Calzone and BBQ Caesar Salad

The thing I like the most about New Food Tuesdayz is not the good food, the learning, or the ton of wine people bring over, although, the wine is almost my favorite. My favorite thing about NFT’z are all the people it inspires to cook. In the last week alone, my friend Megan cooked a fancy meal for her boyfriend Paul, my mom tried her favorite dish herself and I got my brother and his four roommates to help me cook in the kitchen.

Josh and his roommates, Scotty, Chris, Bret and Sticks, are frequent NFT visitors. I love having them over because they are energetic, happy to be there and make me feel like I’m in college again.

Since they are so good about driving the treacherous 405 freeway to come see me every couple of weeks, I like to go to them every once in a while. So last night, Eric and I rounded up some kitchen must haves and headed to UCLA for calzones, white bean and garlic soup, and barbecued Caesar salad.

The best part about cooking with the boys is that each of them had a distinct cooking personality. Surprisingly, they weren’t too far off of their actual personalities.

Joshua’s calzones were big, bold and over stuffed.

Bret’s calzone had a ton of effort and heart, but lacked finesse.

Chris’s calzones were a little whimsical.

Scotty’s calzones were very precise and focused.

And Stick’s calzones were, well, non-existent. Sticks spent almost the entire time on two math problems.

The only downfall to the whole calzone extravaganza was that Josh purposely emitted a key ingredient. When I was getting ready to make the salad dressing and asked Josh where the anchovies were, he proudly told me he wasn’t eating that s#!@ and that he didn’t buy them. When I explained to him that Caesar dressing usually had anchovies in it, and with out those anchovies we would have no Caesar, he immediately sprung into action.

By spring into action, I mean he made a bet with Bret, that if Bret could complete 20 pull-ups he wouldn’t have to go to the store to get the anchovies. Watch the video to see if we had anchovies or not…

I’m not sure how I would have improvised without the anchovies, but I’m really glad I didn’t have to find out.

Love and Beer Floats

Angela

P.S. I would like you to know that I 100% cheated this week. I used store bought pizza dough and store bought pizza sauce. I know, I know, that is super lame, but I didn’t want to eat at ten. But, surprise surprise, we ate at ten anyway because I am poor with time management.

Calzone

1 pack store bough pizza dough (I like the garlic and herb from Trader Joes)

1 pack store bough pizza sauce

3 of your favorite pizza toppings (sausage, pepperoni, pineapple, olives, mushrooms, if you don’t get the point by now I’m worried about you)

1 pack shredded mozzarella cheese

Flour for dusting

Start by taking your dough out of the package and let it sit for about 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees or turn on your grill. Dust your surface with flour and divide the dough into three or four even parts. One at a time, roll out and stuff the dough. To create the calzone, fold the dough in half. Then, about ½ inch from the edge of the dough, fold the edges towards the center of the calzone. Roll until the edges are secure and nothing will leak out. You can either put the calzone and cook in the oven for about 20 minutes, or put on tin foil and cook on the grill for about 30 minutes.

Barbecued Caesar Salad

1/4 cup fresh Meyer lemon juice (or 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice combined with 1 tablespoon orange juice)

4 cloves roasted garlic

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

3 anchovy fillets

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for shaving

1 red onion

2 heads of romaine lettuce

favorite croutons (I like small ones for this salad)

Dressing

Place lemon juice, garlic, mustard, mayonnaise, anchovies, red wine vinegar, salt, and a good amount of freshly ground black pepper in a blender and blend until smooth. With the motor running, slowly add the oil and blend until emulsified. Add the grated cheese and blend for a few seconds to incorporate.

Salad

Clean and slice the ends off the lettuce. VERY lightly coat the leaves with olive oil, salt and pepper. Slice the red onions very thin. Throw the lettuce on the grill for thirty seconds and remove. Add onion, croutons and dressing. Freshly ground pepper if desired.

Do NOT try this at home!

Come on people!!!! This is one of the many reasons you do NOT play with your food. I bet this chick wishes she had listened to her momma.

Come Fly Away...

Eric and I traveled to beautiful Sacramento this weekend for the wedding of my dear friend, and former roommate Julia and her now husband Rico. It was a great reunion with my college friends who have since moved to various parts of the country. There was lots of great food, delicious cocktails and hilarious conversations.

All in all, the weekend was awesome. And exhausting. We couldn’t wait to touch down in Orange County and relax. As I’m sitting there, fidgeting in my very tiny seat, dying to be relaxing on my parents couch, catching up on Entourage, a voice comes on the speaker. A beautiful voice. Singing a ditty. Did someone put the radio up to the loud speaker? Wait. Nope. That is our Southwest Airlines flight attendant singing to us. Singing. Over the loud speaker. And not just a couple bars. It was a long song. Long enough for Eric and I to look at each other in utter confusion.

Now, don’t get me wrong, she had a beautiful voice. And the song was definitely about airplane travel, so I guess it was applicable. But it was so strange. However, we must have been the only two who were startled because the rest of the plane erupted in applause.

So, I did some research. Turns out, there are a whole lot of singing flight attendants. While I could not find MY singing flight attendant, I did find some good ones. Please enjoy.

And the Secret Ingredient is....

OMG. I just found this video and it is AMAZING!!! I don't know about you, but I love Iron Chef America on The Food Network. Maybe a little too much. I watch each episode over and over and pretty much drool the whole time.

Here is a hilarious compilation of the introduction of every secret ingredient ever featured on the show. I love food, not not as much as this guy!

Love and Beer Floats

Angela

P.S. Doesn't he look way WAY better with hair?

Fried Chicken and Watermelon Salad

For months now my youngest brother Joshua has been nagging me to take a crack at fried chicken. Week after week that he attended NFT’z I brushed it off. “Sure, I’ll do fried chicken. Next week for sure.” Of course my fingers were crossed behind my back the whole time. Then I would conveniently have a reason that he couldn’t come to dinner so I wouldn’t have actually make fried chicken.

It wasn’t because I do not like fried chicken, or because I think my fried wouldn’t be good.

I kept avoiding fried chicken night because I have a serious fear of a deep pot of hot, bubbling oil.

Just stop and think for a second about all the things that can go wrong in a scenario where a huge pot of boiling oil is involved. I can think of 5 of the top of my head.

1. Oil bubbles over, catches flame and burns condo complex down.

2. Oil bubbles over, catches flame and burns hair/skin of me or people around me.

3. Oil is too hot and melts important cooking tools.

4. Oil is too hot mixes with water and splashes up and burns my face/skin.

5. Oil is too hot and splatters on face/skin leaving scars that horrify little children

Ok… 4 and 5 are similar, but one involves water and the other just needs super hot oil. But, the bottom line is that all of these result in some sort of destruction.

Regardless of my intense fear of the scalding oil, I decided to go for it this week. I have to admit, even though I would have much preferred to have an actual fryer with a basket with a very very long handle that insured I would be no where near the oil, it was not as bad as I thought it would be.

Of course, I couldn’t just serve fried chicken. So I racked by brain for all the things that I have been served a long with fried chicken. I couldn’t do mashed potatoes because I made those last week. No waffles because I don’t really like waffles. I have no idea where to get okra or what to do with it. I decided to go with corn and watermelon. Two tired and true favorites. But I couldn’t just grill corn and slice up a watermelon. Why on earth would I do something SO EASY. Seriously, heaven forbid I decide to do something easy.

So, I went with heirloom tomato carpaccio (they were calling my name at whole foods)...

a watermelon, arugula, pancetta salad with feta and a citrus vinaigrette…

Grilled summer corn with garlic and thyme butter (which might have been the biggest hit of the night)…

And of course I had to add some garlic bread in there because once again I somehow ended up with 10 people over on a Tuesday night and I had to make sure everyone was full.

Everything ended up being absolutely crispy and delicious. And, I now have some great tips for cooking fried chicken.

1. All the recipes will tell you to shake off the excess breading. DON’T. Pile on that breading!!! It will be way more delicious.

2. When the recipe tells you to use oil, they really mean go buy a freaking humongous vat of oil because 2 bottles will barely be enough to fry 4 pieces at a time.

3. Fill up the that biggest pot you can pretty high with oil or you will end up cooking the chicken for hours since it takes about twenty minutes a batch.

4. Do not make the oil to hot are you will have very very burnt fried chicken.

We live and we learn right? Right.

Love and Beer Floats

Angela

P.S. There were too many awesome photos of the chicken. Enjoy!

If that was not enjoyable enough for you... hopefully this is!

Fried Chicken

Ingredients

1 quart buttermilk, plus 2 cups

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

2 teaspoons chile de arbol powder, or 2 tablespoons hot sauce, plus 2 teaspoons chile de arbol powder, or cayenne pepper

2 chickens (3 to 4 pounds each), each cut up into 8 pieces

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 tablespoon sweet paprika

4 green onions finely chopped

Peanut oil, for deep-frying (a lot a lot a lot of oil)

Directions

In a large bowl or baking dish, whisk together 1 quart of the buttermilk, 2 tablespoons salt, 2 teaspoons of chile de arbol powder, or hot sauce, and a little bit of pepper, if desired. Add the chicken pieces, turn to coat, cover, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight. *** bloggers note... I only let it sit for an hour and it was still yummy.

Place the remaining 2 cups of buttermilk in a bowl. In a second bowl, stir together the flour, garlic and onion powders, green onions, paprika, and 2 teaspoons chile de arbol powder (or cayenne) in a large bowl. Divide flour mixture among 2 shallow platters and season generously with salt and pepper. Drain the chicken in a colander and pat it dry. Dredge the pieces a few at a time in the flour mixture and pat off excess, then dip in the buttermilk and allow excess to drain off. Dredge in the second plate of flour and pat off the excess. Put the chicken pieces on a piece of waxed paper or on a clean platter while you heat the oil.

Pour about 3 inches of oil into a deep cast iron skillet; the oil should not come more than halfway up the sides of the pot. Put the pot over medium-high heat and heat the oil to 375 degrees F on a deep-fry thermometer. Working in batches, add the chicken pieces to the hot oil, 3 or 4 at a time and fry, turning the pieces occasionally, until evenly golden brown and cooked through, about 20 minutes. Remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and transfer to a rack to drain; repeat to cook the remaining pieces. Serve hot.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Watermelon Salad

Ingredients

For the vinaigrette:

1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons)

1/4 cup minced shallots (1 large)

1 tablespoon honey

1/2 cup good olive oil

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

6 cups baby arugula, washed and spun dry

1/8th seedless watermelon, rind removed, and cut in 1-inch cubes

12 ounces good feta cheese, 1/2-inch diced

1 cup (4 ounces) whole fresh mint leaves, julienned

8 oz pancetta

Directions

In a skillet, brown the pancetta with one tablespoon olive oil. Remove and let cool.

Whisk together the orange juice, lemon juice, shallots, honey, salt, and pepper. Slowly pour in the olive oil, whisking constantly, to form an emulsion. If not using within an hour, store the vinaigrette covered in the refrigerator.

Place the arugula, watermelon, feta, pancetta and mint in a large bowl. Drizzle with enough vinaigrette to coat the greens lightly and toss well. Taste for seasonings and serve immediately.