Gebackene Kasebrotchen; Grilled Mushroom Pizza; Baron Cocktail

     I will admit it.  I cheated.  Wednesday I came home from work and didn't feel like doing anything.  This isn't an unusual situation for me, and normally on Wednesdays I would try to fight it.  This Wednesday, however, it seemed like I didn't really need to.  I looked over the recipes, and it didn't really seem like there were a whole lot of preparations needed. 

     I found a tomato-based pasta sauce in the freezer.  It was originally from a jar (purchased on clearance, of course).  Sure, it wasn't the slow-simmered sauce that this week's recipe, but it was all ready.  I pulled it out and set it in the fridge to thaw.

     I did not find the prescribed crust in the freezer, as I was hoping, but I did find a basic crust.  That should do the job...

 

     When I got home from work on Thursday, I started thinking about who all was coming.  My mom was coming (all the way from Nisswa).  She needed to be in town early Friday morning for Grandparents' Day at Gracie's school, so she decided to come on Thursday and spend the night at Jennifer's house.  Jennifer and the kids were going to come for a little while, and Pam was coming, too.  I thought I should make a little extra something, just in case we didn't have enough food with the two scheduled recipes.

My Mom

     I used a new toy my sisters had given me for my birthday.  It is a chopper, slicer, dicer thingee.  I still had a lot of tomatoes and peppers sitting around my counters that I had pulled from the garden, so I thought I would make a quick salsa.  I diced four tomatoes, seeded and diced a large jalapeno, and threw in half of a red onion.  I squeezed a quarter of a lime into the mixture.  I searched all of my pots outside for some viable cilantro, but only came up with a few leaves, so I cut some basil to add to it.  It was still missing something...

     My mom was the first person to show up on Thursday.   After she tasted the salsa, she said she thought it needed some vinegar.  I poured in a little cider vinegar and waited for the new critique.  She deemed it delicious, so I was satisfied.

     I put her to work immediately afterward, slicing the french bread.  She sliced it in half the long way and three pieces the short way.  We tried to fit them in a 9x13 pan, but I wasn't liking the arrangement.  Again, I pulled out the 12x15, but the bread was too thick.  I was afraid food might ooze over the side.  I sliced each piece in half horizontally again, so they were thinner.  Then, I dipped each in milk and placed them in the bar pan side by side.  I'm not sure what the milk was supposed to do. It sounded strange, but I did it anyway.

     I started placing pieces of ham on top of the bread when Jennifer arrived.  I hadn't chosen a drink of the week yet.  I handed her the Old Mr. Boston book I had gotten from one of Pam's friends, Mary Burdick.  She paged through and read off ingredients until she found one that I had everything for.  She chose something called "Baron Cocktail". 

                                                   BARON COCKTAIL

                                                   1/2oz. French Vermouth

                                                                 1 1/2oz. Old Mr. Boston Dry Gin

                                                                 1 1/2tsp Old Mr. Boston Curacao

                                                                    1/2tsp Italian Vermouth

                                            

                                              Stir well with cracked ice and strain

                                                             into 3 oz. cocktail glass.  Add twist of

                                                             lemon peel and drop in glass.

     I knew that my dry vermouth was French.  I hadn't heard of Italian vermouth before now.  Niether had Jen.  She googled it on her fancy new Droid, and it turns out that it is another name for sweet vermouth.  I had that, so this drink was a "go".  I delegated the bartending duties to Jennifer, while I started on slicing the Gruyere. A very dark cocktail appeared shortly thereafter next to my cutting board.  It was navy blue, almost purple, depending on which direction you looked at it.  It was thick and a little sweet.

     I sliced the whole block of Gruyere that I had purchased earlier in the week.  I had made sure to buy the smallest piece Cub had, because it is pretty expensive cheese, and I didn't want to spend more than I needed to.  The resulting slices barely covered the ham slices.  Then, I realized that the tomato slices were supposed to go onto the sandwiches first.  Jennifer and I took all of the cheese off, and I got out my slicer/shopper contraption again.  Unfortunatley, we discovered that  slicing tomatoes is NOT its forte.  The tomatoes all but disintegrated.  It was a little diappointing after it had made perfect cubes out of the tomatoes earlier for the salsa.  We used them anyway and spread them out as best we could over the ham and then replaced the cheese.

     Then I started working on the grilled mushroom pizza.  I looked at the ingredient list.  Oh no!  That called for Gruyere, too, and I had used it all on the Kasebrotchen!  Mom volunteered to go to the grocery store and get some more.  I tried to visualize the Kasebrotchen with half the amount of cheese I had already placed there and whether the mushroom pizza would be sufficiently cheesed with the small amount that we had removed from the other entree.  I thought about what I could add to either pizza to make up the difference.  Meanwhile, Mom was impatient with my silence and indecision and offered her services again.  This time I accepted.

Mom and Gracie

     Pam showed up at about this time, and I put her to work "grilling" the mushrooms.  It was overcast and windy outside, so, again, I had rejected the grilling portion of our pizza night.  While she did that, I put the crust in the oven to get a head start. 

Pam with Her Fabulous New Hairdo!

     Since that didn't take very long, I re-examined the drink.  It was awfully dark.  I asked Jennifer to show me the recipe.  I voiced my opinion that it was amazing that a mere 1/2 teaspoon of red vermouth and 1 1/2 teaspoons of the blue caracao would  have produced such a dark drink.  Her response was "half a teaspoon?"  She had thought all of the measurements were in ounces, so the last two ingredients were tripled.  Well, once we finished the incorrect drink, we had to remake them, right?  Once we put in the correct amount of curacao and red vermouth, it was fabulous!  It had lost its sticky-sweetnes, and just gave a small hint of citrus.  The gin now shone through, and the mineraliness of the French vermouth was a little flash of aftertaste.  However, it did look a bit like airplaine toilet-water. 

     Pam did a wonderful job of "grilling" the portabellas on the stove.  We spread the sauce over the crust, put the slices of Grueyere over the sauce, sprinkled shredded mozzerella over it, and placed the mushrooms over the mozzerella.  The final step before the oven was the sprinkling of blue cheese on top.

     Both "pizzas" were masterpieces.

     The mushrooms were meaty and earthy.  The blue cheese had crusted up a bit and enriched the mushrooms with a warm, creamy flavor, and the Gruyere gave a hint of tang to the whole thing.  It was hearty without being heavy.
     The Kasebrotchen was incredible, too.  It never ceases to amaze me how a few ordinary, simple ingredients can be combined to produce a completely extraordinary dish.  The milk seemed to give the center of the bread a creamy, rich texture, while the outside remained crisp.  The tomato, Gruyere, and ham seemed like they belonged together from the start.  It was salty, crunchy, and juicy all at once.  It was so good, Jeff didn't even offer any to Pele to try and win him over.


Pele

         

"Grilled" Potato Cheese Pizza; Burag B'Jeben; Blackberry Brambilicious

From the Everything Pizza Book by Belinda Hulin

     I looked over the ingredient list here and realized this is a LOT of cheese.  By the time you are done assembling one pizza, it would have over one pound of cheese.  Now, don't get me wrong, I do believe that there can never be too much cheese, but since some of us are trying to become lighter, I thought maybe the pizza would still be delicious with half the amount of cheese listed here.
     I tried to find Butterkase (again), and couldn't find that, much less smoked Butterkase at Cub.  I wasn't surprised in the least and sent a text to the hubby to visit the cheese shop (Rybicki's) across from his wine store (Old Vine Wine) to see if they had it.  They told him they had never heard if Butterkase being smoked.  So, he bought the regular Butterkase, and I bought some smoked Gouda to mix in with it.

From the Complete Book of Pizza by Louise Love

     We already had this beautiful cheddar that my Aunt Lois and Uncle David had given us last time we were in Washington State.  It is called Cougar Gold.  It comes in a can, but it's not what you would think.  It is real cheese, real cheddar - sharp cheddar.  It is made at the University there (where both my mother and father went to college), and is a coveted treat in our family.  It is very sharp and extremely delicious.  I knew that we could get away with using less of this cheese, because it is such a potent flavor.

     I also purchased fat free cottage cheese for the Burag B'Jeben.  If we are mixing it with regular feta, and we are cooking it, I didn't think we would miss the fat there either.
     My Wednesday evening was spent, mostly just slicing cheese. I did decide to make the garlic and oil sauce.  I was hesitant to do any preparing for the Burag B'Jeben, because the Liggetts weren't coming, and I thought with just three of us, did we really need two entrees?  Besides, after reading the instructions, it didn't really seem like there was anything I could do in advance.  I could have combined the feta and cottage cheese, but how long could that take?  I had already decided that their method was silly, and I was just going to throw the two cheese in my Vitamix and combine them that way.  And, because it is such powerful machine, it wouldn't take any time at all if we decided we wanted to make this recipe as well. 

     On my way home from work on Thursday, my friend Paul called and said he and Leslie and their baby Allegra were going to join us.  Fantastic!  I haven't seen them since early August, and probably would see even less of them once their second baby was born (he/she is scheduled to arrive on October 10th).  I couldn't wait to see all 3½ of them!

     Pam was the first to arrive, and I immediately put her to work on rolling out the crust for the grilled pizza.  I had decided at this point, however, that I was not going to grill outside.  The wind was crazy ridiculous.  The temperature was actually decent for a change, but the wind was so strong that it felt cold, and it was irritating.  We still needed crust, though, and this was the only one I had thawed.  I was sure it would perform alright in the oven, too. 

     While she was doing that, I threw the cottage and feta cheeses in the Vitamix for the Burag B'Jeben.  It took a couple of tries to get it all mixed together.  I was worried that if I left it whir for too long, the cheeses would melt, and we would have a gooey mess.  It turned out okay, though.  I do have one complaint about the Vitamix - when you make something that isn't liquid, it is really difficult to get all the good stuff out from underneath the blades.  Pam decided that her finger was the best tool for the job, but the blades on that thing can pulverize ice cubes in 1 minute flat, so they must be very sharp.  Both Paul and I yelled at her to use a spatula.  She finally did.  There was still some cheese left in the bottom at the end, but I just had to rinse it out and not think about the waste of it, because I needed the machine for the Drink of the Week.

     As I started putting these gorgeous, giant blackberries into the machine, I was thinking what a shame it was to pulverise these lovely berries into oblivion.  Just as I was thinking that, Pam asked if frozen berries would have been a better idea.  Of course they would have!  I hadn't even occurred to me when I was at the grocery store.  By the time I got the ten berries the recipe called for into the bowl (I was doubling for two drinks) there were only 4 berries left.  I threw those in, too, and tripled everything in the recipe (except the ice - I didn't want to water the booze down too much).

     This drink definitely had some kick, and I didn't hear Pam complaining about a lack of liquor this time.  The seeds didn't quite disappear in the pulverization phase of the drink, there were several still hanging around throughout the drink.  It tasted fresh and fruity with a slight burn of gin on the back of the tongue.  It froze the mouth and warmed the belly.

Paul & Allegra

     Paul brought ingredients to make two pizzas of his own.  He had made dough earlier in the day and brought it over with a bag full of food to go on top of the dough.
     He told us that he had run into the Liggetts at Jonah's soccer game.  His nephew goes to the same school as Jonah and is a couple of grades behind, but they were both on the same soccer team.  The Liggetts had asked him if he was going to come for pizza soon.  He told them he thought that he would, and they (and by they, I am pretty sure he meant Roger and Jennifer, not the kids) requested the peanut butter jalapeno pizza, so he had decided to make that.  Unfortunately for the Liggetts, they weren't able to come this week.
     I always miss the exact specifications in building this pizza, but I believe  he spreads peanut butter over the crust, tops it with bacon and jalapenos, and covers the whole thing with mozzarella.  It sounds weird, but it is delicious!  The creaminess of the peanut butter calms the heat of the jalapenos, and the bacon adds a smokey element that just brings the whole thing together.

Pre-Oven Peanut Butter Jalapeno Pizza



Pre-Oven Potato Cheese Pizza



     Pam assembled the Burag B'Jeben while I took care of the potato cheese pizza.  I cooked the crust in the preheated oven (450º) for about 8 minutes, then pulled it out, flipped it over and started added the toppings.  First the garlic oil, then the Butterkase and the Smoked Gouda (alternating).  The cheddar was laid out on top of those cheeses, and the potatoes went on top of that (I had "baked" them in the microwave Wednesday night and sliced them).  The next step was to sprinkle the home-grown rosemary over the top of the potatoes and cover everything with Monteray Jack.

     Paul also made a pepperoni black olive pizza.  While he was assembling that, I put the Burag B'Jeben in the oven.  There is a warning in the recipe that the burags should be lightly brown after about 15 minutes, and you shouldn't over cook them.  I think I know now why it says that.  I didn't think it was brown enough after 15 minutes, so I left them in a bit longer.  Some of the cheese leaked out of the logs.  I am not sure, though, if this was an over-cooking problem or just that the phyllo dough had some broken spots in them, and the cheese found its way through.  Or, maybe it was a little of both.

     We had all three pizzas in the same oven at the same time.  I had the oven set on convection, but there was still some apparent uneven heating in there.  My potato pizza was browner on one side than the other.  I should have given it a spin and put it back in, but I didn't.  We rearranged the Paul Pizzas and let them cook a little longer to firm up the crust and add some bubbliness to the cheese.

     All three pizzas were beautiful, despite the unevenness of the browning, and we made quick work of making them disappear.  The potato pizza was creamy and smokey, and the rosemary just peeked through the flavors of the cheeses.  The pepperoni black olive pizza had the most fabulous crust!  It was slightly crispy on the outside with a soft, fluffy interior.  We had to exert some restraint, though, because Pam had brought a fabulous apple spice cake for dessert.

  Her tree was a little overburdened, so she thought she ought to make something with apples.  It was wonderful.  It was warm and sweet, and the exterior of the cake had a slightly crunchy texture with a concentration of a brown sugar flavor.  It was the perfect ending (even if it did have nuts).

    

Grilled Tenderloin Pizza; Kaseschnitten Mit Champignons; Purple Haze

     Okay, I know that it is called Grilled Venison Tenderloin, but it also suggested beef or pork as a substitution and guess what my freezer is full of?  I chose beef.  We have these lovely tenderloins we had cut up from a mass quantity buy from Sam's Club.  I thought that would taste much better than Venison.

     My thought was to make the sesame soy sauce and grill the tenderloin Wednesday night.  The tenderloin needed thawing, however, so I started with the sauce.  After the sauce had come together, the meat was still frozen, so I looked over the cheese and mushroom sandwich recipe.  I thought I could toast the bread (or saute it, as the recipe instructed).

     The instructions said to slice the french load into 6 pieces that will fit into your baking dish, but they did not indicate what size the dish should be.  I started with a 9x13 but decided that there was no way 6 slices would even come close to fitting in there.  I switched out to a 12x15 pan.  I could only fit 5 pieces in there, and they were thicker than the edge of the pan.  I was concerned that the sauce would ooze out over the top of the pan and make an even bigger mess in my already-messy oven.  I decided to slice the bread even thinner.  I had originally cut the loaf in half the long way and cut each half into three pieces.  After I switched out the pan, I sliced the bread the long way again, making thinner pieces.  Maybe the cookbook author had skinnier bread or something - I was only able to fit 5 across my pan.  Also, 2 tbsp of butter wasn't nearly enough butter to "saute" both sides of 5 slices of bread.  The other issue I had was that I was unable to saute more than two slices at a time in my frying pan.  I suppose I could have used a larger pan, but where is the fun in that?

   After I had sauteed the mushrooms and green onions, the next step was to make the sauce, which started with a roux.  I had used the rest of the butter that was in my butter dish for the mushrooms.  I opened the refrigerator to grab some more butter, but there wasn't any where I thought it should be.  I pushed some items around to see if the extra sticks were hiding behind some leftovers.  I couldn't believe I was out of butter!  How could that be?  I double-checked the freezer downstairs - no luck. 

     I was at an impasse.  I was either going to have to go back out into the world (something I am loathe to do once I have returned from work) or find some alternative solution.  I looked around.  I peeked into the freezer again.  There was lard.  Could I use lard?  I wasn't sure about that.  I looked back at my neglected pan.  Next to it was a coffee mug.  I peered inside.  Sure enough, there was a pile of bacon grease in that mug.  My husband feels it necessary to save bacon grease whenever he makes bacon, because he could use it later for numerous other applications.  Perhaps this was one of them.

     I plopped a few wads of the stuff into my pan.  I estimated the four tablespoons the recipe recommended and followed the instructions as if it were butter in the pan.  I was using Wondra for the flour, because I have had really good luck with incorporating that into sauces without fear of lumps.  I ended up using more than 3 tablespoons, because it wasn't getting "paste-y", like the instructions indicated it should.  I figured it was because I was using bacon grease instead of butter.  Maybe it has a different chemical make-up that doesn't allow it to thicken up as easily as butter.  Once I was satisfied with the consistency, I went ahead and added the half-and-half and finished off the sauce.  It still wasn't as thick as I thought it should be, but I was afraid if I added more flour, it would taste chalky.  It looked somewhat thick, and I assumed that it would thicken more after cooling.  I set the pan aside to cool.

     At this point, I was completely exhausted and looking forward to sitting down in front of the television with my husband, some dinner, and my new temporary kitty.  I cleaned up a few items, and then I realized:  the tenderloin was still in the microwave, thawing.  I hadn't cooked it yet.  I bargained with my husband.  I told him I would fix dinner, if he would go outside and grill my tenderloin for pizza night.  He agreed and headed outside.  He is definitely a keeper.  I fried a couple of eggs and threw some frozen hash browns and called it good.

     Pam arrived Thursday with a bag full of Zestar apples she had purchased from her mailman.  His apple stand wasn't open when she wanted the apples (she was leaving for a training weekend for a flying group she belongs to and wanted to bring them with her to share), so she tracked the man down and asked him to sell her some apples anyway.  I was happy that she did.  We cut one open and shared it between us sisters and Jeff (we didn't want to spoil our appetites for the main event).  It was fantastic - sweet, tart, juicy, and delicious.

     Jennifer appeared with her kids and promptly put a frozen pizza in the oven.  She was going to have to drop Jonah off at his football practice at seven, and both he and Gracie needed to be fed before this was going to happen. 

     I spread the now-super-thick mushroom cream sauce over the toasted french bread, sprinkled it with cheese, and was ready for it to go into the oven, but the directions said that it was only going to take about 10 minutes and I hadn't even started the grill.  I didn't want it to be done inside, in the oven, while I was outside, grilling the tenderloin pizza.

     I also didn't want to go outside when I was so THIRSTY.  I started in on the drink of the week.  The "seasonal" berries of choice were strawberries.  However, in hindsight, I think for the drink to be called Purple Haze, it should have been some other kind of berry - blueberry, blackberry, mulberry, etc.  Our drink looked like a fluffy daiquiri.  It was sweet and fruity. 

     Jennifer and I headed out to the grill with the tenderloin fixings and our drinks.  We stood outside in front of the grill, hoping some of the warmth of the grill would radiate off of it onto us.  It was chilly, but we were determined.  Our conversation lulled a little in the chill of the evening, and we were able to hear Jeff and Pam in the kitchen, chatting,  I strained a little to hear what they were saying.  I couldn't hear the exact words, but Jeff was digging in the liquor cabinet, and I got the gist that Pam thought that the Purple Haze wasn't going to cause a great enough haze... i.e., there wasn't enough alcohol in it for her, so Jeff was going to make her a martini.

     Meanwhile, we continued to work on the grilled pizza.  I spread the sesame soy sauce over the crust.  The sauce was a little runnier than I thought it should have been, and the crust wasn't exactly level, so we lost some sauce over the edge of the crust and into the fire.  I twirled the crust a couple of times, thinking that maybe it was the grill that wasn't level, but it appeared that it was the crust itself.  One side was thicker than the other, causing a ramp of sorts that the sauce ran down and into the interior of the grill.

We stopped adding sauce - any more that we put on would just run off anyway.   I added the steak that Jennifer had expertly sliced thin.  Then, we added the remainder of the sauce over the beef, letting the slices of meat become a barrier to keep the sauce in.

 The remainder of the ingredients were artistically placed over the top, and we closed the lid to let them cook.

     I started with the mushroom Swiss concoction.  It was rich, smokey (from the bacon, I assume), and earthy.  Baking the assembled sandwiches had restored the crunchiness of the original saute that had been lost overnight. It was cheesy, toasty, and gooey. Later, I realized that I missed a step in the construction of the sauce.  Apparently, I was supposed to add some milk to it, but I had completely missed that entire portion of the instruction.  I thought it was lovely, anyway, and other than the difficulties I had spreading the overly thickened "sauce" over the french bread, I didn't miss the milk at all.

     The tenderloin pizza was very good, too.  My only complaint (okay, one of my few) was that there was nothing holding all of the ingredients together.  One bite and all of the baby corn, and the onions, and sometimes the beef itself, rolled off the pizza.  It was a little salty, and, thinking back, I may have put more sauce on than called for.  I have a hard time keeping all of the measurements halved for these recipes that make two pizzas (I only make one).  It was still good.  The blueberries offset the saltiness of the sauce, and the corn helped.  Jeff originally expressed some concern about the "weirdness" of having blueberries on the pizza, but agreed that it wasn't as weird with all the ingredients together.

     Everything was wonderful - the food, the company, the conversation.  It is always a pleasure.

Vegetarian Wedge; Grilled Italian Sausage and Peppers Pizza; and Grandma's Frozen Apricots

     I had been meaning to do my pizza preps on Monday, because Jeff was out of town, and he was going to come back Tuesday night.  Also, except for the bread, which I would prefer to buy the day of or the day before, I didn't have to shop!  I had all the ingredients I needed either in the freezer or in the garden!  I figured I could get the preparations done early, so I could spend Wednesday evening with Jeff doing fun togetherness things.  I didn't end up doing it on Monday, so I thought maybe I could squeeze it in after I get my bills paid (or at least some rubber checks written for them) on Tuesday, but that didn't happen either.  It was just as well, though, because Jeff didn't come home Tuesday. 
     I dug into it on Wednesday after work.  I started with the Grilled Italian Sausage and Peppers Pizza.

  I had dough in my freezer from last week, so that I just took one of those out and put it in the fridge to thaw.  I also found a cup of Slow-Simmered Tomato Sauce from prior batch.  I took that out as well.

          I sliced the provolone and I pulled grated mozzarella out of my freezer.

          Next on my agenda was the peppers.  I was very hopeful that I would find enough sweet peppers out in the garden that I would be able to use for this pizza.  I did not find any yellow peppers, but I did find some Hungarian Wax peppers.  They are yellow, but they are also hot.  Sometimes they are especially hot.  I thought this might be a good substitute for the pizza, since my sisters and I LOVE the hot stuff.  So, that was my yellow pepper.  I found quite a bit of green peppers and a couple of yellow.  It was a much more fruitful experience than the tomato hunt the week before.  There were quite a few hot peppers out there.  Hopefully, I will be able to find a use for them all before they expire!  Also, since I was only doing one sausage pizza (instead of the two that the recipe makes), I was cutting everything in half.  I didn't want to use half a green pepper and half a red pepper, so I just used one pepper that was mostly red (with some green).  I sliced them all up and bagged them for the next day.  I also shredded the Parmesan that was going to substitute for the Asiago.

     For the pizza sauce, I measured out some pasta sauce I got on clearance at Cub some time back (of course).  It is actually pretty decent, but I found out the hard way that it WILL mold in the fridge after a while.  Having learned this, after I opened the jar and measured out my cup-worth, I threw the remainder into a plastic container and threw it in the freezer for another time.

     The mushrooms I had in the refrigerator were pre-sliced, and I didn't think that they were thin enough, so I sliced each one in half again to make them thinner.  I wasn't sure how much would make 4 mushrooms worth, but I think I probably came close.  I sliced the onion and pepper and pulled another bag of mozzarella out of the freezer.

     I scanned the recipe to see what was going to be done with the oil and the herbs.  It sounded like it was going to be very similar to the garlic oil I made for the Grilled Anchovy and Onion Pie recipe in August.  I had made extra of this and had set it aside.  I decided that would be perfect for this use.  I went ahead and added the vinegar.  The recipe didn't specify what kind of vinegar.  I really enjoy dipping bread in olive oil and balsamic, so I used balsamic.  I added my oregano and tarragon, gave it a quick stir, and sealed it up.

     At this point, I went back to the sausage pizza recipe.  I had these lovely Italian sausages we bought at Cub when there was a crazy temporary price reduction a while back.  Jeff, of course, purchased all that they had left, and we had spent a day vacuum-packing and freezing them.  The label claimed that they were "hot" Italian Sausages, but they are actually Minnesota hot.  Meaning, there is some spice to them, but I wouldn't call them hot.  Luke warm, maybe.  They have really good flavor, though, and they are somewhat kid-friendly, if one were interested in being friendly to kids.

     I had put off grilling the sausages until I was done with everything else I was going to accomplish, pizzaretically, because I was hoping there was more than I needed for the pizza in the one package I had thawed.  I weighed it, and it was only a pound.  There were 6 large sausages in there!  I looked at those and tried to imagine putting all of that sausage on one pizza and decided that it was way too much meat for one pizza.  I was going to eat at least one of those for dinner.   And that is just what I did!  Jeff came home some time after that, and he had one too.  I still thought that there was plenty left for one pizza.

     Thursday while I was at work, my cubical-mate checked Wal-Mart's website to see if they carried apricot nectar.  I had been unable to find it at Cub the previous week - they didn't have any in the juice aisle, there wasn't any in the specialty juice section of the produce aisle, there was none in the organic food section, and the ethnic section had just about everything but.  Wal-Mart is right across the street from where I work, so I could bop over there quickly and bop back in a few minutes.  I could also get the french loaves there.  Their website offered two brands, so I set off to buy one of them.  I got there and had the same results that I did at Cub.  I checked the website again from my phone.  The fine print said that the apricot wasn't available yet.  Argh!  I bought some cheddar jalapeno Cheetos (Cub doesn't carry them any more), the french bread, and a bag of sugar.

     I tried the Indian grocery store down the street.  They had all kinds of interesting things there: lychee nectar, mango juice, several types of coconut water, rose nectar, and several other nectar and juices I had never heard of.   Alas, there was no apricot.

     Last Thursday, I had received a call from our adopted sister, Judy (we Freese girls adopted her, so she's not adopted like Jennifer is - it's different).  She was upset, because she needed to find someone to take care of her cat over the winter or bring it to the humane society, and she hadn't found anyone to take him.  I lost all three of my cats recently, so we had a space, and she asked if we would take him.  I told her we would.

     Pam was bringing Jeb (Judy's husband) over with the cat.  I sent a text message to Pam that neither Wal-Mart nor the Indian grocery had it and could she look for it on her way?  She said she would try.

     I put my purchases from Wal-Mart in my trunk and went back to work. 

     A few minutes after I got home at the end of the day, Jeff came home too.  He had had a bad day at work and was feeling cranky about it.  I remembered that he was as fond of the jalapeno cheddar Cheetos's as I was and lamented their disappearance from our regular grocery store as much as I did.  I told him to wait right there, I had left something in my trunk that would make him feel better.  I ran outside to the car.  When I opened my trunk, I noticed that the two loaves of french bread had slid out of the bag.  I grabbed the back to put them back in and noticed that it was empty!  The only other things in my trunk were the two loaves of bread.  Oh no!  The cashier must have put the rest of my purchases in another bag, and I didn't grab it when I walked out of the store.  Great!  Now, I was crabby, too.  Well, at least I had what I needed for the Vegetarian Wedge.

     I am not sure why the recipe called for a four foot loaf, and then instructed me to cut it in to two two-foot pieces.  Nor, am I sure where you can get a four foot loaf of bread. I purchased what I estimated to be two two foot loaves.  I measured when I got home.  They were actually 18 inches.  That still looked like a lot of  bread to me.  I didn't think we would miss the other half a foot per loaf.

     Pam and Jeb and Pele (the kitty) showed up.  Jeb had found apricot nectar!  I asked Pam where, and she claimed it was Cub and I had just looked in the wrong place.  I didn't believe her.  They had actually found it at Lund's.  So, at long last, we finally had all of the ingredients to make Grandma's Frozen Apricots!  She set out to start those, while we snacked on some sushi she bought at Lund's, and I started on the Vegetarian Wedge.

     Jennifer and Gracie had arrived, and Gracie was torturing the cat while it was still in its carrying cage.  Jeff and Jeb took Pele downstairs and set him up in his new temporary home.  They got the kitty litter set up, food bowls, etc. down in our nesting area.    

     I was going to go outside to get the mint that was supposed to garnish our drinks, but when I started downstairs to go out the back door, Pele was at the bottom of the stairs, very unhappy with his new position.  He was blocking the bottom of the stairs, growling, snarling, and hissing.  We didn't really need mint anyway.

     For the wedge, I started out removing the squishy interior of the bread.  I thought that is a waste (I, of course, saved all of the interior that I pulled out of each loaf), but I could understand the theory.  I guessed that it was so you would have a greater topping to crust ratio, and the toppings wouldn't be lost in a pillow of bread.

     The amount of the oil that the recipe wasn't nearly enough to cover all four halves of bread.  I ended up adding a bit more, and I was supposed to have saved a couple tablespoons of it to drizzle over the fully topped wedge, but that didn't happen.

     I found the same issue with the amount of sauce the recipe called for.  Perhaps my loaves were much wider than their loaves.

    

      Once the breads were topped as close to specification as I was going to get, Pam and I headed out to start grilling.  She carried the drinks, and I carried my paddle of goodies - all of the pre-measured ingredients I would need for my task.

     While we were waiting for the grill to heat up, we finished our drinks.  Pam said she would go back inside and come out with refills for us.  Unfortunately, when she went to turn the knob on the back door, she realized that it had been locked when we came out, and we hadn't unlocked it.  We were now locked out of the back door.  The front door was probably still unlocked, because Jennifer had just left to go pick Jonah up from football.  However, my darling husband, in his paranoia has also decided that we should lock the fence around the back yard - from the outside. 

     Luckily, Jeff and Jeb and Gracie were on the other side of the fence.  Jeff unlocked the gate and let Pam  through to the front, so she could get us new drinks.  She came back out after a couple of minutes, filled my glass, and headed back in to make herself a refill.  But, alas, she had still forgotten to unlock the door.  Jeff had already relocked the gate and moved inside, so we tapped on the window to get their attention and have them unlock the door.  I really need to hide a key in the back yard.  It's a good thing we didn't have anything in the oven inside.

     Meanwhile, I kept going on building the pizza.  Again, I felt that amount of sauce the recipe called for was less than it should have been.  I also thought there was too much sausage.  I couldn't fit it all on the pizza without overlapping, so Pam and I ate the extra bits.  Sometimes we have to make these small sacrifices to make our art perfect.

     After I had assembled the pizza and closed the lid, it took quite a bit of time to cook.   During that time, Jennifer and Jonah had come back, Brianna (Jeb and Jud's daughter) had arrived, and new drinks were made.  I kept checking the pizza, waiting for the Asiago on top to melt.  After a great amount of time, I decided that it wasn't going to melt in the traditional sense of cheese.  It wasn't going to ooze all over it.  The fine shreds just crisped up on top of everything.  The cheese that was layered on the bottom the provolone and mozzarella were oozing out the bottom and browning around the edges of the pizza, so I felt it was time to take it off - before we lost all of the under-cheese.

     I hustled my pizza inside.  Jennifer had put the wedge in the oven, and it was just about done.  We set the table, called the guys in, and poured some more drinks.

     The wedge was more flavorful than I thought it would be, and Pam declared that it didn't need any more pizza sauce, it was good the way it was.  The sausage pizza was meaty and cheesy.  The Hungarian Wax peppers I sneaked into it were certainly doing their job.   There were pockets of heat in the pizza.  I thought it was delicious.  I am not sure if Jeb and Brianna like either of the two recipes or not.  They each politely ate one piece of each option and didn't have any more.

     The drinks were fabulous.  They were creamy, sweet, and tangy.  My only thought was that it could be better with tequila.  I didn't have any at the time, so I couldn't prove my theory, but I think most things would be better with tequila, so it may be a biased opinion.

     The company was even better.  It was nice to see Jeb and Brianna again. 

     Brianna had brought some brownies.  they were dark and chewy and fantastic.  She also had vodka-soaked cherries and whipped cream to top them.  They were desserts of beauty.  A perfect ending to a wonderful evening.