Live the Live ™

Simple and delicious, this recipe is inspired by Jamie Oliver, who uses peeled white potatoes. I prefer whole, small, Yukon golds or yellow potatoes, my personal favorites, with the skin on. I think the skin adds an extra level of wonderful crunch.

The great thing about this recipe is that there’s not a lot of measuring going on. You add what you like, as much as you like, and the oven does the rest!

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Start by boiling 1 1/2 lbs. of organic potatoes in salted water until they are a bit firmer than fork-tender. Drain them in a colander and set them aside for the moment.

Pour a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a baking pan, along with a tablespoon of white wine vinegar. (Red wine vinegar works just as well.)

Pour the potatoes into the baking pan, season them with salt and pepper, and toss them all around, making sure they are coated with the oil.

No herbs go in at this point, because they will burn. They will go in after the first 30 minutes of cooking.

Place the pan in the oven and cook for 30 minutes.

Take the pan out of the oven and, using a potato masher, gently push down on the potatoes in the pan to flatten them a bit, breaking the skin.

Chop up a handful of fresh herbs (I like rosemary and thyme) and sprinkle the herbs all over the potatoes. Toss it all together (with a spatula, not your hands–it’s hot!)…and place the pan back in the oven for another 30 minutes, until the potatoes are an amazing, crispy, golden brown.

One last touch of finishing salt (I love Fleur de Sel) makes it perfect!

I’ve made spinach pasta before, so I figured it couldn’t be that hard to make spinach pizza dough. It’s pretty much the same procedure: I combined about 3 cups of 00 flour (I like King Arthur) with a tablespoon of Kosher salt in my standing mixer.

In a Pyrex measuring cup, I poured in a cup of water and put it in the microwave for 30 seconds to bring the temperature to about 100 degrees. (Over 110 degrees will kill the yeast.) I added a tablespoon of dry active yeast to the water, and then a bit of sugar, mixing it well, and I let it sit for about 10 minutes until it started foaming up.

Meanwhile, I thawed a package of frozen spinach and removed 6 ounces’ worth. I squeezed as much water out of it as I could, reducing the weight to about 4 ounces. I chopped the spinach up well, then mixed it with the flour in the mixing bowl. I added the water with the yeast, adding some of the spinach water if more water was needed.

Once the dough ball pulled from the sides of the mixing bowl, I took it out and continued to knead it by hand until the ball was smooth.

I added a little olive oil to the mixing bowl, and placed the dough ball back in it, covering it with plastic to rise over several hours.

After a few hours, I punched the dough down and let it rise again.

A couple more hours, and I rolled the dough into 2 smalls balls and a small baguette. (Had we planned on making a deep dish pan pizza, I would’ve used the whole dough ball. But we went for thin crust instead.)

I placed my pizza stone in my cold oven, and then preheated my oven to 500 degrees. (I use a cast iron plate, which goes by the brand name Pizzori. It gets really hot and makes the crust nice and crispy.)

Rubbing some corn meal on my pizza peel, I placed the baguette on it and slid it into the oven, baking it for about 20 minutes until it was golden brown.

I let the oven warm up again after removing the baguette, and starting prepping my pizzas.

The first pizza was a white pizza, meaning I made a bechamel sauce for it: a simple combination of 2 tablespoons melted butter in a saucepan with 2 tablespoons of flour, mixing to make a roux. I then added some milk, and a little granulated garlic and oregano. I let it thicken and set it aside.

I stretched the spinach dough out on the pizza peel, and spread the bechamel sauce on it. I followed this with slices of mozzarella, and bits of home-cured guanciale that I had chopped and fried in a pan. In the oven it went, and once it came out, I added shaved Parmigiano Reggiano and some microgreens.

Pizza #2 utilized leftovers from previous dinners. I spread the spinach dough out on the pizza peel, and spread some barbecue sauce on it. I followed this with leftover chili meat I had made for chili dogs a couple of nights before. Then I topped the meat with a combination of mozzarella and cheddar.

I still had some spinach left over. So the next day, I prepared another wonderful recipe. Check in with me next time.

Corned beef hash is actually a very simple thing to make. The most difficult part is the corned beef, especially if you’re curing it yourself. That process takes about three weeks…a long time to wait for a plate of hash!

If you have a package of already prepared corn beef that you bought at the supermarket, thaw it, and rinse it in clean, cold water.

If you follow my corned beef recipe (I posted it a couple of weeks ago…you can search for it on my home page), do the same after three weeks of curing: wash the slab of brisket well, removing any seeds and spices that have wedged themselves into the meat.

At this point, many people choose to boil the corned beef, but I don’t. Instead, I place the piece of brisket in a container large enough to hold it covered with more cold, clean water. I let it sit in this cold water for about 12 hours. I dump some ice into it to keep everything cold.  I change the water a couple of times over the 12 hours. Much of the salt will be washed away by this process. I pat the meat dry with paper towels.

Preheat the oven to 325°.

I lay a couple of sheets of foil down on a baking pan, and then add chopped carrots, celery and onions to it. I place the brisket on top of the veggies.

I wrap the brisket tightly in the foil, and place the pan on the center rack of the oven.

I let it cook for about 3 1/2 hours for a 8-pound piece of meat. Cook it less if yours is smaller.

I let the meat cool to room temperature in the foil, then unwrap it, and cut it into manageable sized pieces for future use. I wrap each piece tightly in plastic wrap once it has cooled, and I place the wrapped pieces in a sealed bag and into the freezer. 

Once the corned beef has cooked, it’s ready for sandwiches, and of course, hash! (Pastrami is another series of steps, discussed in another blog.)

A piece of cooked corned beef, about 1 lb., cubed
1 medium onion
2 lbs. sweet potatoes 
olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350°. If the corned beef is frozen, remove it from the freezer, and let it come to room temperature.

Peel and cube the sweet potatoes. Make the cubes about a half-inch around. Placed them in a single layer on a large sheet pan, sprinkling them with olive oil, and seasoning them with salt and pepper. Toss the sweet potatoes to coat them with the seasonings and then place the sheet pan in the oven, baking for about 25 minutes, until the sweet potatoes are fork-tender and have tasty caramelized, slightly charred edges.

A few minutes before the sweet potatoes are done cooking, finely chop the onion and sauté it in a large pan with some olive oil.

Cut the corned beef into small cubes, about a quarter-inch in size.

Once the onions are translucent, add the cubed corned beef to the pan, and warm it through.

Now add the sweet potatoes to the pan and mix thoroughly to combine.

Your sweet potato corned beef hash is ready to serve! It also freezes well, so don’t be afraid to make extra!

Maybe you’ve seen the latest KFC creation that’s a worldwide hit. It’s called the “Chizza,” (rhymes with pizza) and it’s basically a pizza where the so-called “crust” is made from chicken.

This was too good of an idea for me to pass up trying to copy at home!

In a previous blog, I posted my version of KFC’s original recipe chicken. I decided that I would use that seasoning mix as the basis for my chicken in this recipe. Then simply adding sauce, cheese and pepperoni to that would complete the treat!

2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon celery salt
1 tablespoon dried mustard
1 tablespoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons black pepper
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons basil
1 1/2 teaspoons oregano
1 teaspoon salt

2 chicken breasts
2 eggs
tomato sauce (homemade is always best)
grated mozzarella cheese
pepperoni (optional)
cooking oil (I like grapeseed or avocado oil)

I combined the flour and seasonings in a bowl, and set it aside.

I butchered the chicken breasts, removing any fat or skin and cleaning up the edges. Then I sliced the breasts in half lengthwise so that I got two breasts half as thick.  Using the flat side of my tenderizing mallet, I gently pounded out the breasts under wax paper to make them as thin as I wanted. 

I cracked the two eggs into a bowl, and scrambled them. I put the breasts in that bowl, coating them with the egg.

I took one chicken breast at a time out of the egg bowl, and placed it into the seasoned flour, coating it well, then placed it on a sheet pan. I did the same with the rest of the breasts.

I preheated a pan with some oil, and when it came to temperature, I fried the chicken breasts, making sure not to overcrowd them in the pan, cooking in batches. I placed the cooked breasts on a metal grid over a sheet pan so the fat would run off.

I preheated my oven to 350° and placed the chicken breasts on a sheet pan, then put some sauce on top of them, then the mozzarella, and then the pepperoni. A sprinkling of oregano is always a good idea.

I baked my “cheater’s chizzas” until the cheese was melted and gooey.