1.Whole Wheat Pizza With Goat Cheese, Tomatoes & Olives
We love pizza, but usually try to restrict our love for pizza to just once a week. Friday night is “pizza night” in our house. My husband happily enjoys the same pizza every week, which is a Margherita pizza topped with arugula and prosciutto after it is cooked. I prefer to play around with my pizza toppings, often changing the ingredients along with the seasons. Although we are lucky enough to own two backyard pizza ovens, one here in North America, and one in Umbria, you can make great pizza in your oven as well.
In my ongoing challenge to make our weekly meals healthier, I have been playing around with the dough, incorporating whole grain flour in with my pizza flour. We love our old pizza dough which is both tender and crisp, so I found that using all whole wheat just made too tough of a crust. It took a few tries, but I am now using 50% white wheat flour, and 50% pizza flour (also known as tipo “00″ in Italy which is similar to cake flour). In the US I buy Caputo pizza flour which works the same as the Italian tipo “00″. I also use one cup of white wine along with the water, which helps to create a tender dough. My choice of toppings for this pizza were influenced by the season, choosing a combination of asparagus, goat cheese, Kalamata olives, and fresh tomatoes. This dough recipe makes 4 to 6 pizzas depending on the size, so you will have dough leftover. Simply weight the dough into equal 8 ounce balls, and wrap the unneeded balls and freeze for future pizzas.
2.Fried Sweet Peppers With Balsamic Vinegar
I usually have some roasted sweet peppers in my refrigerator all the time that I use as an addition to my antipasti tray, in sandwiches, or to toss into my pasta dishes. I recently decided to try something a little different, and simply fried pepper strips, then added some garlic and balsamic vinegar and they turned out delicious. I’ve tasted peppers cooked this way from time to time but for some reason I just never made them myself at home until recently. The balsamic vinegar really adds a nice depth of flavor and a little extra sweetness that turns simple peppers into something special. These peppers would be great on an antipasti tray, or served with grilled or roasted meats and sausages. I also think these peppers would be amazing served along with grilled sausages on a bun.
3.Pasta alla Trapanese
I’ve seen this tasty Sicilian pasta dish with many different variations, but almost all contain almonds along with tomatoes ground into a type of pesto for the sauce. Though I prefer making this dish with fresh, ripe, garden fresh tomatoes, when they are out of season I find a combination of good quality canned tomatoes along with sun-dried tomatoes work well. Because I had some leftover Sun-Dried Tomato & Chili Pesto in my refrigerator, I used this, but sun-dried tomatoes in oil will work well also. This sauce is also delicious on grilled seafood or chicken as I found using up some leftover Trapanese sauce the next day. Lightly toasting the almonds first before making the pesto really brings out the almond flavor, so do not be tempted to skip this step. I like to make the sauce a few hours before I need it as the flavor of the sauce improves as it sits. You can use a long pasta such as spaghetti, or a short twisted pasta as I have shown in my photos as both work well with this sauce.
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