Caprese Tomato Salad

When the tomatoes are peaking, one of the best ways to enjoy them is also one of the easiest to prepare.  A classic Italian Caprese salad can be made in about ten minutes.  Here is what you will need:

Ingredients

1. Fresh tomatoes, sliced
2. Fresh basil leaves
3. Olive oil
4. Balsamic vinegar
5. Coarse sea salt

6. Fresh mozzarella cheese (optional)

Preparation

1. Slice the tomatoes and lay onto a plate or bowl
2. Wash and remove the stems from the basil, which can be whole leaf or chopped; sprinkle on top of the tomatoes
3. Grind coarse sea salt over the tomatoes and basil

4. Slice the mozzarella cheese and put a small piece onto each tomato slice (optional)
5. Drizzle balsamic vinegar and olive oil over the salad and serve

6. You may eat right away or serve chilled.  If you freeze the plate ahead of time, you can easily keep this dish nice and chilled.

Enjoy 

Crispy Fresh Tomato Pizza

Earlier recipes I have posted on making a pizza with a pre-made crust and fresh tomatoes with no sauce (like a Tale of Two Margarita Pizzas) have focused on fresh milk mozzarella as the cheese. Well, some folks either don't have access to this cheese (yes I do realize not everyone lives in Wisconsin), or want the most crispy pizza possible, and that is what this recipe is all about.

1.      Pre-made crust - The first aspect to consider when making a crispy fresh tomato pizza is of course the crust.  I recommend going with a thin crust that has been pre-baked on corn meal for about 6-8 minutes in an oven pre-heated to 375 degrees.  You can even make the crust ahead of time and then freeze it if you like, using freezer paper, and it will keep nicely for quite a while.  Pre-made crusts can also be purchased from some grocery stores (especially Italian-food grocers).

2.      Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit with a stone

3.      Basil - Wash and remove the stems from enough fresh basil to scatter over the surface of the crust. Lightly pat dry the basil with a fresh kitchen towel or paper towel to remove any remaining moisture from washing. 

4.      Tomatoes – Here is where you need to be extra selective if you can.  This time of year if you have a good farmers market or produce market, use one of these: San Marzano, Italian Paste, heirloom Roma or just plain Roma if nothing else is available.  We used 3 large San Marzano tomatoes and one smaller Italian Paste Heirloom.  Get at least a pound or more depending on how large a pizza you are making.  If you have heard that the San Marzano tomatoes are the best, you heard right.  Whoever told you that is probably a reliable source of information regarding Italian food!  Slice and layer your tomatoes on top of the basil.

5.      Cheese – Some good options that are widely available: slices of provolone or mozzarella (or use grated).  Top the tomatoes with your cheese.  We used sliced provolone for this one.

6.      Garlic – Peel and chop two large cloves of garlic.  You do not need to mince the garlic finely as you will sprinkle this on top of the cheese and it will roast and then bake into the cheese.

7.      Bake - Bake until nicely crisp, about 20-25 minutes depending on your oven and stone.  You can see from the photos of the results how nice and crispy the end result was.  If you don't have a pizza peel like the one shown above, you can get it from our General Store.  Here is the direct link to a good pizza peel that we sell.

Also, the pizza cutter that we used (similar one shown above) works really well, and you can get one from us here at a great price.

Enjoy!

A Tale of Two Margarita Pizzas

One of the fastest ways to create a fantastic pizza is to start with a pre-baked crust that is either fresh or frozen. Many busy people feel they don’t have time to make their own pizza. Using a pre-made crust simplifies the process so that a good homemade pizza can be put together in just a few minutes. Having a pre-made crust also makes the process more fool proof, because you have a solid foundation to build on that is less likely to get mushy from wet ingredients like fresh tomatoes.

Since this is the time of year in the Midwestern United States that we finally have an abundance of tomatoes, I decided to try making two Margarita pizzas in the T-Farm Test Kitchen on pre-made crusts.  The goal was to see how they would each turn out, and also to demonstrate how you can use most any good tomato and get a good result.  One pizza was made with juicy heirloom slicing tomatoes and the other one contained heirloom Italian paste tomatoes. 

The slicing tomatoes, purchased from a local grower, are an Heirloom which appears to be Copia, but I am not positive that is the variety.  In any event, the photo below shows just how gorgeous they are.  At first glance you might mistake them for small apples!

On the second pizza I used our own T-Farm grown “Principe Borghese,” which is an Italian Heirloom paste tomato and is very popular in Italy for sauces and drying, but you can use any paste tomato to obtain a similar consistency.  This variety grows on a compact plant and has a deep rich flavor, also making it perfect for pizza.   Here is what they look like:

The pizzas were both constructed very quickly and simply in the same way.  Only a few ingredients are needed, but of course you can add whatever toppings you like. 

Here are the steps.

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

2. Place a fresh layer of basil on the surface of the crust.  This is done for a couple of reasons.  It helps to keep the crust crunchy as it can hold some of the juices from the fresh tomatoes before they boil off, and secondly, the tomato juice keeps the leaves from drying out and losing their flavor.

3. Layer tomato slices on top of the basil.

4. Fresh milk mozzarella cheese, which sometimes comes in a log shape, should be cut into ¼” slices and then cut in half slices; layer them over the tomatoes.

5. Finally, a clove of freshly chopped garlic should be sprinkled on top of the cheese.  This will allow the garlic to brown while baking and fuse its flavor into the cheese.

6. Bake the pizza directly on a stone until brown, from 15-25 minutes depending on the crust and type of tomato used.  You can use a knife or peel to check the underside to ensure the crust is done.  If you don't already have one, we check out the baking stones we sell in our Amazon General Store here.

Results

The pizza with the juicy tomatoes turned out pretty well, but as you can see in the photo below, it had more moisture than it needed to.  If we had pressed the tomatoes on a drying rack to remove some of the liquid, that would have helped reduce the liquid on the final pizza.

The pizza made with the paste tomatoes was perfect.  As the closeup photo shows, although there was still moisture, most of it was gone when the pizza was done baking.  Everyone seemed to enjoy it, though the other pizza was also eaten, but perhaps not as quickly! 

Making Pizza on a Grill

When grilling out this summer, consider something special - Grilled Pizza.  Making Pizza on the grill is a little more difficult than baking, but it is a delicious treat with that smokey grill flavor that people will enjoy and ask for again and again.  Here are the steps you will need to follow to make a prefect grilled pizza.

1.     Create a good bed of coals that has an even heat.  Coals should be white hot.

2.     Start out with good pizza dough, and roll it out to about ¼” thick.  A thin crust does well on a grill, but it has to be thick enough to not fall apart.

This peel for sale at our
General Store works well with pizza

3.   Roll the dough on a counter top with lots of flour to make sure it doesn’t stick when transferring it to the peel or cookie sheet.  The peel shown on the right works very nicely for pizza and is on sale at our General Store.

4.     Do not curl up the edges of the crust when preparing it for cooking on the grill.

5.     Put coarse corn meal onto a peel like the one shown on the right and transfer the crust to the grill and then cover.  At this time you will only cook one side of the crust.

6.     Turn the crust as needed to cook evenly.  Hot and cool spots may be present across the grill. 

7.     Using the peel, remove the crust and lay the cooked side up back on the countertop, peel or cookie sheet.

8.     The pizza is now ready for toppings.  Lay out fresh basil and add a thin coating of sauce.  Adding too much sauce may create a soggy pizza that could fall apart on the grill.  Add other ingredients and then cover with cheese.

9.     Use the peel to gently slide the uncooked side down onto the grill.  It may be helpful to use a large spatula to remove the pizza from the peel and transfer it back to the grill.  Cover the pizza, but rotate it every 1-3 minutes, depending on how hot the coals are.   

10.  When the pizza looks nicely browned, remove it carefully using the peel.  

Fresh Vegetable Lasagna Recipe

When the tomatoes are ripe and your kitchen has an abundance, what should you do?  Well, tonight, I didn't feel like canning, so I opted to make a fresh vegetable lasagna.  Here's my recipe.

Ingredients

• 4 to 5 pounds of fresh tomatoes, chopped (more are needed if they are slicers)
• 1 large onion, diced
• olive oil
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1 tablespoon vegetable stock or 2 vegetable bouillon cubes
• 1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced into large pieces
• 3 cloves chopped, fresh garlic
• 1/2 large cauliflower, chopped into chunks
• 2-6 oz fresh basil
• 4 cups whole, fresh spinach leaves
• 2 large sweet peppers or 6 small ones, chopped into medium pieces
• 2 tablespoons Italian herbs
• "oven ready" or "no-boil" lasagna pasta
• 16 oz ricotta cheese
• 10 oz grated mozzarella cheese

Dice the onion and chop the tomatoes in a food processor. 

Then saute onions in a heavy cast iron pan with olive oil, and add the diced tomatoes.

Now add the salt and vegetable stock.  Now simmer to reduce the water content for 20 to 35 minutes until it thickens into a sauce with about 3-4 cups of liquid remaining.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

 Saute mushrooms and garlic with olive oil in a cast iron pan until golden brown.

Now add the following into the tomato sauce:

• mushrooms and garlic
• peppers
• spinach
• basil

Now mix it all together and you are ready to layer your dish! 

You will need a very large lasagna pan, or two medium sized ones.  First place a layer of pasta, then sauce, then use half of the  ricotta cheese.  Repeat with pasta, sauce, ricotta and top with the mozzaralla cheese. 

Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 400 for 30 minutes.  Remove the foil and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes until brown.

Top with fresh basil and serve.