Probably because late February is like the dead zone, where the overwintering and stored veggies are almost gone, but it’s just barely too early to plant anything new, we have been feeling stalled in terms of meal creativity and production. But we have pulled through somehow — I thank our still-well-stocked freezer! and our surplus of potatoes that are starting to sprout — and here are some things we have been eating lately.
- Monday: Home from a Nevada trip with enough day left to put Skip-recipe pizza dough on to rise … pizza topped with homegrown pesto from the freezer, and storebought fresh mozzarella and storebought fontina.
- Tuesday: Burgers from our cow, on local buns, with oven fries made from home-grown potatoes and local market garlic.
- Wednesday: Sausages from Skagit River Ranch and Lopez Island Farm, on buns we got leftover from the Tilth Producers conference, with more oven fries.
- Thursday: The most beautiful and delicious roasted chicken I think I have ever seen in my life, spatchcocked (etymology!), from Olympic Pastured Poultry. Homegrown smashed potatoes, and grocery store organic salad.
- Friday, today, I took a day off work to work on our greenhouse, so, lunch: chicken salad made from last night’s chicken with homegrown peas from the freezer, plus mayo, lemon juice, cumin, on homemade pitas from last July. The rest of the last few of days’ oven fries. Dinner: Steak from our cow, the rest of the homegrown peas from lunch, and the rest of the smashed potatoes from last night.
The greenhouse is almost done — we just have to staple on the plastic and then make the doors.
I think you’re doing a great job. I hear you on being somewhat uninspired in February – it seems that it is just the wrong time, too cold sometimes and without the excitement of the early days of winter. Have you started seeds? The thought of that is starting to help me. What is the Skip recipe pizza dough method?
Skip is our friend who married us. I got his permission to post his recipe:
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1.5 C. hot tap water (Lauren’s note: if you have whey left over from making cheese, use that instead! It’s delicious)
1.5 tsp. bread machine yeast
1 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. olive oil
Whisk together well and let sit for just a minute (it doesn’t need to proof).
Add 2.5 C. bread flour (any flour works OK, but bread flour has higher gluten content, as you probably know). Mix until incoporated. Turn out onto a floured boad and kneed in another .75 C. (approximate) of flour until the dough is smooth-ish, but still very soft. If you add too much flour, it’ll be REALLY hard to stretch, if you add too little, it’ll rip more easily while stretching. I tend to err on the softer side (less flour), since you’ll add some in the stretching process.
Let the dough rise for an hour to an hour and a half. Punch down, split in half, form into balls (I like to cup both hands over the ball and roll it around on an unfloured surface), dust with flour, cover with a towel and let them rest for about 15 minutes or so.
Stretch them, top them and cook them for 8-10 minutes on the highest setting on your oven. Make sure to give the stone time to heat up, too.
That’s it!
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And a recent tweak to the recipe, also from Skip:
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I only use 1/2 tsp. of sugar and 1 Tbsp. of olive oil.
It rises a little slower with less sugar to feed on, but I think it has a breadier flavor. Also, the extra oil seemed to weigh it down a bit.
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It’s our standard recipe now. Once you get familiar with it, it’s really quite easy and barely takes any thought (though still requires some pre-planning, of course) and it’s super tasty.
I made this tonight w/farmer’s market kale and taters: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Portuguese-Kale-and-Potato-Soup-10261 (or http://tinyurl.com/d9vxw7). Damn tasty. The chorizo was not local, but was damn tasty. If I find locally made spanish-style chorizo, I might never eat anything else.
Spatchcocked!
I heart you for including an etymological note.