"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.

Grilled Shrimp and Grape Tomato Pizza; Elegant Seafood Pizza; Daisy

     When I started reviewing the steps to creating these two pizzas, I realized that I was in for quite a bit of prep work.  I started, as I frequently do, by looking at the crust requirements.  For the grilled shrimp and tomato pizza, it required the same grilling crust we had used for several previous pizzas.  I scanned the freezer.  Apparently, last week I had reached the end of the stored supply.  I would have to make a new batch. 
     I threw the ingredients for the grilled crust recipe into the Kitchen Aide and checked out the "Elegant Seafood Pizza" recipe.  That required a basic crust.  I checked the freezer again.  There weren't any doughs labeled "Basic Crust".  There were a couple of Brioche doughs and a couple of foccacia doughs, but nothing labeled "basic".  I debated using a "grill crust".  I debated using a Brioche dough.  Then, I thought better of it and threw the ingredients for a basic dough into the Kitchen Aide, and let it do its thing.
     For the Elegant Seafood Pizza, the recipe suggested that to achieve the full effect of the elegance of the pizza, you should boil the shrimp at home.  Where I agree with the author that precooked shrimp isn't worth anything - it is always rubbery (overcooked) - and if you are putting it on a pizza and re-cooking it, it is most definitely going to be chewy.  Usually when a recipe (especially a pizza recipe) calls for precooked shrimp, I do it myself. I saute them in butter and garlic until it is somewhat shy of being cooked.  I figure, if you are going to put it on a pizza and put the pizza in the oven, it can finish cooking then.  There is such a fine line between cooked shrimp and overcooked shrimp. 
     However, NEVER, and I mean NEVER have I boiled shrimp.  I have read about it, and I realize that many people do it, but I have never believed in it.  I find that whenever you are boiling some kind of protein, it leaches all of the flavor out of the meat.  With such a delicate meat as shrimp, I was very skeptical.  BUT, one of the benefits of doing this pizza night the way that I have (anally) arranged it, is that I try new foods, new methods, and expand my horizons.  It didn't sound so bad, either.  There was garlic in the water, bay leaf, and allspice.  It would have to have some kind of flavor with that kind of action going on, right? 
     Now, I realized that the instructions said to turn off the heat under the boiling water, then put the shrimp in, but for 10 minutes?  My shrimp were pretty large and may be able to handle a little more heat than the typical little shrimp, but regardless of that fact, I still thought that 10 minutes was way too long for them to be swimming in the hot tub.  Not to mention, I was going to put them on a pizza that was going to cook for another 10 minutes or more in the oven.  I set my timer for 7 minutes.  
     Meanwhile, I prepared their ice bath.  I filled a large bowl with ice and topped it off with cold water.  I wanted to make sure that when they were done with the boiling water that they would stop cooking.  Unfortunately, I used the microwave timer.  During this time, my husband had come in from perusing the freezer and threw some bacon in the microwave to thaw.  When I heard the beep, I assumed it was the bacon, so when I looked back at the stove a few minutes later, I saw that my timer had ended some time ago.  I had no idea how long ago.  I quickly moved all of the shrimp to the ice water bath.
     The recipe also called for clam broth.  I didn't notice this when I had originally made my shopping list, and I am not sure I would have purchased such a thing if I did see it.  I figured, since I was flavoring the water the shrimp were boiling in, and most definitely, some of the shrimp flavoring was eking out into the water, I thought that would be a better choice for "clam broth".  So, once the shrimp were removed from the water, I poured off a little more than a cup of it into a jar to save for the next day's sauce.
     I had only purchased one pound of shrimp.  If I were going to follow both recipes exactly, I would have needed to purchase a pound and a half of shrimp.  I didn't for two reasons.  I figured that with the scallops, I really wasn't going to need a full half pound of shrimp.  Also for the grilled pizza, an entire pound of shrimp seemed excessive.  So, I only purchased the one pound, but cooked them all in the same manner, so that I would have cooked shrimp for the grilled pizza as well as the "Elegant" pizza.
     My next step was to prepare the lemon cream sauce for the grilled pizza.  I have made this before and have had problem with lumps.  I am not sure if, in the past, I had used regular flour instead of Wondra or maybe I didn't whisk enough while adding the cream to the roux or what, but I had always ended up throwing the stick blender in the pan and whirring it up until it was smooth. 
     I didn't have to do that this time, but it turned out I didn't have to.  It came out really smooth.  When it came time to add the parsley, though, I realized that wasn't one of the items I had prepared for my mise en place.  I had actually purchased the foul weed from the grocery store, and I was going to use it, darn it (I have purchased it several times before and never ended up using it, because it is usually a "post-oven" direction, or I subconsciously "forgot" that it was supposed to be added at some point).  I grabbed a handful of leaves and ripped them off the bunch.  I held the leaves over the pan and snipped the with a scissor, and most of the snips went into the sauce (there were some whole leaves that took the dive by accident, and some snips found themselves outside the pot on the stove or the wall - apparently my scissors have a torque on them and snips find themselves flying through the air, set on impact for the wall behind the stove.
     I started whisking again.  Some of the parsley that hadn't quite gotten chopped wound itself around the tines of my whisk.  I whisked through it and most of them found their way back into the sauce.  I kept whisking until the sauce was thickened.  I added the cheese and took the pan off the stove to cool, so I could put it in the refrigerator for the next day.
     While the sauce was cooling, I sliced the cheeses.  I feel it is very important to try new ingredients before they become part of the finished dish.  In sampling each component of a dish, I hope to be able to pair that flavor with other ingredients for new recipes.  So, I had to try the cheeses.  They were delicious!  The butterkase was smooth and creamy with a sharp tang to it.  The Gruyere was earthy and very sharp with a hint of nuttiness.  I looked behind me, and there on the counter was the freshly opened bottle of wine that I had used in the lemon cream sauce.  It seemed a shame to just put the cork back in it and put it back in the fridge, when I had these lovely cheeses here.  As I suspected, chardonnay was the perfect compliment to the two cheeses.

     I pulled out my prepared ingredients and thought that I could get the scallops and mushrooms sauteed before anyone arrived.  I hadn't gotten very far before Pam showed up.  I tried to concentrate on my task, but I hadn't seen her for a while, and the chitchat was distracting me from my task.

     She offered to work on something to help things move along.  I explained to her my failure at trying to find apricot nectar and handed her the apricots I had purchased instead.  She noted that one of them had a soft spot.  She said she would cut around it.  Then, she reached in the bag and pulled out a second apricot.  "Oh!" she exclaimed.  "What?", I said.  "Is that one bad too?".  She winced.  She took out the rest, and they all had soft spots of some kind.  She thought maybe since we only needed a little bit of the nectar that she could salvage the rest of each of the apricots, but when she cut them open, it looked as if they had rotted from the inside out.  I had purchased them for last week's pizza night, but didn't use them, since it was only me drinking.  I didn't think they would go bad that quickly, but maybe they were bad when I bought them.
     She set to task on finding another drink we could make with the ingredients we had on hand.  Her friend, Mary, had given us a Mr. Boston drink recipe book the week before, so we thought that we would try one of those.  She chose the "Vodka Daisy".  Vodka, lemon juice, grenadine.  Sounded delicious.  And, it was.
     Jennifer and Gracie showed up, and the kitchen became a buzz of Thursday night activity.  Pam was working on the drinks, I was sauteing mushrooms and scallops, Jennifer was preheating the oven for the cheese pizza for Gracie.  Jeff came home and declared he was "starving"!  He bustled into the thick of things and grabbed some bread for a peanut butter sandwich.  He offered a bite to Gracie, but she declined, knowing that there were better things to come.
     That didn't quite sooth the beast of hunger for him, and he grabbed another piece of bread and headed to the pan I had just removed the scallops and sauce from.  This time, Gracie couldn't resist.  Jeff gave her half of his slice of bread, and the two of them hovered over the pan and sopped up the extra sauce that was clinging to the pan.

      The sauce met with their approval.
      Meanwhile, Jennifer offered to roll out the crusts.  I had seen how the seafood sauce was shaping up, and thought we needed a deep dish for that one.  I told her to ignore the instructions to make 6 individual pizzas and roll it out for the deep dish.  I wanted to make sure none of the good stuff leaked out while baking.
     She didn't like the shape she made the Basic Crust into for the Elegant seafood pizza.  When she put it into the deep dish pan, it didn't uniformly fit in the pan.  The dough climbed up over the edge of the pan in some places and didn't go up the edges of the pan in other places, so she cut the excess pieces off and attached them to the low spots.

     Her methods proved sufficient enough to hold my elegant seafood and all the corresponding sauce.

          The next step for this pizza was a stint in the oven.  While that was baking, we gathered all the necessary for an outdoor dinner, including the ingredients for the Grilled Shrimp and Grape Tomato Pizza.  We gathered plates, ingredients, paper towels, our drinks (which Jen & I had refilled), etc., and headed outside.

     I started the grill and enjoyed a bit of the replenished drink.  Pam had said that the original drink (as written) wasn't sweet enough.  I thought it was plenty sweet, but too lemony.  Jennifer seemed to agree, so when we refilled mine and Jennifer's cocktail glasses, I doubled the vodka, halved the lemon, and halved the grenadine.  Fabulous!

     The grill was ready, so I started the deal.  Grill the dough on the hot side of the grill and flipped it onto the "cooler" side of the grill after a couple of minutes (any longer, and I'm trying to peel the burn marks off of it).

     I didn't bring the book out with me, and after a couple of cocktails, my rote recall is shot, so I just threw the rest of the ingredients onto the pizza (Jennifer offered to go inside to get the book, so I could be sure to put the ingredients on in the order they were intended - she knew it was bugging me.  However, I didn't want her to do that, and I need to get over that.).
     So, next went on the lemon cream sauce....

     Next was the halved grape tomatoes and the shrimp.

     Then, I covered everything with the butterkase.  I thought this was a good choice, because I was already worried that the shrimp would overcook, since I had already boiled them (hopefully until just before they were fully coked).   I thought that, perhaps, it would protect the shrimp from being turned into a rubbery oblivion.

     This was topped with the mozzarella.



     Next step was to top it with the foul weed.

     We closed the lid and went inside to remove the Elegant Seafood Pizza from the oven.  I had explained to my sisters that I had considered changing up the order because the two (seemingly random) pizzas were so similar, but I thought that this was an opportunity to compare and contrast two different methods for a seafood pizza, and we could critique and see which method proved to be the tastier 'za.
     I took the Elegant Pizza out of the oven and actually remembered the "post-oven" directions - putting on the pre-chopped parsley.  It was beautiful.

     Apparently, Gracie had some kind of problem with the toy horses she brought to play with.  It was apparently a technical difficulty, and Pam tried to assist....

     The grilled pizza wasn't quite ready, so we thought we would start on the Elegant Seafood Pizza, since it was just sitting there all lonely, and we were all hungry.  We served up some pieces, and then the mosquitoes decided they were hungry, too.  And attacking large humans while they were poised to feed was their perfect opportunity.  We swatted for about 1½ minutes, before we acquiesced and decided to go in. 

     All ran in with all of the plates, pizza, napkins, drinks, etc.  I went to check on the second pizza.  I lifted the lid of the grill.  It was almost done but could use just a little more heat to bubble it up and brown some parts.  I put the lid back down and heard a pffft.  I lifted the lid back up and peeked inside - no flame.  At this moment, Jennifer walked back outside and asked me how much longer the pizza needed on the grill.  I told her it was done, because we were out of propane!

     It was still pretty, and we brought it inside to share with all.
     We dished up and tried them both.  We started with the Elegant Pizza since it had time to cool (and some of us had already served some up before the mosquitoes attacked).  It was heavenly.  It was silky, earthy, creamy, butter, smooth and delicious!  The scallops were tender and juicy, and melted in my mouth the second I bit into them.  How can you top that?
     Then, I tried the grilled pizza.  It, too was delicious!  The grape tomatoes cut through the creamy richness of the Alfredo-like sauce and provided a nice tang to combat it.  The shrimp was perfectly cooked - no rubberiness detected at all.  Their fresh saltiness and their perfect texture against the sweetness of the tomatoes and the hint of lemon was the perfect combination.
     I tried to get my sisters to chose.  Tell me, which one is better?  Which is your favorite?  If you could only have one of these pizzas for the rest of your life, which would it be?  They both said that they were both good.  COP OUT!