Sweet Yet Sour

We Munhalls needed a break and a nice evening with friends and we got that on Saturday night.  Nate and Laura came over, we had a great time and we had some good food too.

Once they arrived, Mike and Nate went off to buy supplies for Mike’s latest hobby, home brewing beer.  I’m sure I’ll be posting later about the smell that this produces in our house, but for the moment Mike and Nate are really excited about sharing this fun.  And since Nate has recently won an award for his home brewing efforts, I’m sure he’s the best person for Mike to ask when he needs advice.

While Mike and Nate were gone, Laura and I went through the four bins of maternity clothes I had for her to look through.  Anna helped by pulling things out of the storage bins or sitting in the empty bins while we packed clothes around her.  By the way, it’s not like I really had all those maternity clothes, two of the bins belong to my sister; I wanted Laura to have the full benefit of plenty of clothes to borrow.  It’s silly to buy clothes for a fairly short period of life when you will wear and look good in maternity clothes.

Before Anna went to bed I started the pizza crust for dinner; my plan was to simply make pizza crust and have every possible pizza topping (except anchovies) available for us to put on the pizzas.  The pizza crust is really simple to do and is made quickly in the food processor.  It really doesn’t take that long to rise, only an hour to an hour and a half.  Here is the recipe:

Food Processor Pizza Dough:

In a small bowl let sit until the yeast blooms:

1 Tablespoon yeast, 3/4 cup warm water and a pinch of sugar (this works best when you put the sugar on top of the dry yeast and then add the water)

In a food processor mix together:

2 1/2 cups flour and 1 tsp salt

Once this is mixed, add while the food processor is going:

3 Tablespoons olive oil, the yeast/water mixture and cold water.  The tricky part here is to add the water 1 Tablespoon at a time, slowly, until the mixture begins to form a ball.  Add the water, let the mixture whirl around and then add another tablespoon of water if it hasn’t formed a ball.  The amount will depend on how moist the air is, etc., so it’s hard to judge how much you will need to put it in the processor.

Once the ball has been formed, take it out and put it into an oiled bowl (this is best done by pouring a little olive oil in a bowl and then swirling it around or spreading it with a paper towel).  Let it rise until double.  Roll out and put onto a greased pan and bake at 350 for 7-8 minutes and then top.

In addition to pizza we made a salad to get some veggies to balance out all that cheese we were having on the pizza (along with the pepperoni, etc.)  Nate and Laura really liked the honey-mustard dressing that I had made, so I’m including that recipe as well.  This is good as a salad dressing as well as a dip for chicken nuggets, etc.

Honey-Mustard Dressing:

Mix together: 1/2 cup mayonnaise, 1/2 cup prepared mustard, 1/2 cup honey and a dash of worchestire

Dinner at my house is not complete without dessert.  I really feel like I am best at dessert and every once in a while I think if we win the lottery I’d open some sort of dessert or pastry business.  I like experimenting with new dessert ideas when people come over and Saturday was no exception.

I made my chocolate sourdough cake in two 9″ layers (sorry, I’m not going to include the recipe since you need sourdough start for this) and then once they were cooled, I cut them in half.  In between the two halves I spread Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread) and in the middle I spread apricot all fruit spread.  So from the bottom the cake went: cake layer, Nutella, cake layer, apricot spread, cake layer, Nutella, cake layer.  To top it all off I frosted it with ganache.  Ganache is an easy and yet pretty way to top off a cake, and after all that work with the cake layers, I went the lazy way with the ganache.  I got this from the Joy of Cooking and it’s the best:

Chocolate Ganache:

Warm in a heavy sauce pan on medium heat until just boiling: 3/4 cup heavy cream.

Once the cream is boiling, remove the pan from the heat and add: 8 oz semi-sweet or bitter-sweet chocolate chopped into small pieces (chocolate chips will do just fine). Stir until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is a smooth and shiny.  Let it sit out or in the fridge for a few minutes to allow it to be spreadable, otherwise, it will simply be to liquidy to use as frosting.

Here is what was left of the cake after Nate and Laura left:

We sent them home with both cake and pizza, but there was obviously plenty of cake left for us to devour.  I just finished the last piece while I watched The Biggest Loser. If that doesn’t say anything about my motivation to lose weight (almost nil), I don’t know what does.  I don’t think I’ll make this cake a lot, not because it wasn’t good, but because it was so good that I couldn’t resist the temptation.

After a long evening, especially for the poor pregnant Laura, who really should have been in bed by 8, we shipped them off with clothes, pizza and cake.  It was a lovely evening!