Potato Pizza, Really? Really.

Home-made pizza has been a staple here for years and we moved beyond tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese many years ago. I've come to think of pizza dough as just another base for a meal, sort of our modern take on the early Medieval trencher - bread used as a plate (minus the staleness and lack of hygiene). I've heaped any number of ingredients on our pizzas but our favorite has sliced and roasted potato as the main ingredient.

It sounds awful, doesn't it? This recipe is inspired by a pizza my carb-junkie son Harry ordered at our favorite pizza restaurant, Baba Louie's (Great Barrington and Pittsfield, MA and Hudson, NY).  I skeptically took a bite that first time and was immediately won over - it was delicious.

However, I could neither just replicate their recipe (that would be stealing, right?) nor remember it exactly. And, I like to pile our pizza with vegetables, so a new recipe, inspired by Baba Louie's evolved.

One last thing before the how-to's: ironically, back in the day when I still thought popping frozen foods in the oven constituted cooking, I made my own dough. Now that I make almost everything from scratch, I buy pre-made dough. Go figure. If you want to make your own dough, I encourage you to do so and to google a recipe - there are plenty out there. I also encourage you to look for one using whole grain flours, whatever the flour of your choice. We use either Berkshire Mountain Bakery's spelt, or Sami's millet and flax crust. I can buy these locally - you might find other good pre-made brands closer to your home. I urge you though, if you use a pre-made crust to find something both healthful (think only a few ingredients that you recognize, and whole grains) and delicious.

Without further ado, the recipe:

1 pizza crust

1 (or more, much more!) potato, sliced into 1/8 inch slices

olive oil

Emeril's Southwest Essence or herbs/spices to your liking (oregano, basil, paprika, perhaps)

1 zucchini, thinly sliced

1 onion thinly sliced

1/3 cup pesto (other options would be garlic-infused olive oil or tomato sauce)

1 tomato, thinly sliced

options: red or orange peppers, steamed kale (or spinach), roasted or minced garlic, parmesan or other cheese (goat's cheese works great), thinly sliced chicken, or...whatever else your heart desires.

- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

- After slicing the vegetables, I like to lay them on tea towels to dry - I find they roast better - they don't get soggy. However, this step is optional.

- Lightly coat the potato slices with olive oil. I find clean hands are the best tool for doing this. Season them with spices and lay them out on a baking dish. You can overlap them, but don't pile them too high or they won't cook well. Bake for 30 minutes or so until they're golden brown.

- Lightly oil the zucchini and onion and bake on a separate baking tray until soft - 20 minutes should do it.

- Once done, I usually let the vegetable sit for a bit so they're easier to handle, but this is optional. However, if I'm not building my pizza right away, I make sure to make extra potatoes as I find that if they're sitting around, too many people wander in and out of the kitchen taking "just one" and then there aren't enough left for the pizza. The last time I made pizza, I used six potatoes and I actually had enough left to use in a different dish the next day.

- Coat the pizza shell with pesto (or olive oil or tomato sauce)

- Layer on the potatoes, then the other vegetables, etc.

- Bake for 9 or 10 minutes until the crust is crunchy.

What do you think? You no longer have to sign in to comment, and I'd love to hear your reaction!

My Fave Soup - Yellow Split Pea and Yam

The leaves are lovely and are falling as the wind and rain knocks into them. As the weather changes so do the foods I crave. Cool summer salads and smoothies are far from my mind these days. Hearty soups and stews are what my body wants now.

Yellow Split Pea and Yam has been my favorite cold weather soup for many years. So much so that I've actually cooked it often enough to cause my family to get tired of eating it and I took all of last year off from making it. But, it's back in my repertoire this year and here's the recipe:

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 large onion, diced

4 medium carrots, sliced (about 2 cups)

8 cups water or vegetable broth

2 1/2 cups yellow split peas (about a pound), rinsed and picked over

2 yams (peeled and cut into chumks)

1 large red pepper, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 bay leaf

salt and pepper to taste

In a stock pot, saute the onion and carrots in olive oil until the onion is translucent. Add the water or broth, yellow split peas, yams, and red pepper and bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium, cover and simmer for 2 to 2/12 hours (until the peas are tender). Discard the bay leaf. Using a wooden spoon or hand blender, mash the vegetables lightly (I keep some chunks). Add garlic, salt, and pepper.

I served this last night with gluten-free biscuits, kale, and a wedge of Ibores - a sharp raw goat's milk cheese. We also had our first grapefruit of the season. It was a lovely, filling and warming fall meal.

This soup freezes well, so make a lot and have extra for quick lunches and dinners. Enjoy!

Brave Girl Eating

Fortunately, I turned on the car radio at just the right time. Harriet Brown was on, talking about her new book, Brave Girl Eating: A Family's Struggle with Anorexia and the family-based approach she and her family used to help her daughter. I was so taken by her talk that I drove to a bookstore the next day and purchased two copies of the book and read onein just a couple of days.

I cannot state this more strongly: if you live with an anorexic, or know an anorexic, or know someone who knows someone who struggles with anorexia or disordered eating, please, please, please get and read this book.

Brave Girl Eating is a memoir of Brown's family's experience, but it also incorporates research on anorexia, and the history of its treatment. And it discusses a rather new treatment -- the Maudsley approach. This is the method that Brown used to help her daughter.

The Maudsley approach,  a "family-based therapy, in which parents of adolescents with anorexia nervosa are enlisted to interrupt their children's disordered behaviors, is twice as effective as individual psychotherapy at producing full remission of the disease," (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-10/sumc-ftf093010.php)

Need I say more?

Chocolate...Need I Say More?

I've been eating "earthy and crunchy" since high school and I don't mind foods that have a "health food" taste. But when my kids started eating Ghirardelli 100% cacao unsweetened chocolate, even I thought they'd lost their minds. I love chocolate more than your average person but chocolate without any kind of sugar whatsoever was just...well, not chocolate. However, when they started dipping pieces of this chocolate into raw honey, I realized I might be living with two culinary geniuses. This stuff tastes wickedly good! And, it's a treat I can't find a problem with, health-wise.

For the record, dark chocolate contains flavanoids (nutrients), including antioxidants (which protect the body from aging). Dark chocolate can help lower blood pressure and cholesterol. It also balances certain hormones. The reason people feel good after eating chocolate is that it stimulates the production of endorphins (which leads to feelings of pleasure) and it has serotonin (an anti-depressant agent). Chocolate also has caffeine, theobromine, and other stimulants, which is why last week, when my daughter first introduced me to dark chocolate dipped in honey, and I went a little crazy eating piece after piece after dinner, I didn't sleep very well. No matter - it was worth it.

As for raw honey, it's a powerhouse of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and enzymes. It reputedly boosts digestion, and has antibacterial and antiviral properties. However, honey that's been pasteurized does not have these properties. We're a culture that's become skeptical of raw foods (except for raw fruits and vegetables). However, we've done our health and our digestion a huge disservice by not eating other raw and fermented foods. We should eat foods whose calories are dense with nutrition and raw honey is one such food.

On top of everything else, 100% cacao unsweetened chocolate is the quickest and easiest desert around. 0 minutes to prep. 0 minutes to cook. That's the kind of recipe I like!

Quick Update

Gah! Obviously, I haven't felt like writing lately. Frankly, since graduating last month, I haven't felt like doing much of anything other than totally indulging my whims and going through the piles of papers, etc. that accumulated in my house this past year. However, it's time to get back to business, so here's an update on some threads I left hanging.

I would have been thrilled to finish the 4-day cleanse I did last month, except for that by the time it ended I felt too drained and sick to feel much of anything. However, a couple of days later, I realized that my sugar cravings were gone and that I was more able to eat until sated and stop. The latter is gone and I'm back to enjoying my food past the point of fullness, but I'm still not craving sugar and am still eating less of it than before. The next time I try a cleanse, it will be a simpler one - I suspect the negative reaction I had to this one had something to do with the herbs involved.

Harry's doing wonderfully at college. Food is an issue but we're making headway. I'm trying to bring him food on an almost-weekly basis because there are days he just can't find anything to eat at the cafeteria. He now has a pot so that he can make gluten-free cereal for breakfast or warm up soup, pasta, etc. that I bring from home. He now also has his bike on campus, which makes it easier for him to get to town to buy healthy food either at a restaurant or the health food store. He was planning on going to the Farmer's Market in town yesterday. When home last weekend, he ate a casserole that had egg in it, and a slightly more sugary desert than usual - both with no ill effect. He's also eating oatmeal lately with no reaction. I hope this means that even though he's not eating an optimal diet at school, the months of careful eating allowed his gut to heal, at least somewhat, so he can now tolerate more foods.

Hank suggested I write a recap of my year and what's changed in my life and our household since I started and finishing my coursework at IIN. I'll save that for another day or this won't be brief at all. What would you like to read about?