Pizza dough

We have pizza every Sunday evening at our house.  I had been using the basic dough recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day for my pizza dough.  We usually have it in the fridge and it works well enough.  Recently a friend mentioned that the guys at ATK had done a pizza dough recipe.  I decided to give it a whirl, and I quite like it.  I am still getting used to the recipe and at times the dough has come out a bit tough, but I like the flavor and structure.  The recipe makes enough for two pizzas, but you can cut the recipe in half if desired.  When we have folks over for pizza I need to make more than 2 pies, so I double or triple the recipe.  My food processor won't accomodate more than a single recipe so I have to make it multiple times.  I will put together a post on my whole pizza process, but this is a start.

ATK episode video

Pizza recipe

Update:  I was lazy and didn't bother to make the ATK dough recipe, so I used the ABin5 dough that I had in the fridge.  It was not even close to as good.  I am now a bigger fan of the ATK dough.  The ABin5 folks do have a pizza book which I plan to check out and will post about in the future.

Veggies!!!

We are making a concerted effort to eat more veggies at our house. I recently picked up a copy of Nigel Slater's Tender which is very nice.  Anyway, my hope is to share a number of the different recipes that we are trying.  I am finding them from various sources.  This one comes by way of the Splendid Table podcast.  Enjoy!

Sugar Snaps with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Shaved Parmigiano

A couple of notes...the quality of the olive oil is important in this recipe.  I managed to acquire some olive oil from a friend while in Israel.  It is a very simple tasting oil which I really love.  I used the zest of about half a lemon which I happened to have on hand.  I didn't bother to shave large chunks of Parmesan over the peas.  I used my microplane grater and topped the peas with Parmesan that way.  Overall it was a very tasty dish, but I don't think it would store well.  We managed to eat the 8 ounces of peas we had prepared in one sitting.

Fresh Pasta

After reading my brother's post on making fresh whipped cream in the food processor I

decided it was time to make my fresh pasta post I have been meaning to do for a while. I started

making fresh pasta couple months ago when my neighbor lent me her pasta maker for some

lasagna and chicken noodle soup I wanted to try. It only took one time and I was hooked. Almost everything about fresh pasta is better except maybe convenience but sometimes not even then. My first time I looked at Mark Bittman's Fresh Egg Pasta from my iPod app How to Cook Everything. He has a full text but I am too cheap but will mostly likely eventually invest. I followed his recipe, which called for all-purpose flour, egg, salt and water (just a little). It was amazing. However I wanted to try it with Semolina, which is what is supposedly the best for pasta. My second go around I tried Grandma Rosa's recipe from a You Tube site. She used Semolina and did more of a ratio mix which I liked as well. When it all came down to it though I really couldn't tell a difference and all-purpose is cheaper. The basic ingredients for both recipes called for a couple cups of flour, couple eggs, dash of salt, and a smidgen of water if needed. The only difference I saw was that the semolina dough was easier to mold and shape, that was until I followed Mark Bittman's advice to mix it in the food processor. Call me, a purist, snob or weirdo but I like to mix it by hand on the table, it's how Grandma Rosa taught me. The food processor changed my opinion. I tried it tonight dumping all the ingredients into the processor. Turned it on and watched it blend. I used all-purpose this time and it made the dough a easy to mold and shape as the semolina dough. I did however knead it a bit by hand to make sure it was the right consistency.

The most best thing about making fresh pasta is how easy it is . It isn't always quicker, like when you are rushed and want slop spaghetti but if you wanna do lasagna or anything else right? Whip up a batch of dough, only takes five minutes, roll it out and you won't be sorry.

Fresh Whipped Cream...in a food processor

A handy little tip from The Kitchn via the La Times on fresh whipped cream. I prefer freshly whipped cream on my desserts and have traditionally done it in my KitchenAid stand mixer. It whips up nicely, but it does take a few minutes. I tried whipping the cream in my KitchenAid food processor today, and I don't think I will be going back to the stand mixer. The cream whipped up ridiculously fast (a minute or so) and didn't request a cold bowl and whisk. When I whip cream in my stand mixer I start it and walk away for a few minutes. Don't be tempted to do that in your food processor...turn it on and pay attention. If you are going to add sugar I would add it at the beginning or through the feed tube maybe 30 seconds after you start to ensure it gets well incorporated. The cream whipped in the stand mixer does have more air in it and as a result is a bit lighter. If you really like an airy whip cream you can stick with the stand mixer or do it by hand. For impatient guys like me the food processor is the only way to go...

Welcome to the Brother's Yumm

This blog has been started by two brothers who like good food, to eat, make, read about, talk about etc. In this the first of hopefully many posts we hope to give you an idea of what you will find on the blog and a little bit about us.

The blog has been designed for us to share what we know, what we are doing and what we are learning about the many aspects of cooking. We hope to do this by posting about the books we like, the recipes we are trying, other blogs, and anything else we might do related to cooking. We also hope to create a few resources for cooking including a conversion chart for measurements and possibly some ratios for dry and wet ingredients.

In case you are wondering what kind of people would care this much about cooking we will attempt to justify our passions with a little look into our history. We grew up in a home were home cook meals, good home cooked meals, were commonplace. It wasn't odd to come home from school and smell fresh bread, cookies or other sweet smells. To put it simple we grew up in a home where food was prepared on a regular basis. Along with good food being prepared on a regular basis we were given the summer chores of making the weekly bread and cookies. A chore shared between the four children, which meant you were cooking something every other week. Simply put we grew up a cooking environment. Yeah we were extremely lucky kids. Which made it hard when we left home and those wonderful meals weren't just there. At the time we ventured out on our own we began to fend for ourselves in an attempt to maintain good meals. We were however also on our own so we began to try other foods and ingredients. Spending time over seas helped as well to expand our food interests and tastes.

Now that we have our own families and they like us want to eat. We are attempting to create the same wonderful childhood that we enjoyed with maybe a slight little twist.