The Best Pizza You (even you in central Missouri) Have Never Heard Of



   Ellis Bakery.  Much like our small town itself, if you blink, you might miss it.  Located on a side street, inside a steel building that looks more likely to house, well...anything other than a bakery, is one of mid-Missouri's best-kept secrets.  In addition to making small quantities of breads and sweet baked goods (cinnamon rolls on the weekends, for example) for local grocery stores, Randy also cooks up great, simple, classic American pizza.  If you think 'pizza' in mid-Missouri, you generally think Shakespeare's and, let's be honest, they make an amazing pie as well.  Shakes is different, though, with a fairly thick, rich crust (and an amazing wheat crust, but that's another post) and mountains of toppings, some of a somewhat exotic nature.  Shakes pizza is awesome, but it's fairly pricey and can be pretty greasy as well, depending on the toppings you get. 
   Ellis Bakery's pizzas, as cooked up by Randy, however, are fairly minimalist in comparison.  Simple ingredients, classic 'hand-tossed' original crust, and a simple, slightly sweet, lightly savory sauce.  Oh, and the price? A large (the only size they offer) cheese starts at $9.00, with each additional topping only a dollar extra.  We've tried to pin down exactly what it is that makes this pizza so great on several occasions, but it's really pretty difficult.  The crust is awesome, with just a hint of sweetness and some similarities to a nice Italian loaf (I think Randy said the pizza dough recipe is fairly similar to his Italian bread recipe), the sauce is simple, and the ingredients are fresh.  In the end, I think, it's a good example of how restraint and simplicity can produce something that's far more than the sum of its parts. 

Healthy 'Biscuits' and Gravy



Over the last several months, my wife and I have been trying to eat a bit healthier and start a more intense workout regimen.  This is, in itself, fairly difficult (especially if you love food like we do!) but the situation is complicated further by the fact that we're both in graduate school, Jess works two jobs, and we have a 45 minute commute every day.  Convincing yourself to eat healthier is, in those circumstances, not so easy at times.  This week, though, we came up with a recipe that both tastes far worse for you than it is, and is easily made up in bulk ahead of time, so that you can just heat it up in the morning and go.

Both of us love biscuits and gravy but, let's face it, it's probably one of the most unhealthy breakfasts you can have.  With a few small tweaks, though, you can get most of the taste of this classic breakfast, with a lot fewer calories and fat.

      Healthy 'Biscuits' and Gravy                 (9 half-cup servings)

             -1 lb Honeysuckle White Original Breakfast Sausage
             -1.5 cups Uncle Buck's Cream Gravy Mix (available at Bass Pro Shops)
             -4 cups water
             -Healthy English Muffins (we like Thomas' Light Multi-Grain English Muffins)

This one's super simple.  Cook the sausage according to the directions on the packaging and set aside.  We didn't find the need for any oil or even cooking spray to get this one to fry up nicely.  After that, mix the Cream Gravy mix with the water and cook until thickened, following the directions on the package.  When thick, add the crumbled turkey sausage and continue to cook for a few more minutes, making sure that the gravy doesn't burn on.  You can add red pepper flakes if you want a bit more kick to the gravy, though we typically add them later, when we're ready to serve.

This recipe makes nine half-cup servings.  One half-cup of gravy plus one English muffin comes out to a total of 260 calories and 9 grams of fat.  Not bad for a breakfast that tastes like it should be significantly worse for you! 
            

Friday Night Cocktail {2}

"Friday Night Cocktail" is a blog feature that we have here once a week to highlight a new cocktail! Each week we'll share a new cocktail recipe and some of our brief thoughts about it!

In honor of November and the fall season, this week's Friday Night Cocktail is...

Pumpkin Martini

(from the recipe found HERE)

3 oz Snow Queen vodka

1.5 oz Hiram Walker Pumpkin Spice Schnapps

Splash of simple syrup (using our easy method!)

Black sugar for the glass rim

1. (Optional) Use colored sugar on the rim of your martini glass.
2. Simple! Shake and serve!

Some thoughts on this recipe...

• The original recipe actually called for a 3-to-1 ratio, but we upped the pumpkin to 1.5 oz.  This was still a VERY boozy cocktail. A different recipe (on the bottle) called for a 1-to-1 ratio.  I would probably recommend at least a 2-to-1 ratio instead of the original.
• I, personally, like the sugar rim as it helped with the "booziness" of the drink.  We also added a cinnamon stick which added a little spice to the drink--DEFINITELY recommended. :-)

Be sure to check back next week! We'll be making a S'mores martini or another pumpkin drink...

Friday Night Cocktail {1}

"Friday Night Cocktail" is a new blog feature that we're going to be starting where once a week we highlight a new cocktail! Each week we'll share a new cocktail recipe and some of our brief thoughts about it!

In honor of Halloween, this week's Friday Night Cocktail is...

BLOODY RUM PUNCH

(from the recipe found HERE)

1/2 bottle Castillo white rum

1/4 bottle 337 Cabernet Sauvignon

2 oz. lime juice

3 oz. Hiram Walker triple sec

3 oz. simple syrup

1. We started by making the simple syrup--but with a SHORTCUT!  To make a quick and easy simple syrup, you use a 1-to-1 sugar-to-water ratio.  Shake or stir the mixture until the sugar is thoroughly dissolved.  (The difference is mostly in the consistency as this quick mix is slightly thinner than the more labor-intensive cooked simple syrup.)
2. Next, you simply mix all of the ingredients together and let sit in the refrigerator for awhile! The website suggests about 2 hours and I would probably agree.
3. Serve! :-)

Some thoughts on this recipe...

• Definitely don't skip the chilling!  This drink is best served COLD.  I recommend serving this over ice.
• It's a bit "bitey" (boozy) at first sip. You definitely taste all that booze it has!  This is why I think it's best served really cold, otherwise the booziness is a bit overwhelming.
• Go cheap! We used less expensive rum and it would totally work with an inexpensive red (such as the $3 Merlot from HyVee) or whatever you have on hand that you're willing/ready to part with.  This isn't a drink that relies on top-shelf products to make it delicious. 

Be sure to check back next week! We'll be making a S'mores martini...

Tequila Lime Chicken

I have no idea where this summer went, but alas, it's back to the grind come tomorrow morning.  We decided we wanted to cook something really delicious tonight but something that wouldn't undo in advance the workout schedules we've set up for the following weeks.  We decided upon Tequila-Lime Chicken, a recipe which my family began cooking maybe 7-8 years ago.  And it's fantastic, if I do say so myself.

However many years ago it was, I wasn't really into cooking in any real way.  This was one of the first things that wasn't out of a box that I can remember cooking.  I found a recipe for a 'copycat' of Applebee's (yeah, I liked Applebees back then...) Tequila-Lime Chicken on the internet and figured I'd give it a go.  I spent a long time scouring websites for this recipe today, but with no luck.  There are several 'copycat' recipes out there for Applebees' Tequila-Lime and Fiesta Lime (I think the name just changed) Chicken, but they're all somewhat different.  Although I've tinkered with one or two ingredients, I cannot take any credit for this recipe, though unfortunately I'm not sure who ought to receive said credit.  Anyway, onto the recipe!

Tequila-Lime Marinade (for 2-3 medium-large to large chicken breasts):

• 1/2 c. water
• 1 c. teriyaki sauce (the really thin stuff, not a thick brush-on marinade)
• 1.5 oz lime juice (fresh or the stuff from the squeezable plastic lime)
• 1 oz tequila 
• 1 TBSP minced garlic 
• 1/2 TBSP liquid smoke
• 3/4 tsp salt ]
• Scant 1/2 tsp ground ginger

Mix all ingredients together, shake well to combine, and pour into shallow glass baking dish.  Marinade the chicken breasts in this mixture, turning occasionally.  We marinaded them overnight, although some people argue that in this amount of time the acidic lime juice can toughen the meat.  We shall see.

When the chicken breasts have thoroughly marinaded, all you do is throw them on a hot grill and grill 'em up.  We're only halfway there though.  There's a really delicious (and spicy) Mexi-ranch sauce that goes great with this, and it should be made up a day or two ahead, so that the flavors can blend.  The following recipe will make more than you'll need for 2-3 breasts, but it keeps well, and goes great on turkey sandwiches and a variety of other things!

Mexi-ranch dip:

• 3/4 c. low-fat sour cream
• 3/4 c. light mayo
• 1 TBSP white vinegar
• 1 TBSP dried onion flakes 
• 1 TBSP dried parsley flakes
• 1 tsp cayenne (this gives it a decent kick, back off to 1/2 or 1/4 tsp if you don't like heat)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp dried dill weed
• 1/2 tsp paprika 
• 1/2 tsp cumin powder
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/8 tsp black pepper 

Top each chicken breast with a bit of sauce, and sprinkle some shredded Colby-Jack or Mexican-style cheese over the top.  A few pieces of diced tomato or cilantro are nice garnishes as well.  For a bit of extra texture, serve this over crunchy tortilla strips, like the multi-colored ones you can buy at the store.  We opted to go for some HyVee baked all-grain crisps with sea-salt because they're what we had.  Once everything is on the plate (including the side-dish, below) throw this under the broiler for a minute or two, just until the cheese melts.

This chicken has so much flavor that you don't want to serve it with anything really crazy.  Keep it simple, and go with something like classic Spanish rice.  The recipe we used is adapted from here.

Spanish Rice (two servings):

• 1 TBSP olive oil
• 1/2 red or white onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp crushed garlic
• 1 c. medium-grain white rice
• 1.5 c. chicken stock
• 1 small tomato, finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

Lightly brown the rice in the oil in a small skillet.  When rice is beginning to brown, add onions and garlic and sauté until fairly soft.  Meanwhile, add other ingredients to a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer.  Add the rice, stir well, cover, and set the heat to low.  Cook 20-25 minutes.


The Verdict: Except for being slightly overcooked from uneven heating on the grill (I'm still getting the hang of charcoal grilling) this was really tasty! Everything was pretty much as I remember it, which is a good thing.  And how to top off the meal?  A cold Negra Modelo with a lime wedge (which I'd normally consider sacriledge) like they serve at La Fiesta back in Morton, IL!



Some Really Old (and Really Delicious) Ice Cream

Funny thing about freezers (especialy chest freezers) is that things can get buried deep down in the bottom, never to be seen again.  Well, almost never again.  When we got a second freezer, we found out that we had one pint left of Haagen Dazs Sticky Toffee Pudding Ice Cream.  For a lot of you, this may sound like the weirdest ice cream flavor you've ever heard of, but for those of us who love the classic British dessert, it's perfectly logical to turn it into a frozen treat! 

This flavor was the winner of 'Scoop!', a Food Network special that ran back in 2006 (that's right, five years ago!).  The whole idea of the show was for a bunch of people to compete with weird and whacky flavors for new ice creams and the winning recipe would become a limited release flavor from Haagen Dazs.  Jess and I were both pulling for the sticky toffee pudding, and we couldn't believe it; it won!  When the ice cream finally came out (2006 or 2007, I can't remember) we bought a bunch and, apparently, we'd saved one for a lot longer than we'd thought.  Oh well, we popped it open tonight and it was delicious!  There was just a tiny change in the consistency from fresh, but for an ice cream that's 4-5 years old, it's quite remarkable. 

The ice cream, while listed as simply 'vanilla' tasted remarkably like fresh vanilla custard (often served alongside the original dessert in England).  The cake was rich and sugary, with really nice dark caramel and dark fruit (think dried raisins or figs) flavors.  This is quite sweet, and every bit as decadent as the original.  There's a reason we still had this in our freezer (other than our forgetfulness).  Both of us agreed that this was probably the single best ice cream flavor we'd ever had.  Hopefully, a homemade take on this is somewhere down the line...

   



Traditional English Cream Tea...

...is what we decided we'd have for dinner tonight!  It's something we'd been wanting to try our hands at ever since we had it over in England at Betty's in York.  The traditional English Cream Tea consists of tea and scones, generally served with clotted cream and/or fruit preserves.  It sounds more like just a light snack, but with the dense buttery scones and the added richness of the clotted cream, it's typically plenty for a light afternoon meal.  We had to begin with tea, of course.   

This is my favorite bland, and is actually what convinced me (back in 2005 when I first went to England) that tea could actually be delicious.  At Betty's they serve it with cream (we used 2% milk) and both white sugar and lumps of delicious dark brown sugar (which sadly we didn't have). 

Having never made scones, I wanted a simple, straightforward recipe that was fairly foolproof, yet authentic.  I found the following recipe on the BBC website. 

• 8 oz self-rising flour (we were out, so I had to substitute using this recipe).
• pinch of salt
• 2 oz. butter
• 1 oz. sultanas (raisins)
• 1 oz. caster (superfine) sugar (if you don't have it, just whir table sugar in coffee grinder for a few sec)
• 5 fl. oz. 2% milk

First set your oven to 425 F.  Combine the flour, salt, and butter, rubbing together between your fingers until well blended.  Add the sultanas, sugar, and milk, and blend until you've formed a loose dough.  Turn this out onto a lightly floured board and knead lightly.  Roll to about 1/2 inch thick, and cut out rounds (if you don't have a round cookie cutter, you can do like we did and use a wine glass).  Reform the dough and continue to form scones until you've used the remaining dough.  Brush the tops of the scones with milk, and bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes or until the scones are lightly browned on top. 

After they've baked, arrange on a plate and serve with clotted cream and whatever jam or jelly you prefer.  We served the scones with a side of the sugared strawberries my mom cans every year from my dad's garden back in IL and they were delicious! 

While you can just use butter instead of clotted cream, it's not traditional and, stickler though I admittely am for these things, it really truly is worth the cost (one 6oz. jar ran something like $7-8 I believe) to track down authentic clotted cream if you can find it.  We found ours at one of the local HyVee stores: the only place that seems to sell it anywhere in the vacinity of Columbia.

In the end, everything turned out quite nicely.  The scones were lightly browned on the outside, with a wonderful toasted buttery crunch.  The texture was pretty spot on too, although not quite as poundcake-dense as the ones we had at Betty's were.  The clotted cream was remarkably (really surprisingly, actually) good, especially for being a bottled product and being shipped all the way over here.  The best way I can describe the taste is richer and slightly earthier than butter, almost halfway between butter and a really mild, fresh cheese.  The interior of the scones wasn't quite as rich as I would have liked; I'm toying with adding a touch more sugar or butter to the recipe next time we make it to see if this improves things at all.  But then again, maybe I shouldn't compare my cooking to Betty's, as they've gained the reputation they have for a very good reason.