by Smitten Kitchen, that is! After last weekend’s somewhat successful cupcake recipe, I’ve been scouring her archives for summertime recipes. For tonight’s dinner, I chose two of her mid-summer postings from 2009: Roasted Carrot and Avocado Salad and Lemony Zucchini Goat Cheese Pizza. Granted, I didn’t have faux purple carrots or farmer’s market zucchini, but I definitely made the best of what I had lying around the kitchen.
In addition to trying these two recipes, the pizza dough had its own process. Using the Smitten recipe, I found that I could make the dough sans machine! I did remember that people made pizza and other creations prior to the kitchen accessories boom, but I was astounded how easy it was to sculpt a ball of dough in 5 minutes flat and have to only wash one bowl. Pretty cool, I say! As for the quality of the dough, it turned out awesome and was super easy to work with.
Both the carrot salad and the pizza required high temperatures, and I was slightly hesitant to be cooking these ultimately cool summer dishes in today’s 92 degree DC smut heat. Undeterred by the promise of a blistering kitchen, I persevered, and my tummy thanked me for it afterward. The salad was wonderful, and I added a goat cheese blog just to bridge the gap between cold avocado and straight from the oven carrots. The pizza cooked in 13 minutes and was very light. The hidden strands of basil underneath all the zucchini was blissful.
Kudos to Smitten lady Deb for her awesome blog, and for indirectly providing me with dinner tonight.
what a yummy looking and sounding meal!