Wednesday night I celebrated Rosh Hashanah by grilling pork. I was so encouraged by the success of Monday’s slow-roasted meat that I did almost 6 pounds of Willow Creek pork shoulder, with the same chile rub, so that I’d have pulled pork for pulled pork pizza tomorrow.
Pizza night was fun – 12 people, a bunch of different kinds of pizza:
- Pulled pork & corn & with bbq sauce & a few dabs of tomatilla salsa, topped with mozzarella
- Veg version, with black beans instead of pork and Farmer John’s quite spicey Pepper Jack instead of mozzarella
- Roasted broccoli, caramelized onions, a few olives and roasted peppers, on whole wheat crust. I was going to top this one with goat cheese, but I forgot to bring it, so this pizza got mozzarella, too.
- deep dish sausage with Willow Creek sausage, and a cornmeal crust
- Thin layer of pesto, chopped tomatoes, and mozzarella
Today I’ve been cooking for the pantry – I got a box of red peppers, and one of plum tomatoes from my CSA. I roasted most of the peppers, pickled a few, and I’m going to make what Deborah Madison calls pepper confit and I call pepperonata with the last one, along with some nice orange and red frying peppers that came in the regular box. It’s kind of a pepper relish – peppers and onions cooked slowly with herbs, and a little tomato paste, with some balsamic vinegar added at the end – to eat with eggs, or spread on bread. I used some peppers I’d roasted the other day, and some of the tomatoes, to make about a quart of pizza sauce. And tomorrow I’ll finish the rest of the tomatoes: I blanch and skin them, and squeeze out the seeds and freeze them in pint bags – the equivalent of a 14-oz. can of diced tomatoes. I’ll I’ll roast some of them, too – I’m just trying to remember if I did it skins on or skins off other years – I think it was skins off.
The peppers are quick pickled peppers (called quick because you don’t have to can them; process them – you just put them in a brine, and then refrigerate) from Anna Thomas’ Vegetarian Epicure Book Two. Use 4 large bell peppers – I usually like to use yellow, red and green, but I only had red ones this time, one of which had green patches. Cut them into thick strips, and save the tops and seeds of two of them. Mix 1 cup of cidar vinegar, 3 cups of water, 1/3 cup sugar (Anna says 1/2) in a pot, and add 1 1/2 TBLS coarse salt, and 2 TBLS mixed pickling spices (or make your own mix, with whole spices like bay leaf, clove, mustard seeds, hot pepper flakes, fennel seed, cinnamon sticks ….). Heat the liquids to a boil, and add the peppers. Simmer for 15 minutes, then remove from the heat and let the peppers sit in the brine another 15 minutes or so. Using tongs or a slotted spoon, fish out the pepper strips and place them in glass jars (I use 2 of the quart mason jars I get with honey in them). Strain the brine over them, cover and refrigerate overnight before eating. They’ll keep all winter in the fridge. They’re great in cheese sandwiches.
