A Wood-Oven Meal

Although it was technically my older brother's birthday dinner that we were preparing, I was as excited about the evening as he, since one of my favorite ways to cook is in the wood-burning outdoor oven.  There is something about eating food from the outdoor oven that is so rustic and earthly, and yet so simply gourmet. Hopefully this post can provide you with some springtime outdoor cooking inspirations.  The menu would consist of homemade pizzas, roasted broccolini, Tuscan ribs, and of course dessert.  

It was a cool but sunny spring evening, even if it was a little too cool to side outside.

We set the table inside, decorated with super fresh orchids.

 As friends arrived we slid the first pizza onto the hot oven floor.  Margherita pizza (my favorite).  The dough had been made, risen and tossed by hand earlier in the afternoon.   The tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella were laid gently on top of the dough with a toss of olive oil, just before we slid it into the 700 degree oven.  After five minutes of turning the pizza and mainly just trying to keep it from burning, I pulled it out of the heat and sprinkled on the fresh torn basil leaves.

  

Needing the perfect Italian cocktail to complement the food, it was time for a New Negroni (a recipe taken from the NY times Tipsy Diaries).  The cocktail is simple but needs a bit more work than if you are used to just pouring in the alcohol, juice, and swilling.  This one requires cutting an orange into small slices, soaking them overnight in sweet vermouth, then charring them over a flame...and finally mixing the drink, (which includes sparkling wine)...but it is every bit worth the effort.

The next was a roasted red pepper (roasted in the oven) and sauteed mushroom pizza.  The crust was perfectly crunchy on the outside, while soft, warm and light on the inside.

After pausing for a few slices, we roasted up the broccolini with only olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Rubbing the ribs with salt, pepper, olive oil and a freshly chopped confusion of fresh sage, rosemary, garlic and oregano.  We put them in a heavy bottom pan in the oven and based them with a 1/2 bottle of white wine while they cooked.

As we let the oven's fire die out, we got much more lively inside

as we all ate and drank very well.

The finale, however, was not cooked in the wood oven, because baking in it, is still a bit of a challenge that I did not feel the thrill to risk that evening. We finished the meal with chocolate pecan bourbon pie. Crunchy, sweet, salty and delicious...

Happy Birthday Raji

This week we all celebrated Raji's birthday. If there is one person I know that likes to celebrate.  It is definitely Raji.  She is one of the happiest people that I have ever met, and she always seems to override worries with a shrug of her shoulders, to be followed by an "Oh well. Do you want to go out?!".  She is not the type to miss a party, so she surely was not going to let a little day like her birthday pass with out some fun.  Since the only great bakery in our area costs an arm and a leg and requires an order practically a week in advance, I decided to bake a birthday cake.  After much deliberation over what kind of cake to make, carrot? red velvet? tiramisu? It was Brian that actually suggested something more simple. (Yes, I'll give him some credit)  We decided on a simple, but very moist and buttery sweet "Golden Cake" with Chocolate Cream frosting.  

    I used both recipes from one of my favorite authors (and scientist), Shirley O. Corriher.  She has a fabulous, very scientific baking book called BakeWise, 

which will answer every question that you may have ever had about baking.  Like... Why is my cake sunken in the middle? Why do my brownies have a crispy layer on top. Why are my cupcakes dome shaped?  If you want some serious baking details as to the hows and whys, this will cover all of your bases.  She has experimented with just about everything....so that we don't have to.

   This cake uses three egg yolks and two eggs,

 which gives it the nice rich eggy flavor and the beautiful golden hue when it is baked.  It also requires that you fold in 1/2 cup of whipped cream which makes the cake even lighter and fluffier than normal. 

I am really not big on frosting in general, but this one is actually one of my favorite.  The base for the frosting is fresh sour cream!

 That helps to make it rich and chocolaty but not sugary or overwhelmingly sweet.

After two days of baking, cooling, frosting,

just a tad bit of decorating (which I completely forgot that one should do to a birthday cake...),

our small Cleveland kitchen was a officially a mess.

(But not a problem, I was  able to get it cleaned up before Brian could arrive home and freak out.)  After a long day at work for all of us, Raji was thrilled to see her surprise,

and while we were expecting about 12 plus people to stop by, with the early spring snow storm there were only seven of us.  Awesome! We were all excited to have a large slice of it. (Sorry, no pictures of us enjoying it...I still have to work on putting down the fork and picking up the camera). The cake turned out incredibly moist and flavorful. Who knew that golden cake with chocolate frosting was Raji's favorite? Lucky me. Oh and good call Brian.