Phyllo & Spinach Wedges; Pierogis; Borodino

     I thought it was interesting that I should come to another recipe using phyllo dough the very next week.  It was nice that last week's recipe hadn't used all of the sheets from the box.  I still had over half of the sheets left over.  I wondered how close it was going to be to the spanikopita we had last week.

     My next stroke of luck was that I had one more brioche crust left in the freezer that I could use for the pierogis.  I read the recipe (past the ingredient list, which is the only thing I had read prior to Wednesday) and realized that the recipe is really set up for two different types of pierogis.  Since I didn't know whether I was going to have any guests tomorrow or not, I decided to make only one type - the mushroom ones.  I figured that the items I had purchased for the cheese filling would probably keep for a while, but the mushrooms were highly perishable.

     I decided the first order of business was to saute the green onions, garlic, and parsley for the phyllo wedges.  Then, add the spinach and cook it down.  I opted for less spinach than the recipe called for.  This was mainly because I had chosen my pan poorly.  I had two bags of spinach in the fridge, and realized that didn't come to three pounds, so I was going to call Jeff and have him pick some up on his way home, since they were buy one, get one free at Cub.  I picked up my phone, and he walked through the door with a bag of groceries.  I said, "shoot! I was going to have you get some spinach!"  He laughed and said he was way ahead of me and pulled out two more bags of the green weed.  As it was, though, I crammed the first two bags into my pan and could barely get the lid on.  That was when I decided 20 ounces was close enough.  You would think that I would have realized that, since I did almost the same exact thing last Wednesday.

     While the spinach was wilting, I mixed together the cheeses and eggs and set them aside to wait for the spinach.

     With the spinach cooked down, cooling and draining in a colander, I started working on the mushrooms for my pierogis.  In my first batch of mushrooms, I found a Siamese twin!

 

     It is probably a pretty common thing, but I hadn't ever remembered seeing it before, so I thought it was cool.  I almost hated to chop it up, but I did anyway.  I put the mushrooms, the onions and the hard boiled eggs all through my nifty chopper and got perfect cubes of each item.

     That warm, earthy smell of hot onions and mushrooms filled my kitchen and made my stomach growl.

I just love the aroma of sauteing mushrooms.  It is a warm and homey smell.  It reminds me of steak and woods and coziness all at once.

     After everything had completely cooled, I mixed the spinach in with the cheeses, and I mixed the mushroom onion combo with the sour cream, eggs, and bread crumbs.  All of it went into the fridge overnight.

     I came home on Thursday a little late.  I dove right into the preparations.  I went through the same tedious process I went through last Thursday - only I was using olive oil instead of melted butter. I knew it was worth it, so I kept going. Brush the pan with olive oil, lay down a sheet of phyllo, brush it with oil, lay another sheet down, brush it with oil, and continue in this manner until there are twelve sheets in the bottom of the pan.

     Then I piled the cheesy spinach mixture onto the phyllo.

     Then it started over with the layers of phyllo again until there were twelve layers of oiled phyllo over the cheese.

     It looked like I was tucking the cheese into bed.  I folded all of the excess phyllo back into the pan and down the sides of it, until the filling was all snug inside.
     I rolled the brioche dough out as thin as I could.  The recipe indicated that it should make 24 little dumplings, but I think my dough was half the amount that I was supposed to be using, and I only had one type of filling.  I found Jeff's biscuit cutters, thinking I could use one of those to cut out the circles of dough.  They were supposed to be four inches, but his largest biscuit cutter was 3 inches.  I decided to make it work anyway. I cut out a circle, and then I stretched it to four inches or close to that.  I think that they ended up being even larger than that, because when I looked at how much filling I had, I tried to shove as much into the disks as I could, stretching the dough even further to get it around the mound of mushrooms.

     I ended up with 19 dumplings.  They weren't uniform, and they weren't pretty.  I like to think of them as "rustic".

     At this point, I started wondering where my sisters were.  I texted each of them.  Jennifer was the first to respond: "I am in Birmingham".  She went on to remind me that she told me that last Thursday, but I had forgotten.  Shortly afterward, Pam texted, "I am in Birmingham."  That's right!  They were doing family things without me!  Not really - Pam was there for a flight training program she is a member of, and Jennifer was there for her job.  I looked at my pan of phyllo dough and my tray of pierogis and wondered if Jeff was going to be able to make it home in time to eat...  That is a lot of food just for me!  I debated about freezing them while they were uncooked.  I could bag them up and throw them in the freezer as they were and cook  them up for our Christmas Eve appetizer day.

     I made myself a Borodino while I contemplated.



Borodino

1 Measure Vodka

1 Measure Gin

1 Measure Cointreau (I used Grand Marnier)

Shake all the ingredients well with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.  Add a small piece of orange rind.

     The result of the deep contemplation?  I went through all of this effort, I wanted to eat these things tonight!  I could always freeze the leftover pierogis and bring them to Mom and Dad's for Christmas Eve.
     The cheesy phyllo pie took longer than the 35-40 minutes listed in the recipe.  I was guessing that it was because the filling was cold, straight out of the fridge, to begin with.  Once it was done, though, it was a beautiful, glossy, warm golden brown color.

     The pierogis were even more lovely.  Quite a few of them had split open at the seams, but they looked crispy and brown and sizzling hot.

     Jeff came home, just as I was pulling these out of the oven, and he was "starving"! 

     The phyllo wedges were heavier, cheesier, but less crispy than last week's spanikopita, but I felt it had a deeper flavor.  It was more of an entree than the spanikopita of last week.  It wasn't as salty, but it was delicious, all the same.  How can you go wrong with layers of oily crunchiness?

     I really enjoyed the pierogis, too.  I think Jeff liked them, too.  He had 6 of them, I think.  The crust was crispy on the outside and soft and chewy inside.  The filling was just as it smelled, warm and moist and homey.  They were good as they were, but I envision taking them up a notch with some sort of dipping sauce.  Jeff's preference would be a bowl of gravy, and that wouldn't be bad, but I am thinking of something with ginger and beef juis.  Maybe I will come up with something for the leftovers I will serve at Christmas Eve.  I look forward to trying the cheese version as well.

Porcini and Chicken Calzone; Spanikopita; Vodka and Kumquat Lemonade

     I jinxed myself.  A couple of weeks ago, Debi had said that she was congested, and I offered her a decongestant that I had in my drawer.  She looked at in, then remarked on the fact that it didn't come from the "free" medicine cabinet at work, that it was actually "real" medicine.  She suggested that I save it for myself for the next time I get sick.  I informed her that I do NOT get sick.  She shrugged and took the medicine.

     Last Friday, after they had laid Debi off, the CFO had called a meeting.  He called in customer service and their supervisor and me.  They wanted to talk about how things were going to go, now that I had no back up. 

     This came after I had brought up the fact that I was originally told (years ago) that the credit department could never be unmanned.  Now that it was just me, how was I supposed to take lunch?  Now, I have probably taken 30 lunches in the past four years, just because getting the work done was more important to me than taking a break.  I would rather eat while working than stay much later than five, or come in the next day, feeling behind before I got started.  Apparently no one was aware of that (or cared), but even if they were, the subject had never been addressed, and it offended me.  My first instinct was to just leave after the deposit was done, and take my hour lunch, and see what happens, but guilt and sense of duty did not allow me to do that.  Instead I sent an e-mail to the new CFO.  First it was just simply: "Lunch????".  I hit the send button, then stewed on it for a while.  That really wasn't professional, nor did he deserve the brunt of my anger, since he had no idea what went on prior to his arrival on the scene a couple of month ago.  I hit the retract button and waited.  The e-mail program informed me that it was able to delete the message successfully before it was read (thank goodness!).  I replaced it with a very calm, professional: "How are lunches going to work now? Are we going to have to coordinate three hour lunches between me and the two customer service girls, or do we lift the rule that credit cannot be unmanned for an hour, or do I just simply not get one?"

     So, the CFO called a meeting.  The customer service girls and their boss were there and the CFO and me.  The CFO told me that I could take a half hour lunch, for the time being, and Laura (from customer service) would man the desk "just for the time being" until we could figure out a better solution. 

     Anyway, this led to the topic of what is going to happen if I get sick.  They spoke in vague generalities about having Laura train to sub in for me, if it were to happen.  I didn't say it out loud (because I still wanted to reserve the right to call in sick), but I thought to myself "I never get sick".  It would be nice to have a contingency plan anyway.

     Well, apparently I was wrong.

     When I came home from work on Tuesday, I started in on the bills.  Tuesday is bill-day.  I work on bills for the store, and I work on bills for us personally.  I started with the mail.  I open each item and sort it: recycle pile, shred pile, bring up to the office for entering, filing, paying, etc.

     I had progressed to actually entering items into the computer (Quickbooks) when Jeff got home.  I had poured myself some Crystal Light tea to get through the bill-organizing-and-hoping-to-pay process, but my throat started getting a little scratchy.  I was probably a little dehydrated, and the house was probably a little dry.  I am sure that we hadn't changed the setting on the humidifier since it started getting cold.  I was sure that was it.  Jeff suggested that a martini might make it feel better.  I concurred, but I was wrong again.

     By Wednesday morning, it felt like a semi truck had parked on my chest.  I didn't have a stuffy nose or anything like that, but my throat was really sore, and there was a heaviness in my chest.  Still, I put on my work-out clothes, and headed downstairs for my morning workout.  I tried.  I really did, but half of my workout time was spent lying on the floor, wishing it would swallow me up.  The bastard never did.
     As mentioned previously, it wasn't an option for me to call in sick yet.  I went to work.  I performed the required duties, and I came home straight home afterwords.  I was feeling better, but my voice was fading.

     I was determined to take care of my pizza preparations, because I was sure that I would be well by then. Also, I didn't think that there were a whole lot of steps I could do the night before.  So, I just convinced myself to do one thing at a time.  I started thinking about the chicken and porcini calzone first.  Did I really need cook up some chicken for this?  I mean, it was just Thanksgiving, and I had plenty of pre-cooked turkey in the freezer.  It took about 30 seconds to decide on that substitution, and I pulled a package of turkey out of the freezer to thaw.
     I needed to think about the crust for the calzone.  It called for 1/2 recipe of Classic Crust.  I had 1/4 recipe in the freezer.  Should I make a new batch?  I looked in the freezer again, hoping that another 1/4 would appear.  I found a brioche crust dough in there.  What the heck?  Let's try that, too.  I pulled that out along with the classic dough and put them in the refrigerator to thaw.

     Next was the mushrooms.  I was unable to find "fresh" porcini mushrooms at Cub when I shopped for them, so I had settled for the dried ones.  This turned out to be a good thing, since I had postponed this pizza two weeks.  I never did find fresh ones on my return visits to Cub, so now I needed to rehydrate.
     According to Wikipedia, porcinis are rarely sold fresh, because they haven't been successfully grown in cultivation.  So apparently, it grows wild in a few places in the world, and then they are dried and shipped all around the world.  That must be why they are so expensive.

     I boiled about two cups of water in the microwave, poured it over the 'shrooms that I had placed in a soup bowl, and put a small plate over the top of it to hold the floating mushrooms down into the water.  I left those on the counter to rehydrate until we were ready to assemble the calzones on Thursday.
     With that done, I was still feeling relatively "OK", so I looked over the recipes to see what else could be done in advance.  They both called for chopped green onions.  Perfect.  I decided to chop those up all at once for both recipes, and see how I felt afterwards. 
     I have several flexible mats that I use in lieu of the traditional cutting boards.  I like them, because you can curl them up to form a makeshift funnel and pour the chopped items into a pan or container and then easily slip them into the dishwasher when you're done.  Some of the mats I have are stiffer than others.  I had chosen a particularly stiff mat for the job of scallion-chopping.

     Once I had chopped a large pile of onions, I saved out some for the calzones.  I looked over the spanikopita recipe to see what was going to happen to the scallions.  I still had some energy left in me, so I figured I could saute the onions and spinach and get that ready for the next night, also.  I grabbed the mat and started walking it over to my saute pan to cook them for the spinach concoction. I had curled the mat downward in the middle a little, so as to cradle the onions on my way across the kitchen.  Halfway across the room, the mat objected and suddenly bowed the other direction, sending a shower of green onions  (and the ulu I was carrying with them) across my kitchen.  Some of them made it into the pan...

     I didn't lose as many as I could have, so after I swept up and threw away the ones on the floor and flicked the ones from the stove into my pan along with the remaining onions from the mat, I started on the spinach.  The recipe called for one pound of spinach.  I had an open 10oz bag that I estimated to be half gone, and I had an unopened 10oz bag.  I decided that was close enough.  I stemmed it all and chopped it up.  I was surprised at the volume of that amount of spinach.

     I was more careful this time traveling across my kitchen with the mat in hand, but it didn't cooperate in the end, when I tried to "funnel" the spinach into my saute pan.  It didn't curl up enough to prevent the spinach from spilling out over the edge of the pan....

     Or maybe my pan was just too small.  Either way, it was an equipment failure rather than operator error.
I piled the spinach into the pan, turned it on, and waited for it to shrink up.

     Once it had, I took it off the burner to cool.  While the spinach was cooling, I stirred together the cheese, eggs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.  My last task of the day was stirring the spinach into the cheese mixture with the parsley and dill, putting it in the fridge, and cleaning the dishes.

     Jeff came home while I was looking over the recipes again to make sure that I had everything.  I stopped him before he came all the way inside and sent him out to the garage freezer for a package of mozzarella for the calzones. 

     While he was doing that, I started thinking about the drink of the week.  We were going to have Vodka and Kumquat Lemonade last Thursday, since I had kumquats, but I hadn't realized that you needed to soak them in vodka for a few hours first, so we had made something else.  I wanted to go ahead and make that Thursday, so I decided to start working on soaking the kumquats.  I sliced them up, put them in a canning jar with a lid, covered them with vodka, and added some peppercorns that I had barely cracked in my mortar and pestle.

     On Thursday, when I woke up, I hadn't been cured.  My throat was till raw and my chest was still heavy.  By the time work was over, after spending all day on the phone with customers and reps, I could barely talk.
     I started Jen out with the dough for the calzones.  I explained (in my squeaky whisper-voice) how the recipe had called for half a recipe of dough, and I had a quarter, so I thawed the brioche dough, too.  She asked how many circles she needed to roll the dough into.  I told her that the recipe said it made three 8 inch calzones, but that would be too hard to split between seven people (or five, if the kids weren't going to have any, which was likely), so I wanted her to make four circles and get them as close to 8 inches as she could.

     While she was doing that, I started the layering of the spanikopita.  That really is a tedious process.  I melted the butter in the microwave and started by brushing an 8x8 Pyrex baking pan with it.  Then, I placed one layer of phyllo one direction, with the last inch or so of the dough hanging over each edge of the pan.  I brushed that with butter.  Then, I put another sheet of phyllo over it crosswise, hanging the extra over the other two sides of the pan.  I repeated this process until I had six layers (or somewhere close to that - I often lost count).

    Jennifer had finished her four circles of dough, so I set her on to make the drink:

VODKA & KUMQUAT LEMONADE

from The Ultimate Book of Cocktails by Stuart Walton

3oz. Kumquats

4oz. Vodka

3 Black Peppercorns

1T White Curacao (we used Grand Marnier)

1T Lemon Juice

1/4 Pint Sparkling Mineral or Soda Water

Thickly slice the kumquats and add to the vodka in an airtight jar with the cracked black peppercorns.  Set aside for at least a couple of hours or overnight, if possible.  Fill a pitcher with cracked ice and then add the curacao, the lemon juice, and the kumquat-flavoured vodka with the sliced kumquats (but not the peppercorns).  Using a long swizzle-stick, stir together well.  Add the mineral or soda water and a few fresh mint leaves and gently stir everything together.  Pour the drink into chilled glass of ice.  Add slices of kumquats to the glasses and garnish with extra mint sprigs.

     I told her that I had tripled the kumquat, vodka, and peppercorn combo, so if she just wanted to make a pitcher of the stuff, she should triple everything.  She painstakingly picked all of the peppercorns out of the mixture I had made the night before.  She poured it into a pitcher and followed the rest of the directions.  When she got to the part, where she should add fresh mint leaves, she asked me where those were.  I had to think about it.  When I had originally planned this drink, it hadn't really been cold yet, and I had a whole deck full of mint that had taken over during the summer.  I didn't buy mint, because I was planning on using some of that.  I looked out the window at the snow that blanketed the back yard.  With a sigh, I grabbed a pair of scissors and headed outside.  The mint definitely didn't look good.  It was dried, dark, and shriveled.  I cut a hunk of it off anyway and brought it inside.

     Jennifer and I examined it sceptically, and then we sniffed it.  It smelled great.  She reasoned that many people freeze their herbs at the end of the season, and this really wasn't any different.  It was obviously going to taste like mint.  It just wasn't that pretty.  She crumbled it up and threw it in the pitcher.

     She decided on the big globe wine glasses for this drink.  She filled them with ice, poured some of the drink over it, and fished out some kumquats to add to the glass.  She (smartly) skipped the mint garnish.  It was beautiful.  It tasted tart without being overwhelmingly so with a hint of sweetness and a slight effervescence.  It was a breeze of summer on a cold winter's day.  The peppercorns gave it an almost imperceptible heat on the finish.  It was lovely!

     Once I had my drink in hand, and the spanikopita was assembled - after the 6ish layers of phyllo came the cheese and spinach mixture, then 6ish more layers on top - I looked at her handiwork on the crusts for the calzones.  She had made four, as I had instructed, but the brioche dough hadn't been touched.  I showed it to her, and we laughed.  She could only hear half of my instructions and didn't want to ask me to repeat it, since talking was such an effort, and couldn't figure out what I was going to make with the brioche.  Well, since it was already thawed, and I think we had a rather large amount of ingredients for four little calzones, I decided we should roll those out as well and make eight calzones instead of four.

     First, though, I wanted to put the spanikopita in the oven, because the recipe indicated that it was going to take 50 minutes.  We had already had the oven on, because we cooked the requisite chicken Alfredo pizza for the kids.  Since that had already been taken out (and mostly eaten), I reduced the oven temp and looked at the spanikopita.  The instructions said to cut off the extra phyllo dough that was overhanging the sides, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.  The more crispy phyllo layers, the better, right?  So, I folded the overhangs back inside the pan, making a sort of pile around the edges.

     Jennifer started shredding the turkey while I rolled out the brioche dough.  She had a captive audience in Pele and couldn't help but give in to his cuteness and toss him some turkey every now and then.  It is hard to ignore him when he can stand on his hind legs and reach the counter with his paws.  I'm not sure how much turkey she gave him, but after it was all shredded and the onions and mushrooms had been added to the mix, Pele had to take a time out and rest his belly.

     After Jennifer spread the garlic olive oil over each of the crusts, I came along after her and plopped some ricotta on each one.  She followed behind with the turkey, we folded up the calzones and placed them on a cookie sheet.

     We had increased the temperature of the oven to 350º and slid the tray of calzones in with the spanikopita.

     Pam arrived just about then and asked if we saved her anything.  We let her know that we hadn't even gotten anything out of the oven yet (we omitted the part about the chicken Alfredo pizza that kids (mostly) ate).    We poured her a drink and got caught up on her day of flying with a student.

     When the time was up on the spanikopita, it was gorgeous!  The phyllo had turned a warm golden color, and it was almost as if each layer was standing at attention, ready to be eaten.

     The calzones didn't even come close to the warm golden color of the calzone.  They were a little white and pasty looking, actually, but the ingredients were leaking out of the edges of the seals, so I figured they were done and pulled them out.  We let them rest a little before we ate them.  We didn't want any scalded tongues at our table.

 
     Meanwhile, I cut the spanikopita.  It was too much of a challenge (especially after some vodka kumquat lemonade) to cut the end product into enough pieces to be divisible by 5 (to give each adult the same amount of pieces).  There was also the added challenge of the corner pieces.  I knew that all three of us girls were hoping to get a corner piece - all the more crispy goodness.  Was it fair to make the boys have the inside pieces, or would they even care?  Jeff doesn't particularly care for crunchy things, so I knew he wouldn't care.  I asked, just in case, and he chose the middle edge piece.  Problem solved. It was rich and buttery with the salty tang of the cheeses.  It was warm and homey and delicious.
     The calzones were also delicious.  They had great flavor.  The creamy ricotta nicely enveloped the turkey, and the mushrooms gave it a lovely earthy flavor.  The crusts, despite their sickly appearance were crispy in the right spots and warm and bready on the inside.  Of course, I only tried one type of crust, and I wasn't sure whether it was the classic crust or the brioche (pretty sure it was the classic, though), but I didn't hear any complaints about the other variety, so either it was good, or my family was too polite to say anything negative.  Someone did pipe up and say that they thought that it would be better with some regular cheese, too, to sort of hold everything together and add a gooey-ness.  I started to agree and then jumped up!  There was supposed to be cheese in there, and we had forgotten it!  It was still tasty, but it hadn't reached its full potential.  Once again, I had served the diet version of the recipe.

 

Scallop and Kumquat Pizza

     Wednesday, all hell broke loose at my job.  Apparently, it had been decided that, since the economy is bad, and the company isn't making the money that they used to, that some of the worker bees were no longer needed. 
     They let 4 people go.  Roger Brown, our routing manager and night supervisor, who had been with the company for 35 years; Ryan Streeter, a kid who printed the orders and routed them to the correct department for fulfillment and distribution; Bernie Green, our benefits coordinator and commissions administrator (and backup for my department); and Debi Gross, assistant credit manager. 
      My department of two (me and my best friend since 9th grade) became a department of one (me).  Now, I have previously mentioned Debi in this blog as "my co-worker", simply for ease of reference.  In this manner, I didn't have to explain who she was, since it wasn't relevant to the point I was trying to get across.  Yes, she was my co-worker, but she was my friend long before then.  We met when we were 15 years old.  This came as quite a shock to both of us.  We were always busy at work, so much so, that I frequently didn't take lunch breaks, and neither of took any breaks on Fridays (the company wasn't open past 2:30pm on Fridays - we had the same amount of checks to process as any other day, but we had only 6 and half hours to do it instead of the 9 we had on other days).  When Debi or I were gone or totally overwhelmed, Bernie stepped in to help.  Now, they were both gone.  I hadn't been consulted or informed, they just were gone.  The CFO and the wine secretary let them all know one by one, and apparently, Debi was the last to go around 4pm.  They let her go, then they called a meeting of everyone that was left.  She went back to her desk to pack up her four years of accumulated stuff by herself.
     I was a wreck.  Not only was I worried for my dear friend, who has two little boys at home and a husband who frequently gets laid off in the winter, but what was I supposed to do?  I was already overworked and severely underpaid, and now the work has doubled, and I had no one to help me.  If I didn't owe so many people money, I would have walked out right then!  I had worked there 9 years, and have not gotten a raise in the last four, even though I had been working my ass off to try and improve the department and its procedures. 
     I finished out the last hour of work, and headed straight for Debi's house.  She was doing well, or at least that is the appearance she gave me, and the evening turned out to be her comforting me instead of the other way around.  She had already been circulating resumes, and her husband's company was doing so well, that he would be given a choice of whether he wants to be laid off.  She was really pissed, though, that they didn't allow her say goodbye to any of the people that she had worked with for the last four years (we were all in the meeting immediately afterward, remember?).  And, she was upset that it is just before Christmas, too.  I think it really hadn't hit her yet.  I stayed for a couple of hours and went home.
     I had texted Pam earlier (much earlier) in the day, asking if she was coming Thursday, but I had gotten no response.  Jennifer said she wasn't going to make it, because she and Roger were both out of town for work, and someone else was going to be watching the kids.  Jeff was going to be working late, because it is the Christmas season, and the store (we really hoped) would be busy.  On my way home from Debi's, I listened to a voicemail I had found on my phone, and it was from Pam, saying she would like to come for pizza, if that was okay.  I had already resigned myself to doing no pizza preps, since I had already spent most of the designated time for it at Debi's, and because of my emotional state.  However, Pam doesn't have a deadline, like the Liggetts do.  Also, I had reduced the menu to one pizza in light of the situation, so it wouldn't take as long to assemble one pizza on Thursday as it would for two.  Sure, she could come. 
     I took the crust out of the freezer and crawled onto the couch, wrapping myself up in a blanket, to let my brain rot in front of the television for the next few hours.

     During work on Thursday, I received a text from Jennifer, saying that she might be able to get an earlier flight back and could still make it to pizza, if she could still come.  I was still quite emotional and really wanted to be around my sisters to make myself feel better.  We would talk about it or we wouldn't, but they would be there, and we would have fun, and I would remember that there is more to life than a stupid job.  I replied, "Yes, please come."

     Jennifer brought over the usual Bellatoria Chicken Alfredo pizza that we all love so much and some pumpkin pie left over from Thanksgiving.  We debated about attempting the spanakopita or the chicken and porcini pizza that were originally scheduled for this week (I had changed to the Scallop and Kumquat pizza when Jeff brought home kumquats just before Thanksgiving), but we decided it would be too much work at this point, and we wouldn't starve to death if we didn't make it.
     Our first order of business was the drink of the week.  At the beginning of the week, I had chosen a kumquat lemonade recipe, since we had the elusive kumquats now.  I opened the recipe book to that page, thinking we could still make it, but then I read the first step, which was to soak the kumquats in a vodka black pepper mixture for at least two hours, preferably overnight.  Time to improvise!  I threw three or four kumquats into a shaker and used my muddler to squish them all up and get all the juice out of them.  I buried them in ice and poured in vodka.  I shook and poured.  Simple and delicious!

     Meanwhile, we put the frozen pizza in the oven for the kids.  It was ready in no time, and we pulled it out, so they could start in on it.

     When we started in on the scallop and kumquat pizza, I realized that there was supposed to be a cilantro pesto.  I hadn't looked at that recipe in a while and wasn't sure I had all of the ingredients.  I opened my fridge and looked in.  Magically, come cilantro appeared and it wasn't rotten!  I found pecans, too.  I guess the pecans weren't really a magical appearance, since I did buy them the week was originally scheduled (cilantro, too), but to still have them, and they weren't rancid was a wonderful surprise, since it had probably been over a month.

     I pulled out my little Oscar (a gift many years ago from Pam) and started loading it up with ingredients.  I eye-balled everything, since I was in a hurry, and I was only making a quarter of the pesto recipe (the Kumquat pizza recipe called for 1 cup, but it makes two pizzas, and I was only making one).  I also skipped the parsley.  I have never really thought that parsley adds much to a dish besides green, and I was already putting in cilantro.  I was hoping that all of the ingredients would fit in my mini-processor.

     Jennifer had rolled out the crust, and we had baked it at 450º for about 5 minutes on the preheated pizza stone to simulate the grilling.  We flipped the crust over, and spread the over the crisper side, and it was time for the scallops.  I had purchased bay scallops.  I just couldn't see buying beautiful giant (expensive) sea scallops and then cutting them up and putting them on the pizza.  Also, the bay scallops were on sale at Cub when I bought them.  They had little 4 ounce packages for $1 each.  Clearly, they were the right choice.  I only used 3 packages, so there were only 12 ounces instead of 16, but they pretty much covered the pizza, so I was happy with the amount.  They were supposed to be pan-seared, then cut up (if you were using sea scallops) and placed on the pizza.  I skipped the pan-searing step. I would like to say that it is because they were bay scallops and wouldn't have survived the dual cooking process, because that would be true, but I just simply did not read the directions.  They went onto the pizza raw.

     The kumquats were next.  They needed to be sliced and placed on the pizza.  Jonah was watching me and asked what they were.  I told him and gave him one to try.  He thought it was great, and why wouldn't he?  They tasted like orange sweet-tarts, only juicy.  I was surprised at how large the seeds were for such a small fruit.                             

     Pam minced up the green onions, and Jennifer grated the Manchego cheese while I sliced the kumquats.  We threw the rest of the ingredients over the pizza, finishing with the cumin and the black pepper and put the rustic-looking thing into the oven.  Of course, we did have to make fun of Jennifer's rolling capabilities before we closed the oven door.

     After about 5 minutes in the oven, the crust looked done, and the cheese was melted.  I put the oven on broil for a couple of minutes to get the cheese browned and to make sure that the scallops were cooked through.  I may have over-done it a little.  The crust was a little too brown for my taste, but the rest of the pizza looked good.

     The pizza was fabulous!  Pam declared it her all time favorite so far.  It was really good.  The tartness of the kumquats were matched by the garlicky pesto.  The lime complimented the scallops perfectly.  The scallops, by the way, were cooked to perfection.  They were soft and buttery without even the slightest hint of chewiness.  The cheeses held everything together and added an earthy saltiness to everything.  The cumin added a Mexican flair to the whole thing.

     Jeff came home in the middle of our feast.  We had saved him some of the Chicken Alfredo pizza, and two pieces of the scallop pizza.  He dutifully tried the scallop pizza, then proceeded to gobble up the rest of the chicken pizza, declaring himself done after it was gone.  This left one of the scallop pieces unclaimed.  Pam was shocked that he would choose to finish the frozen pizza instead of the second piece of scallop pizza, so of course we grilled him.  Didn't you like it?  What did you eat at work instead of waiting for dinner?  Why would you eat frozen pizza instead of the masterpiece before you?  The answer: he didn't like it.  It is heartbreaking, but sometimes it happens.  The upside is that Jennifer and I got to split another piece.

     Soon afterward, the clock had struck "bedtime" for the kids, and Jennifer had to pack up and go.  She took Pammy with her, since she would be spending the night at the Liggetts.  I felt better than I had when I had gotten home.  I have my sisters, and I am the luckiest person alive.