Flat Bread Pizza

Tuesday Recipes...

This is our new favorite meal. Easy and quick, and so yummy!

Take two Flatbreads and put it in the oven at 400, on a pizza stone or cooling rack to start to crisp it a bit.

In the mean time put Olive Oil and some Garlic in a pan. Slice a large onion and start to caramelize.

We like to add in a couple sliced roasted peppers to the onions. Once the onions are caramelized pull the flat bread out of the oven. Put a little olive oil on the bread.

Pile a couple large handfuls of spinach on top of the flat bread. Put half the onion/pepper on each. If you like olives add a few of those. Put as much feta on top as you like.

Put back in the oven for 10-15 minutes, until the feta starts to get some color... ENJOY!

This has become a go to meal for us this spring.

Local Sunday!

The rain is good for many things. Yesterday morning when I was catching up on my magi zines and it was raining outside (meaning no Sunday morning field work) and hubby made waffles for me. Using local spelt flour, our own eggs, last years honey, Amish butter, and milk from our herd share. The only thing not local was the powdered sugar he dusted on top (next time maple syrup!)

Around noon the sun had come out so we went out and picked and weeded. We discovered enough carrots to include them in the week's share! Then we washed everything up, bundled and set up. Unfortunately, the first 3 members came right on time (I was late they were not early) and I had neither washed the mud off my arms, changed out of my dirty picking shirt, or brushed my hair. I looked a sight! So after they left I left hubby in the sorting shed while I ran to the house and made myself a little more presentable.

After we talked about next year and late season plans a little hubby then went out to do some more weeding (have I ever mentioned how much we covet a cultivating tractor?) And I waited for the rest of our members. Sunday pickups are nice because they are a little slower paced then Wednesday's. Same number of people but more time for them to come.

Around 4:30 hubby stopped by the sorting shed again and showed me an amazing red onion he had pulled from our garden. Our onions are bulbing up and this one was 3 inches in diameter and beautiful. I am so excited to have nice onions! While I finished up with pickup, the last couple members came, and I cleaned up the shed, hubby went in to make a pizza for supper.

We had made dough with whole wheat flour from our co-op, the cheese I had made from our herd-share milk, the veggies were all from our garden (except for a couple mushrooms from PA), the sausage was from local pork, and we cracked one of our eggs on top. I do have to admit that hubby put a little imported Italian salami on top, but wow did that add something to it... All in all it was one of the best pizza I have eaten in a long time.

We finished off the evening by doing nothing productive. We read a little, surfed the Internet a little, and watched the Tour 'd France and Next Food Network Star (which is a post in itself!)

All and all it was a good day. We got stuff done, our members got good food, we got good food, and had some time to breath... If only there were more days like that.

Snow and food...

With Friday& Saturday's snow storm, we like most other people in Northeast Ohio just hunkered down, stayed in and waited it out. Thankfully we had lots of yummy local provisions to make for a tasty couple of days, and with the snow, not much to do so I had the time to cook.

On Friday, I had a half a day of work, so as soon as I got home I took some of my local flour and started a pizza dough. Then I took out my "30 minute mozzarella" kit and tried my hand at making mozzarella for the very first time. We had local milk I was eager to try it on!

Now, by this time it was snowing pretty hard, and I did NOT want to have to go out and get cheese if this did not work, so it was a leap of faith. Thankfully, although I don't think it worked exactly right (my milk seemed to separate before it was supposed to) I did end up with something approximating cheese. Which I then, according to the instructions, gave several trips to the microwave, until it was so hot I could barley handle it, then knead and stretch until it got cool and harder to handle. Reheat and continue until shiny and it pulls like taffy. I eventually got to what I thought was this stage (on reflection I don't think it was.)

So I had mozzarella! Or something close enough that my hubby did not compain.

Then I took some ground pork I had from a local farmer and seasoned it. When it was cooked I threw in the last of my frozen sweet peppers from last year's garden and some mushrooms (if I had thought ahead I would have gotten some from Kilbruick Valley!) and cooked until the veggies were soft.

By then the dough had risen (gives you an idea of how long my 30 minute mozzarella took!) and I took a jar of my tomato sauce from last season, and used that with the pepper and sausage combination on the dough. Then I sliced the cheese as thin as I could, and put it on top. This is when I reallized how little cheese I had from the half gallon of milk! But it was enough for the pizza, so I was happy.

I have to say after 25 minutes on 425 degrees we had one heck of a good pizza! And the best thing is with the following exceptions all the ingredients were local: 1/2 of the flour was an organic white flour from Arrowhead Mills, the yeast was normal yeast, the olive oil was from California, the spices where from all over, the renant and salt for the cheese I have no clue on where they came from, and the mushrooms where from that most normal of places food comes from -- the grocrey store.

On Saturday as the snow continued to fall and it became evident that our street was a VERY low priority for plowing I started a stew. This was less local, but very good! We did have local grass feed stew meat and local potatoes, but the carrots, broth, wine and spices were all from non-lacal sources. This time next year I hope to be able to say I made the broth and the carrots were from our root cellar.

The path towards eating local is a slow one (at least for us) we are getting better at sourcing more of our ingredients locally, and are beginning to realize that we are lucky in that we have a wealth of products (including flour) available just a few counties away, it just takes a while to find all the sources and requires a change in mindset about how you buy food and what form it takes when you get it, and the work you put into making the meal... ((Oh, and use the Marco Polo rule :) ))