Onion & Anchovy Pizza; Apple and Cheddar Cheese Pizza; Cherry Sling

     I had originally thought I was going to cancel pizza night.  My parents and Pam and I were planning a weekend trip to Washington State to visit relatives, and I thought we were leaving Thursday night.  I skipped my Sunday/Monday grocery trip.
     On Tuesday morning, I was informed that we were actually leaving Friday morning - early.  Our flight was at 7:25am on Friday, so we would have to leave my house around 6am.  No human should be required to get up earlier than 6am any day of the week, and I was thinking I wouldn't be able to fully enjoy the evening before if were to have to get up at 5:30am or earlier.  However, I convinced myself otherwise, because I can always sleep on the plane (and always DO), and I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I didn't have my peeps over for pizza and drinks.  So I made a quick trip to the grocery store on the way home from work on Tuesday.

     I decided to start on Wednesday with the Brioche dough.  I mixed the water, sugar, and yeast in my little measuring cup.  I never used to "proof" the yeast before I used it.  I was too impatient and I usually just popped the dough into the freezer instead of baking it right away, so I thought I might use up all of the bubbling before the crust was baked if it started out bubbling.  I started doing it recently, because I had other things I could do while it bubbled away on the counter, and I am frequently putting the crust in the fridge for a slow rise instead of the freezer.  I just love the smell the yeast puts off when it's combined with water and sugar.  It is like fresh-baked bread - it is a warm, homey smell that instantly makes me hungry.  It is fascinating to watch, too.  It just keeps swirling around in the cup and starts foaming up, so it looks like a mini-cup of cappuccino.

   I threw the flour, salt, and eggs into the bowl of my Kitchen Aide.  Once the milk and butter had cooled, I threw that in there as well.  I mixed for a bit, but the dough was still very wet.  I probably ended up adding another full cup of flour (if not more) to keep it from sticking to the bowl, my fingers, and anything else with which it came into contact.  It seemed like a lot of dough, but I bagged it and threw it into the fridge for tomorrow.  That was about as far as I could go in preparing for the Apple Cheddar pizza, because the apples would brown if I would cut them in advance, and everything else would be fairly easy and quick to pull together.
     I looked over the recipe for the Grilled Onion and Anchovy pizza.  I realized that I did not purchase any anchovies, nor did I purchase any nicoise olives.  It may have been a message from my subconscious.  I have never been a fan of anchovies.  I have included them in previous recipes and even enjoyed them in the final concoction, but I don't like touching them, and I certainly don't like the thought of them (hairy fish) while I am eating.  I don't completely LOVE olives, either.  As a general rule, I do keep a supply of various olives on hand, but nicoise are not part of the repertoire. 

     I ran through the reasons one would add anchovies to a pizza.  It gives it a salty, oily flavor.  OK, what did I have that was salty and oily?  Blue cheese!  It was salty and oily, but would add a lovely level of creaminess to the pizza.  And, I could use a different type of olives.  I had regular black olives.  I find blue cheese and black olives to be a very delicious combination, so that was it.

     I decided to caramelize the onions.  Apparently, there is a thin line between "caramelizing" and "burning".  I may have traversed across that line with a toe or a couple of feet or maybe I tripped and fell over it.  Anyway, my onions were a little Cajun-style.  They were "blackened".   I thought I could throw them onto the stove at a low temperature and go find my husband to ask him about his day and chit chat with him for a while before checking on them again.  Either I was incorrect, or he was more verbose than usual.  I blame him.  I tasted the onions, though, and they tasted good - they just looked bad.  I decided to use them.  Any bitterness that was caused by the blackening would be neutralized by the blue cheese.

     After I made the garlic oil, I decided I had done enough damage, and I went to bed.

     When Jennifer arrived, I put her to work rolling out the Apple Cheddar pizza dough.  I set Pam up with the apples and asked her to cut them into "D" shapes.  I was a little worried about it, because last time I allowed her to slice, she was unable to produce thin, uniform slices.  Oh well, apples will look rustic in the pie if they aren't similarly shaped.  She actually did very well, however.  Jennifer's rolling skills were called into question, however.  She made, what I like to call, a rustic crust.  She did decide (and I agree with her decision) that the amount of dough was a greater amount than we needed.  She cut the dough in half and put one half into the freezer.  Meanwhile, I melted the butter and the apricot preserves.

     After reading through the ingredient list for the apple cheddar pizza, I decided that instead of making a rim to the crust and baking it on a flat pizza stone, I would put the crust into a deep dish pan, ensuring that there would be no spill-over.
     Jennifer combined the applesauce, the sugar, and the cornstarch and spread it over the crust.

         Pam's "D" slices and Jennifer's artistic arrangement made for a beautiful pie.  We brushed on the apricot/butter combo over the apples as instructed.  We arranged the "julienned" cheddar over the top of that.  I don't think that we arranged them to look like a star burst, but it was pretty.

     It was even more beautiful after it was cooked.

     Jennifer brought a "commercial" meat-lover's pizza for the kids and Roger, and that was also gorgeous and delicious!

     I pre-poked the crust for the grilled pizza, and it seemed to help.  We didn't get that usual tumor bubble in an awkward place in the crust.  It stayed as one cohesive piece of bread.  I flipped the crust to the cool side of the grill and topped it with the garlic oil, the "blackened" onions, the anchovies (er, I mean the blue cheese), and the olives.  I closed the lid of the grill and let it swelter in the indirect heat.

     We nibbled on the meat-lover's pizza while we grilled the onion and anchovy pizza.  Just after we sliced the grilled pizza, the back-yard gate opened, and Becky and Eric, our long lost neighbors walked in.  Becky and Eric grew up next door to us and are more like a sister and a brother than a "neighbor".  They both happened to be visiting from Colorado and decided to pop in.

     We Freese Sisters had already had a couple of Cherry Slings, but I ran inside to make them some.

     The fresh sour has now become a staple in our home.  Jeff scoffed at me when I told him I was going to make my own.  He said you can buy a whole liter of it for $1.33 at Cub, why would you waste your time squeezing all of those lemons and limes?  Once he tasted it, though, he was hooked and actually asks me to refill the pitcher once it's empty.

     I did not want to purchase cherry heering or Benedictine for the drink, since I already had kirsch and cognac.  I actually didn't have enough of the kirsch to cover this drink, but I did have Evan Williams Cherry, which I added to make up the difference.  Pam asked what it was, when I pulled it off of the liquor shelf, so I gave her a mini-shot to try.  She really enjoyed it.  It is sweet and cherry, but there is just a hint of the whiskey underneath that gives it its name.  I didn't have pretty cherries, like the ones in the picture, but I did have cinnamon cherries that I tried to hang on the sides of the glass. Since none of them were attached to another by the stem, though, they simply fell to the bottom of the glass.  This wasn't necessarily a bad thing.  Sure, you didn't have the pretty dressing while you were drinking the concoction, but once you are done, it was like a little present at the bottom of the glass.

     When I did the encore for Becky and Eric, I only had enough ingredients to make a mini drink for each of them.  They both tried it, and Becky said that it was pretty strong, and she probably couldn't drink a whole one anyway.  Eric, of course, liked it and slurped it up in a moment.  New drinks were required!

     I tried to replicate the drink without the crushed ice.  I threw some ice in a shaker and added the Evan Williams Cherry, the cognac, the pineapple juice, the black cherry jam, the gin, and sour.  I shook it and poured it into martini glasses.  I thought it was even better than the original - no diluting of the precious liquor.  Becky choked on it a little bit and made some comment about me giving her a stronger drink after she told me the first one was pretty strong.  I thought I was just toughening her up.

     After catching up, and after we had eaten as much of the main dishes as we were going to (we filled our main dish pocket, but not our dessert pocket), we were ready to move on to the apple cheddar pizza.  However, we had been outside for the entire meal, and at this point, the mosquitoes were jealous of our feeding frenzy and decided to start one of their own.  We moved the party inside, and with that the discussion blossomed into a massive political discussion.  I should mention that our sister from a different mister and our brother from another mother (and father, for that matter) are liberals, and the rest of us are not.  I, diplomatically, stayed quiet.  I am not as strong leaning as Pam and Becky and Eric are (in either direction), but it was fun to listen to the good-natured arguing.   It doesn't matter what your tilt is, it is amusing to watch the animation that goes on between friends in such arguments.  Neither believes that the other is correct, but at the end of the day, they are still friends.

     The apple cheddar pizza was great, though!  There were seconds served to a few, and I even sent the final (single) piece home with Becky - reportedly for her mother, but I suspect that she ate it on the way home.  It was sweet, but the sharp cheddar was a nice foil - it created a rich, creamy counterpoint to the sweet apples, but added a little kick with the sharpness of the cheese.  We all agreed that it was quite delicious, but more cheese might have made it spectacular.