French Bread Pizza

(Sorry for the delay in posting; holidays and everything kept me busy! —lar3ry)

When the kids were very young, Sandra and I had two vastly different work schedules. She worked from about 3pm until 11pm at night (evening shift), and I worked during the day. We usually had a babysitter watch the kids between the time Sandra had to leave for work, and the time I got home, although we sometimes used day care instead.

What this meant was that I was responsible for feeding the kids their supper. When they were in the "baby food" ages, I had a selection of a few pre-made foods for the kids. Sandra used to joke that I wouldn't feed the kids anything I wouldn't eat myself, and that was actually mostly true. The kids ended up eating a lot of mashed banana, sometimes carrots, and some rice cereal for the most part.

When the children were old enough for "real food," they progressed quickly from Cheerios and other bite-size items to more sophisticated items like soups and pizza.

Now, I've already explained history with pizza in another blog entry, and I won't repeat myself here. Needless to say, I knew that the kids loved pizza, and it wasn't in my heart to avoid it. For a time, those "Red Baron" mini-pizzas that you could cook in a microwave were popular, but they started to get repetitive. Another frozen pizza that I seemed to always have liked is Ellio's (the square pizzas), but they weren't a big hit with the girls. A small pizza from the pizza place just down the road from my house was cheap enough (about three dollars for a plain pizza), that I occasionally chose that as well.

At the time, I was working in Boston's North End in a building that sits right across the street from the Paul Revere house on North Street. The North End is a well known Italian neighborhood, and has many block party "feasts" throughout the year.

On my way home, I would walk from my office, through the North End, towards the Boston Garden, and pick up my commuter rail at North Station. The trek through the North End had me passing a number of bakeries, and one day as I was passing by, I saw a large loaf of French Bread. That got me to thinking about French Bread pizza—something that Sandra and I may have had once or twice, but I don't think we ever made it from scratch. "How difficult could it be?" I asked myself, and I purchased a fresh loaf on my way home.

I love fresh bread, and it was a big act of self-control that kept me from eating the bread while I was sitting in the train on my way home. However, I had a couple of hungry pizza-eaters to feed, so good ol' dad kept his appetite at bay and the loaf made it safely through the train ride in one (complete) piece. Driving home, I stopped at the grocery store to purchase some pizza sauce from a jar (I wasn't that familiar with making my own pizza sauce), and some shredded mozzarella.

I was set.

At home, I cut the bread, added the sauce and cheese, and popped it into the oven until the cheese melted (about 400 F for about ten minutes).

The kids loved it!

I did, too, although I simply made mine without the sauce and cheese—toasted French bread!

Over the years, I varied the recipe a bit, sometimes using leftover (homemade) spaghetti sauce, sometimes adding cooked sausage or slices of pepperoni, and this was always a quick, easy meal to make.

A couple of years ago, while watching Rachael Ray on Food Network's "Thirty Minute Meals," I saw Rachael make what I thought was a French Bread Pizza on Steroids. Of course, she had her own name for it (shown below).

I've made this myself, although I did my own take on the recipe, as neither Sandra nor I wanted the pepper, spinach, or ricotta. Still, Rachael's recipe was a great starting point for a whole new era of French Bread pizza at my house. It's still a quick and easy meal.

---

Super Stuffed French Bread Pizza Rustica

Source:	Rachael Ray—30 Minute Meals—Food Network
Prep Time:	10 minutes
Cook Time:	25 minutes
Yield:	4 servings
Catalogued:	03-Nov-2005

Ingredients

1 (2 foot long) loaf French bread

1 pound sweet Italian sausage

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 small red bell pepper, seeded and chopped

1 small onion, chopped

2 large cloves garlic, chopped

1 package frozen chopped spinach defrosted and squeezed dry

Salt and pepper

1 ½ cups part skim ricotta

½ cup grated Parmesan

½ pound sweet sopressata, from the deli, sliced thick, chopped

½ stick pepperoni, chopped

1 sack (10 ounces) shredded mozzarella

1 sack (10 ounces) shredded provolone

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Split bread lengthwise and hollow it out. Cut in half across, making 4 shells for pizzas.

Heat a skillet over medium high flame and brown sausage in extra-virgin olive oil. Brown and crumble sausage. Add red bell pepper, onion and garlic. Cook 3 to 5 minutes, add spinach. Remove mixture from heat and season with a pinch of salt and black pepper, to your taste.

Transfer to a bowl. Combine sausage and veggies with ricotta, Parmesan, sopressata and pepperoni. Fill bread shells and top with mounded mozzarella and provolone cheeses. Place in hot oven on cookie sheet and bake until cheese melts and bubbles and bread is super crisp, about 10 to 12 minutes. Top pizzas with oregano and hot pepper flakes. Serve immediately, or snack all night!

---

Bon Appetit!

Pasta with Meat Sauce

My family has come to enjoy my pasta with meat sauce recipes. I use the plural here, because my sauce comes in about three varieties: traditional, without vegetables, and with ground meat.

The first variety, which is most closely associated with the Italian Bolognese sauce, consists of cubes of beef simmered with onions, carrots, celery, beef stock, and crushed tomatoes. Now, according to the Wikipedia, my use of tomatoes may make it less than authentic, but we seem to enjoy it this way.

Sandra, however, doesn't really like when I add the finely cubed vegetables (carrots and celery) to the meat, which is about the only time that I prefer more vegetables to a dish than Sandra. If I'm in a rush, I will use ground meat (make sure it's relatively lean, about 85%) to make a quick meal. Hence the three varieties.

Below is my traditional meat sauce with notes at the bottom for additional varieties.

---

Bolognese Sauce

Source:	My recipe that evolved over twenty some-odd years
Yield:	Serves 4-6
Catalogued:	13-Nov-2007

Ingredients

2 ribs of celery, chopped into small cubes

1 carrot, chopped into small cubes

2 Tbs olive oil

1 ½ lbs lean beef, cut into small cubes

1 medium onion, chopped

1 can beef broth

¼ cup red wine

1 Tbs dried basil

1 Tbs dried bacon bits (artificial is fine)

28 oz can crushed tomatoes (Contadina preferred)

6 oz can tomato paste

1 lb hearty pasta (linguine, tagliatelle, perciatelli, bucatini, or penne)

Grated hard cheese (Parmesan or Romano)

Chop the ribs of celery and carrot into tiny (about ⅛") cubes. Slice the onion thinly, and then chop to make small cubes.

Using a Dutch oven, drizzle the olive oil onto the bottom of the pot over medium-high heat, and rotate the pot until the oil covers the bottom. Add chopped carrots, celery, and onions, and cook for about five minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent. Add extra oil, if necessary.

Add the cubed beef and continue to cook, stirring occasionally to ensure that all the beef is cooked. Sauté the meat and vegetable mixture for an additional three minutes and then add the broth, wine, basil, bacon bits, tomatoes, and paste.

Wait until the mixture starts to bubble and then lower the heat to medium-low. Cover the pot and simmer for at least twenty minutes— the longer you cook, the more chance for the flavors to "marry."

Prepare a pound of pasta according to package directions until al denté.

Serve Bolognese sauce over pasta, garnishing with Parmesan or Romano cheese, as desired.

• Add one frozen sausage, cubed for additional flavor
• Ground beef may be substituted for the cubed meat
• Sandra prefers the sauce without the cubed vegetables

---

Bon Appetit!

Bertucci's Sausage and Rice Soup

I've been busy in real life, and haven't had time to update this blog since last week's thoughts on my new iPod Touch.

Today's recipe is one that I reconstructed from one of my favorite soups at a local restaurant chain, Bertucci's. This is a nice place for a good meal, and I like their Caesar salad, Tuscan chicken wing appetizer, and their sausage soup, and it is the soup that I'm going to share with you.

I'm not sure what made me order the soup the first time I did, but I've ordered it many times since. I think what appeals to me is the soup's inherent simplicity.

In the recipe below, I add diced tomatoes to be more in line with Bertucci's recipe, but when I make it on my own, I tend to leave them out, as I don't feel that they add much to the soup. Feel free to include or exclude them.

---

Sausage and Rice Soup

Yield:	Serves 4
Catalogued:	31-Oct-2007

This recipe is my homage to the Sausage Soup that one can get at Bertucci's. The restaurant describes this soup as "A hearty soup with rice, spinach, tomatoes and sausage. Topped with a dab of mozzarella cheese." From this simple description, I created my own version, based on my own, personal tastes (I am not a big spinach fan...)

Ingredients

1 tbs olive oil

1 lb ground sausage meat (removed from casings)

32 oz chicken broth

10-20 fresh basil leaves (approximately, to taste)

12 cherry tomatoes, quartered

Salt and pepper to taste

1 cup cooked rice (instant rice is sufficient)

⅛ cup shredded mozzarella cheese

In a dutch oven on medium-high heat, add olive oil (enough to cover the bottom of the pot). When oil is hot, add sausage meat in small quantities until cooked.

Add chicken broth and raise heat to high until broth boils. Add whole basil leaves and chopped tomatoes to broth and lower heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer for about 20 minutes.

To serve, add about a quarter cup of rice to each soup bowl, and then add the soup to the rice. Sprinkle the top of the soup with some mozzarella cheese.

Serve immediately.

---

Bon Appetit!

Recipe: Shrimp Provolone

This recipe is one of my originals. It can be described as a "Shrimp Fra Diavolo with Sausage and Cheese" but that doesn't quite get the entire feel of the dish.

Twenty or so years ago, I was reading a James Beard cookbook (American Cookery) and came across a dish that consisted of shrimp, pancetta, and tomato sauce. I didn't have pancetta, so I decided to use sweet Italian sausage instead, crumbled and browned. Then I added provolone cheese on top, and this dish was born! Sandra and I loved it the first time we made it.

Interestingly, the second, third, and fourth times I tried to make this dish, I failed miserably. I used cooked shrimp instead of raw, and apparently made a number of other mistakes until I got the hang of the dish.

With regard to the hot spices (cayenne, Tabasco, red pepper flakes), I tend to use a lot more when I'm cooking for just myself than when I'm cooking for my family (medium spice) or for company (mild spice). Keep that in mind when you make this.

---

Shrimp Provolone

Source:	An original recipe by lar3ry
Prep Time:	20 minutes
Cook Time:	20 minutes
Yield:	6 servings
Catalogued:	17-Feb-2002

Ingredients

1 pound uncooked medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

¼ to ½ pound Provolone cheese, sliced thin

1 pound pasta (linguine or spaghetti)

Butter (to taste)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Parmesan cheese (to taste)

Sauce

3 links sweet Italian sausage (frozen is best)

2 Tbs olive oil

3 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tsp dried basil flakes

1 15 oz can crushed tomatoes

½ tsp red pepper flakes (to taste)

Salt and pepper (to taste)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Peel and devein shrimp, removing tails, set aside.

Chop Italian sausage by slicing links into ¼" slices, and then cutting each slice into six cubes about ¼" square. This works best if the sausages are frozen, and the cubes will retain their shape.

Heat olive oil in a 3-quart saucepan over medium-high heat. Add sausage and fry until they are all cooked (about five minutes). Add garlic and red pepper flakes, and cook an additional minute.

Mix in the crushed tomatoes and basil and stir to blend completely. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat.

In a 9" x 13" oven-proof dish, spread a small layer of sauce. Assemble the shrimp in the dish, keeping the shrimp in a single layer. With a ladle, spoon more of the sauce on top of the shrimp until the shrimp is completely covered. Reserve remainder of the sauce.

Place slices of Provolone cheese on top of the shrimp. Tear some of the round cheese slices in half in order to have them cover even. You want at most three layers of cheese. Cover the oven-proof dish with aluminum foil and cook at 350°F for 40 minutes.

During the last 15-20 minutes of cooking, prepare pasta according to directions on box. Drain after it's cooked al dente, and drizzle with melted butter and extra-virgin olive oil to keep pasta from sticking together.

After the dish has baked for 40 minutes, remove the aluminum foil from the oven-proof dish, and turn oven controls to "broil." Broil for five minutes until cheese is brown and bubbly.

Serve shrimp and sauce over pasta. Add some of the reserved sauce on top, if desired. Serve with shredded Parmesan cheese.

• Frozen sausage is best for this dish, as you can cut it into cubes easy and they will retain their shape as they cook. If using fresh sausage, don't cut it, but rather peel the casings off and cook the ground meat within it, crumbling it as it cooks.
• DON'T USE JUMBO SHRIMP FOR THIS DISH! It will dilute the sauce too much, as the larger shrimp give off too much water as they cook! Medium to large shrimp work best.
• If the sauce seems too thin, add 3 tbs. tomato paste to thicken.
• Substitute 1 ½ pounds of chicken tenders if you don't like shrimp (we adapted this rule for my daughter, who doesn't really like shrimp).
• Add ¼ pound of Prosciutto ham sliced thin and cut into tiny pieces and 2 oz. grated Parmesan cheese to sauce for additional taste.
• Add up to 3 Tbs Tabasco Sauce and increase red pepper flakes for a much spicier dish!
• Garnish dish with sliced pieces of fresh basil for a more professional presentation.

---

Bon Appetit!