Musings

Archive for February, 2010

This week’s recipe – whole wheat pizza dough!

Instead of posting the whole recipe, here’s the link to it over at allrecipes.com.

It was DELICIOUS

Not wanting to starve the rest of the family, who were nervous about what it might taste like, I made two other pizzas.  The second pizza was 50/50 whole wheat and bread flour, and the last pizza was bread flour only (It’s the second pizza, in the background there.)

The kids STUFFED themselves while we watched the first two quarters of the Superbowl.  Out of the three pizzas, the kids favored the meat & cheese pizza, and the adults enjoyed the blended and the wheat.  All three turned out quite well, so the recipe was a great success.

One addition we made was brushing a bit of olive oil along the outside crusts before cooking the pizza.  That turned out particularly well; the crust was nice and moist.

“Mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial. Also, most importantly, it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It’s a state of mind – you could call it character in action.”

– Vince Lombardi

A suitable quote for Superbowl Sunday, and one that highlights some of the key learnings on the project this week.  The ability to deny self (ie, deal with hunger) is critical to any project of self-improvement, and to a well-balanced life.

Read the rest of this entry »

Breakfast burritos are one of my favorite foods.  In fact, I’m a sucker for just about anything you can wrap in a tortilla.  They’re a perfect wrap for lots of different foods. Flour tortillas tend to have a decent amount of fat, and I was looking for a recipe that had more fiber and less fat.  This recipe does just that, and it’s a crazy-simple recipe.  Here goes!

(Full disclosure – I don’t make these things up, I get them from other places!  This one’s from CDKitchen, and you can find the original recipe here.)

Makes: 12 9″ tortillas  (Yep, it made 12 – size depends on how flat you roll them out!)

Ready in: 30 minutes (well, not so much.  See notes below…)

Ingredients

• 3 cups whole-wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup warm water

Directions

1. 

   Tortilla Rolled-Out, with Dough Ball

   Mix the dry ingredients together into a large mixing bowl.  Mix in a little bit of the warm water at a time (don’t just dump it in), until all the water is into the mixture and it forms a crumbly dough.

2. Flip the dough out of the bowl onto a board / counter, and knead by hand until it’s smooth. (This takes a little while! I might just be inexperienced…)
3. Divide the dough into 12 equal-sized pieces and roll them into smooth balls.  Put the balls back in the mixing bowl and cover them with plastic wrap.  Let them rest for 15 minutes. (I have no idea why the dough needs to rest…I did all the work.)
4. While the dough’s taking a nap, heat up a skillet to medium / medium-high heat. (about 375 degrees)
5. For each tortilla, flatten a ball into a 4-5″ patty, then roll it out to 9″.
6. Lay the tortilla out on the (dry) skillet.  Small blisters should form right away.  Immediately flip the tortilla over.
7. Large blisters will start to form – press the tortilla down all over with a wide spatula, gently but firmly.  Turn the tortilla and continue to press down. The blisters should turn golden-brown, the tortilla should remain soft.
8. Place the tortillas inside a plastic bag, wrapped in a towel.  The moisture will keep them soft while you cook the rest of the tortillas.

If the tortilla burns or sticks, turn the heat down a bit.

What I Learned

This was a fun, easy recipe to make!  At a little over an hour, it took longer than the recipe suggested, though.  I learned a few things.

First, be patient about working the water into the dough – resist the urge to add extra water to blend it in more quickly, and just keep kneading.

Second, the dough dries out really quickly.  Making this into a small assembly-line project would a) make it go faster, and b) keep the dough from drying out, and c) be a great excuse for a party.

Third, wow the dough is stretchy!  And even three days later they’re still very flexible.  Keep them in a ziplock bag in the refrigerator.  I don’t know if it helps, but I try to suck the air out of the bag when I put them away.

If you give these a try, let me know how it goes! And give the nice people at CDKitchen the credit – they came up with the original recipe.