About This Blog

This is, as the title indicates, my kitchen notebook (the header is actually a scanned image of the cover of a notebook that I started using about 25 years ago and the background is a stained page from that book). I am not a professional recipe writer. If you try any recipe here, please keep that in mind, these recipes have not been tested by an independent tester. The "recipes" are often not even really recipes but rather a list of ingredients that I've noted after preparing a dish on the fly that I thought came out well. Perhaps I've also added some instructions, but I rarely keep accurate track of what I've done in terms of time or temperature, I've just noted to the best of my memory (feeble) what I did.

Please feel free to take some inspiration from here, but on the other hand, please give credit where it is due. I also welcome any constructive comments that you might have if you are inspired to try a recipe. Questions are welcome, but keep in mind that I may not remember specifics. The dishes do evolve over time...

Thank you and enjoy!

Pizza Night

Tomato, Mozzarella, Pancetta, Basil
Pizza number 1 had peeled, seeded and diced fresh picked Carmello tomatoes, shredded whole milk mozzarella, diced pancetta, and a final sprinkle of chopped basil and parmigiano.

Manchego, Onion, Piquillo
The second pizza had manchego cheese, sauteed sweet onions and fresh from the garden sauteed Piquillo peppers. Piquillos are usually roasted and skinned, but I didn't feel like going to the trouble this time around. I julienned the peppers and slowly sauteed them with the onions, minced garlic, and a few branches of fresh thyme until they were meltingly tender. The skins were a little tough but not so much as to be a bother. The flavor was still fantastic.

Gruyere, Potato, Octopus, Pancetta
The final pizza was a little too weird for our friends that had stopped by. He looked at the thin sliced Yukon Gold potatoes (from the farmers market) that had been tossed with chopped Georgian Crystal garlic and olive oil that I was arranging on a cast iron griddle pan and dubiously inquired about what those were for. He looked even more dubious when I said they were going on a pizza. Too weird! She looked squeamish when I told her that the potato topped pizza would also have octopus on it. They left before pizza #3 made it to the oven - not because they couldn't take my weird pizza, but because they had an hour and a half drive home and needed to get up early this morning. Or perhaps it was the brussels sprouts that I was preparing to roast that made them look at their watches! Anyway, the potatoes are roasted until soft but not browned before they go on the pizza. The pizza is made with gruyere cheese, topped with the roasted potato slices, then cut up pieces of octopus (canned in olive oil) and I also used the last bit of diced pancetta left from the tomato pizza.

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