Shirred Egg Pizza; Duck Breast and Dried Plum Pizza; and Grape Expectations

     Jeff and I went on a duck breast adventure Sunday.  We had gone to Cub, and they disappointed me.  I saw that they had whole ducks there, but I was at a loss at where one might find just the breasts.  I asked the butcher-lady that was there.  "Do you have just duck breasts?"  She said, "No, but we have turkey breasts".  Oh, right.  That is the same thing.  I will take that, thank you.    NOT. 

     We loaded up on the other items that we would be needing for the week, and we went down the "ethnic" aisle for the tahini paste.  I must have walked up and down that isle four times, looking for it.  I know that I have purchased it there before, but I cannot remember which aisle it was in, and I certainly couldn't find it where I thought it should be.  I checked the "Indian" section, the "Italian" and general "Mediterranean" section, and couldn't find it.  I even scoured the "Asian" section and didn't find it there either.  When Jeff went off to look where he thought it might be, a Cub employee appeared before me to stock the Asian items.  I asked her if they had any, and she thought it was interesting that I would ask, because she had just heard the buyer talk to the sales representative that supplies them with tahini, and the verdict was that the supplier had been out of tahini for at least three weeks, so NO, they didn't have any and wouldn't be getting any soon.  Another disappointment.

     We went home and put our groceries away.  I started thinking about how I might obtain the remaining two items on my list.  I may be able to kill two birds with one stone at the Indian grocery store across the street from my work.  However, getting a lunch break to go investigate that option is sort of hit or miss.  I couldn't go Monday after work, because my book club meeting was scheduled for then.  Tuesday was out, because that is bill-day, and Wednesday was more or less out, because that is pizza prep day, and I like to have my ingredients before I start prepping.  If I go before prepping, I may not have time to get everything done that I need to before Thursday.

     We had to go out again anyway to pick up Jeff's car at the oil change place.  The place we take our cars, doesn't have a quick turn-around on the oil change, but they are reasonably priced and are very friendly and close to home.  So, we drop a car there, go home and hang until they call us, then go back and pick it up.  They had called for us to come pick up the latest vehicle, so I suggested to Jeff that we just go up the street from there and check out Lund's before we pick up the car.  We shopped around there; we inquired at the butcher counter about the duck breasts.  The butcher said that they used to carry them frequently in the frozen aisle, but they haven't for a while.  He informed us that they order from the supplier on Mondays, and he could put in a special order for us, if we would like.  Unfortunately, the order wouldn't come in until Thursday morning.  Jeff told him to order 6 breasts, and he would be in to pick them up on Thursday morning.

     That wasn't good enough for me.  I knew that the breasts had to be cooked before pizza assembly.  I was hoping to find smoked breasts, so I could just run with them as they were.  Our lack of success in finding ANY type of breasts thus far, convinced me that I was going to have to cook them myself before I used them in the pizza.  We went home with our $9 tahini (and, of course, some odds and ends that Jeff decided we needed).
     I knew Jeff was itching to take the Corvette out for a Sunday drive, so I called Kowalski's in Eden Prairie to see if they carried duck breasts.  I am not sure who or which department I got a hold  of, but when I asked if they carried duck breasts, it was almost as if  I was speaking a foreign language.  She said, "I don't understand you."  I repeated, "Do you sell duck breasts?".  She said, "Duck roasts?".  I reiterated, "The breasts of duck".  Again, she said she didn't understand.  It was all I could do not to say "BOOBS, lady, I want the BOOBS of the duck!"  I am not sure at this point what I actually did say, but she promptly transferred me to the meat department.  I wish she would have done that in the first place, but had I asked her in English, she may have done just that.  The person in the meat department said they did have them, but they were filleted and frozen.  Perfect.
     Jeff and I have these friends, the Pampuches (Don and Lisa), who are very down-to-earth people.  We used to be in a wine club with them, and Don used to grumble that every time he is with us, I make him eat some "yuppy turd-head" concoction wrapped in a leaf.  We have gone to several restaurants with them, and he usually rates them on some sort of internal "yuppy turd-head" scale.
     I told Jeff that we could take a small ride into Eden Prairie and check out Kowalski's, because they claim to have the elusive duck breasts.  We were on our way, we skipped across Bloomington into Eden Prairie and parked next to a BMW after passing a couple of Jaguars and other such lovely cars.  We went in, got our duck breasts and went back to the 'Vette.  Before Jeff started up the car, he turned to me and said, "We just went on the Ultimate Yuppy Turd-Head Adventure:  We jumped in the 'Vette and drove to EDEN PRAIRIE for DUCK BREASTS!".  OK, WE thought it was funny

  I decided to work on preparing for Pizza Night on Tuesday, because Jeff had called me at work and informed me that Jenna and Jari were "in" for dinner at our house on Wednesday night.  I didn't realize we had extended an invitation.  Sure, Jeff had said that I "should call Jenna" and arrange something for Wednesday night, but frankly, I forgot about it and never called her.  He must have extended the invitation and forgotten about it.  Anyway, I thought I should take care of my prep work for Thursday on Tuesday, so Wednesday, we could hang out with our friends and not worry about what I wasn't getting done for Thursday.

     I thought I should start with this "Gougere" thing.  I had assumed it was some kind of pastry crust.  The description in the book didn't really enlightened me.  I am not quite sure what a small tartlet tin is...  I figured a muffin pan would fit the bill.  I greased one 6 muffin pan.
     I read on.  OK, so I need to boil the butter and water with some pepper.  I skipped the salt, because I wasn't using unsalted butter.  I reread the ingredient list: "1 cup of butter (8 tbsp)."  Hmm, that doesn't seem right.  I pull out a stick of butter.  It says right on the package that 8 tablespoons is 1/2 cup.  Now, the dilemma is: how much do I put in?  8 tablespoons or one cup?  I decided to go with the diet version and use the 8 tablespoons.  I put that in the pot of water and dashed in a couple of grinds of pepper.

     While that was going on, I measured out my dough and started googling how to grill a duck breast.  I found very few recipes for grilling.  I settled on a recipe that called for marinating the breasts for about an hour in a mixture of lime, lime zest, Worcester sauce, soy sauce, and brown sugar after scoring the fat layer.
     I just started putting the breasts in the marinade, when I heard sizzling.  That's weird, I thought.  Maybe the citrus and the duck fat have some sort of chemical reaction that makes a sizzling noise.  Oh, NO!  It is the butter-water, boiling over onto my stove!  I am not sure how much of the liquid I lost, but it was a somewhat substantial amount.  However, since the amount of goo was in question from the beginning, I figured it wasn't really going to matter.
     Even with the amount that was left it seemed like an awful lot of liquid to go into just a measly cup and a quarter of flour, but I had never made a "Gougere" before, so what did I know?  After the liquid had cooled, I mixed in the flour.  It was very gooey at this point.  I looked over at the 5 eggs that I was now supposed to add in.  It got a lot gooey-er.  Maybe the Swiss cheese would firm it up some.  Nope.  Still the consistency of pancake batter, and it was A LOT of pancake batter. 
     The recipe cautioned against filling the "tins" too full.  How full was too full?  Especially if this giant vat of batter was supposed to only make 6 crusts.  I started filling the "tins".  I filled each muffin cup half way up.  I still had twice as much batter left.  I greased another muffin pan and started filling that halfway.  I still had quite a bit of batter left, so I decided to just fill them all the rest of the way up.  The recipe said that it will "puff up", but maybe it will puff up and then fall, creating a cup for the eggs.  I popped them in the oven.

     While those were baking, I started the grill and let it heat up for my duck breasts.  I turned on all burners and let it get heat up to an eyebrow-searing level.  Once it was there, I turned off all burners except one and placed the breasts on the part of the grill furthest away from the flame.  There was a nice, satisfactory sizzle the second they touched the grates.  I was hoping for that for a nice crisp fat layer.  I let them sizzle there for about 3 minutes before flipping them.  I checked after about four more minutes with my instant-read thermometer - 140 degrees.  I took them off and went in to check on my Gougere.

     I peeked into the oven, and saw that they had puffed up, all right.  They had doubled in size and formed little peaks like the giant muffins you get at Perkins.  I took them out of the oven, hoping against hope for the fall I had envisioned when I filled the pan.  They smelled wonderful!  Cheesy, warm, and buttery.  I couldn't help myself, I ripped one of those tops off and popped it into my mouth - I only needed six, anyway, right?  It was delicious!  Unfortunately, it wasn't fluffy.  There was no chance that these babies were going to go concave and provide a nice little basket for my eggs on Thursday.  I decided to let them cool, and I would give myself the next day to think about how to fix the situation.

     They smelled really good, though, and the little taste of them that I had awoke the beast.  I pried a couple out of the pan to add to my and Jeff's dinner for the evening.  There were twelve, and we (theoretically) only needed 6, right?  They were delicious!  A perfect accompaniment to Macaroni and Cheese.
     After we ate, I decided to make the sesame sauce as well, since I had the time.  This was going to be the sauce for my duck breast pizza.

       I poured everything into the Vitamix 5200 and let it whir.  Instead of  pouring this mixture into a fresh, clean sauce pan, I decided to go ahead and let it cook in the Vitamix.  The blades of the machine move so fast that it actually creates heat and cooks your ingredients (that is why you shouldn't try to make pie crust in the Vitamix).  It boiled in the machine, and came out glossy and thickened, just as prescribed in the recipe.

     I had some time to think about the "muffins", and by Thursday, I had decided that I would somehow rearrange them into my oval ramekins or au graten dishes.  When it came time to put my theory into practice, I wondered how that would come about.  I have these small round muffins, and I wanted to cut them in a way as to line these oval dishes.  My original thought was just to scoop out the center of the muffins and pour the egg and whatnot into the hole and cook it that way, but I was worried about the egg - it may take longer to cook, therefore hardening the yoke, and making them (in my mind) inedible.  I decided to slice them into three or four slices and line the oval as best I could.  It left gaps, and I was worried that the whites, when cracked into the oval, would ooze into those gaps and overcook and get rubbery.  I was able to push three slices into the bottom of the oval, one upright down the center, and 6 slices around the outside edge.

     Instead of chopping the ham and tossing on top, as the directions would have me do, I decided to leave the slices intact and line the "muffins" with them, creating a barrier against the gaps.  I sprinkled the diced tomatoes over the top of the ham, cracked an egg in each half of the oval, and sprinkled the cheese on top.  I put them in the oven and hoped for the best.

     I gave Gracie a slice of muffin to try.  She ate it and went on and on about how awesome it was and how she wanted another one.  I held her off, because I wasn't sure how many I would need, or whether we would need some extra in case the first batch failed horribly.

    The original directions indicated that 12 minutes would cook the egg perfectly without hardening the yoke.  After 12 minutes, the whites were still extremely jiggly - so much so that Jennifer and I could barely look at it.  We hit the timer for another 3 minutes and checked again.  Still jiggly.  Another 3 minutes.  Still jiggly.  Another 3 minutes - the whites stopped jiggling, but the yolks were almost solid.  Bummer.

     While we were futzing with the eggs, we had put the pizza crust on the grill and come back inside to blend our drink of the week.  I had pre-chopped the ingredients and measured them out.  Gracie saw the bowl of prunes - er, dried plums - and asked if she could try one.  Jennifer told her that she could have a whole one out of the original container, because the bowl of chopped fruit were pre-measured.  When Grace pulled one out of its original container, she scrunched up her nose.  She wasn't sure she wanted to eat something that looked like that.  She tried it anyway, the brave soul, and liked it.   She has a much more open mind than I did at her age.  If you had handed me a two-thumb-sized wrinkly black object and told me it was something good to eat, I would have promptly run away.

     I had made the sour for drink of the week the day before.  It didn't take nearly as many lemons and limes as the recipe indicated.  Jeff humored me when we were at the grocery store, and I told him I needed 8 lemons and 8 limes, but in all actuality, I only needed 4 of each to make a cup of juice from each.  Jennifer was in charge of the final mixture.  She hedged at adding the ice - don't want to water down the liquor, but she acquiesced, and we got some ice blended in.  It was sweet and tart and there was no evidence whatsoever that it contained any liquor.  Also, it was a lovely greenish color.  Roger took one sip and rejected it, but Jennifer and I thought it was lovely, and proceeded to down two blenders-full before the evening was done.

    I had thought that the kids wouldn't be interested in the shirred eggs, but I was wrong.  Gracie had whetted her appetite with the cheese-muffin and couldn't wait to try the final product.  She was interested in the entire procedure, asking me why I was building the little forts in the oval dishes, sampling the ham (which she declared was the BEST ham EVER), and repeating that she couldn't wait to try the final product.  Jonah wasn't interested at all until we brought them out to the table.  He was a little skeptical at first but asked to try Jennifer's.  He enjoyed that enough to ask for his own portion, which he finished (except for a few scraps of muffin that his parents stole off of his plate when he wasn't looking).  Gracie, however, was disappointed.  She did not care for it as much as she thought she would and picked at various components of the dish until she announced that she was done (at which time, her leftovers were scooped up by her mother).

     Even though the yolks were over-done, the final dish was delicious.  The yolks weren't quite solid, but they certainly weren't still liquid.  The cheese, the egg, the slightly gooey muffin made an omelet-type end product.  It was delicious!

     Once the pizza crust (over the flaming side of the grill) had puffed up and had gotten a nice grill-grid pattern on the one side, I flipped it over to the cool side of the grill and started assembling.  I spread the sauce around as well as I could.  We did lose some to the grill grate gods, but there was still plenty there.  Then, I arranged the duck, sprinkled on the plums and green onions, and covered the whole thing in cheese.

     Then, I closed the lid and enjoyed my company for a while until the top started to brown on the pizza.  The duck stayed tender and moist, and its creamy richness was counterbalanced by the salty sauce and the sweetness of the fruit.  I was surprised at how the plums sort of melted into the sauce and created a kind of Uber Sauce, and the provolone was the perfect match, texture-wise, to the velvety duck breast.  The flavor of the cheese was mild enough to bring out all of the elements of the pizza.  I think that if I HAD found the sharp provolone I was hoping for, it may have overpowered the other flavors.

Wrapped Brie; Barbecued Brisket Pizza; Pizza Margherita; Veggie Pizza; Godmother; Rum Fudge Bundt Cake

     My good friend, Paul, called Wednesday, while I was at work.  He said that his wife, Leslie, asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday on Thursday, and he said he wanted to go to Pizza Night.  I felt completely honored!  Paul and Leslie have been frequent guests on Pizza Night, and after the first time Paul came, he refused to come without the ingredients for two pizzas of his own to make for all.  I cannot convince him that this is totally unnecessary.  I have tried, believe me.  However, I really do enjoy building our pizzas together, comparing recipes, and catching up, so I don't try any more. 
     Thursday was going to be his birthday, though, and I was going to make him a cake.  Not just any cake, though - I was going to make him the Freese Family traditional birthday cake.

     This is the cake that my sisters, my mother, and I always make for each other on birthdays, and Paul is practically family, so he was going to get one, too. 
     I mixed everything together and tried to "pour" the batter into the pan.  I had to scootch it more than pour it - it was rather thick.  I didn't remember it being that thick in the past, but it has been a while since I have made it.  I put it into the preheated oven and shut the door. 
     I started going back over the ingredient list:  Did I put in the right amount of oil?  Yes, I rechecked the measuring cup with the oil still clinging to its walls - it was a 3/4 cup measure.  Did I put in enough water?  Yes, half a cup.  Did I put in enough rum?  Yes, the 1/4 cup measure was fragrant with the elixir.  Eggs?  Yeah, I put in two.........  Oh wait!  It called for FOUR eggs! 
     I quickly re-opened the oven, thinking that I would yank it back out, pour it back into my Kitchen Aide, and remix the batter with a couple more eggs.  However, when I opened the oven door and looked inside my bundt pan, the chocolate chips were already glistening and melt-y.  I was afraid that if I remixed now, they would be obliterated into the batter, and, not only would I lose that beautiful snap of the chips sprinkled throughout the cake, but the cake texture may be altered adversely.  I wasn't quite sure how, but I wasn't sure I wanted to find out either.  I thought about starting all over, but I was out of chocolate chips (which is a weird thing - most people would have been stopped by the lack of cake mixes, and chocolate chips wouldn't be the issue, but then again, most people wouldn't have an entire shelf dedicated to cake mixes and instant pudding, but there was a deal, and you never know when you need to make an impromptu cake)!
     Hmmm, maybe I should just let it go.  I mean, the recipe doesn't say what size the eggs were supposed to be, and I did use jumbos.  It couldn't be that far off.  I called Mom - she is the expert for this cake.  After all, she was the one who started this tradition.  That is HER handwriting on the recipe.  She reassured me that it should be fine.  It just won't be quite as "fluffy", she said.  I think she was just trying to make me feel better, and she did, so, I let it go.  She also suggested that if it was too dry or too dense, we could just pour some liqueur over it, and it would be fine.
     I checked it after 45 minutes, and it looked done.  I tested it with a knife (where did those toothpicks go, anyway?), and it was done.  Guess it takes less time if it doesn't have enough eggs.  I let it cool on a rack and hoped for the best. 
     Meanwhile, I started on the brisket.  I have never cooked brisket before.  I don't think I have ever even purchased brisket before either.  I have always been under the impression that it is an inferior meat.  When I went to buy it at the grocery store, though, it was $6.99/lb.  I was a little shocked.  I ended up going to Sam's later in the week and noticed that THEY had it for $5.99/lb, and it was already cooked!  I was tempted to buy it there and "save" the one I bought at Cub for another time.  However, I resisted the urge, because I didn't need to spend any more money, and I thought it would be fun to cook the brisket.  Also, if I ended up hating the meat, I would not only have the extra 7lbs from the Sam's Club buy, but the 1½lbs of raw brisket from Cub to contend with as well.,
     I did some Internet research on how to cook such a beast.  All of the recipes I found were for a 5lb or larger chunk.  Can I convert one of these?  I am a college graduate and not new to cooking- I thought I could make a good go of it. I decided on the recipe for the 5lb brisket.  It used a "basting sauce" made of butter, Worcester, apple cider vinegar, and beer.  That sounded good.  It also suggested cooking the meat on a rotisserie over the grill.  While I do have one of these, I thought that it wouldn't work with such a small piece of meat.
  I decided to go with the sauce, but cook the meat on the grill - directly on the grill.  I figured to simulate the rotisserie effect, I would just cook it on the cool side of the grill.  I preheated the grill for a while (maybe as long as it takes to mix up rum fudge bundt cake batter).  I seasoned the meat with Harley's, garlic, and fresh rosemary.  I put it on the grill, fat side down, and turned off the burners that were underneath it, leaving only one on (the furthest one from the meat).  I figured since the 5lb roast directions were to cook for 2-3 hours, I would probably only need to cook my little roast for an hour and a half or so.
     I wasn't sure whether I should cook it fat side up or down.  I didn't trim the fat cap off of it, like the recipe for the 5lb roast suggested, because I wanted all of that good, juicy flavor to melt into the meat, rendering it tender.  For that reason, I thought I should cook it fat side up.  However, if I am basting, how is the sauce going to penetrate into the meat with the fat acting as a barrier?  I compromised.  I put it on fat side down for the first twenty minutes.  Then, I flipped and basted.  I repeated this every twenty minutes.  After an hour and a half, it reached 125º, which my thermometer told me was rare for beef. 
     Jeff was skeptical and made me leave it on the grill a little bit longer with the flame off.  He thought the residual heat would bring it up just a little more in temperature, and hopefully add tenderness.
     After I took it off the grill, I let it rest for another five minutes.  Then I rechecked the temp, and it was falling.  I decided to go for it and cut into it.  I only needed half the roast for the pizza the next day, so I figured the other half would be dinner for us.  I started slicing across the grain, and it looked beautiful.
     We each took a couple of good sized slices and a heaping scoop of a corn salad I had made earlier and dug in.  It had really good flavor, but it wasn't the tender piece of meat I had expected after almost two hours of grilling at low heat.  It seemed like it was almost there, but there were portions of  it that were still on the chewy side.  My only hope at that point was that the meat would continue to tenderize on the pizza while it cooked the next day.

     While the brisket was cooking, I worked on the Brioche Pizza Dough for the Wrapped Brie Pizza.  once the dough had come together, I cut it in half, put one half in a Ziploc in the freezer, and put the other half in an oiled bowl and popped it into the fridge.  I took the pre-made grill crust dough out of the freezer and put it into the fridge, along with one of the containers of barbecue sauce I had made the week before.


  When I came home from work on Thursday, I realized that I had forgotten to take the doughs out of the fridge, so they could warm up and be pliable when I got home.  ARGH! 
     After I took them out of the fridge, I went out to the garden to see if I was going to be able to use fresh, home-grown green peppers and jalapenos for the brisket pizza.  Success!  I had two godfather peppers ready and a gorgeous jalapeno.  (Godfather peppers are sweet peppers that are shaped like large chilies.  They look hot but are not).

     I started chopping the peppers, when Paul and Leslie and Allegra arrived.  Paul strode right into the kitchen and started unpacking his ingredients.  I told him about my dough snafu and asked him to roll my dough out for me.  Cold dough is really hard to work with.  The dough snaps almost completely back into its original position after every stroke of the rolling pin.  He started in assembling his pizzas first to give the dough a little more warm-up time.

Paul's Pizza Margherita (Uncooked)

     Once he got his two assembled, he started in on my cold dough.  He informed me, after a few minutes of trying to stretch the dough into a pizza size, that he would not do this for me again if I was going to be so reckless as to leave the dough in the refrigerator all day.

     He did a beautiful job, though.  I think he actually rolled out the brioche crust too much.  I realized that he had this large expanse of (round) dough, and here I had two wedge shaped pieces of brie to wrap up in it.  I laid them in the middle of the dough in opposite directions of each other, so together they formed a rectangle.  This left a large expanse of dough around the edges.  However, the dough contained a lot of butter, so even if we ate it by itself, it would be good, right?  So I wrapped up the brie and simply folded the extra dough together and tucked it under the cheese as I placed it on the preheated pizza stone.  After I closed the oven dough, I remembered that somewhere along the line, eggs were supposed to be involved.  A quick glance at the recipe revealed and egg-yolk wash.  What is my problem with eggs this week?  I pulled the precious package back out of the oven and brushed on the egg-yolk/butter blend and put it back in the oven.

     With this pause in the action, it was time to focus on our thirst.  Paul doesn't usually partake in the Drink of the Week, but he said he would sacrifice on my behalf, since there were no sisters here to help me drink the concoction.   That was awfully nice of him.  This, on his birthday?  What a guy!    It was sweet, but not cloyingly so.  It was light, and cold and I loved it!  

     Paul put both of his pizzas in the oven after we took out the brie, and we headed outside with the makings of my brisket pizza.  We decided to snack on the brie while the other three pizzas were cooking.  We couldn't keep out of it.  It was rich and creamy, ooey

   

     About the time that Leslie and I were able to tear ourselves away from the cheese (there was only a small corner left - mostly bread, really), Paul brought out his pizzas from inside.  I checked on mine.  It was done right about that time, too.  Amazing!  Unfortunately, my fairy GODMOTHER prohibited me from taking a picture of the finished product, so I cannot share that with you!

     I think Paul's veggie pizza was the clear winner.  He had a tomato-based sauce and added peppers, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, green olives, and black olives.  It was salty and juicy, and the artichokes added a lemony tang to balance out the earthiness of the olives.  It was delicious. 

     The Margherita was also delicious.  The crust light with a nice crispness.  The basil's liquorice-y overtones were mellowed by the cute little mozzarella balls sprinkled throughout.  Paul's only complaint was that the basil shrivels when it is placed on top before baking.  He has decided that he will put it on the pizza first next time.

     The brisket pizza was o.k.  I often wonder, when it takes a while to get dinner on the table, if a pizza wins the "best entree" award, simply because it was served first, and we weren't necessarily as hungry as when we had the next ones.  So, mine may not have been the best of the three, but it may have moved up in the ranks had it been served first.  I'll have to be quicker next time.  However, in all honesty, the pizza had good flavor, but the brisket was still tough.  It was very disappointing.

     Allegra was enjoying the pizzas, too.  They had forgotten to pack a bib for her, so I gave them a large kitchen towel to drape over her to protect her clothes as much as they could.  Paul pulled her up on his lap in order to share his pizza with her.  He tied the towel loosely around her neck and pulled a corner off of his slice of pizza in order to feed it to her.  On it's way to Allegra's mouth, sauce dripped off of it and fell on her pants.  Argh!  Paul cleaned it up as best as he could and pulled another piece off for Allegra.  this time the sauce blob fell in his lap.  At the end of the evening, the towel was clean and two out of the three Dahlens were tomato laden.

      Then, the moment of truth had arrived.  Jeff brought out the birthday cake.  We sang to Paul, and awaited the unveiling.  It looked o.k.  It was a little short, but ...  I thing the two-jumbo-egg cake may be the new recipe!  It had a tighter crumb than the normal version.  It was moist and a little dense.  It was a cross between a brownie and a cake (and it went really well with the Godmother).
     Paul let Allegra try some.  The only words I heard that evening from the little leprechaun were "hi", "more", "please", and - my favorite - "cake".

    

    



Wild Boar Barbecue Pizza; Blue Cheese Pizza; The Last Goodbye (Really, this time)

     Wild Boar? Really? Can you buy that? Because, I thought you couldn't buy "wild" game, legally. I did a little research on the Internet (what did we do before Google, anyway?). It turns out that (at least in Minnesota), if you have pigs from a certain genetic group, and you feed them organic material, and they are "free range", you can call it Wild Boar. I searched for local sources. What I found was a site called Buffalogal.com. They apparently had pigs descended from some Russian breed and raise them in Houston, MN. Well, Houston was a little far for me to go before Wednesday (I was searching on Sunday, of course). There is also a store in Hudson, WI called Venison America. Both places sounded great, and I could drive to Hudson on a Sunday, but I looked at prices on both, and unfortunately, the cost was prohibitive. Someday, I would like to be in a place where that wouldn't matter, so we could truly enjoy pizza night in it's intended spirit - to try new things and evolve our palettes. Ah, but the lottery does not appear to be my friend, and my career ambitions (or lack thereof) have not led me to a position of affluence. The tenderloins at both locations was right around $30/lb, and I could not justify that purchase (and road trip), when I have a freezer full of $1/lb pork.

     Once I had decided on that, it was time to grocery shop. I wanted to get this taken care of Sunday, because Monday (the scheduled shopping day) was my brother-in-law's birthday, and we were all going out to dinner. Jeff offered to go with me. Despite the financial implications, it is always nice to have company (especially his) while shopping.

     We headed off with our list, and we were doing really well with trying to stick to it, but then.... We reached the meat department. Cub had chicken thighs for $1.20/lb. That isn't how it was labeled: it was 20oz packages of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, and they 2 packages for $3.00. I had to dig out the calculator. Yep, $1.20/lb - no limit, and they had a huge pile of them. Jeff started loading the cart. He came up with 9 packages. I told him I didn't want to pay full price for that extra ONE, since the sign advertised a price for TWO packages. I am fairly certain that it would have rung up at the cash register for $1.50/package, but I didn't want to have to argue with the cashier. Besides, Jeff has been close to being banned from Cub for various reasons, so I didn't want to push my luck. He agreed and added three more packages to our cart.
     Boy, this seems familiar, doesn't it? We spent the rest of our evening vacuum sealing thighs in various sized packages.
     As I have mentioned before, smoking meats is not my forte. I have never personally done it, and I am generally lazy. I know that somewhere in my garage, or my basement, or in my kindling box, there are wood chips specially marketed for the home-griller. That might be a lot of work for me to find those and figure out how to use them with my gas grill. That may even require me to find the long-forgotten smoker box (a cast iron box specifically designed to hold pre-soaked wood chips for grilling). Wow! And, to pile that on top of grocery shopping for said pizza, preparing for said pizza, and doing the regular day-to-day chores, like washing clothes and cooking dinner? Well, that was just too much to ask.

     For Christmas, my secret Santa, Jean, gave me a smoker bag. I have never used such an item, but it highly intrigued me. I have read the directions several times since Christmas, but have never found the right occasion to use it - I kept thinking I should save it for a special occasion. How many special days go by without us realizing that they were truly special? How many place settings go unused waiting for a special occasion? Any day spent with my sisters is special. Pizza night, is always special. I would even dare to say that even the Pizza Nights where no one showed up, and it was just me, were special. Let's break out the special smoker-bag!

     There were directions on the packaging with cooking times for various cuts, types, and sizes of meat.  I had a two pound pork roast.  The cooking times for pork included 1½" pork chops (1-2 pounds) or a 3-4 pound pork roast.  I didn't think mine fit either description.  The instructions were to season the meat as desired and place in the bag.  Fold the end of the bag over twice to seal.  Cook for the recommended time on the chart.  It said 30-35 minutes for the chops and 50 minutes for the 3-4lb roast.  I chose 40 minutes, since my roast was smaller.  I figured it would be better to err on the side of rare than the other way around, especially since it was going to be re-cooked on top of the pizza.

     I seasoned it with our favorite go-to seasoning: Harley's.  It's garlicky and  salty, and it just seems to make everything taste better.  I put the roast in the bag and rolled up the end.  I had been pre-heating the grill to medium-high, as instructed, and I then threw this on.  I did turn the burners down to low at this point.  I didn't really believe that the roast needed to be cooked on medium high.  Low and slow has always been good for me.

     While that was cooking, I decided to go back in and work on the sauce.   I was going to cut the recipe by a third, since the pizza recipe only calls for 1 cup of sauce (and I was only making one pizza, so I really only needed 1/2 cup), but I figured if I am going to go through all of this effort to make home-made barbecue sauce, I may as well have some extra to put in the freezer for another day.

     I wanted to start by getting all of the ingredients together.  I had to BUY green peppers at the grocery store, because my garden bell pepper plants are stunted.  I am not sure what the problem is there, but they do not want to seem to produce peppers.  The one Hungarian Wax pepper plant, though, has been giving me a pepper a week for a few weeks now.  I had just picked my weekly bounty on Tuesday.  I decided to add this to the barbecue sauce (along with one of my purchased peppers).  Other than that, I pretty much stuck to the list.

     Other than all of the chopping, this sauce recipe was really easy.  If I had had to fry bacon for it, it would have been a little more involved, but I actually had pre-cooked left-over bacon (a HUGE rarity in my house).  The best part of all was that I got to use the Vitamix 5200 Total Nutrition Center to puree the sauteed veggies and the rest of the ingredients together.  This beautiful machine makes anything liquid after a few seconds with no lumps!  This was no exception, and then the sauce went back into the sauce pan for its hour and a half bubble.  And bubble, it did.  I poured the sauce back in the pan and went to get the roast off of the grill.  When I came back inside, the sauce was boiling and had blurped sauce all over the counter and the floor.  I turned the burner down as low as it would go for the remainder of the reduction time.  After an hour and a half, it was really thick.

     Meanwhile, I checked the roast.  It had rested away from the grill for over 5 minutes, so I checked its temp.  It was only 105º!  I wanted it a little under-done, but that was a little too much.  I probably should have extended the time, since I didn't use the recommended temperature setting.  I poured the juices back in the bag and dropped the roast back in, sealed up the bag, and went back to the grill.  I set my timer for another 30 minutes.  When the timer went off, I opened the lid of the grill and didn't get that familiar rush of heat rising up out of the grill.  I stuck my hand over the burners - no heat.  I was able to grab the aluminum bag with my bare hands.  Apparently, the propane had run out on the grill towards the beginning of the roast's second roasting.  There should be some sort of buzzer for that sort of thing.

   I brought the roast inside and took a peek.  When I unfolded the end of the bag, steam came out.  That was a good sign.  I decided to just cut the roast in half.  I didn't know how long it hadn't been cooking, so temperature would NOT be an indicator of done-ness.  Cutting it in half would serve two purposes - I would be able to look at the color to determine how it was cooked, AND if it wasn't done, it would cook faster in smaller pieces.  I held my breath and brandished my knife...  I sliced right through the center, and it was perfect!  Slightly pink, still juicy, and delicious!  Jeff and I ate for dinner the half that wasn't going to be used for the pizza, and it was slightly smokey and very tender.

     Next on my prepping agenda was the crust for the blue cheese pizzas.  I already had a frozen crust for the Wild Boar Pizza.  For the basic dough, I had debated about dividing the crust in half and freezing the other half, because every time I have made this crust before it seemed like too much crust for the rest of the ingredients.   However, since this was little individual pizzas, it seemed like a good idea to just go ahead and use it all.  If, at the time of assembly, we decided it was too much crust, we could just make more than six.  Leftovers are always welcome in my fridge, and they make great parting gifts for the guests.

     Pam couldn't join us on Thursday: she was in Seattle.  Jeff had zoomed down to Iowa on a raccoon-hunting spree.  Raccoons were reportedly eating all of the sweet corn he and my dad had planted.  The kids' softball/baseball season was over, so Jennifer and family could actually show up at a reasonable time.  She asked what time that should be.  I asked her to wait until 6.  I needed a little wind-down time from work before I was pleasant and entertaining.  I may not be entertaining anyway, just mildly amusing, but at least I wouldn't be crabby.

     I was able to clean a toilet, sweep the kitchen, and mop up the barbecue sauce on the floor and counters (and wash my hands, of course).  I also took a look outside at the gas grill that had petered out on me the day before.  I lamented that it was out of propane.  I knew we had another tank somewhere, but finding it was one thing, and I wasn't even sure that it would be full (this is something magical that happens at my house - usually - tanks go empty and magically refill themselves, but this was not the case today).  I sighed and trudged into the garage in search of charcoal.  That would probably be easier to find and set up than the propane option.  I found the charcoal, found the charcoal chimney, loaded it with newspaper, and lit it.  It was going pretty good, when I looked to my right and saw the extra propane tank right there on the sidewalk!  And guess what?  It was completely full.  Oh well, we haven't tried grilling pizzas on charcoal before.  It will be yet another culinary experience for us.

     I had just finished rolling out the grill crust when they arrived.  I assigned Jennifer the task of rolling out the dough for the blue cheese pizza.  The kids heard this and asked if they could help.  They seemed to have a great time stretching and flattening the dough.   The end results were artistic and beautiful.

     Roger was our bartender, and he mixed up a beautiful drink with absolute precision.  He measured everything!  The end result was a pink bowl of deliciousness.  It was fruity and somewhat sweet with a kick.  We practiced the Minnesota version of the Last Goodbye, where you always have to say it three times before anyone actually leaves.

  The kids also helped with the distribution of the ingredients.  I was very happy to provide them with home grown tomatoes for this task!  At last!  When I handed the two smallest tomatoes to Jennifer to cut, she said "only two, really?".  What??  This from the anti-tomato girl?  I took the smallest of the two I had handed her and replaced it with a large tomato.  There.  Take that.  And, she did.  Hmmmm...  Is there a change in tastes on the horizon?

        We decided to pop these little beauties in the oven and cook them inside while we got the ingredients for the barbecue pizza.  We wanted to snack on these while we were grilling the wild boar pizza.  I was right about the dough being too much.  It was supposed to make six 6" pizzas.  We measured our pizzas, and they were like 7" by 9".  A little too large to be called a snack, but we were going to go for it anyway.  The crusts puffed up golden and pretty in the oven, and we actually remembered to add the Parmesan (in our case, Manchego, because I underestimated the inventory in my fridge) and parsley.

     They were delicious!  The Gorgonzola soaked up the juices from the tomatoes to balance out the salty and tart flavors.  The green onions cut through the creaminess of the cheese, and the peppers didn't quite soften up, so they were little crunchy bursts of sweetness throughout the piece.

     Jonah, even though he was part of the assembly, just realized that there were peppers and onions, not only on the pizzas he had helped create, but there were onions on the pork pizza as well, and he claims he doesn't like either.  Rather disappointing, but I was once that picky child.  So, we made him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but I didn't have any bread a kid would like, so we used hot dog buns.



    Then, we moved outside to grill the wild boar pizza.  I am still calling it that, even though it was probably a tame pig that gave itself for our pizza.

     It was fabulous!  The pork stayed tender, even though it was on its second (technically third) cooking.  The Manchego was earthy and tangy, the sauce rich and gooey.  I had originally thought it might be too much cheese, but it was perfect.  It provided the perfect cohesion (no bits of food falling off onto the boob shelf or bouncing off the belly). 

     Unfortunately for Gracie, the "snack" pizza was too much for her, and she had no room for this pizza.  I sent the last remaining piece home with her for later.  Jonah saw how much we were enjoying it and couldn't resist trying it.  I think he had three pieces of it!  I guess there is hope for him, after all.  It was all very filling and Roger had to take a little rest after the meal.

     The kids decided they had to run off their consumed calories (ah, to be young and energetic again!  Oh wait, I was never THAT energetic!)