalyn’s shrimp and avocado salad. I’ve been hooked lately on these little persian cucumbers. They’re about 4 inches long and they’re seedless. Their flavor is very intensely cucumber and they’re dense and crisp…everything you want in a cucumber. I added them to the shrimp, green onions, and avocado chunks.
These baby mustard, beet, kale, and mizuna greens make a soft and tasty bed for the avocado, cucumber, shrimp mix.
For the dressing I threw a large handful of cilantro into the cuisinart, added an avocado, and a big splash of lime juice, and 1/2 teaspoon of chilpotle. I whirled that around and tasted it. Then I added some olive oil to smooth out the flavors.
Plated and garnished with pistachios and coconut shavings it was much prettier than I thought it would be. As I’m writing this up I’m thinking it sounds like a frankenstein salad. But it all worked well together. The cucumber’s crispness was a nice contrast to the shrimp. The slightly spicy baby greens were the perfect compliment to the cool smoothness of the avocado and the dressing was delicious. Almost like a guacamole, but not really.
