The Best Guacamole

   Serving suggestion

4 ripe Avocados
1 small (1 1/2 inch diameter) onion
3-4 cloves garlic
1/2 bunch of Cilantro
1/2 tomato (optional)
Juice from 1-2 Limes
Salt to taste - 1/2 teaspoon is good
dash of pepper

Cut the Avocados in half lengthwise and remove the pit. Scoop or pinch the pulp into a mixing bowl. 

Dice garlic, onions, Cilantro, Tomato to make the Pico de Gallo.  

Place all ingredients in the mixing bowl with the Avocado and mash with a potato masher or fork until the desired consistency.

Add salt and lime juice to taste.

TIP: Remember, more Cilantro will make it taste better IMHO.

For a larger recipe of 8 avocados, use whole bunch of Cilantro, 6-8 cloves of garlic, 1/2 large onion, juice of 2 limes, 1 tomato, salt and pepper to taste.

NOTE: Before consuming chips cooked in seed oils (canola, corn, soy, cottonseed, safflower, etc) see these links for advice on which oils are best for your body.

links:

https://www.thankyourbody.com/vegetable-oils/ 

https://blog.paleohacks.com/vegetable-oil/

Videos

Sinning with Seed Oils - are Vegetable Oils Healthy? Tucker Goodrich ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY8pq8GwLVo

 

Old-World Style Pizza

Crust: 

2 cups whole-wheat flour - good fresh flour such as King Arthur's brand works better than most store brands...
4 cups unbleached flour - again, fresh flour is better
5 tsp yeast
3 cups filtered, spring or purified water - as Chlorine affects taste and kills yeast
1/2 cup honey
2 Tsp olive oil
3 tsp salt (approx.)
stainless steel bowl (or glass)

whisk the above ingredients until mixed, cover with damp flour cloth, allow to rise for about 1hr.

As I said before, make sure you get all antibacterial soap off your hands - use lemon juice or baking soda to cleans your hands before working with the dough - it will make a difference in how this turns out.

mix into the proofed yeast mix:
4 cups unbleached flour and add more until dough is not sticking to your hands
knead into a rough ball for about 3 minutes
return to the bowl and cover with damp flour cloth
allow to rise for 30 minutes
punch down and rise again for 30 more minutes.
remove from pan onto floured surface, divide & pinch into 3 (or 4) balls


toppings:
olive oil
tomato paste
stewed tomatoes with garlic, basil and onion
grated Italian cheese (mozzarella, romano, parmesean, etc. mix)
black olives - pitted, sliced or chopped roughly
turkey pepperoni - cuts down on the grease and fat
sweet Vidalia onion or red onion slices
fresh garlic
fresh oregano
quartered crimini mushrooms (baby bello)

hand flatten, toss and shape into pizza shape

place onto peel covered in coarse corn meal...
shake front to back to insure it will move smoothly on the peel...

generously pour olive oil on the crust

spread thinly with Tomato paste - only tomato paste - no salt added...

spread Garlic, onion and basil tomatoes onto crust - not too much...

sprinkle finely chopped oregano

evenly sprinkle about 1pkg cheese over entire pizza - don't worry about the evenness of the spreading - random always makes for better pizza.

spread toppings over cheese...  whatever order you wish, but I usually start with pepperoni as it is flat and burns if above all the other toppings - this is a downside to turkey pepperoni

sprinkle some finely chopped garlic over top

bake for about 8 minutes at 500-525 F on pizza stone - higher temperature will need to shorten time about 2 minutes for every 50 degrees


If you need to cook more pizzas, then at about 5 minutes into cooking you can move the first pizza to the middle rack in the oven... keep watch as the toppings may burn as the top of the oven is hotter

Remove from oven with the peel (or flat cooking pan) and place on wire rack to cool ... keeps crust crispy longer...

allow to sit for about 3 minutes, slice and serve...


Updated Feb 16, 2023 

You can cook this pizza on a cookie sheet But be sure to sprinkle some cornmeal on it before you put the dough on. That way it doesn't stick to the pan and it adds air space for the dough to help it dry as it cooks.

Almond Flour Rolls

Homemade Almond Rolls

2 tablespoons cream cheese
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Mix with
2 eggs until smooth
Add warmed/melted butter and mix

Add
1.5 cups almond flour
2 Tsp coconut flour

Will be sticky,  but not liquid... Add more almond flour to dry the mix if needed.

Bake on parchment or greased cookie sheet or in muffin tin.

Bake about 20 minutes @ 350F.
Raise temp to 375F for 5 min more to brown.

Serve warm with butter. These taste almost identical to the old Jiffy corn muffin mix I grew up with and have a very similar texture and flavor to that evil old cornbread and sugar mix.

Enjoy...


Jeff

Old-world Spicy Hummus

Ingredients:
2 cans organic Garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 can organic Black beans, drained
1/2 cup Olive oil
1/2 cup Tahinni (ground sesame seed)
5 cloves fresh garlic (about 1/2 cup chopped)
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup Sun-dried tomatoes
1-2 small sweet peppers
1/4 cup pickled jalapenos
 1-2 Tbsp red onion
1/2 tsp blackened seasoning
1/2 tsp red cayenne pepper

Processing:
Process until smooth using a food processor or manually chop all fresh ingredients then crush and blend beans using a mortar and pestle.

Add salt to taste but no more than 1/2 tsp should accomplish the proper flavor.

Serve either at room temperature or warmed with organic Blue corn chips - Garden of Eatin brand are excellent and are not too salty.

This is a modification of my standard Hummus recipe

And another Modification of this recipe:

1 cup Sun-dried tomatoes
2 small sweet peppers
3 cans garbanzo beans drained, rinsed
Use no black beans
Use no onion
Use no blackened seasoning
3/4 tsp salt. - this is something that I left out in the above recipe.

Chill and enjoy with "Garden of Eatin'" Blue Chips - salted. These chips do not contaminate the flavor of the hummus.

Enjoy!

nomasteryoda

Italian Pizza

Ingredients:

1 - recipe of Pizza dough - see Pizza dough.
1/4 - cup corn meal (for the peel)
4 - Tbsp olive oil - the more virgin the better
1 - 8oz. can Contadina tomato paste (has no salt)
5 - cloves fresh garlic - more if you like the taste
3 - 5 inch sprigs of fresh Rosemary, no stems, not chopped
1/4 - cup fresh Oregano - whole leaves, no stems, not chopped
5 - fresh leaves Basil - substitute with 1tsp dry if necessary
dash of crushed or ground black pepper
8 - oz bag of shredded Italian blend cheese - substitute low fat mozzarella and parmesean
1/2 - Red onion sliced in about 1/4 inch thick slices - you can use yellow or white if you prefer
1 - 12 oz can black olives - sliced or chopped
15 - green olives - preferably without pimentos - sliced
25 - Turkey pepperoni slices
6 - oz Turkey Italian sausage cooked, drained and chopped into 1/2 inch pieces - substitute pork if desired.

Directions:
Hand press, toss and/or roll the dough into a shape that will fit your peel or stone. You can substitute a pan if you don't own a stone. Spread the cornmeal on the pizza peel to cover the surface with the object to make the dough slide easily once placed on the peel.
Place the dough topside down onto the peel, hand spread the 3 Tbsp olive oil on the entire surface of the dough.

Crush then dice the garlic until you get a size you like and chop the herbs (oregano, rosemary and basil) until they are similar size to your garlic.

Spread about 1/2 the tomato paste onto the olive oil coated dough with a spoon, knife or spatula leaving about 1 inch at the edges. Sprinkle the herbs and garlic over the tomato paste.

Cover this with about 4 oz of the cheese, then add pepperonis randomly. Cover the pepperoni with the remaining cheese. - note: turkey pepperoni is much drier than pork - always cover with cheese.

At this point its important to shake the peel in short strokes to make sure your dough is not sticking to the peel.

Add remaining toppings in any order you wish, shovel the pizza onto your stone or pan and bake for about 11 minutes or until your cheese looks slightly brown. You may also turn down the oven at 4 minutes to 350 if you have a thicker crust and cook for about 15 minutes. Be sure to keep a watch on your pizza... burned pizza is not very tasty.

Use your peel to remove from the stone, place on a cooling rack for about 5 minutes to allow the molten cheese to cool a bit, slice and enjoy!

I'll post other variants later...

Pizza Dough

This is a basic recipe I use for my Pizza and breads.
I have used once for a sticky bun and it worked
ok, but I've had better. I've been using this recipe since
1988.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 cup bread flour (or 1 cup more of the unbleached all-purpose flour)
  
• 1 cup water, lukewarm or slightly hotter
• 1 to 2 Tbsp sugar or 2 to 3 Tbsp honey
  
• 1/2 to 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp bread yeast
• 2 to 3 Tbsp Olive Oil
  

Mix yeast and water in a large round bowl.
Add sugar or honey, salt, oil and stir.
Add 1 cup flour and stir

TIP:
Be sure you do rinse off any Anti-Bacterial soap before touching the dough, otherwise you will kill or severely retard the growth of your yeast.

Work the rest of the flour into the mix and use your hands, but be sure to work off the dough that sticks to your hands back into the dough, adding more flour if needed to make the dough stick to itself more than your hands.

Knead on a counter top or flour cloth if you have one (I've never used the later). Again, add flour if it becomes too sticky to work with. This kneading process should take no more than 10 minutes from start to finish.

Cover with a damp cloth, invert your large mixing bowl over it, or spread olive oil over the surface and allow to Rise for about 30 min. This last option is good if you want to break the doughball into bread-sized chunks for making loaves of bread like you find at the fancy Italian restaurants.

During this time you can turn on the oven to 500 and let it preheat the Pizza stone.

Adjustments for texture:
For a firm dough, punch down at 30 min. and allow to rise again for about 30 min. more.

For a thin, crispy crust put into the fridge overnight or for 2 hours & bring out within
30 min prior to making the pizza. This crust is much like Shakey's Pizza, which I used to enjoy back in the 1980's.

You can also work in about 1/4 cup course cornmeal to make interesting dough.

TIP:
If you are making bread, then cover the bowl with a damp flour cloth or dish towel. Allow
this to sit for about 30 minutes. Add remaining flour and mix / knead as above.

Baking Pizza dough and or bread:
Bake on a Pizza Stone and use a good cornmeal as the sliding agent for moving the pizza dough onto the stone via the Pizza Peel (pizza shovel).

I've found that with thicker pizzas you can cook for 4-5 minutes then turn down the oven to 350 and cook longer. That way you don't burn the toppings, the crust is just right on the bottom and the pizza crust is not too soft inside.

... Enjoy!!

original posting: 8/30/07 - updated 4/12/09

fruit pie

pie
adapted from Throwdown with Bobby Flay
on food network sept 4, 2007
note: I have not made this pie yet....

secrets to good pie crust:

shred butter into the flour, sugar, salt mix
they used 1tsp sugar, 1.5tsp salt, 2 cups flour and 1/2 cup butter.

quickly mix with your hands until mixed well... like cornmeal.
add very cold water/milk (1/2 cup or so)

knead into a ball, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 2hrs

prepare your fruit .. they used 2 cups chopped strawberries, 1cup blueberries 1 cup raspberries and 1 cup blackberries
all chopped to desired sizes

divide in to for top and bottom
roll out the bottom first into a round shape
using plastic wrap over to keep from sticking to the pin... makes it simpler to use too.

place into the pan
add fruit
top with 1/4 cup butter - cut from the stick is fine

add 1/4-1/3 cup flour to thicken the mix
place the top on
pinch or fold over edge to seal
using milk and sugar or water and sugar, brush the top
cut the vent holes...

bake until done