Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Sfincione recipe (finally)

Here's the recipe for the pizza things that we had at the reunion.

SFINCIONE: Makes 4

Ingredients:

Dough
7/8 cup water
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
3 cups unbleached white bread flour
1 1\2 tsp salt
1\2 tsp granulated sugar
1 tsp rapid-rise active dry yeast

Topping
-6 Roma tomatoes, 2-3 regular tomatoes (you may want to seed them, since the juice can sometimes keep the bread from cooking)
-2 (or more) garlic cloves, chopped or diced
-3 tbsp EVOO -1 tbsp sunflower oil (or EVOO)
-2 smaller-than-a-baseball onions or 1 really big onion, chopped
-8 (or a lot more) pitted black olives, chopped
-2 tsp dried oregano (I like it almost powdery)
-6 tbsp freshly grated Pecorino cheese (or Parmesan)
-salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste (for me, that means about a tsp of kosher salt and more than a tsp of freshly ground pepper)(FYI, freshly ground pepper makes a huge difference in taste)

1 (Bread machine*) Pour the water and oil into the bread pan. If your instructions specify that the yeast is to be placed in the pan first, reverse the order in which you add the liquid and dry ingredients.

2 (Bread machine*) Sprinkle the flour over, ensuring that it covers the liquid. Add the salt in one corner of the bread pan, and the sugar in another corner. Make a shallow indentation in the center of the flour and add the yeast.

3 (Bread machine*) Set the bread machine to the dough setting;use basic or pizza dough setting (if available). Press Start. Lightly oil two baking sheets. (We put down aluminum foil first to help with cleanup)

4 Make the topping. Peel and chop the tomatoes. (We don't peel them, but do remove the seeds and gel.) Put in a bowl, add garlic and 1 tbsp olive oil, and toss together. Heat the sunflower oil/olive oil in a pan and saute the onions until softened. Set aside to cool

5 When the dough cycle has finished, remove the dough and place it on a lightly floured surface. Punch it down gently and divide into four equal pieces.

6 Roll each piece of dough out to a round, about 6-7 inches in diameter. Space the rounds well apart on the prepared baking sheets. Cover the sfincione with an oiled plastic wrap and let rise for 10 minutes. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 425 F.

7 Sprinkle the topping over the crusts, ending with the cheese. Season and add the remaining olive oil (or however much more you think reasonable).

8 Bake near the top of the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until the crust of each sfincione is cooked.


FYI: I hope to eventually post some modifications/instructions for the bread machine-less folks.

Madison

Monday, July 21, 2008

Bill's email

. . . received from Bill today

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Hello Everyone,

Hope everyone is doing well. I have been keeping busy. Just in case you did not know the Tour de France is about 2/3 complete. We have been following the race on-line and we get to see it on TV (delayed one day of course). The military person over our program here is also a biker. So we talk about the race and watch the finish most days on TV.

On our down day this past week we went shooting on one of the training ranges on the west side of the BIAP. I enjoyed the shooting. The cleaning of the weapons is not as fun but you learn everything about the weapon. I used SIG, Glock, and Beretta pistols and a MP5 submachinegun on the 25 meter range. Hopefully next time we will be able to shot some rifles. I believe we plan to go again in a couple of weeks. Something to look forward to.

That is about it for now except it has been hot, 110 to 117 everyday for the highs and mid 80s to low 90s for lows at sunrise. I am down to 6 more weeks in Iraq.

Everyone take care
Later
BS




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Thursday, July 17, 2008

Calendar Updated

At the top right of this page is a link to the family calendar. I'd put in the birthdays and anniverseries I could remember, but someone (Lyndsey and Anne?) has added many more (thanks!). So you may want to check, and make sure all of your family's info has been added, and that it is correct.

Susan

PS Today is Bill's birthday. Happy Birthday Bill!