Fig and Goat Cheese Flammekuche/Tarte Flambée

I don't often royally screw things up in the kitchen.  Last Sunday, I did.

My first attempt at this flammekueche wound up on fire, on the kitchen floor (and sort of stuck in the crack of the open oven door and the adjacent drawer), while still mostly raw and gooey.  I don't really want to retell the whole tale, so let's just skip to the moral of the story.  

No, first we'll graze over some background.  Flammekueche/Tarte Flambée/Flammkuchen is fantastic not only because it tastes good, but because it hails from one of those twisted regions of the world that totally mess with your sense of cultural order: Alsace.  I've had flammekeuche is both France and Germany, but it hails from the zone that lies between the two.  So it isn't really French or German, but uniquely Alsatian.  In any case, and in either country, flammekuche is a super-thin flatbread topped with crème fraîche, onions, and in some cases other very thinly cut veggies and lardons. 

Hansi is famous for his pro-French depictions of Alsace during the German occupation (1871-1918).

The challenge of a good flammekeuche is getting the crust as thin as possible, but having to maneuver this very thin dough from your rolling surface and onto a very hot baking sheet or pizza stone.  My error was rolling out the dough on parchment paper and loading on the toppings, and then attempting this transfer by sliding it onto the hot pan.  Well, at that point the crust is not sliding anywhere, no matter how much you floured the surface.  Follow my instructions below will save you this tragedy, and you'll see the solution is very simple (breadcrumbs).

The great news is that even if you do totally botch this up, it's easy to make (even the crust takes only 5 minutes) and well worth a second attempt.  Combining figs, caramelized onions, goat cheese, and crispy crust is sort of a no-brainer recipe for awesome, but the end result really exceeded my expectations.  I was particularly happy with how the greek yogurt worked as a crème fraîche alternative to keep this as healthy as possible (assuming you exercise some self control when it comes to goat cheese). 

Tandoori Chicken Pizza

Thanks to a very unanticipated snow day, I had some found time on my hands.  I certainly could have done more curriculum design, got a head start on the next week ahead in grad school, or wrapped up some grading tasks hanging over my head, but instead I tried to embrace a little adventure and wander around the city with camera in hand.  

I first took the bus to Old Town for one reason only: The Spice House.  Garrett and I picked up a few pieces of packaged naan for a quick weeknight pizza, so I thought I'd go all out and do tandoori chicken seeing that I don't normally have six hours to let something marinate.  Only, I was out of turmeric and cayenne, and figured I could splurge on some garam masala, since I don't usually keep that around.  To the local spice merchant.  Now that I'm fully stocked up, look forward to lots of future recipes that call for garam masala.

From Old Town I went back west to Wicker Park, and by then the snow was falling pretty heavily.  My feet were cold/wet, and I considered that only yesterday I celebrated the coming of spring while presently sharp, tiny icicles fell like shrapnel on my face and collected in my hair like sands of the Sahara in a Saharan sandstorm.  Sand that is cold and melts on contact and drips down your numb mug. 

I went home, marinated the chicken in tandoori paste, and sat on the couch to watch Real Madrid pull of a dramatic win against Man U.  Like Christiano after scoring at Old Trafford, I tried not to smile too much about the snow day.  ¡Hala!

Max & Sam's Cauliflower Crust Pizza

Saturday night I had the pleasure of babysitting my nephews.  I especially wanted to make dinner with them after many conversations this past week at work sparked by the new blog.  I can only imagine the challenge of finding time to cook and eat as a family with young children, so I wanted to do this partially as a tribute to all the wonderful teachers I know with young kids at home.

These cauliflower crust pizzas are trending, so I took on the challenge to cook something healthy with kids (but still "Pizza!").  Of course, I was curious to see if they would like it.  We had a traditional dough as backup, just in case.  With a bit of help from my brother and sister-in-law still needed, it was a success all around.  The adults liked it, too.