EASY AS ....

When I started this blog a couple of years ago, I never intended it to be so very much about food, but that seems to be the direction it is taking.  In the summer, with such a bountiful garden, it is really quite easy to blog about nothing but food, in fact, I could probably update this 'food' blog on a daily basis if I were so inclined.

Easy as...pie...

I have never been one to call pizza, 'pizza pie', to me, a pie is peach or blueberry or apple or custard, etc.  I imagine that pizza got its 'pie' because of the round shape.  I was brought up on pizza.  Every single Saturday my grandmother made bread and when she made bread, she always made pizza.  Never, not even once, did she make a round pizza.  I have only known pizzas in rectangular form, always the size of a cookie sheet.

I know I have blogged about my pizza many times, and here is another pizza entry.  A thought simply popped into my head on Saturday..."what if I grilled the tomatoes, onions and garlic for fresh pizza sauce?"  I couldn't rid myself of this thought, and so

on the grill went lots and lots of fresh from the garden tomatoes washed, de-stemmed, but otherwise intact.  An onion cut in half, and four cloves of garlic in olive oil, wrapped in tinfoil.  

These were grilled until the tomatoes split and charred, and the garlic inside the foil was like cream.

Once that stage was reached, the onion was cut up, the tomatoes smashed and and lots of fresh basil and fresh oregano was added along with some olive oil, salt and pepper and a pinch or two of sugar.

On to the pizza making...

 

The dough just out of the bowl with lots of nice air holes.

Stretched and rolled out to a rectangle

Topped with the 'grilled tomato sauce', Organic Valley's raw milk jack-style cheese, and a grating of Romano cheese.  Put into a 500 degree oven (it was quite cool last night.)

...and here it is...

...along with a cucumber/tomato salad...

I must say that grilling the sauce ingredients made for the best pizza I have ever made.  (Now I know I have said that before, but that was before I grilled the ingredients...)

And now for pie, real pie.  During the terribly hot spell I purchased a lug of peaches, but never did any baking with them as it was too hot to operate the oven.  I froze them all.  Today I took a package of those frozen peaches out...

butter about to be cut into the flour...

peaches slightly defrosted

mixed with 1 c. sugar, 1/2 c. flour, a sprinkling of nutmeg on top and a few bits of butter as well.  (Measurements are a guess, as I don't measure, and in fact this pie, before it went into the oven, weighed 6 1/2 pounds, so no relying on exact measurements.)

ready for the oven

'tarts ready for the oven'

 

When I was a child my mother made pies often.  She always seemed to have extra pie dough which she rolled out, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon and baked these (we called them tarts) along with the pie. 

tarts just out of the oven, just prior to going into my mouth!

...and the pie just out of the oven...

Peach pie tastes of summer and its golden orange color is stunning, to say nothing of the absolutely delightful mouth-watering aroma.  

I also purchased at the same time a lug of blueberries and one of cherries, they are still waiting in the freezer for their turn.

Tonight an old Sicilian zucchini dish. More on that later.