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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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!

(click through for the recipe) (more…)

Last week, I was in a bit of a Friday Night Pizza rut. I’ve really been enjoying coming up with new ideas for them since I started this series, but last week….well….I was clean out of inspiration. A quick search on epicurious.com (what would I do without that web site?) yielded this recipe for sausage, red onion, and wild mushroom pizza. (more…)

What wonders lurk in the depths of your freezer when you clean it out, right?

I was *sure* I had used up the last of the pesto I’d frozen from last summer. We had a share in CSA back in the Boston area last year, and when it got to be August/September, they were practically begging their shareholders to pick as much basil as could possibly, fathomably be used. No need to twist my arm! We came home week after week with mounds of the sweet, fragrant leaves. I made batch…after batch…after batch…of pesto, freezing it all in individual portions to be used throughout the rest of the year. Well, even though I made more batches than I could count and stocked our freezer to the gills, we still somehow ran out mid-January.

Or so I thought… (more…)

You know I wouldn’t wrap up this string of ricotta recipes without including one of our Friday Night Pizzas that has ricotta on it, right?

The idea to make this one came from an asparagus and ricotta tart that Kristin posted over on The Kitchen Sink. I have it on my “to cook” list, but I haven’t made it yet (I did, however, make the caramelized onion tart she also wrote about and it’s really delicious.) (more…)

Give me a chunk of nutty, buttery gruyere cheese anytime and I’ll be one happy Amy. We had some hanging out in the fridge that I had intended to use in a leek and potato frittata (which I haven’t yet made! Argh. Too many things to cook zipping around in my head.) Since I hadn’t yet made the frittata, I thought I’d use some of the cheese on our Friday night pizza. I poked around in our fridge for other ingredients to include, but the bowl of onions on my counter kept calling out to me…”Caramelize me! Bring out my sweet side! Cook me low and slow!” “Well,” I thought to myself, “if you insist. You sweet onions will probably get along swimmingly with some shreds of melted, oozy gruyere.” And so onto the pizza they went. I thought some mushrooms should join the party, since their earthy flavor would probably really hit it off with the gruyere (and because — if I’m being completely honest — I have a hard time *not* adding mushrooms to pizza.) (more…)

I created this week’s Friday Night Pizza one week where I was craving something a bit different, and we didn’t have any mozzarella cheese in the fridge. We did, however, have some leftover spicy black bean dip, and some queso fresco from tacos earlier in the week. I started thinking about making a southwestern-style pizza, and this is what I ended up with; it was pretty darn tasty! (more…)

If last week’s pizza was on the garlicky side, this pizza is garlic to the max — and I LOVE it. If you love garlic as I do, I think you’ll find it pretty tasty too.

I’m calling it the Green Garlic Monster (a) because it’s vibrantly green with spinach and lots of chopped parsley, and (b) because between the herb-garlic cheese and chopped garlic scattered across the top, you’ll really be a garlic monster after eating it. But a happy one!

Just don’t get too close to someone and ask them if they’d like a slice of green “gaaaaaaaaah - rlic” pizza… (more…)

This week’s Friday night pizza has strong flavors, and boy are they good. We had this pizza last week, and I’m thinking I might make it again tonight - I loved it! It’s a white pizza; the crust is covered with a blanket of asiago cheese, then sprinkled generously with thinly sliced mushrooms, little knobs of roasted garlic, and thyme leaves. Because I can’t bear to have a pizza entirely swathed in different shades of brown, I sprinkled some sliced green onion tops across the top of the pizza - the pop of green brightens it up a bit.

You’ll want to eat this one with someone who doesn’t mind garlic breath. (But hey, what’s a little garlic breath among pizza lovers?)

TGIF!

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Pizza with Mushroom, Asiago, Roasted Garlic & Thyme

Ingredients
1 ball of pizza dough
roughly 1 1/2 cups grated asiago cheese
about 1 cup thinly sliced mushrooms
one whole head of garlic, roasted until soft and sweet (see below for directions)
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
1 tbsp thinly sliced tops of green onions (optional)

Directions

To roast the garlic: preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Cut the top 1/4-inch off a whole head of garlic, so just the very tops of the cloves are exposed. Drizzle a little olive oil over the head of garlic, wrap it loosely in foil, and place the foil package in the oven for about 1 hour, until the cloves are soft. Squeeze the soft cloves out and roughly chop the larger ones.

When you’re ready to bake the pizza, preheat the oven to 500 degrees, preferably with a baking stone inside. Stretch out your ball of pizza dough and lay it out on a pizza peel or baking sheet that’s been generously dusted with cornmeal.

Layer the toppings as follows: grated asiago cheese, mushrooms, roasted garlic, thyme and green onion slices. Drizzle the pizza with a little olive oil if you like.

Bake until the cheese has melted and the crust is golden brown, about 8-10 minutes.

For the second in my recently begun series of Friday Night Pizzas, how about some sausage, rapini (aka broccoli rabe), caramelized onions, fontina and ricotta? You get sweet sausage and onions paired against the pleasantly bitter rapini, plus all that meltingly good fontina and dollops of creamy ricotta. I happen to really love ricotta on pizza, and it goes great with these ingredients! This idea came from the wonderful Evan Kleiman of KCRW’s Good Food radio show. I listen to the show’s weekly podcast and couldn’t resist making this after Evan described a similar pizza they were serving at her cafe.

TGIF!

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Pizza with Sausage, Rapini, Caramelized Onions, Fontina and Ricotta

Ingredients
1 ball of pizza dough
2 sweet Italian sausages, browned in a pan and sliced
about 1 cup rapini (broccoli rabe) stems, leaves and florets, briefly steamed or sauteed with some garlic
about 1/2 cup caramelized onions
1 cup grated fontina cheese
1/2 - 1 cup ricotta cheese (use as little or as much as you like)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees, preferably with a baking stone inside. Stretch out your ball of pizza dough and lay it out on a pizza peel or baking sheet that’s been generously dusted with cornmeal.

Layer the toppings as follows: caramelized onions (you can kind of spread these around so they coat the dough), fontina cheese, sausage and rapini. Dollop the ricotta cheese over the top of the pizza and drizzle with a little olive oil, if you like.

Bake until the cheese has melted and the crust is golden brown, about 8-10 minutes.