Yes..it means there's more time to make food that requires longer preparation/cooking. My friend made a bean soup consisting of the usual vegs. prosciutto, & using black eyed peas & pinto beans. It was delicious.
I made my first homemade pizza. First time trying my hand at working with yeast. Turned out to be a lot less scary than I had imagined! Made it with whole wheat flour. It was a thin-crust pizza, unwittingly, because the recipe was for one pie & I made two--I like thin crusts anyway! It was good, but it'll be better next time. I used a combination of cheeses: fontina, monterrey jack & mozzarella some sliced cooked Italian sausage. I 'winged' the pizza sauce, guess it's hard to go wrong really. Thinly sliced green pepper & mushrooms went on as well.

Leeds, I'm making pizza tonight as well! I wish I had some nice Italian sausage to put on mine. Alas. Maybe I'll add some BBQ sauce to the pizza sauce for a little sumthin' extra. And congrats on your first successful use of yeast! Have you heard about Farmgirl's new project "A Year in Bread"? They're talking about pizza dough for their first bread project: http://ayearinbread.earthandhearth.com/

Lately I've been craving grains, grains, and more grains. Does anyone have a good recipe for wild rice and mushroom soup? We're having (another) cold snap in Boston and a nice creamy soup seems like just the ticket to distract me from my spring daydreams. *sigh*

leeds, what recipe did you use for your dough? it's 22 degrees here in tennessee i would like any excuse to crank my oven up to 500 for a few minutes. :)

In the kitchen too,making choc chip cookies, butternut squash and onion tart, some sorta macaroons- and rich meat sauce for pasta....ooh and fried chicken!
so far the cookies are done,very crumbly and choclately..yumm :)

Just got finished with a wonderful bonding session with my mother in law to be :) 4 hours in a very small kitchen really forces you to get to know someone. It was actually really fun- she doesn't cook at all, so I felt like I was contributing to the relationship by giving her little pointers.

We pre-made brunch for tomorrow, hickory smoked ham, o'brien potatoes (mm), maple and tangerine glazed carrots, asparagus, leek and grueyere tart and pancetta scones.

Happy Easter to those celebrating it, happy weekend to those who are not!!

Just discovered endives... and I think I have a new favorite vegetable. I wasn't sure about the proper way to cook them when I was at the market, but I bought them anyway, expecting to find some guidelines over the internet. I got to my friend's home and, of course, his ADSL wasn't working, so I guessed my way into a side dish surprisingly good: endive, mushroom, potato and fennel salad.

Toss some thin slices of fennel on a vinagrette made with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, mirin vinegar and a bit of mustard. Let sit while you prepare the other ingredients.

Put some small potatoes and two pieces of garlic on a hot pan; cover them barely with water and add a generous amount of soy sauce. Let cook, covered, until tender. Strain any water left, add some olive oil and sautée the potatos and the garlic until they brown. As soon as you turn off the fire, toss a handful of fennel leaves on the pan and mix it with the potatoes: they'll stick to the skins and cook quickly, enhancing the fennel flavor.

Rinse the endive leaves and pat them dry; discard the center. Sautée the leaves with olive oil, a bit of salt and pepper until they start getting soft and brown on the edges, but are still crunchy on the center.

Slice the mushrooms and sautée them with a bit of olive oil, some mirin vinegar and salt until tender-but not mushy! You want a chewable consistence.

Mix the mushrooms and endives; drain the sliced fennel and add to the mix. Put some fennel potatoes on top.

The slightly bitter crunch of the endives, the chewy texture of the mushrooms, the starchy comfortfood-ness of the potatoes and the tangy aromatic touch of the sliced fennel with vinegar compliment each other perfectly. Enjoy with a nice tuna steak.
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(When you get home, sautée the couple of endives left, slice an apple, sautée it lightly, mix with mustard vinaigrette, add some nuts... and enjoy again)

EmmaC, sweet - thanks for the link! & thnx for the encouragement, I've been trying to overcome my yeast phobia for years! :) I'm sure your pizza turned out tasty, I'm curious about what toppings you ended up using...
thinkingwoman: I used a recipe a friend sent me (don't know her source) but it goes like this:
1 packet of yeast
warm water (tap is fine) - 7/8 cup (110-115 degrees)
1 T granulated sugar
1.5 T oil (canola or olive - I used olive oil)
2 2/3 c flour of choice
1 t sea salt
The funny part was me rolling it out, it was so thin, but I didn't know how it was suppossed to look!! I'll know next time.
My friends enjoyed it last night though.

Cooked with my mom this weekend. In activity we refer to as "the big roll-up", we made cabbage rolls. They will be the main dish in our Easter dinner today.