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.

As you might be able to see from the picture above, I overcooked my eggs a little bit — I was waiting for the crust to brown, but by the time it did, no longer did I have my softly cooked eggs. Well, the one on the right was still sort of oozy (that’s the one I ate!), but I gave the harder cooked one on the left to B. Next time I make this, I’d brush the outer crust with a little olive oil to help it brown up a little more quickly.

(You might also be able to tell that I accidentally cracked the yolk of the egg on the right, which made it look like my pizza face had a black eye…or, I guess that would be a “yellow eye.” Oh well, still tasted yummy!)

Previous Friday Night Pizzas:
Asparagus, Ricotta & Salami Pizza
Butternut Squash, Caramelized Onion, Goat Cheese and Thyme Pizza
Caramelized Onion, Mushroom and Gruyere Pizza
Green Garlic Monster Pizza
Pizza with Mushrooms, Asiago, Roasted Garlic & Thyme
Pesto & Potato Pizza
Sausage & Rapini Pizza with Caramelized Onions, Fontina and Ricotta
Sausage, Red Onion & Crimini Mushroom
Southwestern Black Bean & Vegetable
Spinach and Artichoke

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Bacon, Egg, Spinach and Pesto Pizza

Ingredients
1 ball pizza dough (about 1 lb)
3 strips good-quality bacon
4 ounces fresh mozzarella, torn into pieces
grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
2 eggs

Spinach Pesto (recipe below)

olive oil

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. Use a pastry brush (or just dab it with your fingers) to lightly coat just the outer edge of the pizza crust with olive oil.

Dice two strips of the bacon, and leave one whole. Spread a few spoonfuls of the spinach pesto over the crust, and top with a handful of grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese and the fresh mozzarella. Scatter the diced bacon over the cheese, then lay the third strip of bacon down so it looks like a smile. Finally, crack two eggs onto the top of the pizza where the “eyes” would be, being careful not to crack the yolks.

Bake the pizza until the cheese is melted, the eggs are softly set, and the crust is browned, about 8 minutes.

Spinach Pesto (makes enough for a pizza plus a good amount leftover for another use)

2 cups lightly packed baby spinach leaves
1 small garlic clove
1/2 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
1/2 cup (or more) extra-virgin olive oil (I start with half a cup and keep drizzling in more until it’s the consistency I like.)

Place the spinach, garlic, and grated cheese in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Blitz until pureed, then while the motor is running, drizzle in 1/2 cup olive oil. If you like your pesto runnier, continue adding a bit more olive oil until you have the consistency you like. Season with salt and pepper.

Spoon onto a pizza, over pasta, onto fish, over chicken, etc. This is one sauce I like to keep around for lots of different uses!

“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.”

Well, April came and went, and I never got a chance to sneak in that clafouti. So, this week I finally have made up for that — though this was my first clafouti, it will NOT be my last. No, no, no…I *loved* this dessert. I had a feeling I would love it — all clafouti descriptions I’ve run across thus far say that it’s a cross between a baked custard and a pancake/crepe (YUM) — and it was delicious, plus really easy, to boot. A traditional clafouti has cherries in it (can’t wait to try that in the summer), but there are so many variations out there using just about any fruit imaginable. I used a bag of frozen blackberries, no need to defrost them, and they baked up beautifully into the clafouti.

I am (almost) embarrassed to say that when I cut myself a wedge of this to try, I scarfed it down in about 10 seconds. No joke. I guess that’s just a testament to how good it was…I would eat this for breakfast, afternoon snack, or dessert. There’s just endless variations you could do; the roundup from HHDD - Clafouti Edition is up and there are just so many clafoutis I want to try!

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Blackberry Lemon Clafouti

Adapted from this recipe on Cookthink (from the Barbara Kafka Dessert Anthology)

Ingredients
one 10-oz bag frozen organic blackberries
1/4 cup sugar (I used some vanilla sugar I had, but regular would be fine)
4 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon lemon juice (half a lemon)
1 teaspoon lemon zest (from half a lemon)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9 or 10-inch pie pan.

Empty the bag of frozen berries into the pie pan, arranging them in a single layer. I didn’t even bother defrosting the berries.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the eggs together until they begin to foam. Gradually mix in the sugar. Combine the milk and cream, then slowly add them to the egg/sugar mixture in a thin stream while the mixer is running. Reduce the mixer speed to low, and gradually add the salt and flour. Increase the speed and beat until well combined. Mix in the lemon juice and lemon zest.

Pour the batter over the blackberries. Bake for 20 minutes, then cover with foil and continue to bake until set, another 20 minutes or so. I took the foil off towards the end to try to get a little light browning on mine — and took it out of the oven when it was completely set.

Cut into wedges, dust with powdered sugar (if you like), and serve.

Serves 8.

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.

The play of textures in this salad is really terrific; you have the chewy quinoa with the silky, soft mango and the crunchy cabbage. I have to confess that my favorite part of this salad is the mango: after I made it, I stood by the bowl, picking out the chunks* of mango** to eat.

*This is not unlike my habit of standing at the counter over a container of chunky ice cream, excavating out the chunks with my spoon. They’re the best part.

**I just love, love, LOVE mango. In another life, I’d like to live in a warmer climate where we could grow a mango tree (and an avocado tree, while we’re at it — and a Meyer lemon tree, and a lime tree, and….well, you get the idea.)

I had my first taste of jicama a few years back, when B and I celebrated our first Cinco de Mayo together. I love it in salads: it’s mild, but crunchy and subtly sweet. Looks kind of like a potato, but eaten raw, tastes much better (than a raw potato would taste, that is.)

I just had to take a picture of this red cabbage; I loved its deep purple, intricately wavy and woven pattern.

Besides being just delicious, this salad packs a lot of nutrition into it: fiber and protein in the beans and quinoa, a super shot of Vitamin C with the mango, and a whole slew of vitamins and antioxidants in the cabbage. We’ll have it alongside our other Cinco de Mayo-inspired foods tonight — I’m making pork carnitas (from the latest issue of CI) for tacos, and of course my favorite guacamole. ¡Me gusta!

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Rainbow Quinoa Salad

Makes enough for 8 lunch servings, or more as a side dish

Ingredients
1 cup quinoa, well rinsed
2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1 mango, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 jicama root, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 head green cabbage, shredded with the shredding blade of a food processor (or by hand)
1/2 head red cabbage, shredded with the shredding blade of a food processor (or by hand)
3 scallions, white and green parts, sliced into 1/2-inch thick slices

juice and zest of 2 limes
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper

1/2-3/4 cup cilantro, finely chopped
1-2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and diced (optional)

Directions
Place 1 cup rinsed quinoa in a saucepan and cover with 2 cups water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, or until the water is absorbed.

Meanwhile, make the lime vinaigrette: into the bottom of a large mixing bowl, grate the lime zest and then juice the limes. Add the 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt and a good grinding of fresh black pepper, and whisk to combine. Drizzle in the 2 tablespoons olive oil and whisk to combine.

After the quinoa is done cooking, add it to the mixing bowl containing the vinaigrette. Mix gently with a spatula to make sure all the quinoa is coated. Fold the black beans, mango, jicama, cabbage, and jalapeno (if using) into the quinoa. Stir in the chopped cilantro. Taste the salad and add more salt, pepper, or lime juice according to your tastes.

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.

This is an Ina recipe (oh, how I love the Barefoot Contessa!) You know, I don’t think I’ve ever made a recipe of hers that hasn’t turned out well; I love her cooking style — classy, fresh, high quality natural ingredients, presented beautifully. These are no exception; the cake is deep, intensely dark chocolate, and not too sweet. I sometimes find I have to decrease the amount of sugar in her recipes a bit for my taste, but these are spot on. And — bonus! — I used whole wheat pastry flour in these; the dark chocolate cake can take it, I think. So, the “whole grain” aspect of the cupcakes balances out the mountains of icing on top (in my mind. Logical, right?)

And speaking of that icing…

Can you tell by the swirly high hats on these cupcakes that I had some serious love for this peanut butter icing?

Ina went a little easier on the icing, and topped hers with chopped salted peanuts — which would be great. I decided to shower my cupcakes with some mini chocolate chips, and I will say, they were pretty great too.

If I had any doubt as to how good these were (I didn’t), when B spotted them in the fridge and “volunteered to test the recipe,” he scarfed two down in the blink of an eye. Winner? We think so!

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Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Icing

Adapted from Ina Garten

A few notes:
Though the original recipe states that it will make 14-15 cupcakes, I halved the recipe and got 10 cupcakes. Judging from reviewer’s comments, this seemed to be the case all around — one batch of cupcake batter will probably make about 20 cupcakes.

Since I knew I’d be using a lot of icing, I made the original amount of icing for this half batch of cupcakes. If you’re just going to ice the cupcakes with a knife like Ina does, the original amount of icing would be fine with the original amount of cupcake batter. If you want to pipe it and use more as I did, I would double the icing for the original amount of cupcake batter.

Ingredients

For the cupcakes:
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons strongly brewed coffee
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour [note: I used whole-grain pastry flour with good results]
1 cup good cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Peanut Butter Icing, recipe follows
Chopped salted peanuts or mini chocolate chips for decoration (optional)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard muffin pan with paper liners. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and 2 sugars on high speed until light and fluffy, approximately 5 minutes. Lower the speed to medium and add the eggs, one at a time. Now add the vanilla, and mix well.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, sour cream, and coffee. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.

Now, with the mixer on low speed, alternate adding the buttermilk mixture with the flour mixture (add the buttermilk mixture in 2 additions and the flour mixture in 3.) Mix only until blended. Give the batter a few gentle stirs with a rubber spatula just to make sure all the dry ingredients are incorporated.

Use a standard ice cream scoop (or two spoons) to fill the muffin tins; they should be about 3/4 full.

Bake for about 20 minutes, until the tops spring back when gently pressed or a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Don’t overbake — better to err on the side of caution and check them a little early.

Cool for 10 minutes, remove from the pans, and allow to cool completely before frosting.

Frost each cupcake with Peanut Butter Icing and sprinkle with chopped peanuts or mini chocolate chips, if desired.

Peanut Butter Icing:

Ingredients
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter [I used creamy all-natural peanut butter]
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 cup heavy cream

Directions
In the bowl of a mixer, mix together the confectioner’s sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and salt on medium-low speed with the paddle attachment. When well blended, add the heavy cream and continue mixing on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth.

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)

Looking for more Friday Night Pizza ideas?

Previous Friday Night Pizzas:
Asparagus, Ricotta & Salami Pizza
Butternut Squash, Caramelized Onion, Goat Cheese and Thyme Pizza
Caramelized Onion, Mushroom and Gruyere Pizza
Green Garlic Monster Pizza
Pizza with Mushrooms, Asiago, Roasted Garlic & Thyme
Pesto & Potato Pizza
Sausage & Rapini Pizza with Caramelized Onions, Fontina and Ricotta
Sausage, Red Onion & Crimini Mushroom
Southwestern Black Bean & Vegetable

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Spinach and Artichoke Pizza

Ingredients
1 ball pizza dough (about 1 lb)

1 big handfuls (about 2 cups packed) baby spinach, rinsed and spun dry
1 handful frozen (or fresh, if you have them) artichoke hearts, thawed
2 tablespoons minced onion
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
coarse kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

a small handful (about 1/4 cup) grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
4 ounces goat cheese (I used garlic & herb), crumbled
4 ounces fresh mozzarella (about 1/2 cup), torn into pieces

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.

Saute the diced onion in the tablespoon of olive oil until softened and golden brown. Add the spinach and thawed artichoke hearts; saute until the spinach wilts and the artichoke hearts are softened, about 2-3 minutes. Squeeze the juice of the lemon over this mixture, and season with coarse salt and pepper (seasoning with the S&P is important!)

Layer on the toppings as follows: parmigiano, sauteed spinach and artichoke mixture, goat cheese and fresh mozzarella.

Bake 8-10 minutes, until crust is browned and cheese is melted and bubbling.

So here’s the thing.

As many of you probably do, I have a loooooong list of recipes on my “to cook” list. Some of these come from my food magazine subscriptions (BA, Gourmet, CI), some of them come from the time I spend browsing around epicurious.com, many of them come from food bloggers whom I regularly read (I simultaneously feel overwhelming love and just “overwhelmed” at my Google Reader list, many days.) And don’t even get me started on my cookbooks: this past year I finally tried to get my act together and put post-it flags on the recipes I wanted to try. I had grand plans to go through all of my 100+ cookbooks and do this. Months later, how many have I gotten through? Maybe six. Sigh. And flagging the recipes doesn’t mean I have any structured plan to actually cook them; oh, no. I’ve made baby, baby steps of progress through a handful, but I have a long way to go.

And have you ever noticed that lists of recipes “to cook” never get shorter?? I started a Google document for myself with links to all the recipes I find online that I may want to try. I originally thought this would help — they’d all be in one place, I could embed a direct link to the recipe URL, and I would slowly whittle the list down. But, as these things are wont to do, the list just keeps expanding, week by week.

I don’t really mind, though. “To cook” lists are entirely different creatures than “to do” lists. I don’t have any illusions that I’ll ever be “done” with my list of recipes to cook. I suppose that’s not really the point, is it? There’s just so much to try, so much to taste.

All of this is a long way of saying that I *did* try some of the recipes I’d had on my list. I’ve actually had quite a run for the past week or so. But…I was a bad blogger. I didn’t take pictures of any of them (well, okay, I did get one). Oops. But I still do want to share with you what I made, because happily, there were some real hits in there:

Spring Tabbouleh from Heidi of 101 Cookbooks. Really excellent spring dish; asparagus, sugarsnap peas, walnuts, herbs and lemon replace the traditional tabbouleh ingredients. I loved this one for lunches, and will definitely be making it again.

Self-frosting Nutella cupcakes — need I say more?? A Donna Hay recipe by way of Baking Bites. Easy recipe, and the swirls of Nutella on top of the little cakes are pretty *and* tasty.

Otsu — another knockout from Heidi of 101 Cookbooks, via Adam, the Amateur Gourmet. The name of this dish reminds me of a sumo wrestler. The title “Otsu” alone is not very revealing as to what the dish contains — but in essence, it’s sesame noodles (I’ll insert my contented sighs and hums of happiness here.) Think spicy, cool soba noodles in a sesame-soy vinaigrette with crunchy cucumber and cubes of tofu. Perfect, perfect warm spring/summer lunch or dinner. Sesame noodles are one of my desert island foods: I could eat them EVERY DAY and never get tired of them. I just absolutely, positively ADORE them! This recipe came from Heidi’s cookbook Super Natural Cooking, which has been on my Amazon Wish List for….well, for a long time — I need to get my act together and order it already! I actually did get a picture of these before I scarfed down the last of them:

And finally, Vanilla Bean Frozen Yogurt — posted by Kristin at The Kitchen Sink, adapted from David Lebovitz’s book The Perfect Scoop. Utra-simple, creamy frozen yogurt made with one of my recent obsessions, Greek yogurt. We spooned over it some leftover chocolate-raspberry ganache from some of the little chocolate raspberry truffle tartlets I made again — so, so (sooooo) good.

The one recipe I made over the past week or so that I *did* take some pics of is a quinoa salad with a lemon-herb vinaigrette and asparagus. I threw this together for lunch one day, and it was nice — bursting with the flavors of spring.

I think it would be an equally good side dish for some fish or chicken. if you do have it for lunch, you can bump up the flavor even more: I crumbled some herbed goat cheese over the top, and some chopped toasted nuts would be another great addition.

So there you have it: a few recipes for the price of one. That’s just what I’ll tell myself to feel better about not getting around to blogging about those other things!

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Lemon-Scented Quinoa with Asparagus

Ingredients
1 cup quinoa, well rinsed
2 cups water

1 pound asparagus, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1/4 cup lemon juice (from 2 lemons)
1 tablespoon lemon zest (from 2 lemons)
1 tablespoon chopped chives
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 shallot, minced
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
a good pinch coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

Optional:
goat cheese, crumbled
toasted nuts

Directions
Rinse 1 cup quinoa well under cold water (to remove any bitter-tasting saponins), then place it in a saucepan with 2 cups water. Bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer until the water is absorbed, about 15 minutes.

While the quinoa is cooking, make the vinaigrette. Zest the lemons, reserving the zest. Squeeze the lemon juice into a small bowl, and add the minced shallot and a good pinch (about 1/2 tsp) of coarse salt and a few good grindings of fresh black pepper. Whisk these ingredients to combine, then drizzle in the 3 tablespoons olive oil, whisking all the time. Add the lemon zest and the chopped herbs, and whisk to combine.

When the quinoa is done cooking, transfer it to a large mixing bowl and pour the vinaigrette over it, then stir with a fork or large spoon to combine and coat the quinoa while it’s warm.

Fill your saucepan back up with water, and bring it to a rolling boil with enough coarse salt to season the water. Add the pieces of asparagus to the boiling water, and cook for 1 minute. Drain the asparagus in a colander, and run some cold water over them to stop the cooking process.

Add the asparagus to the quinoa and stir to combine. Taste and adjust the seasonings, if needed. Serve as is, or with some crumbled goat cheese and/or chopped toasted nuts on top.

Makes 4 lunch servings, or about 6 side dish servings.

Yes, I don’t think of these as mere cheesecake pops — I say “cheesecake pops!!!” every time I eat one. What a cute idea for this month’s Daring Bakers challenge! I’ve been enamored of the dessert pop idea ever since I saw Bakerella’s cupcake pops (aren’t those amazing?), and I was thrilled to have these as my second DB challenge.

The pops are a New York-style cheesecake — smooth and creamy — rolled into balls and coated with melted chocolate. According to the rules for this month’s challenge, we had leeway as far as flavoring the cheesecake (though it had to remain white), as well as what we used to decorate the pops. I divided my batch of cheesecake batter in two and made half raspberry-flavored (with Chambord) and the other half hazelnut flavored (with an organic hazelnut extract.) I rolled both kinds of pops in dark chocolate, and then drizzled white chocolate over the raspberry pops and rolled the hazelnut pops in finely chopped toasted hazelnuts. They were really delicious, and I’ve been keeping ours in the freezer…which makes them OH so good. Like frozen chocolate-covered cheesecake! We’ve been having some every night for the past week; no one is complaining.

Here’s how the cheesecake pop adventure unfolded:

The batter had five whole blocks of cream cheese in it (yes, it was super creamy) — it proved to be quite the task for my Kitchenaid mixer, volume-wise!

You know how it’s generally not a good idea to get distracted when baking? Baking requires some level of precision and following-directions-to-the-letter. Well, I got distracted at this point. I was trying to do something else at the same time, and when I saw that the mixing was slow-going, I just turned up the speed on the mixer so it beat the ingredients into submission.

Then I looked at the directions and read “if using a mixer, mix on low speed.”

Oops.

Well, it was too late at that point, and everything looked fine and smooth, if a bit voluminous.

At this point, I divided the batter into two bowls. Into one bowl, I mixed some Chambord extract; into the other, I added the hazelnut extract. (On a side note…isn’t the design of the Chambord bottle just delightfully gaudy? Look at all that plastic faux-gold!)

Now here’s where I think my failure to “mix on low speed” might have come into play: the recipe directions instructed us to bake the cheesecake batter in a 10-inch cake pan. “No problem,” I thought, “I’ll just use my two trusty 5-inch pans, pouring half the batter in each.” Should work perfectly, right? Well, let this be a lesson learned to me, if you beat cheesecake at high speed you will end up with more volume than fits into a single 10-inch (or two 5-inch) pans. After I scraped as much as would fit into my 5-inch pans, I just mixed the remaining batter together and baked it off in a separate pan at a later point.

The recipe instructed us to use a water bath to bake the cheesecakes: this method allows them to cook more gently, and provides more moisture for them while baking. In the past I’ve used water baths to bake cheesecakes, but it’s been in conjunction with a foil-wrapped springform pan, and I’ve always had some water seepage into the bottom of the cheesecake. Baking the cheesecakes in solid cake pans obviously avoided that problem.

Though my cheesecakes took a bit longer to firm up sufficiently than the directions stated it would take (60 minutes instead of the 35-45 minutes listed in the recipe), they still turned out nicely.

I refrigerated my cheesecake overnight, and the next day, scooped out 2-ounce chunks and rolled them into balls. This was fun, but kind of messy — the cheesecake was super creamy, and though the cheesecake around the edges of the pans was a bit firmer and rolled pretty well, the cheesecake from the center was a challenge to roll into a nicely shaped sphere. They ended up being golf ball-sized, and some of mine (the ones rolled from the center cheesecake) looked more like flying saucers than perfect spheres.

The balls went onto a parchment-lined sheet, at which point I stuck lollipop sticks into them. Now they were starting to look like pops! Into the freezer they went for a nice cooldown before they were to be rolled in melted chocolate. I ended up leaving mine in the freezer overnight, which worked out well for rolling them — they were really frozen and easy to roll in the warm chocolate without melting.

I chose to melt some dark chocolate to dip my pops into, and though the recipe instructed us to melt some solid vegetable shortening into the chocolate to help with “snap,” I do not keep that stuff in my house — so as some other shortening-averse DBers did, I substituted canola oil, and it seemed to work pretty well in creating a nice snap when you bit into the chocolate coating.

Here I am ready to roll: I had my bowl of melted dark chocolate, a little bowl of melted white chocolate, and a bowl of chopped toasted hazelnuts. Since the pops were solidly frozen, the melted dark chocolate firmed up almost instantly after dipping them.

For the raspberry pops, I used a fork to drizzle melted white chocolate over the dark chocolate coating. They got dressed up for the picture with a raspberry-colored ribbon.

I rolled the hazelnut pops immediately in the chopped hazelnuts after twirling them in the melted dark chocolate. And these got gussied up with a turquoise and chocolate-brown ribbon (my favorite color combo.)

At this point, I stuck them back into the freezer to harden up again. It was a nice, sunny (i.e. warm in the kitchen) afternoon when I made these, so I figured a frozen pop would be pretty refreshing, and oh boy, were they.

It should be really interesting to see what other flavor and decoration combinations others did for this challenge! Thanks, Elle and Deborah, for choosing such a fun challenge! You can check out the other cheesecake pops via the Daring Bakers Blogroll. The original cheesecake pop recipe is listed below as it was given to us, and I’ve noted my customizations in blue. Enjoy!

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Cheesecake Pops

From Sticky, Gooey, Messy, Chewy by Jill O’Connor

Makes 30 – 40 Pops

Ingredients

5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature

2 cups sugar

¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

5 large eggs

2 egg yolks

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract [I divided the batter in two, and used 1 teaspoon Chambord in one half, and 1 teaspoon organic hazelnut extract in the other]

¼ cup heavy cream

Boiling water as needed

Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks

1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionary coating or wafer chocolate – candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.) [I used all dark chocolate]

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening [I substituted canola oil]

Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) - Optional [I used melted white chocolate and chopped toasted hazelnuts]

Directions

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.

In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.

Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.

Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.

Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionary chocolate pieces) as needed.

Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

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.

We had some organic sausage from Kingbird Farm, from grass-fed pigs. It was *delicious* — you know how most sausage you buy in the supermarket can have little tough bits (ugh) in it when you brown it up? Not this. This was almost velvety smooth, really tender, and a real treat.

In a word, this pizza is “woodsy” — and would be great for a fall or winter pizza. There’s some fresh minced rosemary mixed in with the mushrooms, and a little kick to the onions from the crushed red pepper. A quick saute of the onions and mushrooms before putting them on the pizza really increases their flavor. Definitely a keeper!

TGIF!

Previous Friday Night Pizzas:
Asparagus, Ricotta & Salami Pizza
Butternut Squash, Caramelized Onion, Goat Cheese and Thyme Pizza
Caramelized Onion, Mushroom and Gruyere Pizza
Green Garlic Monster Pizza
Pizza with Mushrooms, Asiago, Roasted Garlic & Thyme
Pesto & Potato Pizza
Sausage & Rapini Pizza with Caramelized Onions, Fontina and Ricotta
Southwestern Black Bean & Vegetable

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Sausage, Red Onion, and Crimini Mushroom Pizza

Adapted from Bon Appetit, March 2005

Ingredients
1 ball pizza dough (about 1 lb)
1/2 pound Italian sausage (casings removed)
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
a good pinch (about 1/4 teaspoon) crushed red pepper
2 large handfuls crimini mushrooms (or other brown or wild mushroom), sliced
1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary

1 handful grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1 large handful fresh mozzarella cheese, torn into pieces

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.

Saute the sausage in a little olive oil until browned and no longer pink. Remove from the skillet and set aside.

In the same skillet, pour a little more olive oil in (if needed) and saute the red onion slices with the crushed red pepper, just until crisp-tender. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

In the same skillet, pour a little more olive oil in (if needed) and add the sliced mushrooms and fresh rosemary. Saute until browned, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Scatter the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese over the pizza crust. Top with the sausage, onions and mushrooms. Top with the torn pieces of fresh mozzarella cheese.

Bake for about 8-10 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the crust is browned.

Waiting for me this morning, there was a lovely note from Lori, aka Recipe Girl: I was one of the blogs she named for the “Blog of Distinction” award! Aww…thanks, Lori! I’m so flattered, and really, it made my day! If you haven’t yet been over to her blog, you should make a visit: I’ve recently been really enjoying her string of Ina recipes, and she has some great suggestions for Cinco de Mayo (coming up!)

Part of the idea behind this award is that you share the love: i.e., pass it along to others. I knew right away who I wanted to pass this award along to.

Kristin over at The Kitchen Sink — Kristin began blogging around the same time I did. I eagerly await her new posts, because I know that without fail, her recipes will likely go immediately onto my “to cook” list. She’s got a wonderful writing style, tells great stories, and her pictures are always really beautiful! I also enjoy how she shares “process” pictures, not just the finished product.

Gretchen Noelle at Canela & Comino — Another one of my “regular reads.” I really enjoy how varied and interesting both her recipes and stories are about the food she makes — it’s intriguing to read about Peruvian culture through the eyes of a food-lover. Oh, and the photography is great, too!

So thanks again, Lori! And kudos to you, Kristin and Gretchen Noelle.

News like this deserves some type of food to celebrate, right? (That’s always the motto in my house.) I made these raspberry almond bars a few weeks back as an experiment, and they were pretty delicious. They have a brown sugar shortbread crust (with chopped almonds), and I used frozen raspberries and raspberry jam for the topping. Sprinkled with sliced almonds, they’re jewel-like in their little paper cups. Nice for spring!

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Raspberry Almond Bars

Ingredients
Crust:
1/2 cup whole almonds
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Filling:
1 10-ounce package frozen raspberries, thawed
1/2 cup raspberry jam
zest of 1 lemon
5 teaspoons all purpose flour

For the top:
sliced almonds (about 1/2 cup)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a 9×9 inch pan with foil, then butter the foil.

Place the almonds in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until they’re coarsely chopped. Add the flour, salt, and brown sugar and pulse quickly, just a few times, to blend. Add the bits of cold butter and pulse until the mixture forms clumps.

Turn the dough out into the 9×9 pan, and use your fingers to press it down evenly to form the crust. Bake this crust for about 25 minutes, until light golden brown.

Meanwhile, mix together the thawed raspberries, raspberry jam, flour, and lemon zest in a medium bowl.

When the crust comes out of the oven, pour the raspberry mixture over it and smooth with a spatula. Sprinkle the sliced almonds evenly over the top of the pan.

Return to the oven and bake for another 25-30 minutes.

Makes 12 bars.

If you were to ask me to list some of the defining moments in previous years that helped fuel my growing passion for all things food-related, in the top 3 would probably be my first trip to the Ithaca Farmer’s Market. When I lived in Ithaca for four years as an undergrad at Cornell, I only discovered the market later in my college career…but I tried to make up for lost time. I actually remember getting up early on a Saturday morning when my roommates were all still asleep, just so I could go down to the market and get some fresh vegetables before I started all my work for classes! It was the IFM where I first saw and tasted an heirloom tomato — it was a Striped German. The sweet taste, luscious, dripping juice, and brilliantly marbled yellow and red color is imprinted permanently in my memory. My time in Ithaca also began my devotion to organics; not only did the Ithaca Wegman’s have a good selection of organic produce (this was in the late 90’s, and our supermarket back home for sure did not have any organic produce), but all of the farms coming to the Farmer’s Market were selling organically grown produce. My family always had a modest kitchen garden growing up, but there was no farmer’s market anywhere close to us — the availability of all these new foods to try was just so incredibly enriching!

Fast forward about 10 years: after graduating, living in a few different states, working at a few different jobs, meeting and marrying B — and cooking all the way — I am back in Ithaca, and couldn’t be happier. Besides being just a gorgeous place to live (as they say, “Ithaca is gorges”), we’re blessed to have a real abundance of farms (not just vegetable farms: fruits, meats, eggs, poultry and dairy products as well), local artisans, bakeries, etc. in the area, many of which come to the Ithaca Farmer’s Market. While the Market has only been back now for a few weeks, in the spirit of Earth Day today, I’ve taken a few photos that I thought I’d share with you of my trip around the market!

The IFM is held in a covered, open-air pavilion right at the bottom tip of Cayuga Lake (one of the Finger Lakes.) Here we are at the entrance to the Market — this was opening day, the first Saturday in April (as you can see, it was quite rainy and dreary!)

Last weekend was much nicer! Lots of people out enjoying the beautiful spring weather in the back of the Market pavilion, right on the lake.

The IFM web site tells me there are 165 vendors that come to the market — I believe it; it’s quite large. In addition to the agricultural vendors, there are many local craftsmen and women, artists, and a great variety of food stands. Composting and recycling is, as expected, a big deal.

Besides the expected produce vendors, many of the winemakers from the Finger Lakes region come to the Market, as well as an interesting mix of vendors that sell things like maple syrup and honey.

Some of my favorites are the bakeries. Finger Lakes Flatbread has a portable wood-firing oven that they use to make great artisan loaves, pizza, and focaccia right at the market. We love their multigrain sourdough.

Another one of my favorite vendors is Kingbird Farm: along with organic herbs and vegetables, they also sell organic, grass-fed meat, poultry and eggs. This past weekend, they had RAMPS!!! Ramps are tiny wild leeks, and maybe you’re not as excited about these as I was, but I’d never had them before and had read about how great — and short-lived — ramps are. The girl who was tending the Kingbird Farm booth with her dad told me excitedly how they had picked “bunches and bunches of them in our woods — they were just everywhere!” Lucky girl.

You’ve already seen the radishes — but how about another picture? They’re just gorgeous. I love the one on the top left that’s kind of all wonky and twisted.

This was the first weekend there were flowers at the Market — in the height of summer, there are stands selling drop-dead gorgeous bouquets of wildflowers, as well as potted plants and herbs. Pansies were out in full force last weekend!

I can’t wait to experience the Market in peak harvest season this year, and I’m really enjoying discovering the local food resources around here that I didn’t have time to explore when I was here in college. How about discovering some of the local food producers in your area? Here are some web sites (for those of us living in the U.S.) that I’ve found to be really useful, whether I was living in a metropolitan area like Boston or here in Ithaca:

• Local Harvest - search by state for organic farms, CSAs, farmer’s markets, and more
• eatwild.com - directories by state of grass-fed meat producers
• pickyourown.org - directories of PYO farms by state

In honor of Earth Day today, and to celebrate the Farmer’s Market in general, I’m making us this “Earth Day Salad” using (almost all) ingredients from the Ithaca area. (I say “almost all” because I did use a few pantry items for the vinaigrette.) It’s a salad for early spring in Zone 5, using what I’ve gotten at the market lately: chunks of beets, celery root, jerusalem artichokes, and Adirondack Blue potatoes are are roasted and tossed, while still warm, with an herb vinaigrette. For the vinaigrette, I used the minced ramp bulbs, as well as the chervil and chives since that was what I had picked up from the Market. The warm roasted root vegs are then tossed with some red leaf lettuce from Ludgate Farms, along with the chopped green tops of the ramps. I then topped the salad with some crumbled goat cheese from Lively Run Goat Dairy (just north of us in Interlaken), and finally a poached egg from Kingbird Farm.

We had this salad last night (have to get those pictures!) and we’ll be having it again tonight. Happy Earth Day!

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“Earth Day” / Early Spring Salad

Makes 4 small salads, or 2 main-course salads

If you can’t find ramps, you could substitute a nice spring onion. I used ingredients that are at the market right now for us, in Zone 5 — but this is just a template; you can use whatever is local and in-season for your region.

Ingredients
1 small handful of jerusalem artichokes (also called sunchokes), trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 medium celery root (celeriac), cut into 1-inch chunks
3 medium beets, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1/2 pound small new potatoes (I used Adirondack Blues), cut into 1-inch pieces
1 small bunch of ramps, rinsed and roots trimmed off

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 tablespoon minced fresh herbs (I used chervil and chives), plus a little more for garnishing

1 head of red-leaf lettuce, rinsed and torn into bite-sized pieces
2-4 organic eggs (depending on how many servings you’re making)

2 ounces crumbled goat cheese

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400F.

Lay the chunks of jerusalem artichoke, potato, celeriac, and beet on a baking sheet. Drizzle generously with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Use your hands to toss the vegetables around on the sheet, making sure they all get coated. Roast the vegetables for about 30 minutes, until they’re browned and tender.

While the vegetables are roasting, make the vinaigrette: first, cut off the white parts of the ramps and mince them — you should have about 1 tablespoon. Place these in the bottom of a large bowl with the dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, and a good pinch of coarse salt and pepper. Whisk to combine, then drizzle in the 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil and continue whisking until emulsified. Add the 1 tablespoon chopped fresh herbs and whisk to combine. Taste and adjust the seasonings as needed.

When the vegetables are done roasting, place them while they’re hot into the big bowl with the vinaigrette, and toss to combine. Have the lettuce and ramp greens ready to go, but don’t add them to the bowl yet. Set aside while you poach the eggs.

Bring water to a simmer with a little splash of white vinegar in a large skillet. Carefully slide in as many eggs are you’re poaching, and let them gently simmer for 3 minutes. While the eggs are simmering, toss the lettuce and ramp greens with the roasted vegetables (I use my clean hands) to thoroughly coat. Divide the salad among the plates and top with the crumbled goat cheese. When the eggs are done poaching, slide one onto each salad.

Sprinkle a little more coarse salt and pepper over each salad, and garnish with additional chopped fresh herbs.