Tag: love to cook

Cooking with Natty

Knock off Lou Malnati’s Deep Dish Pizza (Lou’s Special)

by nattysbestlife2 Comments on Knock off Lou Malnati’s Deep Dish Pizza (Lou’s Special)
Knock off Lou Malnati’s Deep Dish Pizza (Lou’s Special)

I used a Lodge Cast Iron pan to make the deep dish pizza

Pizza dough ingredients:

  • 4 tsp sugar
  • 2 tbs active dry yeast
  • 1 1/2 cups warm water
  • 4 cups all purpose flour (or bread flour)
  • 3 tsp salt
  • 5 tbs vegetable oil

Other ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 shredded mozzarella cheese
  • Fresh mozzarella cheese
  • Colby jack cheese
  • 2 1/2 fresh spinach (chopped up)
  • 5 cloves of garlic (crushed/ minced)
  • 1 cup pizza or pasta sauce (you can also make your own like I did)
  • Butter

1. Prepare the Dough

Mix together 1 1/2 cups of warm water, 2 tbs active dry yeast and 4 tsp sugar and and let it sit for 3-5 minutes until it foams up/bubbles (this means that the yeast has activated- if you don’t get foam/ bubble you will have to repeat this step or your dough will not rise). Once the yeast is activated, add 5 tbs of vegetable oil into the mixture- this is your wet mixture.

Mix the dry ingredients together- 4 cups of flour and 3 tsp salt. Slowly incorporate your wet mixture into your dry mixture until all the ingredients come together. Kneed the dough for about 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth.

Let the dough rise until the dough doubles in size- you want to place the dough in a warm dry area to rise or in a warmed oven (turn the oven on for a few minutes and turn it off).

2. Assemble the Pizza

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Once the oven is preheated, heat the empty cast iron pan (12″) in the oven for 3 minutes. Once the pan in heated, butter the pan. Take 1/2 of the prepared dough, form a ball and place it in the center of the pan. Slowly press the dough into the pan and up the edges until the dough is uniformly spread. Lightly butter and salt the open face of the dough, and put it back in the over for 3 minutes.

Remove from the oven, put down a layer of shredded mozzarella cheese, top with fresh mozzarella cheese, layer of spinach mixture (sautéed garlic, spinach, salt until the spinach shrinks and squeeze out excess moisture once it cools), add a layer of sauce, top with a mixture of mozzarella and colby jack cheese, at the end add thinly sliced tomatoes (lightly salt the tomato slices).

3. Cook the Pizza

Cook the pizza at 425°F for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Take the pizza out of the oven and let it cool before using a spatula to remove it from the cast iron pan- this should be very easy since he pan was buttered. Optional step: put the pizza back into the oven for 3-5 minutes to become crispy.

Homemade Deep Dish Pizza

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Cooking with Natty

Fluffy Cloud Japanese Pancakes

by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment on Fluffy Cloud Japanese Pancakes

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 
  • 1 1/4 cups milk 
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
  • 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg yolk plus 3 large egg whites
  • 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
  • PAM- for cooking
  • Maple syrup- for serving
Special equipment:

 four 3-inch-wide-by-2 1/2-inch-high ring molds: you can use any tall ring you have

This was my first time trying homemade Japanese pancakes and I was pleasantly surprised! They turned out amazing! The easiest way to make this pancake, start with THREE BOWLS!

Bowl 1: Mix together the dry ingredients: flour, confectioners’ sugar, baking powder and salt

Bowl 2: Mix together the wet ingredients: milk, melted butter, vanilla and egg yolk

Bowl 3: Mix 3 egg whites with a hand mixture until white peaks form (this takes about 3-5 minutes depending on the hand mixer

Mx together the contents of bowl 1 and bowl 2 in equal proportions, at the end fold in the contents of bowl 3

Heat up a pan on LOW HEAT- I had it on the lowest setting, spray the pan and the ring. Once the pan is heated pour the batter in 1/2 way into the mold, set a timer for 5 mixtures, flip and cook the other side for 5 more minutes.

Once it’s done pop it out of the mold and top with powder sugar ( confectioners’ sugar). Serve with fresh fruits, whipped cream, and maple syrup!

🖤

Cooking with Natty

Egg fried “rice”

by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment on Egg fried “rice”

Today I decided to make egg fried rice without rice. I substituted the rice with Green Giant Riced Broccoli and Cauliflower mix. They have a variety of different riced veggie combos, just use the one you want. The whole bag of “rice” has 80 calories! That’s what makes this recipe so healthy and low in calories.

Ingredients:

  • Low sodium soy sauce
  • Sesame oil
  • 3-4 eggs
  • 1 package of microwavable frozen mixed veggies
  • 1 package of riced veggies
  • 1 onion
  • 1 garlic clove

The prep time was about 15-20 minutes! Warm up the sesame oil in a pan, add the chopped onion and garlic and cooked it for about 5 minutes, turn down the heat right before the onion becomes caramelized. In a separate pan cook the riced veggies, this also takes about 5 minutes. Add the microwaved veggies to the onion/garlic mixture. Push this mixture to the side of the pan and use the other half of the pan to scramble 3-4 eggs (I used 3 this time). Once the eggs are cooked, add the riced veggies and add soy sauce to taste. I didn’t add salt to this recipe because the soy sauce is enough sodium for me, but if you feel you need to add salt, just salt to taste.

It is a very simple recipe and tastes amazing. We ate right away, but I am excited to make this again on a Sunday and use it as my lunch for a few days!

🖤

Cooking with Natty

Guilt Free Apple Pie

by nattysbestlifeLeave a Comment on Guilt Free Apple Pie

I made an improv apple pie one morning without 2 key ingredients: flour and butter. Granted it wasn’t the best pie I’ve ever eaten, but it was definitely a healthy alternative!

Ingredients:

  • 3-4 apples (honesty you can use whatever kind of apple you want)
  • 2-3 cups of oat (whatever you don’t use to make the crust becomes the crumble on top)
  • brown sugar
  • sugar
  • cinnamon
  • nutmeg
  • lime juice
  • 2-3 eggs
  • warm water

I first used my Ninja Blender to grind the oats into a fine powder. To the oats I added 3 eggs, a few teaspoons of water, and about a 1/2 cup of sugar. I then pressed the “dough” into an 8in pan and cooked it for 10-12 minutes at 375F. While the crust was cooking, I pealed and cut up 3 apples. Then added about 3 tablespoons of lime juice, a half a cup of both brown sugar and sugar, 1 tsp nutmeg, and cinnamon to taste.

When the crust came out, I filled it with the pie filling, and added the remainder of the oats as crumble on top. I baked the pie for about 30 minutes until it was slightly brown on top.

There were 2 great things about the pie: that it didn’t take long to make, and it was truly guilt free.

I definitely want to play around with this recipe and maybe try a different filling in the next few weeks!

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