A generous and delicious slice of Pizza with Onion Confit, the Tuesday with Dorie Baking with Julia recipe choice for today.
Tonight I’m celebrating and bringing in the New Year………with Dorie Greenspan, Steve Sullivan and Yotam Ottolenghi.
Let me quickly explain. I’ll be brief because I have to get back to my guests.
The Onion Confit, which can be made two days ahead, consists of 4 onions, red wine, red wine vinegar and seasonings. I added some Crème de Cassis to taste. It was New Year’s Eve, afterall.
Dorie, of course, is the well-recognized cookbook author and fearless leader of my Tuesdays with Dorie, Baking with Julia group. Greenspan wrote the cookbook, Baking with Julia, which was based on the popular PBS Series hosted by Julia Childs.
Steve Sullivan is a talented baker who successfully established his own bakery, Acme Bread Company, in San Francisco. His sourdough and levain breads are legendary.
Sullivan’s dough for this pizza “has enough texture and flavor to hold its own under any topping.” Although you first make a sponge before making the dough, necessitating two risings, this isn’t difficult. When ready, roll and work the dough until it is about 1/4 inch thick before transferring it to a baker’s peel rubbed lightly with cornmeal.
London Chef Yotam Ottolenghi who is becoming one of the most respected chefs in the world, owns five remarkable restaurants in that city and has written two well-received cookbooks, Plenty and Jerusalem.
This coming week’s recipe choice is the very tasty Pizza with Onion Confit. Julia Childs collaborated with Steve Sullivan to create this rather involved, somewhat complicated dish. After tasting the Provencal-inspired Onion Confit, as the base, I’m not sure I will ever return to classic tomato sauce again. Admittedly, it was a two-day process, a sponge and two risings, but perfect, I thought, for my New Year’s Eve supper. Champagne? Maybe not. Beer? For sure.
After preheating the oven to a toasty 475 degrees, I transferred my pizza topped with precooked pancetta lardons, roasted artichoke hearts and Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese, from the peel to my baking stone which had been also preheated in the oven.
Intriqued by Ottolenghi’s culinary talent and impressed by reviews of his recently-published cookbooks, I ordered both of them last month. Unfortunately, they’d been shoved aside on my kitchen counter, victims of the holiday hustle and bustle.
New Year’s Eve has never been a hoop-and-hollar event at our house. And, this year, especially, I needed quiet. To me, it felt right to just cook something delicious and settle in with a good (cook) book.
The finished product. Everything about this pizza —- perfect.
I must return to my friends, Dorie, Steve, Yotam (we’re channeling Julia). I’ll let my pictures speak for the pizza. Thanks to our host-with-the-most, Paul of The Boy Can Bake, for providing the recipe for this delicious pizza-confit combo to all of you. Check out his link. To see how my colleagues did this week, go to our Tuesdays with Dorie link.
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2013, FAITHFUL READERS AND DORIE COLLEAGUES. MAY THE YEAR AHEAD BE HAPPY, HEALTHY and OVERFLOWING WITH THE FELLOWSHIP OF FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND GOOD FOOD.
If Laughter is the best medicine and an apple a day keeps the doctor away, I’m looking at healthy. This has been a week carbo-loaded with Life’s joys and nature’s wonder. It’s also been days of peeling Granny Smith apples, tossing them in the crockpot and producing enough hunky applesauce to feed the populace of Colorado.
It’s because of joy, wonder, and, yes, even applesauce, that I am tardy in posting this week’s French Friday with Dorie recipe, a scrumptious Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Prunes ( I used Dates).
It’s Friday. We’re scrambling to get Dorie’s Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Dates plated. Probably not going to make the FFWD deadline. Donna, the Forest Conservancy treasurer and Fred, a volunteer Forest Ambassador, are not sympathetic to my small kitchen and lack of equipment. Fred’s wife, Cathy, was visiting her sister who lives in Portland and missed the meal.
Let me explain. First, the applesauce. My philosophy, which I have finally come to regret, is that if more is better, more, more, more is best. Granny Smith apples were on sale this week and, not wanting to miss out on a great price, I overbought. Peeling apples gulps up chunks of time.
Last Monday I celebrated my birthday. My enterprising friend, Jane, always, always, always scouts out the greatest gifts. This year she outdid herself by finding a vintage felt Ranger hat, with the label, Campaign, authenticated with “sweat” marks on its headband. I will wear it when I’m a volunteer Wilderness Ranger next Summer.
As for Mother Nature’s wonder, she dumped it here last week. It’s called snow and Coloradans are ecstatic. As they should be. This state cries for moisture and its ski resorts beg for the white stuff. Having evaded such nonsense for the past eight years while living in Nevada, I found myself ill-prepared. No boots. No mittens. No car snow scraper. You name it, I didn’t have it. I declared myself a snow emergency and took a time-out to regroup.
Two days later, Mother Nature blew into town, leaving a snowy message and erasing any hopes of more Indian Summer days.
The joys have been in bringing closure to the journey of a good man and a life well-lived. For the past three months my family and I have been discussing how best to honor Michael with a memorial of some type. Although we wanted it to be meaningful and significant, we are not a family of great wealth, charitable trusts nor much discretionary income.
As our friend, Lloyd, said in his eulogy to Michael, “He never confused his self-worth with his net-worth. Getting rich was not his goal in life. His life’s goal was taking care of his patients and he did that very well.”
While hiking in the Rockies in late August, we encountered freshman college students exploring our trail system during orientation week. They all wanted ( and, received ) Smokey the Bear stickers for their backpacks from volunteer Wilderness Rangers, Sandy (l) and Ruth.
There are all kinds of tiny, hand-to-mouth organizations in every community and Aspen is no exception. But it was a no-brainer to choose the ForestConservancy, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the White River National Forest and serving the community (that’s all of you) who enjoys it.
The FC was established in 2001 by four Aspenites concerned about the lack of government-paid personnel (Rangers) available to protect and monitor the 2.3 million acres of the WRNF. What began with four, quickly grew to fourteen (when I joined), and now is well over one-hundred volunteers who serve as Wilderness Rangers, Forest Ambassadors and certified Master Naturalists.
Hiking with volunteer Wilderness Rangers Annie (L) and Donna (R). Donna amazes me with her knowledge of Rocky Mountain flowers and vegetation. I love to hike with her. As you can see, I cannot be issued my uniform again until I pass my certification and jump through some hoops. I’m not taking this personally, the Forest Conservancy means business.
The FC collaborates with the USDA Forest Service and thirteen other partners to hike and monitor our trails. Today, more than a decade later, the FC is an indispensable arm of the Forest Service and BLM and…………always strapped for cash.
What better way to recognize a man who not only skiied these mountains for fifty straight years but also grumbled his way through three to five-mile hikes every summer with his wife. Once decided, my brother and sister-in-law made a very, very generous contribution to the FC in Michael’s name which I will match. Happily, we’re in business. A win-win for everyone.
Sometimes we even chat-up the guys we meet on the trail because they are good-lookin’ !!!
Last Friday night, three FC friends, all FC volunteers, joined me for dinner to celebrate, thus having the opportunity to sample Dorie’s FFWD recipe choice. Once again, this week’s recipe, Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Prunes, was fabulous. Luckily, you can find the recipe here. I served this one-dish meal with Yotam Ottolenghi’s Beet, Orange and Black Olive Salad (recipe here) saffron risotto and crusty bread. Needing a light dessert, we enjoyed daughter Melissa’s crockpot applesauce (warm) over Dulce de Leche ice cream.
Mise en Place for the Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Prunes. Notice I substituted Dates for Prunes.
Donna, who coincidentally, is the FC treasurer, loved this tagine’s spices – saffron, cinnamon, cayenne, star anise and bay leaves. “There are no sharp edges to this dish,” she remarked, “it’s just round and mellow.”
Her husband, Bernie, who is a Forest Ambassador at our beloved Maroon Bells, brought bottles of well-regarded Chateau De Paraza red wine from the Minervois AOC region of the Lanquedoc. It was fruitier than a Bordeaux with an earthy, rustic taste that complimented the tagine.
At last, dinner is served. The verdict? Tasty. Delicious. Very good.
My only tagine suggestions which I offer are:
1. For fuller flavoring, steep the saffon threads in the 1/2 cup of warmed water needed in the tagine.
2. Because it is topped with toasted chopped walnuts, I substituted walnut oil for the plain olive oil.
3. I chose Dates over Prunes.
To see what the Doristas, my colleagues who did meet the Friday deadline cooked up, go here.
