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Showing posts with label Literary Lunch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Literary Lunch. Show all posts

Literary Lunch: Billy's Pan Pizza

Comments (0) | Friday, April 15, 2011

For our Literary Lunch this month we chose to focus on a series that we both just finished listening to on audiobook—The Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson, which is comprised of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.  Stieg Larsson’s eye for detail, skill at creating believable characters, and intriguing plot lines have a way of completely immersing the reader in a world that is familiar because of its extremely realistic feel, but also driven by larger than life characters.  The protagonists of the series are Lisbeth Salander, an oft-persecuted and socially awkward computer hacker, and Mikail Blomkvist, a moralistic journalist with whom Lisbeth gets entangled in the course of the first novel.   
The series is as much a critique as it is a thriller, exploring how easily modern society, when unaccompanied by a sense of equality, can be set loose against women in a nightmarish barrage of bureaucratically-sanctioned and medically-backed physical and mental torture, a veritable hell of misogynists and sadists administering what they dub as justice under the pretext of reason but ultimately driven by the need for dominance over women, very often in the form of sexual violence.  And this would all be too much to take if not for the clearly delineated good characters, who go to unheard of lengths before the series concludes to fight back against a conspiracy designed to keep the systems of control firmly in place. 
Along the way we watch this cast of mainly Swedes (Larsson was Swedish, the series itself was written in Swedish and then translated into English by Reg Keeland) doing a lot of normal, everyday things.  Larsson especially likes describing what the characters are eating and drinking, which is what gave us the idea to include this in our Literary Lunch. 
If you’ve read any of the books, you might think we’d post about some sort of sandwich, as Swedes, according to the books at least, seem to eat sandwiches morning, noon, and night, along with a fresh brewed cup of coffee.  It’s conceivable that the series could be cut down to a single book if Larsson had simply not included coffee breaks in the narrative flow.  But these details are exactly what make the books so compelling, and each time a new pot is brewed and a sandwich is prepared, we get to sit back along with the character and dwell on recent developments in the story.   
But as far as blogging goes, sandwiches are pretty boring fare, so we decided to go  with something that pops up almost as often as sandwiches in the story—pan pizza.  Specifically, Billy’s Pan Pizza, one of the foods Lisbeth Salander is so fond of buying from the convenience store (she has a horrible diet!).  Although we’ve never tried Billy’s Pan Pizza (yes, it’s apparently a real product), we imagine that it’s similar to other frozen pizzas, and so decided to honor one of our favorite literary characters by making a pan pizza worthy of writing home about, although Lisbeth would probably just shrug if we served it to her and say it was ok.  

We decided to make a sausage pizza since most of Lisbeth's choices usually included some sort of meat.  You can choose your own toppings, but we wanted to share the whole wheat pan pizza dough recipe because it really turned out great.  We used to be fans of thin crust pizzas, but I think from now on we will be making pan pizzas instead.   

Whole Wheat Pan Pizza Dough
Adapted from Vegetarian Classics by Jeanne Lemlin
Makes 1-2 medium pan pizzas (depending on how thick you want the crust). 
1 c. warm water, divided
1 t. evaporated cane juice
2 1/4 t. yeast (1 packet)
3 c. whole wheat flour (white wheat works best)
1 t. salt
3 T. olive oil, plus more for greasing

1) Combine 1/4 c. of the warm water and the evaporated cane juice.  Stir until the cane juice is dissolved.  Sprinkle the yeast on top of the water and let it sit for 1 minute.  Stir the yeast in and let it proof for 10 minutes.

2) In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook add the flour, salt, remaining 3/4 c. water, olive oil and yeast mixture.  Knead on medium for 10 minutes.  Remove the dough and set aside for a moment.  If needed clean out the bowl of the stand mixer.  Oil the bowl and press the dough into the bottom.  Flip the dough over and so both sides are covering in the oil.  Let rise for 30 minutes.  
3) Roll dough out to desired thickness.  For our pizza above we used about 2/3 of the dough for the 1 pan pizza and made a small thin crust pizza with the rest.  Place the dough in a well oiled large cast iron skillet.  Cover the pan with a tea towel and let rise another 30 minutes.  

4) Bake dough in a preheated 450 degree oven for about 5 minutes.  Top with desired toppings and then bake for an additional 8-12 minutes until your cheese is brown and bubbly.  Slice and enjoy. 


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Literary Lunch: Gunslinger Burritos

Comments (1) | Tuesday, March 15, 2011

We cannot tell you how excited we are to share this meal and this series of books.  The meal was delicious and the books are some of the best we have ever read.  We are talking about the Dark Tower Series by Stephen King.  These books are Stephen King's Magnum Opus, and if you like any of his works you will love these.  In fact, you will find some very familiar scenes and characters from King's other books within the pages of this series.

The story chronicles the journey of Roland of Gilead.  He is the last gunslinger and is on a quest to travel to and climb to the top of the Dark Tower.  The world has moved on since he was young and things such as time, distance or direction no longer are quite so measurable or trustworthy anymore.  Roland, along with his new found Ka-tet (group of friends brought together by fate aka Ka), must fight against the forces of the Crimson King that wish to destroy the Dark Tower and with it all existence.  This journey traverses different worlds, times, and many miles (or wheels).  It also spurs many emotions within the reader and leaves you with a sense of longing after you have finished.  The main characters Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, Oy, and Pere Callahan will all strike a nerve because they are all so human and so real.   

The meal we planned for this story is actually drawn from the third book "The Wastelands."  After traveling a great distance across a fairly desolate beach Roland and his Ka-tet come to a wooded area.  There they are able to hunt deer and find vegetation to eat.  One of the things they make is deer meat wrapped in leaves.  These concoctions are dubbed Gunslinger burritos by Eddie at one point and we felt that they would be an excellent addition to our literary lunch.  We didn't have deer meat available to us so we used beef, but feel free to use any meat or game that you want.  Also we embellished on the contents of the burritos a bit and made them more into a lettuce wrap style meal.  We hope you enjoy both the books and the meal. 


Gunslinger Burritos
A Jason and Cassie Original
Makes 4 servings
For Steaks: 
1 lb. sirloin steak (preferably grass-fed)
1/2 t. chili powder
1/2 t. cumin
salt and pepper to taste

For Beans and Rice:
1 t. olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced
1 jalapeno diced (with or without seeds)
1 c. cooked brown rice
1 15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 c. water
1 t. chili powder
1 t. cumin
salt and pepper to taste
juice of 1 small lime
1 handful cilantro leaves, rinsed and chopped

For Vegetables
1 T. olive oil
1 medium onion sliced
1 red bell pepper sliced

1 Head lettuce

1)  To prepare the steaks:  Season sirloin steak with the chili powder, cumin and salt and pepper.  Grill steaks about 3-4 minutes per side over medium heat until medium.  Set aside and let rest a few minutes before slicing.

2) To prepare the beans and rice:  heat olive oil in a sauce pan over medium heat.  Add the garlic and jalapeno and stir fry for about 30 seconds.  Add the rice, beans, water, chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper.  Simmer and let heat through for about 5-10 minutes.  Remove from heat and add the lime juice and cilantro.

3) To prepare the vegetables:  Heat the olive oil over medium heat.  Add the onions and peppers and let saute about 10 minutes until they soften and begin to brown.

4) Separate all the leaves on the head of lettuce.  Wash each leaf well and then dry.  To serve place a small amount of each of the steak, beans and rice and vegetables on top of each lettuce leaf.  Wrap up and enjoy.


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Literary Lunch: A Confederacy of Dunces Hot Dogs

Comments (2) | Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Books are pretty important part of our daily lives in the Barber home.  We read a lot of books in various genres and both of us actually went to school to become librarians.  I am sure you can only imagine that with 2 librarian types in the house we have quite a number of books and this with Jason's constant weeding of our collection.  In fact we just realized that we have three problems.  1) We are totally out of space on our current bookshelves.  2) We have been on a bit of a book buying spree lately so we have quite a few homeless books at the moment.  3) We can't bring ourselves to get rid of any more books to make room.  We have already weeded as much as we dare to.  Those three things brought us to the realization that we need a new book case...and soon.

So what does this have to do with our blog?  Well our love of books and our love of food have somehow combined to create a monthly series that we will call Literary Lunch.  As we have both realized recently a lot of books discuss food quite a bit amongst their pages.  That got us thinking that we could use the books we read as inspiration for some of the meals we eat.  These posts may or may not include a recipe, but we will discuss the book briefly and how the food fits into the picture.  You can look for meals posted on the 15th of every month.

So on to our first book/meal of choice.  We chose the book A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.  This is a pretty odd and amazing book and we definitely thoroughly enjoyed it.  The book is about Ignatius Jacques Reilly and his exploits.  Ignatius is an adult male that lives at home with his widowed mother and basically sponges off her as he takes time to critique modern society.  He has biting commentary for almost anything and everything.  His favorite pastimes include going to the movies to yell at the screen, eating, and spending time alone in his room or in the bathroom.  Along the way his mother begins to stand up for herself and makes Ignatius go out to find a job.  Ignatius manages to get a job as a hot dog vendor.  So without telling you any more of the story we present the A Confederacy of Dunces Hot Dog.

 

There is no recipe here this month, because honestly it isn't difficult to make a hot dog, but we thought it would be a great first for our Literary Lunch Series.  It certainly makes for a satisfying Saturday lunch just as the book A Confederacy of Dunces makes for a truly entertaining read.  Enjoy!


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