Alpha Bakers: Pizza Rustica

We are finally baking Pizza Rustica - YAY!

I have wanted to make this since the book came out. I had even thought to ask Marie to put this on the schedule last year, because I really want to make it. But then I keep forgetting to send the email or post a comment about it (I guess that means I don't want it that badly). In the end, I never sent a request and figured oh well, I'll just wait for it to come on the schedule. And now it's here. And it's sort of good timing too. I've been sick for 2 weeks and when I felt better last weekend I decided to bake this a week ahead.

I don't know why I want to make this, since I'm not a big fan of things with a lot of cheese. I don't have anything against cheese, just don't find food with mainly cheese as filling very interesting. I think the name intrigue me. Pizza Rustica. Sounds very elegant and yummy. Also, the picture in the book makes it look so appealing. At any rate, I want to make it for the sake of making it and not really much for eating it.

And Marie, I made the full recipe. It was not by intention. I had written down the ounce amount of ricotta, mozzarella, and soppressata that I need for a 1/2 recipe. But there is no such thing as small portion of ricotta or mozzarella at the grocery store I went to, so I ended up buying and making the amount for a full recipe.

Homemade Pizza with Mushrooms, Goat Cheese, Tomatoes, and Kale

I love pizza. Hubby does too - he said I make the best pizza in the world. I know he's exaggerating (maybe not in the world but in town) - but is sure nice to hear :).

We have pizza pretty often, not so much in the summer but in the winter every other week we have pizza.

But this past weekend I was craving pizza and goat cheese, which is odd because I do not like goat cheese (and no I'm not pregnant or anything like that). This is just a craving. Plain hunger craving when I went grocery shopping.

So I made my usual pizza dough and topped it with sauteed mushroom, goat cheese, grape tomatoes, and kale.

It is so good.

My go-to pizza dough is from Williams Sonoma. I've tried other recipes but I keep coming back to that one. It is easy and really good. Even if I mess it up sometimes, it still turned out great. Like this time, somehow I couldn't roll it out to be as thin as usual.

Homemade Ricotta Cheese

This is a story about homemade ricotta cheese. Why? Because when I went to buy said cheese, the price has increased from $6 to $8 for a tub of ricotta (we buy organic dairy). Shocked at the price, I decided that I should try to make it myself.  Okay, 1st take 1/4 quart of milk and 1/4 tsp of Citric Acid. I got Citric Acid at Vitamin Cottage. Dissolve the Citric Acid in 2 Tbsp of water and stir it into the milk. Then heat the milk up on medium heat.

Stir occasionally, don't let the milk come to a boil. Here you see the milk start looking clumpy.

And here is when I realized that the WB Auto setting on my camera isn't doing a good job. Because then I manually set it to the tungsten lamp and the picture looks better - no more yellow hue!

Here the milk starts really separating. I think the liquid is called whey, and the white clumps, well that would be our future ricotta cheese.

Next, you pour the milk into the strainer. I got this white cloth from my mom, and don't know what it is. But I think you can use coffee filter or cheesecloth and fine strainer combo.

See how nice those cheese-to-be look like?

I let it strain for 15 minutes, until all the liquid is gone. I think I let it go too long, because the cheese was really firm and dry. Next time I need to save a bit of those whey liquid and store the cheese in it.

Pretty easy right? The whole thing took less than an hour and yield a handful of ricotta cheese. And what's great is that you can do other things in the kitchen while the milk is heating up, since you only have to stir it occasionally. I am not sure how long this homemade version keep but I would suggest using it within a couple of days.

Croque Monsieur

One of my favorite lunch item, Ina Garten's Croque Monsieur. It is super easy to make, takes 10 minutes of prep works, then 25 minutes in the oven. And voila, you have a restaurant quality lunch.

I'm not sure if I can post the recipe here without getting into trouble. I think I'll better play it safe and tell you that you can find the recipe on Food Network, just type in Croque Monsieur and it's one of the 1st search result.

Click here to go to the recipe on Food Network's website.