eggs on sunday

Can you tell I decided to have a little fun with our latest Friday night pizza? I was dying to see the look on B’s face when I set it down in front of us. Lucky for me, he’s always up for my pizza experiments.

In the pizza section of Jamie Oliver’s cookbook Jamie’s Italy, there’s one that jumped out at me and inspired me to try this version: Jamie’s is a pancetta, egg and tomato pizza. I suppose it appealed to my endless love for a softly cooked, oozy egg…mmm. The egg is cracked right on top of the pizza, and bakes in the oven — which is also so hot that it crisps up the bacon nicely; no need to cook it beforehand.

For my version, I made a basic modified pesto using spinach to spread on the crust, and diced up some bacon to scatter over the top of the fresh mozzarella. Because I knew the eggs would look like two eyes, I just couldn’t resist adding a strip of bacon curving up in a smile…I kind of felt bad hacking the pizza in two! But our bellies thanked us for it — this was one of my favorite pizzas of late! It might even get a repeat performance in our kitchen, which you know is saying something.

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“Clafouti”…fun to say, but even more fun to eat! (Actually, I’m not sure if it’s “clafouti” or “clafoutis.” I’ve seen it written both ways, and I think either is acceptable. We’ll just go with “clafouti,” shall we?)

This was actually my first clafouti. I’ve been meaning to make one now for about a month. I think about making one every week, and every week for some reason I’ve gotten sidetracked. One of the things I love about blogging is all the events you can participate in — Sugar High Fridays, Daring Bakers, Weekend Herb Blogging, etc. — but sometimes it’s hard to fit everything in! About a month ago, I saw that the theme for April’s Hey Hey it’s Donna Day event was going to be clafoutis, and I thought to myself, “great! now’s my chance to finally give this dessert a try.” (more…)

Why rainbow, you ask? Well, it sure is colorful — and it’s a lot less of a mouthful than “black bean, mango, and jicama quinoa with red and green cabbage, cilantro and lime vinaigrette.” Whew.

I suppose I’ve been on a bit of a quinoa kick lately — last week it was the lemon-scented quinoa with asparagus; this weekend I thought I’d make a quinoa salad to have both as a side for our Cinco de Mayo dinner, as well as for lunches later on in the week. (more…)

As I sit here thinking about what to write about these cupcakes — they’re dark chocolate cakes with peanut butter frosting — all I can do is smile. They are just make-my-day, grin-ear-to-ear delicious! Rather than writing a long story about them, I think I’ll just say this: MAKE them. You won’t be sorry! They’d be a perfect surprise for any chocolate & peanut butter lover in your life.

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Spinach and artichokes are a great combination together, no? I mean really, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who doesn’t like spinach and artichoke dip (side note: if you have a good spinach and artichoke dip recipe, would you please point me in its delicious direction? I don’t have one; the last one I tried was a clunker.)

Last week, I sauteed up some baby spinach with olive oil, diced onion, frozen artichoke hearts and a little squeeze of lemon juice for a side dish one night for dinner. I made a little extra so that I could use it as a topping on our Friday Night Pizza, which I thought I’d try to make with similar flavors to a spinach-artichoke dip. I sprinkled some grated parmigiano-reggiano across the crust, layered on the sauteed spinach and artichoke hearts, then topped with some creamy garlic and herb goat cheese as well as chunks of fresh mozzarella. It was delicious — a “loose” interpretation of the dip, but still delicious!

TGIF!

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