Spinach Alfredo Pizza

This is the latter half of a 2 part series of blogs that chronicle our first attempt at making our own pizza at home. The first part gives detailed instructions on pizza dough preparation and can be found by clicking on this link to my Pizza Dough post.

Starting off from where my previous post left off, our pizza dough has now been rolled out and placed on a roasting pan (again, no pizza pan or baking stone yet). Note that some pizza making instructions advise that you use a pizza peel and assemble your pie on that instead.

Us ? We didn't want to go gung-ho and buy a lot of equipment that we probably won't be able to use for other dishes anyway.

Now remember this when making your own pizza, this site advises us to make sure that the toppings go on a specific order.

1. Pizza Dough
2. Sauce - for flavor and to keep the dough moist.
3. cheese - to keep the dough moist
4. toppings
5. cheese again
6. garnish, if any

Ingredients:
Classico Four Cheese Alfredo Sauce
chopped bacon
shredded ham
shredded swedish meatballs
mozzarella cheese
1 10 oz package of frozen chopped spinach

Step 1: Pour some sauce over your rolled dough and spread it around. Sprinkle a layer of mozzarella cheese over the sauce.

Step 2: Arrange your toppings across your pie. For our pizza, we drained & squeezed the water out of the package of chopped spinach before paying it out here. The topped it with meat.

I half-cooked the bacon in a pan before arranging them on my pie. I wanted to get rid of some of the fat and I also wasn't so sure about putting in raw ingredients since I didn't know how long I was going to bake the pizza before the crust gets cooked.

The Swedish meatballs were the packaged ones from Ikea, I wrapped them up in foil, thawed them in the toaster oven and pulled the balls apart so I could spread them across the pizza.

I also threw in some leftover ham for good measure.

Step 3: Before popping it into the oven, sprinkle another layer of mozzarella cheese over your pizza toppings.

Now, this is where the instructions vary. Some recipes ask that you bake your pizza in the oven at 400 to 450 F for 20 to 25 minutes. Some say to bake them at 475 F for 10 to 13 minutes.

I decided to set the oven at 425 F and it took 25 minutes for my pizza to get done. Make sure that you watch the sides of your dough, once it starts to brown, that's a sign that your pie is ready.



Verdict: yummy! Ang galing.

Pizza Dough

Hubby loves pizza. Unfortunately, since most pizza have sauces that are tomato-based, I don't care much for it at all. The only one that I've ever really loved is Papa John's Spinach Alfredo pizza. The thing is, we both love our toppings so our pizza gets pretty expensive.

Recently, one of my very best friends from high school told me about how she prepared pizza for her husband one night. Masarap raw and I got inspired to do the same. Sayang lang, I had already gotten the ingredients to make my pizza dough and she didn't tell me until later that Betty Crocker had an instant pizza dough mix.

Anyway, it was fun making my own pizza and with the step by step and visuals provided in this Easy Pizza Dough Recipe, it was very easy. I would definitely do this again.

Ingredients:
1 cup of warm water (105 F)
3.5 cups of all-purpose flour
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp honey
1 tsp salt
1 tsp yeast

Step 1: Add 1 tsp salt and 2 tsp honey to the warm water. Add the yeast, mix, and let it stand in room temperature for 10 minutes. I watched this mixture the entire time and was happy to see bubbles forming, this is an indication that the yeast is still alive.

Do not use scalding or hot water as this would kill the yeast.

Step 2: After 10 minutes, gradually add the 3.5 cups of flour and 2 tbsp olive oil and mix with a wooden spoon. I couldn't find a wooden spoon and had to settle for the matching wooden fork instead. Surprisingly, I hadn't turned the wooden spoon (fork) more than 3 or 4 times around the bowl and my dough already looked like this.


Step 3: At this point, I sprinkled flour over my work surface and started kneading the dough. I had to log on to the internet again and google "kneading" because I didn't know what I needed to do.

Anyway, at this point knead the dough until it is elastic and smooth, as pictured on the left.

Step 4: Form the dough into a ball, coat it with olive oil. Place it into a bown and cover with plastic wrap. Let this stand for an hour in room temperature to let it rise, making sure that there are no drafts. After an hour, the dough will have risen to about double its size. Punch or press the dough down, this will release some air, and cover it again with the plastic wrap and let stand for another hour.

Step 5: You can now start rolling out your dough to the desired shape. I don't have a rolling pin in my kitchen so I improvised using a dowel rod that I got from a disassembled paper towel holder.

Using a rolling pin will ensure that your crust has a uniform thickness.

We had to cook our pizza in a roasting pan since we have not bought ourselves a pizza pan or a baking stone yet.

Skinless Longganisa

My sister in California buys the yummiest longganisa at her local asian market. Whenever I visit her, Mom would surely prepare some for breakfast one day and serve it with sunny side up eggs and garlic fried rice. I love my longganisa paired with vinegar infused with garlic & chili too.

The Asian food store that we go to sells longganisa by the bulk and since hubby isn't exactly a fan, I hesitate about buying a package.

A few days ago, I was browsing the web for recipes for ground pork and found a recipe for skinless pork longganisa.

Ingredients:

1 kilo ground pork, 10% fat

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tbsp rock salt (or 1.5 tsp fine salt)

1 tbsp worcestershire sauce

3 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp chopped garlic

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Blend all ingredients together.

Roll a small amount of the mixture in a 4.5 in x 3 in piece of waxed paper

Store in the freezer for 3 hours or until ready to cook.

I have to admit that I did have some doubts as to whether the mixture would stick together while being cooked because there's no egg or cornstarch to serve as a binder for the sausage. But this works.

When ready to cook, heat oil in a wok or frying pan.

Unwrap the sausages and fry in batches until fully cooked.

Drain on paper towels.

These look good, no ? The sausages look so rich and yummy and they were.

Hot & Spicy Pork Chops

We may have converted Mommy and Achi, my older sister, to the wonders of Knorr's Hot & Spicy Bake Mix.

Aliw rin to think of the story of how we found this product. Hubby and I were in our neighborhood Asian grocery store when we remembered this one pork dish that we've been aching to try at home - Spicy Salt and Pepper Pork Chop. It's been a while since we were able to order this dish in Chinatown so we (okay, it was me) were craving for the taste.

Fortunately, hubby (thank goodness that he still remembers his Chinese), knows what spice it is that is used in my fave dish. We asked the cashier, she asked a store clerk, the store clerk asked the manager, and eventually, the manager asked the owner. And yes, we found it.

I sent a box over to Mom and Achi in California (each box has 4 packets and cost around $2.50) and sent some pictures of how we prepared our pork chops.

Basically, I get a huge piece of pork - usually, pork loin because it's tender and cut it up into smaller slices. Smaller slices mean that more of the spice gets into the meat and thus, tastier. Mix in 1 packet of the spice for every 2 lbs of meat, massage the spice into the meat and let it stand in the refrigerator for an hour.

Just before frying, I coat the pork pieces with camote powder (because I like the texture, but you can use cornstarch so that it becomes crispy) and deep fry the pork pieces.

The outcome is delish, I tell ya.

And yes, the pic on the left shows that I have no patience for cutting / chopping whatsoever and don't care about uniformity at all. But, however my pork chops look like, they do taste good and contrary to what the label on the spice package says, these aren't spicy at all.

Pork Menudo

For two weeks now, hubby and I have been having our Friday date night at a Filipino carinderia style restaurant in Jersey City. We actually love the food at another Filipino restaurant more - Mama Fina's - but they have been closed for a few months now and we have no idea where and when they will be in operation again.

So anyway, we've been to the Pinoy restaurant in Jersey City twice now and while we find the lechon kawali quite good, hubby (not a pinoy food fan to start with) has been disappointed with their Menudo and Bistek Tagalog. He claims that they didn't taste authentic - I'm not sure where he got his authentic pinoy food taste ideas from because they surely don't prepare that at home.

This menudo dish I prepared is an attempt to try and see what he expected Menudo to be, the original recipe is from Pinoy Menudo in Visual Recipes.

Ingredients:
1 kilo pork loin (orig recipe calls for pork liempo, I didn't want fatty meat)
1/2 kilo pork liver (we did not add liver)
3 medium sized potatoes, diced
3 medium sized carrots, diced
1 medium sized onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1.5 cups of tomato sauce
1 cup water
2 dried bay leaves
2 tbsp sugar (orig recipe calls for 1 tsp only but we adjusted to suit our taste)

1. Saute garlic and onion in a pan.
2. Add the meat and saute until meat is no longer pink.
3. Add the bay leaves, tomato sauce and water. Mix it around and let simmer.
4. When pork is cooked (in took me 30 to 45 minutes to get to this stage), add the carrots and potatoes and let it cook.
5. Season with salt and pepper (to taste).

Verdict: Masarap :) Though hubby says that this is not the menudo taste that he knows - syempre, walang liver. And in retrospect, we just realized that the menudo from home also has green peas and garbanzos (?).