Where do I begin my story about Baked Ziti Pizza?.....

Picture this: it's 2005, I live in New York City, Union Square, more specifically, and I am a junior at NYU. I am living my best life with my friends, going to parties, bars, and staying out til almost sunlight every weekend.

It's 3am on no particular Saturday, and after a night of partying and too many Jack and Cokes, my friends an I decide, it's time for food. Anyone who's been at this juncture in your life knows that when you're craving late night food, there's something specific you need, and for me, it was the need for carb-centric food, and lots of it. So my friends and I walk across 14th street to our favorite late night pizza place, Amore's which seemed to always be open no matter what ungodly time of night it was.

At this point, I have frequented Amore's enough times in my altered state that the woman, Rosa, who works there, knows me by name, knows my order, and even knows a little about my personal life after the gospel according to Jack Daniel's spewed out random information from my mouth for her listening pleasure.

Rosa, who couldn't have been taller than 4 foot 9 inches, embraces me with a hug as warm as my mom's as soon as I enter Amore's, I ask about her family, she tells me about her son, and then she says, "the usual?" – A question I thought only existed in small towns where everyone knows everyone and people go into their local eatery and the waiter says, "the usual, <insert person's name here>?"

My usual, as you may have guessed, was the impeccable Baked Ziti Slice of Pizza. When you want carbs on carbs, cheese, and the perfect combination of textures to bite into, this is the ultimate pizza order. Amore's was our go-to spot every single weekend for the year that we lived in that area of the city. After my roommates and I moved out of Union Square, the void of Amore's was palpable for me.... no other late night eatery could satisfy my 3am cravings for pizza with the warm embrace of Rosa and Amore's.

Fast forward 18 years (yikes!), I have a moment of clarity when deciding what to make for dinner that night when I randomly think of Amore's and the Baked Ziti Pizza. And BOOM, just like that, all the memories and tastes of those late nights comes back to me and I know, I need to recreate that slice of pizza to the best of my abilities and do Rosa proud.

After recipe testing this a few times, I got it pretty damn close to the glory of Amore's (which, sadly, is no longer open). I know at first this dish may seem absurd, pasta on top of pizza, 3 types of cheese, your arteries, etc., but it's worth it. Whether you try it on a cheat day, or are like me and eat like a heathen on the daily, this pizza is amazing and I guarantee you'll love it! And maybe it will make you think about your version of Amore's, because after all, isn't food and the sense of taste one of the major memory evokers that people can have?

Enjoy!

A year ago I stumbled across a recipe for a Beefy Queso Dip featuring one of my all time favorite foods, Velveeta. To this day, I'm not really sure what Velveeta is actually made of, but to be honest, I don't even care if it's made from toxic waste, it's literally the most incredible "cheese" product that's ever been invented. A Velveeta mac and cheese is 100 times better than any other mac and cheese I've ever had, and I dare someone to dispute that.

The plain Velveeta/Rotel Tomatoes Dip has been around for a trillion years (this is not a researched fact, but it's been around)...so when the idea of adding in Beef and other tasty ingredients into this dip was introduced to me I had to try it. I made a large pot of this amped up queso dip and my husband and I literally finished the whole thing by ourselves. That's over 2 pounds of beefy, cheesy goodness, that two people ate in one sitting. You can judge me, it's ok, my arteries are still in shock.

I like this dip because it takes only 20 minutes to make, it can feed a small country of people (unless you're me and eat like a football team), it's got a ton of flavor and it's great for things like football parties or even a holiday party as an appetizer.

Pro tip: put the dip in a fondue pot to help keep it warm when you're serving it. There's nothing worse than a congealed mess of cheese.  

While this recipe is not a total original, my recipe below is how I made it. My major alteration: using Grass Fed Ground Beef instead of just regular ground beef. Trust me, it makes a HUGE difference in terms of flavor. Also, don't skip the pepper jack cheese - it's a vital component.

Enjoy!

I am a huge fan of these new "National" holidays that have taken over Instagram and TikTok –  like National Cheeseburger Day, National Pizza Day, and of course the day I refer to as the highest of holy days, National Cheese Lovers Day. This year, National Cheese Lovers Day happens to fall on a Friday, and Fridays in the Bojarski house are Cheeseboard Date Night Days. Every Friday, my hubby and I put the kids to bed, pour an adult beverage of choice, and indulge in one of my over the top cheeseboards while catching up on the week's events....so it was basically fate that National Cheeselover's Day and Friday date night should coincide. In addition, it's almost Valentine's Day.... so we got creative and made a lover/valentine mash up board and am really excited to share it!

I am going to list all the ingredients I used, but obviously, this is just a jumping off point to create a board that meets your tastes and preferences. My goal was to keep the palate colors pink/purple, but these element's colors can be changed to switch up the vibe of the cheeseboard.

Also, for more inspiration for another love themed Cheeseboard, check out my Valentine's Cheeseboard here!

As for the board's elements:

CHEESE:

• Whole Food's "St. Nuage Triple Cream Brie" (new find, and we're obsessed)
• Trader Joe's "Unexpected Cheddar" - all around crowd pleaser
• Buholzer Brother's "Brick Cheese" - something more mild and semi-soft (great for pairings)

MEAT:

• Prosciutto
• Pinot Grigio Soaked Salami (Volpi Foods makes incredible cured meats)

EXTRAS:

• Purple Grapes & Strawberries
• Rustic Bakery Crackers, Urban Oven Parmesan Crackers, fresh Bread, and Breadsticks
• Candied Pecans from Trader Joe's (I always have 5 bags in my pantry, I love them)
• Cookies from Target (brand: Favorite Day) and M&M's (plus I threw a few pieces of Godiva Chocolate in there too, because why not?!)
• Hot Pepper Jelly from Trader Joe's (pairs with every cheese - especially cheddar)

Non-Food ELEMENTS:

• Copper Cheese Knives from Williams Sonoma
• White Marble Cheeseboard from Williams Sonoma
• Various heart bowls/towels from Target & Home Goods

Share your Cheeseboard creations with me by tagging us on Instagram @urbancookery #urbancookery or email us at Sara@urbancookery.com

While having our Pied a Terre in NYC the past year, my husband became increasingly obsessed with the food of Sweetgreen for lunch everyday. Sweetgreen serves healthy, hearty salads and various sides, but the one side dish that we both fell in love with was the Roasted Sweet Potatoes served with a side of Green Goddess Dressing. As with most NYC foods, I was inspired to recreate this dish, mainly from the standpoint that I couldn't justify the price Sweetgreen charged for such  low-cost food items. So I decided to recipe test this dish so that we could afford to eventually send our children to college, without blowing through their inheritance via sweet potatoes.

I have made Green Goddess Dressing before, but after researching it throughly and taste testing Sweetgreen's dressing a hundred times, I realized there are like 400 ways to make it. Some people make Green Goddess with avocado, others with Greek Yogurt, and some make it with sour cream. It can be made vegan, you can make it with different herb combinations, onion combos, etc. but the recipe I created has been my favorite flavor profile yet.

This recipe I have come up with celebrates the beautiful flavors of the herbs involved (basil, parsley, and dill), has a nice acidic kick from some fresh lemon juice, and contains a fair amount of protein because I used Greek Yogurt as the base. I love pairing this with roasted sweet potatoes but we've also used it on Roasted Chicken, in salads as a dressing, and with vegetables like broccoli and brussel sprouts.

I store my Green Goddess Dressing in a plastic squeeze bottle for easy use on whatever I want to put it on!

Let me know how you like this Green Goddess recipe and what you have used it on!

Enjoy!

Oh, hello old friend! It's been a minute....or more like two years, but who's counting?

Well, I am alive, and not only alive, but doing quite well and have been quite busy, hence the colossally long hiatus from blogging on my dear website.

Since we last spoke a lot has happened....the pandemic has come in ebbs and flows, we had a brief stint renting an apartment in NYC as a Pied a Terre for a year, we found our dream home in Princeton, NJ and subsequently bought it and moved in, our kids have gotten older (shocking, I know), and life somehow got in the way of me sharing my culinary undertakings and creations with all of you.

I haven't stopped cooking, in fact, I cook every single day and have so many new recipes and ideas that I look forward to sharing with you all! I have finally gotten into a groove and am ready to make Urban Cookery a major part of that groove again, because I've really missed it.

Some recipes you can look forward to reading include (but are not limited to).... a bevy of homemade sauces that I have come up with (Pickled Jalapeno, Green Goddess, Southwest Chipotle...), Baked Ziti Pizza, Whipped Goat Cheese with Lemon & Honey, Cripsy Rice with Spicy Tuna, and so many more! As always, my ears are open to any and all suggestions or requests, because I love to cook what YOU want to learn about. To contact me email sara@urbancookery.com and let me know your thoughts, ideas, comments, or whatever it is you'd like, I love hearing from my readers.

But today I am sharing with you a new favorite, and while it's not a groundbreaking recipe or something that is ultra highbrow or complicated, it embodies what I love most about cooking: letting simple ingredients shine and making something super delicious with them.

Garlic Bread is a food that I feel like is universally loved by most people. Unless it's burnt, there's really no way to screw this dish up, especially when fewer ingredients are involved. I myself am sometimes guilty of adding too many elements to an easy dish...I've learned that sometimes, less is more, and restraint of spoon (as I call it), can be the hardest part of cooking.

So after many iterations of complicated Garlic Confit Garlic Breads or 4 Cheese Garlic Bread, I have come back to a more simple, easy, and beyond delicious garlic bread recipe that I know you'll love. The name of the game with this recipe is HIGH QUALITY ingredients. Hellmann's Mayonaise, Cello Cheese Brand Parmesan Cheese, Kerrygold Salted Butter, Maldon Salt, and of course, an excellent loaf of bread. No, I am not sponsored by these aforementioned companies, but I do believe in always using the best ingredients, especially when the dish is so simple that there's nothing to hide behind.

Enjoy the recipe!

One of the MANY things I miss most about living in New York City are those super nice spring days, where the weather is perfect for doing absolutely everything outdoors. All the cafes put their tables and chairs outside for al fresco dining, people are walking around doing errands, walking their dogs, sitting in the park, and the city is alive with excitement over the first few warm days of the year.

When I was single, I used to love to take long walks during the day with my dog Yoshi. We would meander through our favorite neighborhoods, go to dog parks, stop in stores, and inevitably meet fellow New Yorker's on the street for casual conversations. As the sun was going down, I would find a cute place with outdoor seating (where Yoshi was allowed as well)....we'd sit down, order a glass of wine, and people watch. I found going out by myself in such a manner, so relaxing...sometimes I'd bring a book to enjoy, other times I would sit and just watch the city excitements...either way it was always something I looked forward to.

One particular spring day, my mom was in the city visiting me and we did a classic Sara walk, and found ourselves in our favorite area, the West Village. The sun was starting to set, and my mom suggested we find a place to get a drink and some food. She found this cute little cafe on the corner of Bleeker and MacDougal, where they had White Sangria on the menu, and thus she declared, that this was the place we were going. I had never had White Sangria before, but apparently, it's presence on the menu was the sole reason my mom had chosen this particular place.

We both ordered the sangria and it came in this gorgeous glass goblet, filled with fruits or various colors and a beautiful yellow/peach liquid that looked so incredibly refreshing after a long day's walk. I took one sip and was sold. It was everything you could want in a drink - refreshing, crisp, fruity (but not too sweet), and not heavy. It paired incredibly with a cheese plate appetizer and pasta entree. Since then, I have never been able to find a place who made their White Sangria quite like this place...and unfortunately the place my mom and I had gone to, no longer exists, so stalking their cocktail menu wasn't an option. So I referenced my dear friend, Google....

When you look up White Sangria online there are literally 7 million variations (which I found out after I went down a rabbit hole of Sangria recipes at 10pm sitting in bed). The one constant in these recipes is that the base is a white wine (usually Pinot Grigio, sometimes a Moscato). From there, all hell breaks loose. Some sangrias have hard liquor like Triple Sec, Grand Marnier or the likes....others believe in adding fruit juice....others add in seltzer... some even add in prosecco....and then there are those that believe in adding fresh lime, grapefruit or lemon juice.... honestly, I went nuts trying to come up with a list of recipes that were remotely similar. So I scrapped what I read on Google, and decided to do a little mixology in my kitchen until I was satisfied with that perfect crisp, fruity, well balanced drink I had over 10 years ago.

Before starting my at home bartending experiment, I decided I wanted my drink to have the beautiful cornucopia of fruits that my NYC Sangria had. I knew I wanted to add in some beautiful fresh fruit of various flavors and colors and an herb/organic element like the rosemary just to amp up it's garden theme appeal.

This experiment came out almost as perfect as I can remember.....I think I may start to experiment with different juices just to see how that effects the taste, but I absolutely loved what I came up with. I could see this pairing beautifully with a nice cheeseboard, a fish dinner, pasta, or chicken. It's light, refreshing, and subtle.

Enjoy!

If someone were to ask me what my signature dish was, the answer would undoubtedly be, Pierogies. Before I even attended culinary school, I created this Pierogi Dough that could literally be stuffed with garbage and it would taste incredible. The dough is stuffed, boiled for a few minutes and then deep fried to golden, crispy perfection, giving whatever it contains, the perfect crunchy outer shell that melts in your mouth.

Fast forward 10 years, and we're in the middle of a pandemic, not going to grocery stores, and sometimes not having all the ingredients we may want for a dish. So last night, when I was already planning what we'd eat for lunch the next day I decided I wanted to utilize my Pierogi dough but with an Empanada-style filling, since I had all the basic ingredients on hand.

During this quarantine, instead of hoarding toilet paper, or hand sanitizer, my husband took it upon himself to hoard Wagyu Beef. If you know either of us, this makes perfect sense, because who cares about wiping your ass if you don't have good food to eat (did that have any logic to it?)...so anyway, with MANY pounds of ground Wagyu in our deep freezer, I decided, let's upgrade the typical Beef Empanada to a Ground Wagyu Empanada and create something new (at least something I have never encountered).

Utilizing only a few other ingredients so as to let the Wagyu shine, we created these Empanogies? Pieradas? I guess it's just an Empanada with Pierogi dough.... whatever you want to call it, it was delicious and I ate 9.

For the Ground Wagyu, we get ours from Crowd Cow and love the Mishima Reserve Ground Wagyu Beef.

Enjoy!

Having a S'more is like a summer rite of passage...and teaching my daughter a few years ago, how to roast marshmallows and then create the perfection that is the S'more was truly a crowning moment in motherhood for me.

As a kid, we'd go camping multiple times a year, and I always looked forward to marshmallow roasting time (which oddly always lined up with the adult's happy hour, but I digress). I didn't actually like to eat marshmallows as a kid, but roasting them, and then handing them out to the willing adults was my first foray into chef life. When I finally tried my first S'more, I, like most, wondered who invented this incredible idea, and how many is too many to eat in one sitting?

Of course, the first thing I think of when I think of S'Mores is the classic scene in the movie, The Sandlot, when Smalls is taught what a S'More is and how to make one and the line "you're Killin me Smalls" was born. After watching the movie in college with some friends one night, we decided S'Mores needed to be made.

I went to college at NYU and living in NYC, it wasn't like we had fire pit readily available, but one night, after a few too many drinks, my friend and I decided we needed to make S'mores...so we got the provisions from a local bodega, and roasted marshmallows over the stove with forks. In hindsight, probably a major fire hazard, but delicious nonetheless.

A few years ago, we went up to Maine as a family and rented a house that came equipped with a fire pit, so I took this as the opportunity to open the world of S'mores to my daughter, Mayzie. When Mayzie saw that one of the main ingredients was chocolate, she was sold. She sat and patiently roasted marshmallows until she deemed they were perfect (which took roughly 30 minutes because she was afraid to get too close to the fire)...and then I helped her construct her first S'More. Needless to say, this became an every night event because she loved them so much....and to be honest, there's nothing better than sitting outside on a summer night, with a glass of wine, eating campfire food.

Fast forward to 2021, coming up on a year of quarantining in our townhouse (which unfortunately is devoid of any outdoor fire situation), and I got to thinking about all the things I would do if we were allowed to have an outdoor fire pit. S'Mores was the first thing that came to mind. So, as with most things during this past pandemic year, I had to adapt, get creative, and decided to make S'Mores into Cookie Bars. I have really been getting into the whole cookie bar experience lately...you can find my Valentine's Day Cookie Bars and my Sweet & Salty Cookie Bars for a few examples....I find they are always the perfect combination of textures, and are foolproof.

I had a really fun time conceptualizing how I was going to execute the S'Mores bar experience. Was it going to include a classic cookie dough? Would I use Fluff or actual marshmallows? Should I use chocolate chips or the classic Hershey's Bars? How could I incorporate the Graham Crackers?

So I riffed....I went with the classic Hershey's Bar (broken up into smaller pieces as you would with a real S'More), Mini Marshmallows and I broke up pieces of Graham Crackers into a classic cookie dough.

*Drumroll Please*

I have decided I am apparently a baker. These cookie bars were BEYOND delicious. I mean quite possibly one of the best things I have ever cooked. They were chewy, just the right amount of sweetness, and the perfect amount of ooey gooey chocolate. It didn't necessarily SCREAM S'Mores flavors (which is to be expected because no campfire was involved), but the combination of the S'Mores ingredients in a chewy cookie was AMAZING.

Enjoy!!

I realize that with the pandemic comes an unprecedented uptick in our screen time...that's only exacerbated by the fact that I am still nursing my son which I do while, you guessed it, looking at my phone. I find my time is often spent mostly on Instagram because unlike Facebook, it's devoid of political BS, and the people I follow only share food...

The other day, a girl I follow, shared this video of her making what looked like Lunchables meat and cheese squares, stacked into a small pile, then wrapped in Pillsbury French Bread Dough, and deep fried.

Let's break this down. First, I had never thought to deep fry french bread dough, so that got the old creative chef gears turning....I thought..."wow, that's a fantastic idea, but the filling of these gross ham and cheese squares really doesn't turn my palate on". So I started thinking....what can you fill french bread dough with and then deep fry, and it will be delicious?

The answer is, f*cking everything. What wouldn't be delicious in deep fried bread dough?

The dough she used looked to be of the Pillsbury persuasion (ie. the kind that comes from a can, that you pop open and dough spills out). My husband used to bake the Pillsbury French Bread ALL the time when we first moved in together and I was never really into the taste of it...but I figured, when deep fried, it would take on a whole new taste. And I was right *pats self on back*

My husband was the one who came up with the buffalo chicken filling because let's be honest, the man would eat buffalo chicken off of the street if it was there. So we went with that. I precooked the chicken, tossed it in my favorite Frank's Red Hot "Wings" sauce with some herbs/spices and oh my god, this was something out of a fairy tale.

While this is my first foray into french bread dough deep fried gloriousness, it will not be my last. I have so many ideas for this that I can barely contain myself. But I will say, this experiment was delicious! I could see this as an appetizer for Sunday football Tailgate parties, Superbowl, or for any occasion really.....

On that note, after trying this dish with Pillsbury's French Bread Dough, I then tried it again with the Pillsbury Pizza Dough (the Classic, not the thin crust) and it came out even BETTER. The dough was thicker and easier to work with, and was more pliable without ripping. The taste was seemingly the same, but it was a better product for construction purposes. The pizza dough also got fluffier in the deep fryer which was a most pleasant texture. You can try either, but I suggest the Pizza Dough!

Enjoy!

Another holiday to celebrate, which gives me an excuse to get creative with my Cheesery! While I never really celebrated St. Patty's Day (minus the few NYC bar crawls in my early 20's), I feel like quarantine has led me to celebrate anything and everything as a way to keep things fun while stuck at home.

I was inspired to make this board but it did go through many iterations before I narrowed in my vibe.

At first I was thinking of doing an all green board which limited me greatly to the types of food I could have on it...as much as a board filled with vegetables sounds beautiful, I am not excited to actually eat it....which is actually a tangent I need to go on, so bear with me...

I love getting inspiration from other people's boards online, but I find most of them, while absolutely gorgeous, are 50% inedible. I saw this beautiful monochromatic green board but literally, it had a whole artichoke on it. Not cooked, just a whole artichoke sitting there. And while it was super pretty, I am not sure how one goes about noshing on a whole raw artichoke. I pride myself in making my boards 100% edible with elements that you actually WANT to eat. But anyway, that's my rant....I'll get off my cheese soap box now.

Back to the creative process.....after I nixed the monochromatic green board, I thought of doing a completely sweet board (cookies, candies, marshmallows, Lucky Charms, et al) but again, after a few cookies, I would feel awful and an entire board would go to waste. Then I thought of some symbols of St Paddy's Day....Pots of Gold, Leprechauns, Rainbows, and I came up with this idea.

As with my Valentine's Day Cheeseboard, I added both sweet and savory elements and I created the board right on my kitchen table (more of a grazing table type situation). I wanted to add foods that my daughter would like, as well as things us adults would love as well. Once I mapped out the idea of doing a Rainbow with a "Pot of Gold" at the end, I started to think up foods to represent the ROY G BIV color scheme, and fun ways I could make things like clouds or a pot of gold. Coming up with Rainbow foods was fun:

RED: Prosciutto, Strawberries, Raspberries
((Other ideas: Salame, Sopressata, Apples, Pepperoni, Strawberry Preserves/Jam))

ORANGE: Cheddar Cheese, Cheese Puffs aka Moon Cheese, Goldfish
((Other ideas: Cotswold Cheese, Colby Jack, Orange Slices, Sliced Peaches))

YELLOW: Tete de Moine, Manchego, Honeycomb
((Other ideas: White Cheddar, Crackers, Havarti, Gouda, Yellow Heirloom Tomatoes))

GREEN: Herbed Goat Cheese, Shelled Pistachios, Edamame, Green M&M's
((Other ideas: Green Apples, Green Grapes, Kiwis, Pears, Cucumber))

BLUE: Blueberries & Blackberries

PURPLE: Purple Grapes
((Other ideas: Purple Rinded Cheese))

Next came what would wind up on each end of the rainbow....for the clouds I wanted to play around with some Brie Cheese and for texture add some White Chocolate Dipped Pretzels. I was hoping to find small wheels of brie, but couldn't. Another idea is to use small mozzarella balls to create clouds, or even Burrata.

On the other end of the rainbow would be our "pot of gold" so I wanted some Shamrock Cookies with green sprinkles or green royal icing, Gold Coins (like you see around Hanukkah), and Yellow M&Ms. Some other ideas are rainbow gummy strips, rainbow lollipops, yellow sprinkle cookies....let your creativity flow!

Sometimes my recipes are conceived from the pure need to use up certain foods in my house. I have had this bag of mini pretzels sitting around for months that no one seems to want, and I have been trying to use them up in one way or another, but it seems to be the bag that never ends. I wish I could say these cookies were developed under more creative circumstances but one thing you learn working in professional kitchens is to never waste anything - so many recipes I create are due to a need to use up an ingredient before it goes bad or before I forget about it and it winds up in the pantry abyss.

With that being said, I also had this random snack-sized bag of Lays Potato Chips that I also wanted to get rid of so that my daughter would stop asking me if she could eat them....so with the need to get rid of two, otherwise unhealthy pantry items, I decided to make them extra unhealthy by baking them into a buttery, sugary, chocolatey cookie....seems logical....

My last cookie bar recipe was incredible (get the recipe here) - so I riffed off that cookie base, and just added in my two new salty ingredients.

I love a good salty and sweet combo and this cookie is everything I want in life texture and taste-wise.... Crunchy, chewy, sweet, salty, and easy to make!

Enjoy!

Since quarantine began, and I haven't been allowed to go to the gym, I've been walking around my neighborhood instead for my morning exercise and ritual "head clearing". I find I do my best thinking while working out...my mind stands still while my body moves and it's the one part of the day where I can gather my thoughts, think creatively without interruption, and it's typically where I get my inspiration for cooking.

On today's walk, I was greeted by some incredible pre-spring weather....birds were literally chirping, the sun was warm on my face, and snow was melting right before my eyes. I took an extra long walk today and decided that since I walked 5 miles, I deserved my favorite thing in the world: pasta.

I had recently bought this beautiful dried Pappardelle pasta that I've been holding on to (for some inexplicable reason), and decided today was the day for it's consumption.

I had some beautiful basil and about 10 different types of Italian cheese in the fridge so I decided on a simple Basil Pesto Sauce using Ricotta and Parmesan, then topping the whole thing with a fresh ball of creamy Burrata.

Enjoy!

Despite the incessant snowfall we seem to be getting currently  in New Jersey, there are random moments when you smell the air and it smells just like spring. I feel like spring has a certain crisp, hopeful smell to it, and I smelled it this morning on my daily walk....and since all things lead back to food when it comes to me, this smell inspired the flavors and ingredients of today's pizza.

Spring produce, like heirloom tomatoes, basil, and the likes, are some of my favorite foods to work with. I love that really good tomatoes and basil can be a dish on their own or they can be combined with cheeses and/or proteins to make them into a variety of dishes.

My husband, being the dough maker in the house, expressed the desire to use his sourdough starter in a pizza dough...so with our combined efforts, this pizza was born. I have really been getting into making White Pizza lately (pizza, sans tomato sauce) because I feel like the toppings you can add are endless. White Pizza to me is like a blank canvas with limitless combinations of flavors, textures, and colors...which as a chef and visual eater, appeals to me.

Like I said, my husband was in charge of making the dough, and he's been using the techniques of Ken Forkish and his book, Flour Water Salt Yeast (which has become a quarantine bible of sorts around here). He followed Forkish's "Sourdough Pizza Dough" recipe using the Sourdough starter that he's been feeding since June 2020. This batch was particularly tasty because my daughter, Mayzie helped (see photo below) #proudmama

I also topped the cooked pizza with my newest cheese discovery, Stracciatella, which I can best describe as the insides of a burrata ball. It's creamy, sweet and a little salty, and balanced out the finishes pizza beautifully!

Enjoy!

A few weeks ago, in an attempt to support one of our local sushi restaurants, we ordered a huge spread of food for dinner. One of the appetizers we ordered was Chicken Katsu; a crispy fried chicken kebob served with a dipping sauce. Unfortunately, fried food never travels well when it comes to take out. By the time it gets to you, it's been steaming inside a plastic takeout container which then destroys it's crispy texture and makes the breading this gooey, wet mass of breadcrumbs that makes me sad as a chef and a human.

Fried food, in general, should be eaten fresh from the fryer. And even if it's not going to be eaten right away, having it sit in an enclosed container is literally the WORST thing you can do with it. So after the great Katsu Disappointment of 2021, I was determined to make my own crispy Katsu, but turn it into a sandwich for lunch.

I knew for the sauce, I wanted to use my homemade Korean Hot Sauce that I literally put on everything from scrambled eggs to Bibimbap to Roasted Veggies.

I also knew I wanted to pair the chicken and hot sauce with a creamy coleslaw and a fluffy roll.

The chicken came out INCREDIBLE - super tender on the inside, and crispy on the outside. I honestly ate a bunch of chicken without anything on them but also enjoyed them as a full on sandwich. You can also make the chicken as an appetizer with whatever dipping sauce you like (bbq sauce, hot sauce, buffalo sauce, teriyaki...) or as a sandwich like I did!

Kids will also love this chicken on its own because they taste just like chicken nuggets.

Enjoy!

We have been getting what seems like non-stop snow in New Jersey this year...and my daughter has been off from school more days than I can count at this point... So on my list of things we can do while stuck inside, baking is always a crowd pleaser (shocking).

I have been coming up with new cookie recipes and today I was determined to use up this massive package of Oreos we've had sitting in our house since Christmas. I have seen recipes for cookies stuffed with whole Oreos which I knew my daughter and my husband would both love so that was our inspiration.

I used both chocolate and white chocolate chips to kind of go with the cookies n' cream theme that Oreos have, and I made sure to have a decent amount of salt in the cookie dough to counteract all the sweetness. These were a huge hit - and just like Oreos, these were great to dunk in milk! Kids will love helping out in the kitchen with these because it's a very hands on recipe!

Enjoy!