Feta Pita Pizza

So simple, yet so good. I am almost ashamed to admit there is barely any cooking involved in this recipe. It came together in about 15 minutes. While I opted to make on an indoor grill, this pizza would be perfect for outdoor grilling.

Inspiration for the pita pizza's came from Big City Cooking. The idea of using flat break pita's is fabulous and you could use a variety of toppings. Enjoy!

Feta Pita Pizza

Inspired from Big City Cooking

Serves 2

2 flat bread style pita's

1 large sweet onion, sliced

1/2 cup crumbled feta

2 tablespoons kalamata olives, pitted and chopped

2 roma tomatoes, sliced

1/2 tablespoon Greek oregano

1 tablespoon olive oil

Heat olive oil in a heavy pot pan. When oil is warm add onions. Cook over medium low heat for 15-20 minutes. Place pita's on warmed grill. Top with feta, onions, tomatoes and olives. Top with oregano. Cook for an additional 5 minutes until feta is slightly melted. Serve warm.

Zatar Pita Chips

Greek pita bread is a flat bread closer in texture to Indian Na'an than Middle Eastern pocket pitas. While most associate pita bread with Gyros, my favorite way to serve Greek pita is to cut it up, season and toast. Perfect for dips or with a salad, these wedges are a perfect snack.

Zatar Pita Chips

Serves 4

3 Greek-style pita bread

2 tablespoons zatar seasoning

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1/4 cup olive oil

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Using a pizza slicer cut pita's into 8ths. In a large bowl drizzle with olive oil and season with zatar and garlic powder. Place seasoned pita wedges as an even layer on a half sheet pan, lined with parchment paper. Cook for 10 minutes until crisp. Place on cooling rack and serve warm or at room temperature.

Grilled Parsley Pesto Pizza

Since retruning from vacation laziness has set in and weeknight meals have become typical. When seeking suggestions from my husband pesto always creeps in to the conversation. Now the food Gods may strike me down but I dislike basil and thus pesto is not top on my list. Parsley though, I can live with and have tons always in the fridge. One of the other reasons I dislike pesto is it seems like a ton of bricks has hit my stomach after a meal and the parsley variation was surprisingly light.

Now I am a working girl and am lucky if I have an hour from start to finish to get the meal on the table. I cheated a bit and purchased fresh pizza dough from the market. This truly was unexpectedly light, topped with fresh mozzarella or fresh ricotta (an undervalued kitchen friend) this is very different from the usual cheese and pepperoni. Don't get me wrong nothing can replace my local pizza favorite this dish however is a great homemade alternative.

Parsley Pesto Pizza

Adapted from Michael Chiarello
Servings: 4 six inch pizzas

12 oz. pizza dough
Flour for rolling surface
1/2 cup parsley pesto (see below)
1 cup fresh ricotta cheese
4 bocconcini fresh mozzarella, sliced thin
olive oil

Heat grill. Roll the dough in to 4 pizzas, each about 1/8 thick and 6 inches round. Brush each side with olive oil. Grill pizzas over medium heat until lightly brown around 5 minutes. Turn the pizzas over and spoon a few teaspoons of ricotta or 5 slices of mozzarella. Cook until the cheese is about to melt. Remove from grill and serve warm.


Parsley Pesto

From Gourmet

yields 1 cup

Note: pizza recipe called for a 1/2 cup, froze the remaining amount in airtight container
1 cup tight-packed flat-leaf parsley leaves
1/4 cup toasted chopped walnuts
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 large clove garlic, crushed
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest

Place parsley, walnuts, cheese, garlic and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Pulse until well combined. Combine oil, lemon and zest in a small bowl. Add the oil mixture to parsley mixture in a slow stream, pulsing to combine.

NYT No-Knead White Bread

Bread, oh how do I love thee. While many the low carb phenomenon, I still love you and can call no meal complete without you.

From an early age I was very much aware that bread is the glue of every meal. The vessel to sop up that olive oil from my mom's braised green beans. The perfect scoop to reach every last drop of soup. Even though my various travels have brought me to fine dinning establishments throughout the world, I still contend there is no greater meal then fresh crusty bread, good feta and olives from Messinia.

I hate to stand on a soap box but, Wonderbread and it's evil spawns have single handily smeared (no pun intended) the reputation of bread. While the move toward artisan breads, that blows the wonder stuff out of the water, is a step in the right direction, the cost can be prohibitive. As an avid bread consumer the weekly bill for various loaves range from $15-$20 a week. I have therefore taken steps to have reduce purchases to only 1 loaf per week and supplement with homemade bread.

While both my mom and yiayia made bread at home, I have opted for a more standardized recipe that creates a wonderful, nutritious, cost effective crusty white bread but above all is so incredibly easy.

No-knead bread came in fashion in 2006 when the New York Times profiled this recipe adapted from the Sullivan Street Bakery in New York City. Thankfully since then there have many well written books that cover the subject of easy homemade breads. I look forward to trying many of these recipes!

No Knead White Bread
New York Times, Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising
Yields 1 loaf

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.
Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

Sausage, Apple, Herb Stuffing

I could eat stuffing everyday for the rest of my life an die a happy soul. I like both moist and dry stuffing, so this year I decided, lets add a little more turkey stock to the stuff to cook with the bird and less with the stuffing cooked outside the bird. I know I like to complicate things...

Ingredients:
1 loaf of day old crusty white bread
1 small portion corn bread
1 lb. sweet Italian Sausage
1/2 lb. chestnuts
3 large green apples or fuji
1 bunch celery diced
1 large sweet onion diced
2 shallots diced
1 stick unsalted butter
2 tablespoons chopped sage
2 tablespoons chopped thyme
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2-3 cups turkey or chicken stock
Salt and pepper

Directions:
I prepare all items the night before then add the turkey stock prior to stuffing the bird. To save some time, I cook the sausage and chestnuts on Tuesday and keep refrigerated.

1.) Cut white bread in 1/4 inch or less pieces. If bread feels soft then toast in oven for a few minutes.
2.) Meanwhile, heat butter in large pan and add chopped celery, onion and shallot. Season with salt and pepper and cook on low until translucent. Remove from heat and add herbs.
3.)Remove sausage from casing and brown until golden. Add to the cooked celery onion herb mixture from step 2.
4.) Score chestnuts by lightly cutting an x in each chestnut then either roast for 5 minutes in oven or boil for 5-10 minutes. Chopped semi-cooked chestnuts and add to the mixture.
5.) Peel and dice apples and add to the mixture.
6.)Combine Celery, onion, herb, chestnut, sausage, apple mixture with white and corn bread.
7.) Season well with salt and pepper, taste everything is basically cooked so no worries. Adjust seasoning as needed.
8.)Prior to cooking add turkey or chicken stock to your taste. Place stuffing in bird or bake uncovered for 30 minutes at 375 degrees until golden.

NY Strip Steak Sandwich

I truly love this dish. I adapted a recipe from my favorite cooking show, Barefoot Contessa. I am not a huge fan of mayo but I couldn't resist trying this. I make this at least once a month and have used flank steak and ribeye but truly NY strip is the best for this recipe. Kali Orexi

1 (12-ounce) 1-inch thick New York strip boneless beef top loin steak
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil
2 yellow onions, sliced in rings
1 medium green or red pepper
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1 recipe Mustard Mayo, recipe follows
2 greek pitas

Season the steak liberally with salt and pepper on both sides. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a medium saute pan over high heat until it's almost smoking, then sear the steak on each side for 1 minute. Reduce the heat to low and cook the steak for about 7 to 10 minutes, turning once, until medium in the middle. Remove to a plate, cover tightly with aluminum foil, and allow to sit for 10 minutes. Slice the steak into strips.

Using the same saute pan, heat 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, peppers and thyme and saute for 10 minutes, until the onions are brown and caramelized, stirring occasionally.

To assemble the sandwiches, spread a tablespoon of Mustard Mayo on the bottom of each pita. Place a layer the steak strips on top of the mayo, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and top with the caramelized onion rings.

Mustard Mayo:
3/4 cup good mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
Whisk the ingredients together in a small bowl. Serve at room temperature