30 May 2024

Recipe: Alexandra Stafford’s Peach Pizza with Jalapeno, Prosciutto and Crème Fraiche

by | posted in: Adventure | 0

This pizza was inspired by Vermont’s Open Hearth Pizza, where cookbook author and food blogger Alexandra Stafford and her aunt, Marcy, received a tutorial from owner Chris Jones.

Aunt Marcy, Stafford explains in her new cookbook, “Pizza Night: Deliciously Doable Recipes for Pizza and Salad” (Clarkson Potter, $30), is known for not just befriending but best-friending everyone she meets. Marcy met Jones at a graduation party, after she sampled this pizza and “beelined it to the outdoor pizza oven.”

Jones uses freshly milled flour, sourdough starter and an outdoor wood-burning oven for his pizzas, but Stafford makes the recipe more accessible for home cooks with a “Neapolitanish” dough  and regular oven. The highlight of this white pizza is its topping — peaches, jalapeños and prosciutto, “a combination that hits all of those sweet, spicy, salty notes, making it completely irresistible,” she says.

Peach Pizza with Jalapeno, Prosciutto and Crème Fraiche

Makes one 12-inch pizza

INGREDIENTS

1 ball Neapolitanish pizza dough

Semolina flour, rice flour or all-purpose flour, for dusting

2 tablespoons crème fraîche, at room temperature

1/4 cup thinly sliced jalapeños

1 cup thinly sliced peaches (about 3 ounces)

3 ounces low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella cheese, pulled into 1/2-inch pieces (about 3/4 cup)

5 slices prosciutto

Extra-virgin olive oil

“Pizza Night: Deliciously Doable Recipes for Pizza and Salad” by Alexandra Stafford (Clarkson Potter, $30) was published April 16. (Courtesy Clarkson Potter)

DIRECTIONS

Prepare the dough: Transfer the dough from its storage container to a roomier, lightly floured, covered container and allow it to proof at room temperature for 1½ to 2 hours.

Prepare the oven and pizza peel: About 1 hour before you want to bake the pizza, place a baking steel in the top third of the oven and preheat itto 550 degrees convection roast (or as high as it will go). Dust a pizza peel lightly with flour or top with parchment paper.

Stretch the dough: Lightly dust a work surface with flour. Using lightly floured hands, pat the dough gently to flatten it, then stretch it into a 10- to 11-inch round by laying it on the back of your hands and gently rotating it, taking care not to depress the beautiful air pockets in the dough. If the dough begins resisting, set it down on the work surface to rest for 5 to 10 minutes, then continue stretching. Transfer the stretched dough to the prepared peel and give it a shake to ensure it’s not sticking.

Top the pizza: Spread the crème fraîche over the dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Top with the jalapeño and peach slices, spacing them evenly. Scatter the mozzarella evenly over the top. Lay the prosciutto slices over the top, spacing evenly. Drizzle lightly with olive oil. Stretch the dough one last time by pulling outward on the edges. Redistribute the toppings as needed, then give the peel one last shake to ensure the dough is not sticking.

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Bake the pizza: Shimmy the pizza (still on the parchment if using) onto the steel and bake until the cheese is melted and the edges are beginning to char, 5 to 6 minutes. (This may take 8 to 10 minutes, depending on your oven.) Use tongs to transfer the pizza to a cutting board (discard the parchment paper). Cut and serve.

— Courtesy Alexandra Stafford ,“Pizza Night: Deliciously Doable Recipes for Pizza and Salad,” (Clarkson Potter, $30)

30 May 2024

Biden is said to be finalizing plans for migrant limits as part of a US-Mexico border clampdown

by | posted in: Politics | 0

By COLLEEN LONG and SEUNG MIN KIM (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is finalizing plans for a U.S.-Mexico border clampdown that would shut off asylum requests and automatically deny entrance to migrants once the number of people encountered by American border officials exceeded a new daily threshold, with President Joe Biden expected to sign an executive order as early as Tuesday, according to four people familiar with the matter.

The president has been weighing additional executive action since the collapse of a bipartisan border bill earlier this year. The number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border has declined for months, partly because of a stepped-up effort by Mexico. Still, immigration remains a top concern heading into the U.S. presidential election in November and Republicans are eager to hammer Biden on the issue.

The Democratic administration’s effort would aim to head off any potential spike in crossings that could occur later in the year, as the fall election draws closer, when the weather cools and numbers tend to rise, two of the people. They were not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing discussions and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The move would allow Biden, whose administration has taken smaller steps in recent weeks to discourage migration and speed up asylum processing, to say he has done all he can do to control the border numbers without help from Congress.

The talks were still fluid and the people stressed that no final decisions had been made.

The restrictions being considered are an aggressive attempt to ease the nation’s overwhelmed asylum system, along with a new effort to speed up the cases of migrants already in America and another meant to quicken processing for migrants with criminal records or those who would otherwise be eventually deemed ineligible for asylum in the United States.

The people told the AP that the administration was weighing some of the policies directly from a stalled bipartisan Senate border deal, including capping the number of encounters at an average of 4,000 per day over a week and whether that limit would include asylum-seekers coming to the border with appointments through U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s CBP One app. Right now, there are roughly 1,450 such appointments per day.

Two of the people said one option is that migrants who arrive after the border reaches a certain threshold could be removed automatically in a process similar to deportation and would not be able to return easily. Migrants were able to more easily return to the border if they were expelled under the pandemic-era policy known as Title 42. Under that arrangement, Mexico agreed to take back some non-Mexican nationalities, including migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Migrants, especially families, claiming asylum at the southern border are generally released into the U.S. to wait out their cases. But there are more than 2 million pending immigration court cases, and some people wait years for a court date while they live in limbo in the U.S.

Anyone can ask for asylum regardless of whether they arrive illegally at the border, but U.S. officials are increasingly pushing migrants to make appointments, use a legal pathway that avoids the costly and dangerous journey, or stay where they are and apply through outposts in Colombia, Guatemala and Costa Rica.

The Biden administration has grown ever more conservative on border issues as the president faces ceaseless criticism from Republicans and there are large numbers of migrants crossing into the U.S. from Mexico who are not easily returned, especially as global displacement grows from war, climate change and more.

The immigration authority that the administration has been looking to use is outlined in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. It gives a president broad leeway to block entry of certain immigrants into the U.S. if it would be “detrimental” to the U.S. national interest.

Senate Republicans last week again blocked a bill that would have enshrined some of the same efforts into law. The vote was meant to underscore GOP resistance to the proposal even as Republicans have clamored for more restrictions and argued that Biden has not done enough to stem the flow of migrants entering into the U.S.

The bipartisan bill had been negotiated for months and appeared, for a moment anyway, to be heading toward passage. It was even endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council and its president Brandon Judd, an avowed supporter of Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. But Trump, concerned about handing Democrats an election-year win, called on Republicans to tank it, and they did.

White House officials did not confirm the expected executive order.

White House spokesman Angelo Fernández Hernández said the administration “continues to explore a series of policy options and we remain committed to taking action to address our broken immigration system.”

“While congressional Republicans chose to stand in the way of additional border enforcement, President Biden will not stop fighting to deliver the resources that border and immigration personnel need to secure our border,” he said.

Congress this year approved funding for a total of 41,500 detention beds and increased money for immigration enforcement and removal operations by $1.2 billion over what the White House had initially requested. That included $106 million in more funding for programs that monitor immigrants in the asylum system through phone apps and ankle bracelets, rather than through detention.

Those increases, negotiated after the collapse of the bipartisan deal, could pave the way for the administration to ratchet up immigration enforcement.

Yet unlike legislative action that is binding, anything Biden does through executive action can be challenged in the courts, and will almost certainly be, so it not clear whether — or if — the clampdown on asylum would begin. The administration was weighing other actions too, including faster and tougher enforcement of the asylum process.

The administration has generally paired proposed crackdowns with an expansion of legal paths elsewhere and was also planning to do so in the future, but not at the same time the new restrictions were announced, the people said.

___

Associated Press writer Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

30 May 2024

Recipe: Alexandra Stafford’s Neapolitanish Pizza Dough

by | posted in: Adventure | 0

When it comes to pizza crusts, there are rules around what can be called a “Neapolitan” crust, according to Alexandra Stafford, author of the new “Pizza Night: Deliciously Doable Recipes for Pizza and Salad” (Clarkson Potter, $30).

“True Neapolitan pizza is made with only flour, water, salt and yeast in specified ratios to produce a dough that measures 55% to 62% hydration. Moreover, it must be baked in a wood-burning oven at 900 degrees for 60 to 90 seconds,” she writes.

So her pizza crust, while “Neapolitan in spirit” is, rather, Neapolitanish. It comes out “thin but not paper thin with a slightly ballooned rim” and has a higher hydration, at 77%, since being cooked in a home oven means the dough cooks at a much lower temperature for a longer period of time.

Neapolitanish Pizza Dough

“Pizza Night: Deliciously Doable Recipes for Pizza and Salad” by Alexandra Stafford (Clarkson Potter, $30) was published April 16. (Courtesy Clarkson Potter)

Timeline: 2½ to 3 daysMakes four 245- to 250-gram balls

INGREDIENTS

550 grams (about 4¼ cups) bread flour or all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

15 grams salt

2 grams (about 1/2 teaspoon) instant yeast

425 to 450 grams (1¾ to 2 cups) cold water (about 60 degrees)

Extra-virgin olive oil

DIRECTIONS

Note: If you live in a humid environment or are new to pizza making, start with 425 grams of water. The dough may feel dry immediately after mixing, but as the dough rises, the flour will continue to hydrate, and when you turn out the dough to portion it, it will feel much wetter and stickier. If you are an experienced pizza maker and don’t mind working with a higher hydration dough, you can use 450 grams of water to start.

Mix the dough: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and yeast. Add the water and use a spatula to mix until the dough comes together, forming a sticky dough ball. If the dough is dry, use your hands to gently knead it in the bowl until it comes together. Cover the bowl with a towel and let rest for at least 15 minutes and up to 30 minutes.

Stretch and fold: Fill a small bowl with water. Dip one hand into the bowl of water, then use the dry hand to stabilize the bowl while you grab an edge of the dough with your wet hand, pull up and fold it toward the center. Repeat this stretching and folding motion 8 to 10 times, turning the bowl 90 degrees after each set. By the end, the dough should transform from shaggy in texture to smooth and cohesive. Pour about 1 teaspoon of olive oil over the dough and use your hands to rub it all over. Cover the bowl tightly and let the dough rise at room temperature until it has nearly doubled in volume, 6 to 10 hours. The time will varydepending on the time of year and the temperature of your kitchen.

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Portion the dough: Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and use a bench scraper to divide the dough into 4 equal portions, roughly 245 to 250 grams each. Using flour as needed, form each portion into a ball by grabbing the edges of the dough and pulling them toward the center to create a rough ball. Then flip the ball over, cup both your hands around the dough and drag it toward you, creating tension as you pull. Repeat this cupping and dragging until you have a tight ball.

Store the dough: Place the dough balls in individual airtight containers and transfer to the fridge for 2 to 3 days.

— Courtesy Alexandra Stafford, “Pizza Night: Deliciously Doable Recipes for Pizza and Salad,” (Clarkson Potter, $30).

30 May 2024

So far, so good for Twins’ outfielder Byron Buxton

by | posted in: News | 0

The Twins didn’t start Thursday first in the American League Central, or even particularly close, 6½ games behind first-place Cleveland after a 4-2 loss to second-place Kansas City on Wednesday.

So, it hasn’t been perfect for the Twins, who officially played one-third of their season Tuesday in the second of a four-game series against the Royals that ended Thursday afternoon. But it hasn’t been terrible, either.

Despite missing Royce Lewis since he injured a quad muscle after two at-bats (single, home run) in the season opener — and watching AL Cy Young Award finalist Sonny Gray leave in free agency — they were five games over .500 and solidly in the division race before Thursday’s 12:10 p.m. first pitch.

And Byron Buxton is back in center field, where he has been consistently among the top few defenders in baseball since he made his major league debut in 2015.

“It’s good,” Buxton said Thursday. “Good to be back in center.”

Buxton on Thursday made his 39th appearance of the season, and his 32nd in center.

It had been a long wait. Bedeviled by hip and knee injuries last season, Buxton played in only 85 games last season before being shut down on Aug. 1. Every one of those appearances was as the Twins’ designated hitter, a tough blow for a player who takes as much pride in his defense as the 2016 Platinum Glove Award winner.

But the Twins were trying to get as much as they could from Buxton without exacerbating his injuries. He had knee surgery on Oct. 13 and was a full spring training participant from Day 1.

Being able to pencil an 8 next to Buxton’s name has been a boon for manager Rocco Baldelli and the Twins. He entered Thursday hitting .252 with three home runs and 15 RBIs and 18 runs scored. In Tuesday’s 4-2 victory over Kansas City, he was 2 for 2 with a triple and stolen base that led to him scoring an insurance run in the eighth inning.

“He’s been really diligent, which he continually does, and mentally he’s always ready to go,” Baldelli said. “He’s always in the right frame of mind to compete. That’s been something we’ve been talking about and looking for, and this year, I think, it’s coming together.”

Buxton is a wildly talented player who started for the AL — and drove in the winning run — in the 2022 All-Star Game. But he has played only one truly full MLB season, when he made 140 appearances in 2017.

Still, the Twins signed him to incentives-laden, seven-year, $100 million extension on Dec. 1, 2021, and he was explosive when he was able to play in 2022, 28 homers, 51 RBIs and 61 runs scored in 92 games. But 2023 was difficult, another hot start ended by injuries.

“It was,” Buxton said. “But that’s part of it.”

“He’s learning what he has to do — some things that he has to accept, some things that he has to do, some things he has to stay diligent on,” Baldelli said. “He’s doing all those things well and we see him out there. We play better (21-17) when he’s out there.”

As for spending last season as the team’s DH, Buxton said it was probably the best plan available.

“I mean, I wasn’t able to just go play center the way that I would have wanted to, and in retrospect, yeah, that was probably the best option that we had,” he said.

It has already been better this season.

Lewis getting closer

Lewis was in the lineup for Class AAA St. Paul on Thursday in Rochester, N.Y., where the third baseman continued his rehab assignment. He batted second and was 0 for 3 with two strikeouts in a 6-3 loss to the Red Wings.

In four games with the Saints, Lewis is 3 for 15 with a double and stolen base.
If his rehab continues apace, it seems likely Lewis will finish the six-game series with the Saints this weekend and join the Twins in New York for a three-game series against the Yankees starting Tuesday.

Briefly

Starter Brady Singer (illness) was a late scratch for the Royals, who replaced the right-hander with lefty Daniel Lynch IV.