Tipo “00” (addendum 10/31)

Trying out new type of flour for a thin crust pizza, more of a crackery crisp texture. Neutral flavor compared to all purpose flour. Only small amounts of sugar and salt added. About 2 hour rise time total. Minimal toppings. 500 degree Fahrenheit oven pizza slid onto a cast iron griddle.

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Cheese and onion with egg  (Omelet Pizza)

Eggplant cassarole (updated)

Ah ! Eggplant again ! How about a different preparation? A lasagne type cassarole this time , prep ahead to be later baked.

Make up a quick batch of dough, eggs , flour and salt pulsed in a food processor, kneaded and let rest.

Peel and slice horizontally the egg plants  (2  medium, )about 1/4 inch thick, sandwich between layers of paper towel after salting o both sides, apply weight and let stand about 30 minutes. Rinse with plain water.

Tomato sauce already prepared. Cook ground beef, also canned red beans to bulk up the cassarole.

My cheese will be the typical store b ought sliced mozzarella

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Ready?   Oops !  roll out the pasta dough also.

Assemble the layer as you see fit to vary the ingredients, on the fly measurements, so amounts will dictate the layers.

Ok , done , to the fridge for baking tomorrow.

Now the finished product, It was just the right consistency, not overly juicy, easily sliced. 

Thin pasta and meat, red beans, eggplant throughout. Minimal sauce and cheese. 

Excellent when cool or even cold from the fridge.

Potato and egg

A bit of a light breakfast, some fried diced  potato with onion and garlic seasoned with fennel seed, caraway seed, celery seed and coriander seed. Salt, pepper blend ,and hot pepper flakes. Not shown, orange for fruit

stuffed eggplant

Eggplant is one if those ingredients that can replaced meat or augment it. Usually I prepare one type of eggplant recipe most often, sliced , breaded, and fried, or baked. That  method requires preparation. If you follow the salt and drain routine to remove the moisture from the eggplant this is  more prep time. Occasionally viewing cooking shows on TV gave me the idea to change the routine breaded eggplant recipe.

Stuffed eggplant seemed like a straight forward recipe, remove the eggplant interior  from the eggplant, once sliced in half lengthwise, and return it to the shells after being cooked and mixed with stuffing components and baked.

 

A quick search for Lydia’s stuffed eggplant recipe gave me the starting point for the recipe. Ground chicken thighs would replace the ground beef.  Also I would being using one rather large eggplant.

No breadcrumbs were available so stubborn me, resisting the quick trip to the market to get some, made a quick biscuit recipe. Then when done, further baked  at a low heat to dry it out some what. Finally this was cut to resemble cubes of bread. This biscuit was in the form of one large round biscuit , the dough being pressed into a large diameter cake pan which fit in the microwave/convection oven.

Time wise the stuffing had be be cooled when completed so there was sufficient time to prepare the cubed bread substitute. 

 

The ground chicken was cooked and then added some rice wine, another substitution as I don’t usually have white wine available as an Italian kitchen would. No green bell pepper available either.The Parmesan cheese only measured about 1/2 cup. Now the recipe was coming together, this was along the lines of a meat stuffing one would prepare for a turkey for example.

Didn’t get any pictures when this was done from the oven but the result did remind me of a stuffing for poultry with a filling meatloaf like texture, the biscuit substitute actually better than bread due to the fact it was denser. Cherry tomatoes (we are fortunate to have a small amount of hydroponic cherry tomatoes available, more on that endeavor to be posted) also rounded out the stuffing and thyme instead of parsley, perhaps that accented the the poultry flavor with the ground chicken thighs.

All in all a good meal and as I am partial to cold meatloaf sandwiches, this meal was better the next day un-reheated.

I’m going to rework this recipe as far as the stuffing combination, rice will be used instead of the bread and it most likely will have a more spicy flair.

http://createtv.com/recipe/meat+stuffed+eggplant