Curried Potato Pizza

 Potatoes and cheese, what could be better?

I've seen them in magazines and heard people talk about them with raptuous light in their eyes. On Thursday night, I decided to see what all the fuss was all about. I took the potato pizza plunge.

My previous exerience with potatoes has been limited to boiling, mashing, roasting, and parboiling followed by frying, so as I peeled and sliced, I pondered how to approach putting tubers on top of a pie. Since I don't have a mandoline, my slices weren't thin enough to just toss with oil and lay on top of the dough as I'd read about some pizzeria in Brooklyn doing. A concern about blandness led me to fry them in ghee and Indian spices to give them some zip.

And now, my friends, we come to the part where if you're scrolling down and looking for a recipe, you're going to be disappointed. I didn't write anything down. I could approximate the amounts for you, but that would be pure conjecture, and then if your potato pizza turned out horribly, and oh, say, you made it for company, and that magnified your disappointment, you'd hate me forever, and I just can't have that.

So I will tell you this: I fried the slices in a few tablespoons of ghee with a large amount of ground cumin, and lesser amounts of ground coriander, turmeric and nutmeg. Naturally, I didn't make a note of how hot the burner was or how long they were in there. I just made sure they didn't burn, turned them over a few times, and took them out when they were easy to pierce with a fork.

Cheese-wise, I used what I had on hand: panquehue, a very mild, buttery Chilean cheese. I cut it into little chunks and scattered it aound and under the potato slices, and it melted in an aesthetically pleasing way.

After about 12 minutes at 425 degrees, the pie was done. My pressing need for comfort food made it difficult to wait for it to cool enough to try, but the memory of pizza burns past made me patient. The crisp dough (I use a pizza stone) was a nice balance to the softness of the cheese and potatoes, and I definitely could have used more spices, but overall, it was a fine meal for a Thursday night. The hubs' feedback was that he couldn't taste the potatoes against the crust, so perhaps I'll try it with thicker slices next time.

Deliciousness: Not quite spicy enough for me, but crispy and satisfying. Once I put some Clancy's Fancy on top, it was just fine.

Difficulty: Moderate; I make my own dough, otherwise I'd say easy.

Do-over: Yes, but I'd like to get a mandoline and I'll definitely use sharper cheese and maybe some hot peppers, caramelized onions or salt-cured olives.

Details: Sorry, Charlie, I've already told you everything I can.

Week Eight: Poundish Cake

A few weeks back, after making Black-and-White Brownies a couple of times, I began to ponder rejiggering them into cake. The ingredients seemed right, the vanilla portion of the brownies was very cakey, and the other human member of the household had been asking for cake for days on end. Sadly for him, his cake craving hit on the Monday of the week I was leaving town on Wednesday for a funeral.

My Monday and Tuesday evenings were occupied with confirming flights, figuring out what to wear, and performing the heinous algebra and geometry of the quart-size Ziploc bag. When the hubs occasionally brought up the topic of cake, I would make a vague and desperate gesture toward the second floor, whence my wardrobe and toiletry woes taunted me, and/or roll my eyes.

On Wednesday morning I woke up at 4 a.m., not completely awake, but alert enough that I knew there was no sleep in my immediate future. I was fully packed, except for the remaining bits of makeup and creams I would use that morning. Feeding and walking the dogs, as much as I whine about it, does not take very long. And we wouldn’t be leaving the house for four hours.

Determined to thumb my nose at the ridiculous situation, I decided to take a stab at making a cake from the brownie recipe. Once I started measuring and mixing, I realized this was what I had wanted to do all along, every minute I’d been doing laundry and fretting over how my dresses fit (or don’t). Beyond the usual comfort of cooking, I savored the knowledge that this cake would make my husband happy during my absence.

I made a few major modifications to the original recipe: I left out the chocolate, increased the flour to 3/4 cup, added a bit of milk, reduced the sugar to 3/4 cup, and creamed the butter with the sugar instead of melting it – which underscored that fact that I will need a stand mixer at some point in my life if I am to be at all serious about this cooking thing.

When it was cool enough to taste, the straightforward vanilla flavor and dense crumb reminded me a bit of the Sara Lee pound cakes we would get sometimes when I was growing up. We’d put sugared strawberries and freshly whipped cream over slices of it and call it strawberry shortcake. This cake would be perfect for that, or whatever else you felt like putting on top.

Deliciousness: This cake elemental in its simple, comforting tastiness.

Difficulty: None to speak of, unless like me you do not own a stand mixer.

Do-Over: Yep.

Details:

5 T. butter, room temperature

3/4 c. sugar

3/4 c. flour (I think I used cake flour)

1/2 c. milk (I used skim)

1 t. vanilla

2 eggs

Pinch salt

Preheat oven to 350 and grease an 8” x 8” pan (I use Pam). Cream butter and sugar until very smooth. Add eggs, milk and vanilla and beat until well combined. Add salt and mix flour in slowly. Bake 25-30 minutes, until golden on top and/or a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Week Two: Yogurt, again, still

Last week’s semi-debacle stoked my fires with stubbornness and made me determined to succeed at making yogurt. And let me tell you, the stubbornness came in handy.

It wasn’t that the yogurt I made last weekend was inedible; I ate every last bit of it. Every last, gritty, charmless bit. As I noted at the time, the flavor was fine, but the texture was way off, and I suspected that had something to do with the skim milk I used.

So for the next round, I used 2%, just like the recipe recommended for beginners such as myself. Into the pot went four cups of organic 2%, up to 170 it went, into the ice bath, and then really, truly into the ice bath. I still don’t know exactly what happened, but the lip of the milk pot slipped, and four cups of lovely, 170-degree milk infiltrated the icy waters of the big stockpot.

For a few moments, all I could do was stare in disbelief. It was actually kind of pretty, the milkiness slowly spreading through the water, reminding me of milk spreading into coffee and briefly bringing to mind that “clouds in my coffee” lyric. Then I snapped back into reality, potholders were thrown, F-bombs were dropped, and my husband came running to see what had happened, said a few reassuring words, and resumed his post on the couch.

I started again immediately, draining the quart carton of its remaining four cups of milk. This time, though, to save time (it was past my bedtime) I decided to heat the milk in the microwave. Terrified of a boil-over, I put it in for umpteen rounds of 1 or 2 minutes, then 30 seconds, and so on, taking it out to stir it and take its temperature over and over until I got it to 170. The rest of the process was completed without incident. At some point, my husband wandered in, kissed me and said, “From failure comes great things!” and pumped his fists in the air triumphantly.

And now we get to the part where I had a simultaneously brilliant and stupid idea. Earlier in the week, while making rice, I thought, “Shazam! We have a rice cooker!” It’s a fancy modern one, too, because I accidentally and regrettably killed the old one. It seemed like the perfect incubator. Surely the “keep warm” setting would do the trick.

Ladies and germs, it did not do the trick. I left it on “warm” all night, and in the morning, it was jelled in random globs, and it was way hotter than the recommended 110 degrees. Ever hopeful, I put it in the fridge, in a strainer lined with paper towels set over a big pot, and went to work. When I got home, not one drop of liquid had seeped through. It tasted yogurty, but way too sweet, and way too milky. Waves of guilt and inadequacy washed over me as I poured the stuff down the drain, but I really couldn’t think of a way to consume it.

The rice cooker failure got me thinking about the possibilities of using the crock-pot, and then a friend commented with the same suggestion, and it was like “shazam!” all over again, because one quick online search revealed scads of crock-pot yogurt recipes. One of the first that popped up was from the consistently awesome Crockpot365 lady, which I found greatly reassuring.

My big beef with these recipes, though, is that they call for leaving the milk in there on “high” for two and a half hours, which makes no sense to me in terms of either efficiency or energy use. If the primary advantage of the crock-pot is to keep the proto-yogurt warm enough to gel overnight, then why not just pre-heat it?

So that’s what I did. While I was heating, cooling and prepping the milk and otherwise puttering around, I filled the crock with water and turned it to “high.” It was on for perhaps half an hour. When the milk and yogurt mixture was ready, I turned it off, emptied the water and dried the crock (with a paper towel to minimize introduction of new bacteria), put it back in the base unit, added the prepped liquid, put the lid on, and wrapped the whole thing in three bath towels. (One folded on top, one folded in thirds lengthwise around the circumference, and one unfolded under the entire pot, wrapped up and over to hold the others in place.)

Back on the couch, my husband asked if there was more to do, and I said, no, this is the part where I hope fervently that it works, go to bed, and check it in the morning.

It’s a good thing it’s not possible to OD on yogurt. It’s gorgeous, creamy, delicious and definitely full-on yogurty. I stirred, refrigerated, and strained it, and immediately had some, warm, with bananas and cereal. I’ll definitely be making yogurt on a regular basis – not only is it at least four times cheaper than buying it, but I’ll know exactly what’s in it, and it will be mild enough to eat plain.

A few final notes for those who will want to know:

- When I finally succeeded, I used ultra-pasteurized milk, which isn’t supposed to work.

- I used one 8-oz. tub of Greek-style honey vanilla yogurt as starter. Now that I’ve been successful, I’ll be using my own yogurt as starter.

- To strain it, I used paper-towel-lined strainers over stockpots and bowls.

- I didn’t time the straining process, just kept checking it until I was happy with it.

- I learned, during my further research, that it is important to stir the yogurt before you refrigerate it – it helps stop the bacteria from reproducing, which keeps the flavor mild.

- I did not believe it, but it’s true: the yogurt will firm up quite a bit in the fridge.

- One half-gallon of milk made roughly 32 ounces of Greek-style yogurt, but if you don't strain yours, you'll end up with as much yogurt as the amount of milk you used.

- Here are a few recipes and sites I found helpful: brief but helpful explanations of the whys and hows; great detailed step-by-step with nice photos and crisp layout; a scholarly approach from the University of Kentucky.