Category: Cooking – Recipes

  • Ketchup solves everything : A Ketchup Recipe

    Ketchup solves everything : A Ketchup Recipe

    photo by DrBob
    photo by DrBob

    This ketchup recipe is from a viewer and food blogger, Kathy. Kathy has a blog, What’s For Dinner,  sent this and I wanted to share it with you all.

    I love ketchup, and I’ve never made my own ketchup, but why not try this ketchup recipe?

    Homemade ketchup recipe

    There are a million versions of this on the internet, but my kids and husband prefer this version. I have 3 sons who put ketchup on EVERYTHING.

    • 6 ounce can tomato paste
    • 1/3 cup tap water
    • 2 tablespoons vinegar
    • 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
    • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
    • 1/4 teaspoon salt
    • 1 pinch cloves
    • 1 pinch allspice
    • 1 pinch chili powder
    • 1/3 cup brown sugar

    This is simplicity itself. In a medium bowl combine all of the ingredients with a wire whisk. Blend well. Scrape the mixture into a pint-sized, resealable container. Chill overnight, to blend the flavors. Use wherever ketchup is desired.
    To reduce the sodium content simply omit the salt.
    As written this recipe makes 12-ounces or 24 servings, 1-tablespoon each.
    The recipe freezes extremely well. When I have a time I make up a very large batch, place it in a Ziploc bag and freeze. When our ketchup supply runs low I simply thaw the frozen supply over night. Then I snip the corner of the Ziploc bag and squeeze it into an existing ketchup bottle.

  • OK, I DO like ramps.

    OK, I DO like ramps.

    Last week, someone posted on Twitter that they didn’t get the hype about certain ‘foodie’ foods, and ramps being one of them. I concurred.

    Then last weekend, we had dinner at the camp, and I sat down to a plate of ramps.

    WOW

    photo: wfiupublicradio
    photo: wfiupublicradio

    For these ramps, the recipe was simple: Saute in olive oil.

    That’s it. The cook apologized for not having any garlic to add to the dish. It didn’t need it. They taste like a cross between garlic and scallions, and sweet and buttery.

    According to Wikipedia : Allium tricoccum, commonly known as ramps, spring onion, ramson, wild leek, or ail des bois (French), is a member of the onion family (Alliaceae). Found in groups with broad, smooth, light green leaves, often with deep purple or burgundy tints on the lower stems and a scallion-like bulb strongly rooted just beneath the surface of the soil. Both the white lower leaf stalks and the broad green leaves are edible. They are found from the U.S. state of South Carolina to Canada and are especially popular in the cuisine of the US state of West Virginia and the Canadian province of Quebec when they emerge in the springtime. A common description of the flavor is like a combination of onions and strong garlic

    Ramps grow on the East Coast of the U.S. in wooded areas. So last Sunday, on our hike with the Labradors, I kept my eyes out for ramps, but found none. But I will keep looking, as my neighbors down in the valley have ramps, so I’m thinking they are up at my house as well, maybe they sprout a bit later. ( i’m hoping )

    My Brooklyn neighbors, Food52.com, interviewed Hubert McCabe of Windfall Farm on their blog here, and he says: “They’re like a present … You stumble on them, and nobody will tell anybody else where their secret spots are.”

    Thanks to Food52, I met a new Brooklyn Food web video person, Lisa, of The Funny Side Up, and here is her video about ramps, direct from her kitchen.

    some other food bloggers who have written about ramps are listed below, please check them out.

    Closet Cooking

    innBrooklyn

    Radishes and Rhubarb

    Good Food Revolution

    The Just in Case Book

    What do you know about ramps? How do you cook them? tell us below:

  • No Knead Bread: How to flip the dough

    No Knead Bread: How to flip the dough

    I’ve been constantly fine-tuning the Mark Bittman Jim Lahey No Knead Bread recipe. We’ve made a GardenFork Video here, and I’ve done blog posts about No Knead Bread. For a while there I was having No Knead Bread failure, and I finally found that I was not letting the dough rise long enough for the initial rise, and that the kind of all purpose flour changes the dough. Not every all purpose dough has the same amount of protien, it varies.

    I also have started to rise the dough in a towel lined bowl instead of just on a board. I think it helps with the shape a bit.

    I think the hardest thing about No Knead Bread is flipping it into the dutch oven.

    So we took some pictures of how I do it. I’m never able to get it to flop right in proper, so I take a wooden spatula and scrape the dough off the sides of the dutch oven, and jiggle the pot to get the dough to even out. I don’t touch the dough.

    The flip is a fluid motion, don’t hesitate, and don’t flip too fast, or too hard. The less you think about it the better. How’s that for advice?

    What techniques do you have for better No Knead Bread? or any recipe variations? please tell us below:

    flip1

    flip2

    flip3

    flip4

    flip5

    flip6
    use a wooden spatula to scrape the dough off the sides of the pot

    flip7

    flip8

  • Salted Caramel Strawberry Recipe GF Video

    Salted Caramel Strawberry Recipe GF Video

    Home Made Halloween Treat or decadent dessert, this salted caramel strawberry recipe is good. And you don’t have to make the caramel from scratch.

    I asked Jaden Hair, author of the cookbook Steamy Kitchen and the website SteamyKitchen.com, on Twitter which of her recipes I should make on GardenFork.TV and her answer was immediate: a salted caramel strawberry recipe.
    Caramel Strawberry Recipe

    I asked that the recipe be simple, ( this is Eric cooking after all ) and this is super simple and super good. wow. yum

    I used popsicle sticks for this recipe, but you could also use bamboo skewers, ideally cut in half. Or use what you got, if you have something that will work for you. You could also dip the strawberries using a skewer and then lay each berry on wax paper to cool, and be finger food.

    At times, I’ve found supermarket strawberries to be under-ripe on the inside. There’s really no way to see if the strawberries are ripe inside even though they look red. If you can press on a berry, if they are hard, you know they are not ripe inside.

    caramel strawberry recipe-2

    Be very careful with the caramel. Its hot and its sugar, and it can burn you. Slow and steady wins the race here. Start out with a small batch of the caramel to get the hang of melting the caramel if there is some trepidation.

    this recipe is based on the Southern Living Farmer Market Cookbook

    Salted Caramel Strawberry Recipe GF Video
    Recipe Type: Dessert
    Author: Based On Jaden Hair
    Prep time:
    Cook time:
    Total time:
    Serves: 10 Treats
    An easy dessert or Halloween treat recipe
    Ingredients
    • 10 large fresh strawberries
    • 20 caramels
    • 1 1/2 tablespoons whipping cream
    • 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
    • 
1 cup coarsely chopped mixed nuts (peanuts and almond slivers)
    • 
Wax paper
    Instructions
    1. Soak strawberries in a ice bath for 5 minutes to restore their perky leaves
    2. Pat strawberries completely dry with paper towels
    3. Microwave caramels, whipping cream, and salt in a microwave-safe bowl at MEDIUM(50% power) 2 minutes or until smooth, stirring at 1-minute intervals.
    4. Dip each strawberry halfway into caramel mixture.
    5. Roll in nuts, and place on lightly greased wax paper.
    6. Let stand 15 minutes.
    7. Serve immediately, or cover and chill up to 8 hours.
  • SOS! The Six O’Clock Scramble to the Rescue. Earth Friendly, Kid Pleasing Dinners for Busy Families.

    SOS! The Six O’Clock Scramble to the Rescue. Earth Friendly, Kid Pleasing Dinners for Busy Families.

    I love cookbooks. It’s the first section of the library that I hit. Then gardening and home repair. Finally sparkly  vampires and romantic comedies. I got a copy of The Six O’Clock Scramble: Quick, Healthy, and Delicious Dinner Recipes for Busy Families
    to review and as much as I love a big, colorful, well photographed cookbook, like David Chang’s Momofuku, SOS would more likely find a place on my bookshelf.

    Aviva Goldfarb

    SOS is a practical cookbook. It’s the kind of cookbook that doesn’t overcomplicate things. The recipes are great for a beginner cook or someone who has just started to cook for a family. Nutritional Information is listed for all recipes, which a lot of cookbooks don’t do. I can’t tell you how many dishes that I’ve made, that I’ve thought were lower calorie or lower fat, and they just weren’t. One dish in particular, was from a Garden Fork Favorite, Chris Kimball and a Best of the Year cookbook series.

    Impressively, SOS breaks down into seasonal chapters. Each season lists menus and has a nice little blurb about what’s available and seasonal goodness. I showed SOS to my sister and cousin and they liked this feature. They don’t always know what’s in season, so the seasonal food section was helpful. There’s also great information through out the book about healthful snacks or different meal idea.

    SOS doesn’t jump off the shelf at the bookstore. There’s no color photographs or food porn. It’s nice to see how some food will turn out before you cook it. Other than that, it’s a great book and I recommend that everyone check it out.
  • Dandelion Identification: is it Edible?

    Dandelion Identification: is it Edible?

    Yes, dandelion is edible. There you go. Below the video here are a bunch of photos and info, scroll down after watching!

    Dandelion can fall under the subject heading of urban foraging. It is ubiquitous in yards in America. Just make sure it hasn’t been sprayed with anything if you are pulling it up out of someone’s yard.

    I was weeding the mesclun salad greens bed, which i have covered with our Hoop House Cold Frame ( you can get plans for our hoop house and video here )

    A lot of dandelion has already come up, and I was surprised at how large the tap root was for such small plants. wow. look at the picture below:

    Dandelion has a large taproot. Both the leaves and the tap root are edible, and are used in herbal medicines.
    Dandelion has a large taproot. Both the leaves and the tap root are edible, and are used in herbal medicines.

    Dandelion is edible. It tastes a bit like arugula, it has a tang to it, if the leaves are mature, it can be a bit bitter.

    But bitter can be good in a salad! It offsets raspberry vinegar really well, and it goes well with blue cheese. So stop pulling those weeds and instead harvest them for your dinner plate.

    I pulled bunch of dandelion out of our mesclun bed
    I pulled bunch of dandelion out of our mesclun bed

    The younger plants are better, I think, after dandelion has flowered the leaves get tougher, but  you can still eat them. Best way for tougher leaves is to saute them in some olive oil with garlic.

    Dandelion is super healthy,  according to the USDA, Dandelion is high in Vitamin K, Carotene, Vitamin A, and Lutein. neat. And this grows in your yard.

    When weeding a garden bed of dandelion, I try my best to pull out the tap root along with the top of the plant using one of my weeder tools. If you snap the plant off at the top of the taproot, the plant will send up new leaves. This is a good way to harvest if you have an area of dandelion which is a designated growing area for the plant.

    You can buy dandelion seed. I buy a kind called Italian Dandelion, which I believe is not a true dandelion, but it grows really well in my garden, and we like it.

    Dandelion after running it through the salad spinner
    Dandelion after running it through the salad spinner

    After I harvest the dandelion, I snap off the taproot, and shake as much dirt off as I can. I then put the greens in a salad spinner and fill up the bowl of the spinner with water. I slosh the greens around, pull up the basket and dump the water. I do this twice usually, then spin the greens. Then I eat them.

    Do you eat dandelion? How? Tell us below:

  • How to make yogurt : more info and use

    How to make yogurt : more info and use

    Inspired by my friend Brian, I have been making more of my own yogurt. And after making our How To Make your Own Yogurt video, and our Solar Oven Yogurt Maker, i was thinking of how you could use at  hand items to make yogurt.

    Then I saw one of my neighbors had thrown out a styrofoam cooler, the kind that Omaha Steaks uses to ship people their frozen steaks. I took it home and saw that a heating pad blanket fit in it quite well. I cut a notch in the wall to allow for the cord.

    steak cooler as yogurt fermenter
    steak cooler as yogurt fermenter

    It works really well.

    heating pad fits nicely in this
    heating pad fits nicely in this

    AND, I bought some yogurt starter, Yogourmet is the brand, to see if it was any better than just using some leftover store bought yogurt. And it is much better. The yogurt is much firmer, and i think tastes better.

    Yogourmet works better than just using yogurt as starter, i think.
    Yogourmet works better than just using yogurt as starter, i think.

    Wikipedia tells us about the origins of yogurt:

    There is evidence of cultured milk products being produced as food for at least 4,500 years. The earliest yoghurts were probably spontaneously fermented by wild bacteria Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus native to and named after Bulgaria.

    The oldest writings mentioning yogurt are attributed to Pliny the Elder who remarked that certain nomadic tribes, including the Bulgars, knew how “to thicken the milk into a substance with an agreeable acidity”. The use of yoghurt by medieval Turks is recorded in the books Diwan Lughat al-Turk by Mahmud Kashgari and Kutadgu Bilig by Yusuf Has Hajib written in the 11th century. Both texts mention the word “yoghurt” in different sections and describe its use by nomadic Turks. An early account of a European encounter with yoghurt occurs in French clinical history: Francis I suffered from a severe diarrhea which no French doctor could cure. His ally Suleiman the Magnificent sent a doctor, who allegedly cured the patient with yoghurt.Being grateful, the French king spread around the information about the food which had cured him.

    What are your yogurt recipes and tips? how do you make yogurt? please tell us below:

  • Fireplace Grilled Salmon : Eric’s Recipe

    Fireplace Grilled Salmon : Eric’s Recipe

    Grilled Salmon done with Fireplace Cooking, neat. Fireplace cooking means you don’t have to fire up the stove and your house doesn’t smell like fish or steak the next day. Watch as we grill salmon steaks with this simple recipe .

    Do you cook in your fireplace? Please come tell us about it below!



    Fireplace Grilled Salmon Steak Recipe:

    4 Salmon Steaks, as fresh as possible

    Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper

    Start a fire in the fireplace a few hours before cooking, allow the wood to break down into coals, kinda like charcoal.

    Place your cooking grill over the coals in the fireplace – be careful doing this.

    Allow the grill to heat up and clean the grill with half an onion rubbed over the grill.

    Drizzle olive oil and then salt and pepper to each side of the steaks.

    Place the steaks on the hot grill, and let each side cook about 5 minutes. This time may vary depending on how hot the coals are.

    Flip the fish, and check in a few minutes for done-ness. The flesh will flake easily when its done. Ideally you will take the fish off the grill just before the desired done-ness.

    Please let us know your fireplace cooking recipes here:

  • Kinda Carbonara with what’s in the fridge

    Kinda Carbonara with what’s in the fridge

    Tonite we drove to NYC for work tomorrow. Most nights like this, I go buy a burrito from the local tacqueria. The burritos are great, and healthy, as I opt for yogurt in place of sour cream in my black bean burrito.

    But tonight, after getting a parking spot, I thought, why not see what I have in the fridge and cook something quick?

    The basic ingredients on a Sunday night
    The basic ingredients on a Sunday night

    A quick scan yields frozen peas, eggs, some Pecorino Romano cheese, and pasta. There was some yogurt too, but not much else in the fridge. So I think this is kinda Carbonara.

    scramble the egg add the cheese
    scramble the egg add the cheese

    I cooked the penne pasta, mixed the egg with the grated cheese, drained the cooked pasta, saved some of the cooking water, put the pasta back in the pot, added the cheese-egg mixture, stirred it, added a bit of the pasta water, and some salt. I warmed up the frozen peas in the microwave and dropped them into the mix.

    Add the egg-cheese to the warm pasta
    Add the egg-cheese to the warm pasta

    Not bad. I added too much of the pasta water, and it could have used more cheese, but not bad for a Sunday night.

    The finished dish, the peas added.
    The finished dish, the peas added.

    Charlie Pup and Henry were very interested in what i was eating. It was good.

    What have you put together lately?

  • Beans and Toast Recipe : GardenFork.TV

    Beans and Toast Recipe : GardenFork.TV

    I had Beans on Toast for the first time last month, at Fort Defiance in Red Hook, Brooklyn. After the first bite I knew I had to make the Beans on Toast recipe for GardenFork.TV .

    Super simple, yet tastes great and is healthy as well. Lots of protein here, and it tastes even better with toasted multigrain bread. The recipe is below

    Eric’s Beans On Toast Recipe

    1 can of UK Heinz Vegetarian Beans

    or

    1 can of American Baked Beans

    or

    a pot of freshly cooked red kidney beans – i cook them with sauteed onions and cumin

    Bread for toasting – multigrain is best i think

    Eggs

    Grated Cheddar cheese, or the cheese of your choice.

    Toast your bread, and warm up the beans.

    Fry the eggs, how many depends on how many people you are feeding. Sunnyside up or just slightly cooked over easy are best, as the yolks run over the beans that way.

    Place the 2 pieces of toast on a plate, cover with 1 cup of beans, top with the fried eggs, top off with some grated cheese. The heat of the egg should melt the cheese a bit.

    Then eat. and tell us here how it is. ©2010 Eric Rochow all rights reserved

  • How to make Biscuits and Gravy, the Eric Recipe

    How to make Biscuits and Gravy, the Eric Recipe

    I love biscuits and gravy, and this recipe is super simple. First you make biscuits with this recipe, then you make the gravy with some of the leftover fat from cooking the sausages. Then you eat.

    Biscuits and Gravy Recipe:

    2 cups of all purpose flour

    1 tablespoon baking powder

    1/4 teaspoon baking soda

    1/2 stick of *cold* butter – 4 tablespoons

    1 teaspoon salt

    3/4 cup buttermilk, or put 1 tablespoon white vinegar into 3/4 cup milk and let sit for 5 minutes for a quickie buttermilk substitute. you can also use yogurt, but you may need to add a bit of water when mixing the dough in the processor.

    * to make your own baking powder, combine Cream of Tartar to Baking Soda in a 2:1 ratio. mix well and only mix what you’ll use in a few weeks.

    Preheat oven to 450

    Add all the dry ingredients to the food processor, pulse to mix.

    Cut  the cold butter into small pieces and drop in.

    Pulse food processor until the flour looks grainy like cornmeal. do not over-pulse this mixture.

    Slowly pour the buttermilk into the food processor while the unit is turned on.

    Mix until the dough balls up.

    Turn dough out onto a floured board, and press out to 1/2″ thickness

    Use a muffin cutter to cut out round biscuits, and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

    Bake about 11 minutes, until the biscuits rise and brown a bit. Cool on a wire rack.

    Gravy Recipe

    After cooking the sausage, leave about 2 teaspoon of the fat in the pan. Dust in the 1/2 the flour, and mix it around until the flour starts to brown. Slowly add 1 cup of the milk. The gravy should thicken nicely slowly stir in the remaining 1 cup of milk and stir to thicken.

    To plate the biscuits and gravy recipe:

    split open 2 biscuits and place the sausage gravy over them. Season with plenty of pepper and enjoy.

    ©2010 Eric Rochow

  • The Art of Eating In, a new book by Cathy Erway

    The Art of Eating In, a new book by Cathy Erway

    eatingin-182x300

    I’ve met Cathy Erway a few times, the first was at Emily Farris’ Casserole Crazy competition ( we made a GF show about it here ) She’s well known in the Brooklyn Food world, and I really like her blog about cooking in. Its not fancy food, its home food, but thought of in a few new ways.

    Like right now Cathy ( according to her blog posts ) is really into using apple cider as a braising liquid. Something I would not have thought of – but then I don’t get many original ideas in the kitchen.

    Now Cathy has published a book, The Art of Eating In:

    Rediscover the joy of home cooking through the eyes of one Brooklynite who swore off restaurants for two years. The story behind the scenes of Not Eating Out in New York, The Art of Eating In chronicles Cathy Erway’s journey through the underground of NYC eating, and her favorite recipes along the way. Two years, three apartments, countless food events and some strange restaurant-free “dates” later, she was able to turn eating in into something of an art, rather than mere survival.

    You can learn more about Cathy’s book here, and read her blog, Not Eating Out in NY here.

  • Eric’s Waffle Recipe post Christmas, + cornmeal

    Eric’s Waffle Recipe post Christmas, + cornmeal

    waffle2

    Its the day after Christmas and I decide that I want to make Waffles. No one in my house, besides me and the Labradors, likes waffles, but I do, so I make them. This time I modified my waffle recipe – watch the how to make waffles video here – with cornmeal. Neat.

    I use a cast iron waffle iron I bought online from Camping R US http://www.a1camping.com/, but you can use an electric one. I like the cast iron waffle iron because it is easy to clean, and i don’t have to wrangle an electric cord.

    The Cornmeal Yogurt pancakes came out great. Here is the recipe I modified from the original waffle recipe we posted here.

    waffle1

    Eric’s Waffle Recipe

    1 1/2 cups buttermilk  [to substitute milk here, put 1 1/2 tablespoons of vinegar in 1 1/2 cups of milk, let stand for 5 minutes, then add to recipe ]

    or

    1 cup of milk + 1/2 cup plain yogurt

    1  cup all purpose flour

    1/2 cup cornmeal – i like the coarse ground, but use whatever you like.

    2 teaspoons baking powder

    1/2 teaspoon salt

    1/4 cup canola oil

    3 eggs, yolks separated from whites.

    Preheat your waffle griddle.

    Combine the egg yolks with the buttermilk. add dry ingredients and just mix till mixed, don’t over mix.

    Then add oil.

    Using a whisk or electric mixer, beat the egg whites until they form peaks,

    Then turn the whites into the batter. Do this gently, you do not want to overmix this.

    Spray the waffle griddle with vegetable oil or non-stick cooking spray. Pour about 3/4 cup of batter onto the griddle, spread it around a bit.

    Close the griddle and sit tight. after 3-4 minutes, gently lift the lid and check the bottom for done-ness, if its nicely browned, flip the waffle griddle to cook the other side. Cook for a few minutes more until nicely browned.

    Serve with Maple Syrup and butter, you can also dust with confectioners sugar.

    ©2008 eric rochow

  • Alphabet Sugar Cookies for my birthday

    Alphabet Sugar Cookies for my birthday

    A good friend of mine stopped by the house and laid out this birthday message for me. What Fun! Making words with cookies.

    bdaycookies

    These are Alphabet Cookies cutters and two cookie batters, one a plain sugar cookie the other a fudge sugar cookie. You roll out the dough, cut the squares, then use the alphabet cookie cutters to cut out the letters. You take the white letter and drop it into the corresponding chocolate letter space. Then take the chocolate letter and drop it into the white sugar cookie with the same letter.

    One place you can buy cookie cutters is The Cookie Cutter Shop

    We also used the letter from the birthday message to spell out a nickname we have for Charlie Pup:

    brat

    Do you have any fun cookie cutters or have you made some interesting cookies? Tell us below:

  • Mixer Meltdown into the Chocolate Chip Cookies

    Mixer Meltdown into the Chocolate Chip Cookies

    mixer

    I volunteered to bake chocolate chip cookies for the barn’s xmas party. Not brain surgery, I can do this.

    I pulled out my mixer, which i bought at a tag sale a while back. I invisioned the cream and butter creaming really nicely in the bowl, just like on TV. I added the 2 sticks of butter, but I didn’t cut them up, I just dumped them in. The butter wrapped around the blades of the beaters. I added the sugar and then the eggs, but most of the mix stayed stuck inside the beaters.

    Adding the dry ingredients helped, and I cranked up the mixer to power thru the dry ingredients. This worked great for a few seconds, then there was this mechanical gear grinding noise and the blades stopped moving.

    I turned off the mixer and unplugged it to find one of the beaters had bent itself around the other beater. Not Fun. I got most of the batter out of the beaters, and finished the job by hand.

    beater

    I was on the last cookie sheet of cookies when I realized that a small piece of the broken beater was missing. The small nylon washer that is at the end of the one beater to move along the bowl was gone from the beater.

    cookies

    And that missing piece was probably somewhere in one of the cookies. We carefully examined each cookie, but could not find the broken piece. We couldn’t bring these cookies to the barn party.

    We drove down to our local bakery, which is run out of the walk in basement of Wendy’s house. Wendy has great cookies, and we bought a pound of sugar cookies with dried cranberries in them. Off to the party the cookies went.

    Later on, a friend was over, we were in the kitchen, and he noticed Charlie Pup had something in her mouth. He fished it out of her mouth, and there was the missing nylon piece from the mixer.

    Now I have a nice batch of chocolate chip cookies in the freezer, ready for the long holiday weekend. Have you ever had something like this happen? Let us know below in the comments.

    beaterpart

  • Mayonnaise Recipe Yum! How to make Mayonnaise

    Mayonnaise Recipe Yum! How to make Mayonnaise

    We were out of mayonnaise up at the house, and we wanted to make turkey sandwiches, which must have mayonnaise!

    Check out how Eric makes mayonnaise, and learn how you can too. Its a simple mayonaise recipe and easy to do.

    If you add anything to this mayonnaise, it becomes and aoli. You could add curry, garlic, herbs, and then we can call this an aoli recipe as well.

    Eric’s Mayonnaise Recipe

    1 egg or 2 egg yolks

    1 cup of olive oil or vegetable oil

    1 tsp salt

    4-5 teaspoons of white vinegar or lemon juice

    few teaspoons of mustard or dry mustard

    1 tblspoon hot water.

    put the egg or egg yolks in a blender with salt, mustard and vinegar.

    turn blender on medium and slowly drizzle in the oil. it will churn into mayonnaise.

    you can add herbs, garlic, or other aromatics to make this a great spread.

    this keeps about a week in the fridge.

  • How to make pizza dough and bake pizza

    How to make pizza dough and bake pizza

    Wondering how to make pizza at home, or need a good pizza dough recipe? Here we go. Using the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day dough as a base, we create some super great and fun pizzas here. You’re best off with a bread – pizza stone to make these.

    Watch the How To Make Pizza episode and share with us your pizza recipes.

    Check out another Gardenfork episode we did making bread based on the Artisan Bread book here.

    This pizza dough recipe is adapted from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, see their site for info on buying their great books.

    This works best with a clear 6 quart plastic container with a lid that can be slightly ajar, not super tight on the top of the container.

    Take 3 cups of warm water, add to it 2 packets of active yeast, 2 tablespoons of salt and 2 or 3 glugs of Olive Oil.

    Add 6 cups of all purpose flour to this and allow to rise for a few hours.

    When the dough has about doubled, put it in the fridge.

    You can use the dough right away, but its best to leave it overnight in the fridge.

    cut off a a hunk about 4″ in diameter, and roll it into a ball, turning the outside into the inside as shown in the video.

    lay out on a floured board and roll out to desired diameter.

    bake on a preheated baking stone in a 500F oven until bubbly and crisp.

  • Balsamic Vinegar Reduction, make the cheap stuff taste like the good stuff

    Balsamic Vinegar Reduction, make the cheap stuff taste like the good stuff

    I’m calling this the Balsamic Vinegar Hack, or cheat. Chris Kimball of Cook’s Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen posted about making grocery store balsamic vinegar taste like the expensive kind, so I wanted to try it and see. So check out our balsamic vinegar recipe video here and let us know what you think.

    Here’s what happened: