Why I Oughta...

If you ask ten people who lived on the northside of Chicago what their favorite pizza from that time in their life was, I'd bet that 8 of them will tell you one place:  Pequod's .  It is a place that serves a distinct version of Chicago Deep Dish that features what they call a "caramelized crust".  What it really is a well-done whole milk mozzarella edge.  Not quite a frico , but more an 'edge'.    Is it my favorite?  No.  But, I'm a thin-crust-always-kinda-guy.  We've been to Pequod's.  Both the city location, but also the original up in Morton Grove.  Here's my post from a visit there in 2015 .  And here is our first visit to the suburban location (the original started here by Burt Katz) in 2011 .  Also note...we did eventually make it to Burt's Place before Burt Katz passed away .   But, back to Pequod's and why I bring it up.  One of our neighbor's requested a Pequod's-style pizza recently.  I haven't made deep dish pizz

In lieu of the typical under-performing bell peppers that I plant in the garden, this year, I picked up a Serrano hot pepper plant from Bonnie Plants at the ole' Home Depot.  As you can see from the photo, serranos are described as: 'Hot, pungent, candle-shaped fruits.  Top choice for making pico de gallo.  Very productive." While that's well and good, I'm only interested in them for one reason: The possibility of making my own giardiniera . I've tried making it in the past and most recipes call for fresh vegetables/peppers including serranos, but the output wasn't quite right.  Comparing those results (which included bright colors) with the typical store-bought jar of giardiniera (which has far more muted colors) was a disappointment.  It seems that the professional-made stuff pickles their peppers before putting them in the jar with oil? Just compare how the 'homemade' version looks in this photo compared to what the stuff in the jar looks

Whenever we are up in Michigan, we always take at least one morning and head into South Haven for breakfast at Cafe Julia.  Nat gets a coffee and sometimes a proper breakfast, but I always stick to the main attraction here:  the granola cookies. For the first time since I've been there, they had this little sign up detailing the ingredients.  Or...at least... *some* of the ingredients.  That had me thinking:  could we re-create these cookies at home? Sure enough, at least one baker has tried.   Therese at A Piece of Cake Kitchen has a recipe she says is "better" than the real thing. I think Nat will have to put this to the test.  I'm happy to be the taster.

Since documenting the variety known as Grandma Pizza back in October of 2010 , I still had not introduced it to my rotation of homebaked pies and  tried to bake one myself.  That all ended last night. *UPDATE on Feb 3, 2012* I recently bought 2 Detroit-style Blue Steel Pizza Pans and changed my recipe a bit. We had a few friends have babies recently, so Nat decided to bring them over a ready-made meal.  I was able to help and put together a few deep dish pizzas.  While I was making the skins, I threw together the ingredients for a 3rd one - that we could keep.  I modified my deep dish dough recipe a bit by adding more water and oil to make it more match the Grandma recipe from Slice .   I modified the recipe for both the dough and the sauce a bit, but the science behind it is all Kenji's from Slice. For the Dough 3 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons kosher salt A couple of scoops of rapid-rise yeast (I have a big tub of the stuff so I don't measure that well, unfor