appreciate the calm

When life is calm, feel gratitude. Appreciate silence and appreciate sleep. Appreciate people walking slow if they are doing so to stay longer by your side. Appreciate being lost and the time it takes to find your way back.  Slow the heck down, busy self, is what I am trying to say. 

A couple of weeks ago, my mom’s friend Mary Anne Davis sent us an outdoor pizza oven as a house-warming gift and please let me tell you how phenomenal I find this lil’ item. I want to cook everything on it. Why stop at pizza?

Strawberry/Green apple Crostata

Dough:

1 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon kosher salt

1 ½ teaspoons granulated sugar

1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

½ cold water (pour ½ cup cold water into ice immediately prior to using)

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Pulse the flour, salt, and sugar together in a food processor. Add the butter pieces and pulse until rough chunks form.

Combine water and ice, and cider vinegar in a large mixing cup. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons at a time over the flour mixture and pulse until the dough comes together, adding more of the liquid as you go. Do not overmix the dough, so scrape together the remainder bits of dough with your hands at the end (be so careful of the blade, I say from experience).

Shape the dough into a flat disk and wrap tightly with saran wrap. Chill dough overnight (can be chilled up to 3 days).

Filling:

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 pound fresh strawberries, rinsed and quartered

1 small granny smith apple

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

2 dashes Angostura bitters

¼ cup packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon arrowroot

1 dash black pepper, freshly ground

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

Egg wash (whisk 1 tablespoon water with 1 egg)

Turbinado sugar for finishing

Sprinkle white sugar over strawberries, stir, and allow to macerate for about 30 minutes.

Peel the apple and grate on the large holes of a box grater. Drain strawberries of excess liquid and combine with grated apple. Sprinkly on the balsamic vinegar and bitters and allow to sit for 10 more minutes.

In a small bowl, mix brown sugar, arrowroot, black pepper, and salt. Gently fold the sugar mixture into the strawberry mixture.

When dough is properly chilled, roll out into a rough circle, about 1/8^th inch thick. Pour strawberry mixture into the center of the dough and gently fold edges around the mixture.

Brush all exposed edges of dough with egg wash and sprinkle with turbinado sugar.

Okay, here we diverge. If you are using my pizza oven: preheat oven to 700 degrees. Cook for 4 minutes then rotate 180 degrees and cook 4 more minutes. Remove, allow to cool, and serve with Bluebell. Be a rockstar.

If you are using a convention oven (which would also be fabulous), preheat to 400. Place crostata on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cook for 15-20 minutes, then rotate and cook for another 10-1 minutes (watch for crust to brown). Again, serve with vanilla bluebell, because why would you not?

exhaustion and the time off it sanctifies

Oh hey you guys, its me, the absentee lover of food, now owned by real job!

The sleeves on my white coat may be touch short, but I just roll them up and look really prepared (like a good startled intern should look). And maybe I still jump a little every time my pager goes off, but I am secretly so satisfied when I call the number back and complete the task asked of me. Anyway, I am still here, alert and oriented x 3.

My surgical residency started last week and despite the constant busyness from about 6 am to 6 pm, I am having so much fun! I feel some sense of purpose in scurrying quickly around the hospital, up and down the stairwells, from patient room to patient room, in and out of ORs. I am actually on the rumored “easy” rotation (plastics) and could not be more thankful for the smooth transition from fourth year (absolute freedom) into first year of residency (indentured servitude).

Actually, I think this surgery lifestyle currently serves me well, or at least solidifies my priorities veeeerrrrrry concretely. I know I portray an active presence in the kitchen on this blog, but truthfully, the invested foodie lifestyle ends there…in the kitchen. Rarely do I sit still long enough to enjoy a meal I have creatively expended myself on at the table with my husBen. This is a very important place, people, and I do believe in it. But only in my most tired moments can I sit still and hear my own fork hit the ceramic plate and clink a glass with the person I love most…. usually, I just feel too busy. Now I am physically exhausted after a day at the hospital and truly covet that space. So, pull me up a chair and lets re-invest in dinner, whatever time it finally hits the table.

I had last Sunday off (we are required 1 in 7 days off, at a maximum of “80 hours a week”) and all day I felt inspired by the idea of donuts (maybe the appreciation of having time to allow dough to rise). I wanted something savory so I could still call it dinner, but I absolutely could not fathom going to the store….so this happened….

Thyme and Fontina donuts

¾ cup whole milk

1 ¼ ounces Crisco

1 package instant yeast

3 tablespoons warm water

1 egg, beaten

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 ¼ cups bread flour

1 ¼ cups all purpose flour

3 tablespoons fresh chopped thyme

3/4 cup grated fontina cheese

Crisco and bacon grease (life hack: you should save this always) to fry

Just a touch of powdered sugar, to serve

In a large glass measuring cup, heat up your milk for about 1 minute. Add Crisco to milk and stir to melt. Set aside to cool.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add yeast, warm water and 1 tablespoon of sugar and stir just to combine. Allow to sit for 10 minutes (should be frothy if it worked). Once milk/Crisco mixture is cooled, pour into yeast mixture and briefly stir until combined (with paddle attachment, about 30 seconds on medium). Add in beaten egg, remainder 1 tablespoon of sugar, salt and half of the flour. Beat until well combined. Add in the remainder of the flour and beat at low speed (preferably with a dough hook at this point) until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a bowl greased with olive oil and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled (takes about 1 hour).

When dough has risen, dump it out onto a flat surface dusted with flour. Flatten (gently!) with the palm of your hands into a square about 8 inches by 8 inches. Distribute half of your thyme and fontina cheese over the square then press cheese and herbs into the dough with your palms. Fold dough in half and repeat (dump the remaining cheese and herbs and press into dough with your palms). Flatten the dough (again, gently!) to ½ inch thickness and allow to rest again for 30 min to 1 hour.

Using a cookie press (or a wine glass and a screw top to a vinegar bottle like I did), cut the dough into donuts. Heat up your Crisco and bacon grease (in about a 1:4 ratio) to medium heat. Add in dough (but do not let pieces touch/crowd the pot) and cook on each side for about 1-2 minutes (you should watch for the dough to turn golden brown before you flip it over in the grease). Remove to paper towel lined plate.

Dust with powdered sugar (shake through your sifter) to serve. Seriously, damn good.