blogging for books :: a modern way to eat
Just out of the box, Lukas had already given this new cookbook, A Modern Way to Eat, two strikes against. All vegetarian?! The second strike being the cover. I think he described it pretty spot-on when he said something along the lines of, "This lady looks like she's not excited about the food. Instead, she's stuck her fork in it and now is wondering what to do with it." But... then he paged through and the quality of the pages and photography were a point in favor. And then... I cooked from it and that was the deciding vote.
The first thing I made were these little pizzas. The dough got an extra tasty crunch from smashed hazelnuts. The topping was simple and delicious - I just needed to be sure each little pizza was piled high enough before going into the oven. That spinach certainly shrinks down. The other trick was transferring from the cutting board to the pizza stone. But since these were just little pizzas I could fold up the edges and quickly gather and move them to the hot hot stone. Not perfect, but it worked.
I've also made a flavor-filled dal with toasted sweet potatoes. This was perfect with some garlic nan from TJ's and the sweet potatoes were such a tasty addition. On tap today... I think I'll give another pizza a try. This one uses cauliflower and almond meal in the crust. I hear cauliflower crusted pizzas get a bad rap but I'm keeping an open mind.
As for the rest of the book... the recipes look fresh and enticing. The author has included sections to get you thinking about cooking and improvising recipes for the season and your tastes. I rate this one a keeper.
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| I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review. |
I, too, am skeptical of cauliflower pizza crust, so do tell. Have you ever tried using parchment paper for your pizzas? I roll out and top the pizzas on parchment and then slide the whole thing (parchment and all) onto the baking stone. It's possible that some toxic parchment paper chemical is leaking into my crust, I suppose, but ignorance is bliss and my pizzas are easy to move.
ReplyDeleteWell, my update on the cauliflower pizza crust... I loved the flavor and even liked the texture too - but I wouldn't really call it "pizza". Though I had an open mind about that (due to the header notes for the recipe). I did use parchment paper for this one - the recipe called for it. And cooked it right on the pizza stone. With the looseness of the "dough" it would have been impossible to do this otherwise. Actually built the whole thing right on the heated pizza stone. (Typically I build on a semolina covered piece of parchment paper on a cooling rack and slide it off there right onto the hot pizza stone.) The recipe called for using a baking sheet, but I thought I'd be fancy and use the baking stone. Instead, it probably would have been best to use the baking sheet as the crust may have gotten more done on the underside with the baking sheet before getting too toasty on the topside. It may have also helped if I had read the recipe correctly and did the initial cooking of the crust at 425 instead of 475 - ooops! Still the flavors were great and the husband went back for 2nds so that's a win!
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