ABYC Opening Day Party!

I catered the Yacht Club's Opening Day party for 200. 
Here's how it looked:

Pulled Pork Sammies

THESE WERE SO GOOD!  I made them for a catering event and I think all 20 people were in heaven.  The thing I like about pulled pork is when you have the rich, saucy, sweet and slightly spicy, delicious pork meat piled high with a cool, crisp, tangy slaw.  What a tasty combo!  And don't be blase about the bun!  Pick a bun that won't fall apart or get soggy with the pork and the slaw.  I chose a sturdy, yet tender ciabatta roll.  The basic gist is the following: rub pork, marinate over night, roast pork for a really long time, then shred it, mix in some homemade BBQ sauce so it stays really juicy, then you're ready to assemble your sand'iches.  Delish.

Follow the jump to see how to make it... for 6 peeps + leftovers, rather than 20.  :)

Buffalo Shrimp Pizza

So the other day on the Today Show, Martha Stewart made these Buffalo Shrimp, they looked super tasty... I had this idea to turn it into a pizza.  Spicy shrimp with blue cheese, all on top of my favorite pizza dough.  Sounds weird, well it was pretty tasty.  Here's how to make it...

Ingredients:
12 U-15 shrimp, shelled and deveined
1/4 cup of a BBQ spice rub (I mixed paprika with cayenne, salt, pepper, sugar)
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella
1/2 cup sliced Point Reyes Blue Cheese
1/4 of a red onion, thinly sliced
1 T. olive oil
1 batch of Pizza Dough
1 T. chopped parsley

Set your oven to 500 degrees.  Marinate the shrimp in the spice rub for 30 minutes with a glug of olive oil.  Then place on a baking sheet and bake for 5 minutes at 400 degrees.  Hold for assembly.   Next get your pizza stone floured.  Flour your hands and get your pizza dough ready by pulling the dough ball into a flat disk, pull gently from the middle until you've stretched it out as far as you think your stone can hole.  Then flop it onto your stone.   Pre-bake your dough for 5 minutes on 500 degrees.  Take the dough out and anoint with a tablespoon of olive oil.  Then spread out your mozza, then your blue then place the shrimp evenly, then sprinkle the onion.  Pop your pizza back in the oven for another 10 minutes or so.  I rotate the stone a quarter turn periodically so that it cooks evenly.  You want your dough really browned and the cheese bubbly.  The dough should look almost burned, but not totally scorched.  Then take out your 'za and sprinkle with parsley.  Ta-da!  Weird, and slightly reminiscent of buffalo wings.  So good.  Enjoy!

Pizza Dough

My favorite Pizza Dough:

Ingredients:
3 C flour
1 C warm water
1 packet yeast (2 1/4 t.)
3 T olive oil, plus a few drops for the bowl
2 T sugar
1 T salt

Mix 1 cup of warm water with yeast, sugar and 1/2 cup of flour.  Let the yeast bloom for 20 minutes until frothy.  Then pour in the olive oil.  In a large bowl combine the flour and salt, reserving 1/2 a cup of the flour.  Mix the wet and dry ingredients together.  The dough will be tacky but not sticky, as you kneed the dough add the reserved flour a little at a time if the dough is too sticky.  Kneed the dough together for 10 minutes, adding the reserved flour as needed.  I usually need about 1/4 cup of the reserved flour.   I keep the remaining 1/4 of flour to use on  my pizza stone to keep the dough from sticking.

Let the dough rest in an oiled bowl and place in the warmest place in your kitchen.  Cover with a slightly damp tea towel and let rest for an hour.  Then you're ready to rock.

Bone-in Ribeye - THE COWBOY!

Man, what a good steak.  The trick with grilling the ribeye (bone-in or otherwise,) is to WATCH IT CAREFULLY.  This cut of meat has lots of marbling, all that fat flames up very easily on the grill.  You don't want to scorch your beautiful steak and turn it to charcoal.  The butcher cut these steaks 1 1/2" thick... ah-mah-zing.  The steak was borderline obnoxious, but we managed.  :)  You don't want any sauce or competing flavors mucking up these delicious steaks.  Here's how to do it up right.  

Ingredients
(2) 1 1/2" thick bone-in ribeyes
2 t. salt
2 t. pepper
2 T. olive oil (so it won't stick to the grill)

Get your grill going on medium heat.   Get your steaks to room temperature.  When you are ready to grill salt, pepper and oil your steaks.  Flop your steaks onto the grill.  They should flame slightly when the oil hits the grill, but make sure the flame is out - then put the lid down.  STAND THERE.  If you see the steaks flame up - pull them off and wait for the flames to die down.  You want the steaks on for 8 minutes per side, for rare/medium rare.  Put out the flames each time the steaks flare up, you don't want a crispy, charcoal exterior.  You definitely don't want to overcook these babies.  If you like your steaks medium or well, just skip this one - make hamburgers and call it a day.  ;)

Grape and Walnut Tartlets

 These teeny tiny desserts are delicious and the perfect sweet bite to end your meal.  They are small-ish - so you might want to plan on two per person.  They are super easy to make and I actually got the idea because I had a huge box of grapes and wanted to use them up before they went bad!  I decided that grape and walnut filling would be a delicious combo.  All I did was saute the grapes in a little bit of butter with a sprinkle of sugar until they broke down and released their juice - then I thickened up the sauce with a little slurry of flour and water, popped in the chopped walnuts and the filling was done.  I used a big cheat buy using frozen pie dough, cut out circles with a water glass, pressed them into greased cupcake tins and filled them up with the filling.  Easy peasy.  Made 10 mini tarts.  Here's the recipe...

Ingredients:
1 roll of frozen pie dough, thawed
3 cups of washed, picked off the vine grapes
2/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup sugar in the raw
1 T butter
1 t flour, dissolved in 1 T water

Get a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter.  Toss in the grapes.  The grapes will start to breakdown immediately - keep stirring.  Sprinkle in your sugar and keep stirring.  Stir in your walnuts.  Once the grapes have cooked for about 10 minutes, they will have released all of their juice.  You can see how loose the filling is.  I needed about a teaspoon of flour to tighten up the filling.  Cook the flour in the filling for a few minutes to cook out the raw flour taste.  The filling should be thickened to a jam consistency. 

Prepare your muffin tin with non-stick spray.  Cut out your dough with a water glass and place a dough round in 10 of the cups.  Push the dough down into the cup.  Fill each dough round to the top with filling.  Bake for 25 minutes on 350 - the tartlets should be bubbling and the dough should be golden brown.

ENJOY!

Procuitto + Fig + Gorgonzola Dolce Pizza

Oh man, pizza is so satisfying, and super easy when you skip the sauce and just throw on super tasty ingredients, like really nice procuitto with dried figs and Gorgonzola dolce. So good. I like to make my own dough, just use the dough recipe from that last pizza post. Or you can totally buy dough at Whole Foods. Easy. Here's how to make it.

Ingredients
1 batch of pizza dough
5 pieces of procuitto
Handful of dried figs, halved
Handful of grated mozzarella
5 long slices of gorgonzola dolce

Since a home oven doesn't get as hot as a traditional pizza oven I have a trick to get your crust crispy and delicious. Flour a pizza stone or baking sheet lightly. Stretch out your dough to about 9 inches in diameter. Pop the dough into the oven (bare) for about 5 minutes or until it starts to lightly brown. Pull out your 'za. Drizzle with a tablespoon of olive oil. Spread the handful of mozzarella evenly over the dough. Evenly spread out the gorgonzola slices. Dot the fig halves around evenly in between the Gorgonzola. Drape the procuitto slices around, letting the figs peak out. Pop back in The oven until golden and bubbly - with a dark brown crust. Awesome! Enjoy.