Pesto, mozzarella, and cherry tomato pizzas

The time had come to cut back the basil. In the last few weeks, it shot up from the dirt like a shiny green rocket. To avoid blooming (which spoils the flavor of basil), I cut it back hard and ended up with a whole lot of basil on my hands. I made pesto. 

I also had some nice, sweet little cherry tomatoes from the farmers market, and I needed to make something I could pack for a picnic. I thought about trying to make a tomato tart, but I didn't have a lot of time (and honestly, I have yet to make a pie, so I didn't want to mess up dinner the first time trying it). So I made pizzas. Pesto, mozzarella, and cherry tomato pizzas. And yep, they were as good as they sound. Just sweet tomatoes, cheesy goodness, and a nice crisp crust with a smear of pesto.

Ingredients
FOR THE PIZZA DOUGH*

• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
• 2 tsps (or 1 envelope) dry yeast 
• 1/2 cup semolina flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 1/2 to 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsps salt
• 2 Tbsps olive oil

FOR THE TOPPINGS

• 1 cup pesto (approximately)
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes, sliced
• 1 lb ball of mozzarella, sliced thinly
• grated Parmigiano Reggiano

Directions

1. Mix 1/2 cup of the water with the yeast. Let it stand about 10 minutes. (The yeast should be somewhat foamy. 
2. Add the rest of the water, the olive oil, the salt, and the flour and mix until the flour is completely incorporated and the dough is slightly sticky. You may need to do this with your hands.
3. Oil a bowl, place the dough in the bowl. Roll it over a few times so that it's thinly coated with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise for 45-60 minutes. 
4. Divide the dough into four equal parts and roll them into balls. Let them rise under plastic for another 30 minutes. 
5. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees (Fahrenheit).
6. Flatten the dough balls into thin disks (or if you are using baking sheets, rectangles). Try to make the dough as thin as possible without tearing it. Let the disks or rectangles rest another 15 minutes. 
7. When it's time to bake the pizzas, spread pesto all over them (as close to the edge as possible).
8. Distribute the mozzarella slices among the pizzas.
9. Spread the tomatoes on top of the pizzas. Grate Parmigiano Reggiano over the top of the pizzas. 
10. Bake them in the oven for 15 minutes. Serve and eat. They can also be eaten when they are lukewarm.    

* Adapted from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.   

A winter walk and a bowl of cream of tomato soup

Winter without snow: A hard season to love and find beauty in. You have to look. You have to want to find it. So you set out for a walk with your eyes open, looking, defining the aesthetic pleasures of the barren season: the unexpected flashes of intense color, welcome among the dominant themes of browns and gray; the delicate, watered silk of a cold sky; the intricate texture and structure of bare trees and underbrush; a leaf suspended in ice.  

And after you return from your cold walk with frozen cheeks and runny nose and a deep, quiet satisfaction, it's time to indulge in another pleasure of the season: a nice warm soup, rich and creamy, a mellowed dream of summer flavors. Maybe served up with a perfect grilled cheese--all crispy golden edges and soft, gooey center?

The trick to making a smooth, satisfying bowl of cream of tomato soup is that you don't use cream. If you did, you would end up with a nasty curdled mess because of all the acid in the tomatoes. Instead, you make a bechamel sauce--a basic sauce of milk, butter, and flour--and add it to your tomato base. Bechamel sauce is used as a base for many other sauces, including Mornay sauce (a tasty cheese sauce), so it's a good basic to know.

Part 1: The Tomato Base

What you'll need:

• 1 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes (obviously home-canned would be preferable, but I am not always that efficient at the end of summer, so organic will do)
• 1 yellow onion, chopped finely
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon dried herbs of choice (basil, thyme, oregano are all good; rosemary and sage are probably too strong for this soup)

Here's what to do with the ingredients:

1. Add olive oil to your favorite soup pot and heat it over medium heat. Add the onions, let them sweat for about 10 minutes. Stir from time to time. They should be soft, shiny, sort of translucent around the edges, but not brown. 
2. Add tomatoes (if you are using whole tomatoes, go ahead and buzz them up in a blender or food processor first), garlic, and herbs. Let this mix simmer gently for about 15 minutes. 

Part 2: The Bechamel Sauce

Bechamel sauce is basically a white sauce made with milk, butter, and flour. The ratio for these three ingredients is always the same (1 cup milk to 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons flour), so you can make as much or as little as you like. For this soup, I usually like to add 2 cups of bechamel sauce.

What you'll need:

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons flour
• 2 cups of milk (traditionally you are supposed to scald the milk, but I usually skip this step)
• 1 small white onion, studded with cloves (this is traditional, but I sometimes just add a few peeled and bruised garlic cloves instead)
• 1 bay leaf
• 4-5 black peppercorns

And here's what to do:

1. Melt the butter in a pot.
2. Stir the flour into the melted butter, let it get a little golden (about five minutes over medium-low heat).
3. Whisk in the milk a little at a time (using the whisk minimizes lumps).
4. Add the onion (or garlic cloves), bay leaf, and peppercorns.
5. Let the sauce thicken and simmer for 10-15 minutes (if it starts to feel too thick, you can always add a little more milk).

Finally, to complete the soup:

Strain the bechamel sauce into the soup base and mix it together. Using a stick blender (if you have one; these are enormously handy tools, so I would recommend getting one), buzz the soup until it is smooth. (If you don't have a stick blender, you can blend it in a blender or a food processor, just bring it back to the pot and back up to temperature before you serve it.) Add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

Holy basil, Batman! What can you do with this herb?

This Friday, September 23, marks the autumn equinox and thus the end of summer, which means a whole new season of foods and feelings. Fall is my favorite time of year, with its cooler temperatures, gorgeous colors, and bounty of squashes, apples, sweet potatoes--nice roasty-toasty foods that like a long simmer in flavorful stock or slow roasting in the oven.

But I am not going to talk about that--not yet anyway. No, this is a last hurrah for a summer herb: basil. I am sure people use basil all times of year, but for me, it evokes summer. Its spicy intensity plays especially well with fresh, juicy fruits with a lot of acid: tomatoes, peaches, plums. It's also lovely with watermelon. (Here's a great salad: halved cherry tomatoes, cubed watermelon, torn basil with a dash of salt and a splash of vinegar.) For a truly exquisite drink, make lemonade and add some smashed strawberries and slivered basil. You will be amazed that something as simple and delicious as lemonade could reach such heights.

The most common form of basil in cooking (at least here in the West) is a variety called Genovese basil (that's the one with the big, shiny leaves you often find in pots in grocery stores). In Latin, this type of basil is called Ocimum basilicum--a name that suggests the herb's history. Supposedly basil was found growing near the tomb of Christ, so the herb was frequently used in Orthodox churches (or basilicas) (1). Other sources indicate that basil was once regarded with fear and associated with the basilisk--a nasty reptilian monster that could kill with a glance or a breath (2). The herb is native to Africa, Asia, and India and features frequently in foods from those parts of the world.

Basil is part of the mint family (or Lamiacaes), which are easy to tell because they typically have square stems. Different varieties of basil have various culinary and medicinal uses. Opal basil has dark purple leaves, lavender flowers, and a strong scent of cloves; it's a beautiful plant in the garden. Thai basil, a variety with purple stems and flowers, is sweeter than Genovese and is often used in (surprise!) Thai cooking. I don't use opal or Thai basil too much because they are just a bit too strong for my taste, but I suspect that you could do some very interesting things with them in baking or making ice cream, especially in anything you would create with cinnamon, cloves, anise, or other spices of that nature. Medicinally, basil has been used to soothe upset stomachs (in a tea) and to calm anxiety and aid sleeping. I won't vouch for its effectiveness, but it isn't harmful. (3)

I have grown about 10 varieties of basil, including opal, Thai, lemon, lime, holy, and so forth, but these days I mostly stick to Genovese. Here is the basil I harvested last week:

Yes, I got a pretty good harvest of the stuff and kept it in fairly good condition, despite the brutally hot summer topped with a week of some of the heaviest rains we've seen around here (some of my favorite roads are still impassible because flooding washed parts of them away). I grew it from seed, which is pretty easy to do. The main things to remember when caring for basil plants are that they grow best in warm soil, they don't like to dry out completely (but they don't like to have wet feet either, so good drainage is important), and they like lots of sun. Also, to make sure that you get the best flavor, always pinch off the tops, especially if you see any signs of flowers. Flowering signals the death of an annual plant like basil; its flavor changes in rather unpleasant ways.

Basil is best fresh, but if you want to preserve some for winter days when you long for a memory of summer, your best bet is to freeze it. Dried basil is inferior in flavor, because those lovely volatile oils escape with the moisture as it dries. For best results, blend basil leaves (washed and dried) with a good olive oil and freeze the mixture in ice trays so that you can use a cube as you need it.

You can also make a flavored vinegar by pouring warm vinegar over basil leaves and letting it steep for a day or two. Make sure to strain the basil out though, because otherwise it gets slimy (ick) and becomes a potential breeding ground for bacteria (ickier).

Or, you can try growing basil in a pot in a sunny window. It won't grow as fast as it will outside in summer, but you may have enough to add a few leaves to your food now and then. Same rules apply inside as outside: sun, good drainage, moist soil, warmth, pinch off the flowers.    

And of course, there's always pesto, which freezes well and is easy-peasy to make in a food processor or blender. You'll need

• 2 cups washed and dried basil leaves
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (4)
• 1/4 cup pine nuts (feel free to substitute walnuts or hazelnuts)
• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• salt
• fresh ground pepper

Put the garlic, cheese, and nuts in your food processor and blend until you get an even, crumbly mass. Then add the basil leaves and blend to a paste. 

Add olive oil to the paste in a steady stream.

Scrape down the sides and blend again.

Add some salt (about a quarter teaspoon) and some fresh pepper. Blend again. Hey presto, you've got pesto! (Did I really just say that?)

So what can you do with it? Well, there's the obvious one: Add it to fresh cooked pasta for a simple meal. You can also use it on bread as a sandwich spread (let's see, what do you think of a sandwich spread with some pesto and slices of chicken and tomatoes?), or mix it into some mayo. Use it to flavor soups and stews. Ooh, I know, drop a spoonful onto a bowl of fresh, homemade cream of tomato soup. Coat some chicken with it and bake it. Add a dollop to a mess of biscuits, that might be good. Use it instead of tomato sauce on a pizza. In other words, do whatever sounds good.   

(1) Bremness, Lesley. 1988. The Complete Book of Herbs: A Practical Guide to Growing and Using Herbs. New York: Penguin Studio. 

(2) Kowalchik, Claire, and William H. Hylton, eds. 1987. Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press. 

(3) Ah, herbal medicine. It's a complicated topic. On the one side, you have airy-fairy "practices" like homeopathy using magical, mystical mumbo jumbo principles of "like curing like" (hm, where have I heard of that before, oh yeah, alchemy; I don't think we have a method for creating gold from lead yet or did I miss a front page?). On the other end, you have breast and lung cancer treatments that derive from varieties of yew trees (Taxus brevifolia and Taxus canadensis). Then there is a range between these extremes. One of the problems with using herbs is some of them really work, which means that they can be very toxic if you don't know how to use them properly. Most culinary herbs are not toxic (bay leaves being one exception), so the dangers of using herbs medicinally doesn't usually apply here, but I generally recommend against playing around with herbs as cures.   

(4) Parmigiano Reggiano is obviously not a local ingredient, but is one of those rare exceptions where you really can't substitute something else. The industrial powder that comes in a green can labeled parmesan is not the same species of creature, not the same family of creature--heck, not even the same kingdom! 

My garden has run amuck

I am exhausted today after staying up late last night writing something that was perhaps overly emotional and embarrassing, but, hey, there it is, I did it, let it stand. I can't undo what I've done.

So I am moving on. Being in a wildly dreamy, exhausted state of mind, I have been catching up with lots of reading, especially some of the blogs I follow. I have enjoyed beautiful pics, friendly cooking advice, interesting facts and tidbits about the state of the food industry. (I especially like the link to "endangered foods" that I found at Civil Eats.) (Most of the blogs I follow are in the blog roll; I definitely recommend checking them out.)

As I was reading them, one reason I like them so much came to me. The photos--beautiful, composed, and professional though they may be--don't feel like catalog photos. They don't make you long for things you don't have. Or, to be more precise, they don't make you long for things to buy. They often make me long for things I can create, but that's an altogether different kind of longing. And I like that.

Another thing I like is that they show glimpses of real lives, of real pockets of beauty nestled within the everyday. In an everyday I can find if I only try and look for it.

In the spirit of finding my own pockets of beauty, I took my camera out back to the garden I have woefully neglected for the last month. Sadly I let lots of tomatoes die on the vine, but there's still a little beauty left back there. At least I think so.

Here is the lemon I thought a rascal of a squirrel had stolen when I couldn't find it the other day. But here it is, still attached to my little lemon tree.

Signs of new life on the lemon tree. I am thankful. Especially because it lost most of its leaves over the winter.

False indigo floating in a puddle left after Irene.

Winslow, my fat grumpy cat. He thinks he's a tiger. I hate to break it to him...

The basil still looks good. Soon, I will harvest it and make a batch of pesto to freeze for later.

An out-of-control stalk of grass, almost ready to reseed itself.

A cluster of cherry tomatoes left from a wilderness of vines that reached more than seven feet high at one point, which are now a brown and ugly mess. I'll leave these in the hope that I can make something of them.

A sprig of ivy, taking over the fence.

The bird feeder Mike's uncle Melvin made for us, chewed by squirrels.

A lovely fern, growing by the compost box.

Some of our harvest bounty--still not sure what to do with it all...

I also decided to start some plum jam. I bought a whole mess of plums at the farmer's market on Saturday morning, before the rain from Irene began to roll in. Most of them are prune plums, but I am afraid I can't remember what the bigger ones are. I like the red etchings on some of them. Looks like a galaxy of stars trapped within a thin skin.

I love the contrast of the purple skin with blue bloom against the strange green of the flesh. I wonder what color the jam will be? Of course, I won't know until tomorrow, because I ran out of sugar. No matter, I will let the plums macerate with the sugar I have and then we will see. It may be beautiful. It may be weird. That's part of the fun.

Jam update: How I went wrong and a recipe for peach-plum jam

A while back I wrote about making blueberry jam with maple syrup and lemon zest, but I have learned much about jam-making since then and I must confess that I was wrong. The basic recipe is just fine, but it turns out my technique could use a lot of improvement.

Now, you ask me, "Tora, how did you find out you were wrong? What should we be doing differently?"

Well, about two weeks ago (I think it was two weeks ago), Mike, Sebastian, and I decided we would go to Borders and see if we could find anything good at the going-out-of-business sale. We don't usually pick over scraps of dying stores like vultures, but it's a book store. If there was a 10-step program for book addiction, we might be candidates for it.

As we looked around, Mike found a book that he thought I might like: The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook by Rachel Saunders. This charming, lovely book is probably all you will ever need to become a master jam/jelly/marmalade maker. It has gorgeous photos, lots of great information about techniques, and recipes that range from the utterly simply and sublime to the complex and sophisticated. And within about 10 minutes of sitting down to read, I discovered that I have been doing it wrong. So, let me explain my mistakes and pass on some of my new-found knowledge to you.

1. I've been using the wrong kind of pot. Ideally, you should use a copper pan that's 11 inches at the base, 15 inches at the rim, and 5 inches high with a 11- to 12-quart capacity. Now, copper pans are not currently in my budget, as dearly as I would love to have one. What I gleaned from this information is that I need a lot more surface area. So I broke out my stock pot, which is definitely deep enough and has a 10-inch diameter. Not perfect, but I've already gotten better results. (If anyone feels especially generous, a copper pan would be a much appreciated Christmas gift.)
2. I've been using the wrong application of heat. Instead of low and slow, I should be cooking this stuff hot and fast to keep as much of the fruit's flavor and texture intact. The correct way to do it is to heat the mixture of fruit and sugar slowly at first, just until it starts to bubble and release a lot of juice, and then crank up the heat to get it up to a pretty fierce boil. What you are trying to accomplish is a lot of evaporation (which explains why you need a lot of surface area in your pan). While it cooks, you need to keep stirring frequently, both to aid evaporation and to ensure that the jam doesn't stick to the bottom and burn. Note that this will be extremely messy.
3. My testing for doneness has a lot to be desired. Rachel Saunders suggests doing this instead: Place a saucer with five metal spoons in the freezer. When you are ready to test your jam for doneness, take your pot off the heat, transfer a small amount of jam to one of the frozen spoons and return it to the freezer for a minute or two. When the bottom of the spoon feels neither hot nor cold, inspect the sample in the spoon. It shouldn't run but sort of clump up in a jelly-like blob on the spoon. If it doesn't, discard test spoon 1 and put the pot back on the heat for another five minutes or so and test again. The cooking process for jam (there are differences for jelly and marmalade, so be aware of that) will take about 15-30 minutes tops. 
4. I like her method of preparing the jars for preservation, but I am still not completely sold on it. Usually, I would transfer jam to hot sterilized jars that I have boiled, place the lids on them, and boil them for another 15 minutes. She recommends sterilizing the washed jars in a 250-degree oven for at least 30 minutes, adding the jam, closing the jars, and placing them back in the oven for another 15 minutes. It's a lot easier method than boiling the jars, but so far, every batch I have made this way has had at least one jar that didn't seal. Of course, that means I get to try the jam right away, which is great, but it rankles a little bit. 
5. The last clear technique difference is her method of flavoring the jam with herbs. I like to wrap up my herbs in a piece of cheesecloth and let it boil in the jam, whereas she prefers to add sprigs and let them steep in the hot jam for a few minutes after cooking and then fish them out. I haven't made up my mind on this one yet. I tried her method, adding some basil to a recent batch of plum-peach jam after it had cooked, but although the basil was extraordinarily fragrant (from my garden!), I can't taste it in the jam at all. So I will probably experiment a bit more before making my decision one way or another. 

I've applied these modifications to three recent batches of jam—blackberry with lemon verbena, peach-plum with basil, and my blueberry with maple syrup and lemon—and I am definitely getting better results. The texture is better, the flavor is brighter, and the set is much better. I also love that I can get a jam in a lot less time. What's a bit of drag is that the yield seems to be a bit smaller, but I can live with that to get awesome jam. Here's a recipe for a jam experiment I tried with plums and peaches. The flavor is beautiful: bright, fruity, a little tangy, basically everything you get from a really good peach or plum eaten while dripping over a sink at the height of summer.  

Peach-plum jam with basil  

Yields about four eight-ounce jars 

• 500 grams peaches, peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces (discard the stones)
• 500 grams plums, cut into quarters (discard the stones) (any kind of plum will probably work for this, but I used red plums, which created a dark red jam; just be mindful that if you use, for example, greengages, the color may not be very pretty)
• 6 deciliters sugar
• juice from two lemons
• 4-5 basil stems (optional, but nice)

1. Background prep: Place a saucer with five metal spoons in the freezer, and sterilize your jars using whatever technique you prefer (keep them hot as you make the jam).
2. Layer the fruit and sugar in your jam pot (starting and ending with a layer of sugar).
3. Let the fruit-sugar mixture sit for at least an hour, up to overnight (refrigerate if you want to do this).
4. Add the lemon juice.
5. Heat the mixture slowly until the fruit produces a lot of juice, and it has started to bubble. 
6. Bring the heat up to high and stir continually to keep the jam from burning. Expect copious amounts of steam and a lot of spatter. If you have an apron, this would be a good time to wear it. (I really need to get one of those.)
7. Cook at high heat for about 15 minutes (skim off the foam).
8. Test for doneness: Take the pot off the heat, get a sample of jam from the pot and transfer it to a frozen spoon. Place the sample in the freezer for a minute or two. Touch the bottom of the spoon, if it's neither hot nor cold, it's time to inspect the doneness of the jam. It should not run, but be gelatinous. If it runs, put the jam back on the heat for another five minutes and test again. Keep testing until you reach doneness.
9. When the jam is done, take it off the heat and add your basil sprigs and let it sit for five to 10 minutes. Then remove the basil and pour the hot jam into your hot jars (be sure to leave at least an inch at the top) and sterilize them, using a hot water bath or oven as you prefer. 
10. When you let the jars cool, you will hear little popping noises as they create a vacuum seal. If one of the jars doesn't seal (you can tell if you can depress the lid with your finger and it pops up again), just let it cool and enjoy it right away. The rest will be good for several months. 

A note on cooling: Don't move jam around a lot while it cools. One of the things it does as it cools is creates a sort of lattice structure. If you disturb that structure while it's forming, the jam won't set very well (or possibly at all).

Update: Check out the National Center for Home Food Preservation for more information about keeping your jams and jellies safe.