Chili Dog Pizza; Heirloom Tomato Pizza; Tex Collins

     Jennifer and Roger went to Cancun for a little twosome vacation while their kids were at summer camp Up North (for those of you not familiar with this term, Up North in Minnesota refers to any resort town north and/or west of the Twin Cities and usually includes a lake or two).  Pam said she would like to come but wasn't sure because she was on call and Delta may call her and have her take a trip. 
     It was just a coincidence that the tomato pizza was scheduled for when Jennifer would be gone.  I was sure that she would actually be relieved.  She has an aversion to tomatoes.  I am sure that she would have tried it and liked it, or if she didn't like it, she would be polite and say that it was good any way.  Timing relieved her of having to experience such torture.
     I found out last week that a company based in Bloomington holds a farmer's market here on Tuesdays.  I was hoping to check that out and buy some heirloom tomatoes there for the pizza, but I wasn't in town.  Jeff and I were in Nisswa, so Jeff could help wire the electricity for my parents' new garage.  When I found out I was going to miss that, I was going to try and hit another new market I had heard about that is held on Wednesdays over by the airport.  We got back too late to hit that one, too. 
     I got up in the morning and headed straight for Whole Foods, or "Whole Paycheck" as Jeff affectionately refers to it.  As I was pulling into the parking lot, I noticed a sign, announcing a farmer's market on Thursdays from 3pm-7pm.  That was exciting news, but I wasn't willing to wait until then to get my tomatoes.  I circled the produce department three times before I finally found the heirlooms - all three of them.  I grabbed two of them and headed to the checkout.  The cashier told me that she met the grower this morning.  It is one guy, who wears a cowboy hat, that grows all of their heirlooms.  It was nice to know that there was a person behind it instead of a corporation or a shipping company. 
     The chili dog pizza recipe called for a pre-made crust.  I had already decided I was going to use canned chili - the great debate at the grocery store was beans or no beans - so I thought I should go ahead and make a crust this time.  I was making one any way for the tomato pizza, so I just made two of the same crust.

HERBED PIZZA CRUST DOUGH

1 teaspoon sugar

1 cup warm water

1 teaspoon active dry yeast

3¼ cups bread flour

1 teaspoon salt

¼ cup olive oil

1 tablespoon fresh sage

½ tablespoon fresh oregano

½ tablespoon fresh tarragon

1 tablespoon fresh basil

1 tablespoon fresh rosemary

In a small bowl, combine the sugar, water, and yeast.  Set aside for five minutes.  Combine the flour, salt, and olive oil in a Kitchen Aid mixer or regular stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the yeast, water, sugar mixture and mix at a low speed until a dough ball forms around the hook.  Add the herbs and continue at a low speed until the surface of the dough is smooth and elastic.  Place in a well-oiled bowl and set it in a warm place until it doubles in size (about 45 minutes).  Roll into desired shape and bake as directed in your pizza recipe (I recommend a pre-heated 500º oven for approximately 10 minutes).

     Since the crust for the chili dog pizza was supposed to have been pre-made, which usually means par-baked, I decided to bake my dough for a little bit.  I originally was just going to make a plain white crust (like the squishy white buns Jeff likes to eat with his chili dogs), but my herb garden just exploded, and I couldn't resist adding them.

     I put the shaped dough in a 500º oven on a preheated pizza stone for approximately 8 minutes.  I didn't want it to completely bake through, because I wanted to be sure that the outside edges didn't get burned when I added the toppings and baked it again.  It was pretty when I took it out of the oven.  It puffed up a little bit, and some of the places where it rose higher than others were just on the verge of browning, and the rest was sturdy but still soft to the touch.

     While that cooled, I worked on my heirloom tomato pizza.  One tomato was orange in color and the other was a lemon yellow.  I had hoped to get a bigger variety than that, but I didn't have a whole lot to chose from.  The one I left behind was green, which would have been pretty, but I wasn't very knowledgeable about heirlooms, and I was leery of it.  I wasn't sure if I would know the difference if they put an unripe tomato on the heirloom shelf, because they just wanted to get the extra dollar per pound for it. 

HEIRLOOM TOMATO PIZZA

1 recipe herbed pizza dough (see above)

cornmeal

4 tablespoons olive oil (divided)

8 ounces shredded mozzarella

1 pound heirloom tomatoes (preferably in a variety of colors), sliced

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven (with pizza stone, if using) to 450º.  Roll dough out into a 10x15 inch rectangle on a board dusted with cornmeal (or stretch it into a 10x15 pan).  Brush with two tablespoons of olive oil.  Top with the mozzarella.  Arrange the tomatoes decoratively over the cheese.  Drizzle with the rest of the olive oil.  Salt and pepper as desired.  Transfer pizza to the preheated stone (or place pan in oven, if using).  Bake for 12 - 15 minutes or until cheese is melted and the tomatoes appear to sweat a little.

     I had a difficult time trying to get the dough into a rectangle.  Mine was more like an oval with delusions of rectangulardom.  It was what I like to call "rustic".  If it were too perfect, no one would believe I actually made it myself.

     After I brushed the dough with olive oil and topped it with cheese, I started slicing my tomatoes.  The yellow one had a pretty pink "x" in the middle of it.  It looked like a stick drawing of a ballerina in flight.  I hoped that it would keep its color and shape after it was cooked.  The orange tomato was orange all of the way through.  Once I had gotten both tomatoes on the pizza, I really wished I had gotten the green one.  Side by side and sliced up, the two varieties looked nearly the same.  I also found it difficult to get good distribution of them on the cheese, because they were different sizes.  I had to kick my OCD in the head and let the pizza be asymmetrical and risk that one piece of the finished work may not have an equal amount of both tomatoes on it.

     With that assembled, I started on the chili dog.

CHILI DOG PIZZA

1 recipe of herbed pizza dough (see above)

1 15-ounce can of chili without beans

½ pound all beef hot dogs (we like Ambassador)

8 ounces shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Preheat oven and pizza stone (if using) to 450º.  Roll dough out into a 15 inch circle on a cornmeal dusted pizza paddle (or stretch dough onto a 15" pizza pan, if using).  Bake on preheated stone (or on pizza pan in preheated oven) for about 8 minutes until just barely starting to brown at its highest points.

     I weighed out a half pound of dogs and started slicing them up.  As I was slicing them and piling them up on my prep plate, I was amazed at how large the pile was getting.  The pile kept growing and growing.  A half pound of links didn't seem like much for a large pizza, but once they were sliced, it really looked like overkill.

     The chili I had purchased, Hormel Chili No Bean, was really thick.  It was more like a meat paste than an actual chili, and I wondered if I had made the wrong decision to not make my own.  Still, I forged onward.  I spread the entire can over my pre-made crust, covering all of the beautiful flecks of green interlaced in the dough.

     Next was the sprinkling of the dogs.  They didn't look quite as copious as when they were piled up in one spot on my plate, but it was still a lot of wienie slices.

     And last, but not least, the cheese.  The original recipe had called for mild cheddar, but I just don't believe in mild cheddar.  To me, it doesn't have enough flavor to warrant its use in anything, and it certainly should be able to hold its own against chili.  I like the salty tang of sharp cheddar.

     The Delta gods were working in my favor, and Pam was able to make it after all.  She showed up just after I had assembled both pizzas and was ready to throw them into the oven.  I had some iced tea ready for her when she came, and I briefly considered skipping drink of the week to keep her company in her abstinence, but it seemed like it would go against the grain of the rules of the evening.  I fixed myself a Texas Collins, because it seemed like an all-American drink to go with the all-American chili dog.

TEXAS COLLINS

2 measures gin

1 tablespoon honey

2 measures grapefruit juice

2 measures soda water

Lemon slice for garnish

Combine gin, honey, and grapefruit juice in a cocktail shaker filled with ice.  Shake vigorously to dissolve the honey.  Strain into a collins glass filled halfway with ice.  Top with soda and garnish with a slice of lemon.

     It was the perfect drink.  It was fruity and a little tart.  The gin got a little lost, but that is from someone who likes their gin straight up in a martini glass.  The drink as a whole was quite refreshing and was a lovely sipper to combat the richness of the chili.  It was perfect for dinner outside on a warm summer day.  It just may become my new summer cocktail.

     The cheese and chili on the chili dog pizza had become an island of lava over a mountain of fluffy dough.  I pulled it from the oven before the cheese had a chance to brown the way I like it to, because I feared an oven spill-over, and the edges where the chili wasn't covered with cheese looked like they were starting to burn.  I had tried to cut it right away, but the cheese and chili were still in such a liquid state, that the toppings self-healed, and I couldn't tell where the cut had been made without looking at the edge of the crust.

    It was rich and flavorful and very gooey.  It was messy, just as a chili dog should be.   It also could have used some onions for texture - even raw ones sprinkled over the top, like we would have done with our dogs. It was a quick and easy pizza, but I think it would have been better had the chili been home-made.  It lacked the zing of chili made the way I like it.  I am not sure why I expected anything different from canned chili, but for the ease of preparation, this pizza was downright satisfying.

     The tomato pizza was a delight!  It wasn't the most beautiful pizza I had ever seen, but the flavor was fantastic.  It was incredible how those few ingredients came together to make something so delicious and almost elegant (not the look of it, but just the taste).

     The tomatoes had still retained their shape, but they were a little soft and almost sweet.  The coarsely ground pepper on top of them just intensified their flavor.  These tomatoes only had a hint of the acidity that their beefy red cousins put forth.  They were juicy and elevated the plain old mozzarella into something that resembled a creamy brie.  I put this recipe in my entertaining go-to book for an appetizer for my next dinner party (although I would make sure to get tomatoes that were roughly the same size in order to make it a little prettier).

Oil & Garlic Pizza; Pinwheel Pizzas; Cranberry Mint Martini; and Cherry Pie

     Oil and garlic pizza sounds boring at first glance, but I really enjoy a good garlic bread with dinner, and this isn't much different.  I started out with a focaccia dough I had made previously and left in the freezer.

FOCACCIA CRUST

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

3/4 cup warm water

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1 3/4 cups bread flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ teaspoon dried Italian herbs (oregano, basil, garlic)

Combine the yeast, water, and sugar.  Set aside for five minutes.  In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour and salt.  Add the yeast, water, oil, and herbs and combine (preferable in a mixer with a dough-hook attachment), until the mixture forms a ball.  Continue kneading until dough becomes smooth and elastic.  Place dough in a well-oiled bowl and cover.  Let stand in a warm place for an hour.  After rising, punch the dough down and roll into desired shape.  Brush the top with a little olive oil, if desired, and let rise for another hour.  Top as desired and bake at 400º for 15-20 minutes.

     With a frozen crust on hand for the garlic and olive oil pizza and the store-bought pizza crust dough in a tube for the pinwheels, there really wasn't a whole lot I needed to do in advance.  I also had frozen pizza sauce (left over from the two weeks ago).  I decided to make a pie.

     Last week, we canceled pizza night to go Up North to celebrate our sixteenth wedding anniversary.  With no pizza preps to do that Thursday, I made a cherry pie at my husband's request.  It had great flavor, but the goo never thickened, and the floor matt of my car is now cherry scented and probably very sticky.  We ended up re-baking the pie, and that may have helped, but I am convinced that the reason it wasn't runny when served was because all of the liquid was still in my car.  I decided to have a redo.

     Last week's cherry pie consisted of 8 cups of whole black cherries (or whatever kind Cub carries this time of year - there is some debate on what, exactly, they are).  I decided to reduce the amount of cherries just a little bit.  It was partially a conscious decision and partially because Cub only had bags of cherries that were just over two pounds instead of the two and a half I had last week, and I was too lazy to take some out of another bag and add it to the one I had picked up.  After pitting and de-stemming, it turned out to be 1.88 pounds or five cups.

     I also decided to increase the cornstarch.  I had made a blueberry pie earlier in the summer, and it called for 7 tablespoons of cornstarch.  I had thought that was excessive, did some research, and decided it wasn't totally crazy, but I still wasn't comfortable putting that much in.  For that pie, I had settled on 6 tablespoons, and the pie was fine.  Last week's cherry used 2 tablespoons for cornstarch.  After my successful blueberry, I thought that was a bit low, but I did it anyway.  I was sure that was part of the problem.  I increased the cornstarch to 5 tablespoons.

     Another complaint I had about the first pie was that I had sprinkled some sugar over the top of the lattice, hoping to give it a little sparkle once it was baked, but the sugar just completely melted away, leaving no evidence that it had been there in the first place.  I decided to try sugar in the raw or turbinado sugar, which has larger granules.  Granted it is brown, so I wasn't sure how that would affect my sparkles, but I gave it a try.

     I would love to test each of these adjustments independently and taste the pies side by side, but since I am unemployed and broke, I will have to settle for an imperfect test.

BLACK CHERRY PIE

2 pie crusts

5 cups pitted black cherries (2¼ pounds before pitting and de-stemming)

2 tablespoons lemon juice

5 tablespoons cornstarch

1½ cups sugar

1 teaspoon roasted Saigon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons brandy based orange liqueur (I used Harlequin)

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 tablespoon grated orange zest (about half of an orange worth)

2 tablespoons cold butter (divided)

1 teaspoon turbinado sugar

     Preheat oven to 450º.

     Place the pitted cherries in a large bowl.  Mix the lemon juice and cornstarch in a small bowl.  Add some of the juice from the cherries, if it is too thick. Add the sugar, cinnamon, and salt.  Add this mixture to the cherries and toss gently to combine thoroughly.  Let rest for 15 minutes. 

     Meanwhile, line a 9½ inch pie plate with one of the crusts.  Prick all over with a fork.  Cut the second crust into strips to prepare for lattice top.

     Add the liqueur, the almond extract, and the zest to the cherries and toss gently again.  Pour the cherry mixture into the pie plate and dot with 1½ tablespoons of the butter.  Take the center strip of the second pie crust dough and lay it across the center of the filled pie.  Lay half of the remaining strips along either side of this first strip in the same direction.  Take the smallest of the remaining strips and weave it horizontally through the first set of dough strips.  Repeat until all of the second pie dough has been woven into a lattice top.

     Melt the remaining ½ tablespoon of butter and brush over the top crust.  Sprinkle turbinado sugar over the butter.

     Bake in 450º oven for ten minutes (I suggested putting a cookie sheet, jelly roll pan, or a stretch of tin foil on the rack below to catch any potential spill-over).  Reduce temperature to 350º and bake for another 55-60 minutes or until top crust is brown and filling is boiling.

     Remove from oven and let rest for at least ten minutes before serving.

     The original recipe used orange juice instead of orange liqueur.  I wondered if maybe the alcohol had somehow prevented the pie liquids from thickening. The instructions had me mixing the orange and lemon juices with the cornstarch, mixing it with everything except the almond extract and the zest, and only adding those after the mixture had sat for fifteen minutes.  I consulted my food scientist friend, Karen, and asked her if alcohol prohibits the thickening effects of the cornstarch in a recipe.  She explained that the cornstarch isn't soluble in alcohol, so that may have been the problem.  If the cornstarch doesn't fully dissolve, it won't thicken as well.  

     The next step was to add the sugar, cinnamon, and salt.  Once that was combined, I added that to the cherries.  The instructions said to mix well with the cherries.  I found this difficult to do without damaging the cherries, so I dug in and used my hands.  That way, I could gently lift and toss the cherries without smashing or chopping them in the process.

      I found the same technique helpful with adding the zest, too.  Again, stirring the cherries up by hand prevented damage to the fruit, but I could also get in there and separate the clumps of zest, distributing it more evenly throughout the cherries.

     After everything for the filling was combined, I laid the bottom crust in the pie plate and poked it all over with a fork.  I wasn't sure why this needed to be done, but Martha Stewart on http://www.marthastewart.com/ said that it was to prevent the crust from puffing up and shrinking while cooking.  I poured in the cherry mixture, dotted it with butter, and wove the additional crust over the top.  I brushed the lattice with the remaining ½ tablespoon of butter and sprinkled my turbinado sugar over the top.

     Interestingly enough, even though I had used fewer cherries in this pie than the last one, this pie overflowed quite a bit more than the first one.  I was glad for the oven liner that Pam gave me when it was time to clean it out.

  It seemed that there was a lot more action going on with this pie when I was ready to take it out of the oven than with the other one.  I wasn't sure if maybe one of the other problems with the first one was just that I didn't cook it long enough. 

  



First Pie




Second Pie



     With the pie cooling, I started rolling out the focaccia dough for the olive oil and garlic pizza.  It hadn't been thawing quickly enough for me, so a couple hours into it, I threw the baggie of dough into a bowl of warm water and let it sit there.  When I took it out, I realized that there was a hole in the bag.  Water had leaked inside, and my dough was a little soggy.  It also hadn't seemed to change in size or shape since it had thawed, so I suspected that when I had originally made the dough, I may have forgotten to put in yeast.  Either that or it had been in my freezer so long (it was labeled September 2009) that the yeast had died. 

     I rolled it out as large as I could and told Pam that it wasn't really going to be a focaccia so much as it was going to be a flatbread...  and I mean really flat.  The original recipe called for olive oil, garlic, and salt, but my herb garden had been going for a couple of weeks, and I couldn't resist adding some fresh herbs.   I grabbed some basil, oregano, and rosemary from my deck.

OLIVE OIL AND GARLIC PIZZA



1 recipe focaccia dough (see above)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon minced garlic

2 tablespoons of mixed fresh herbs (basil, oregano, rosemary)

Preheat oven (and pizza stone, if using) to 500º.  Roll dough out into a 12 inch circle.  Brush with the olive oil.  Sprinkle the herbs on top.  Bake for 8-10 minutes or until crust is starting to brown.

     My flatbread was built and ready to go into the oven, so I started working on the pinwheels.  The dough that I bought at Cub (generic Cub brand) seemed really squishy, and I wondered if it was going to hold up.   I stretched it out as large as I could, which was about 10 inches by 13 inches.  I spread about half a cup of sauce over the entire rectangle and topped it with pepperoni.  I decided that the little bit of pepperoni I had wasn't enough, so I added some moose kielbasa that was laying around in the deli drawer of the fridge.  I thought about adding additional toppings, like blue cheese, mushrooms, or onions, but looking at the squishy dough and thinking about how it was going to roll, I thought it would be better (easier) to leave those items off, because it may make it more difficult to roll.

PIZZA PINWHEELS

1 can refrigerated pizza dough (or perhaps a stiffer, home-made dough)

½ cup pizza sauce (see recipe from 6/7/12)

2 ounces pepperoni, chopped

2 ounces kielbasa, chopped

8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350º.  Roll and stretch dough out to a large rectangle, about 10" x 13".  Spread sauce over dough, leaving a ½ border around the edges.  Sprinkle with pepperoni and kielbasa.  Cover with the mozzarella.  Starting at one 13" end, roll the dough and toppings up into one long roll.  Slice into eight pieces.  Arrange slices on a greased cookie sheet.  Bake for 20 minutes or until crust around the outside edge is firm and slightly browned and cheese is melted.

     It was difficult to roll anyway.  The inside layers wanted to stretch and extrude itself out either end.  It looked like a giant (unbaked) crescent roll.  I kept unrolling it and trying again to get the layers to all line up, but Jeff and Pam assured me it was fine to have some of the interior sticking out at either end.  Pam said, if nothing else, we could make adjustments to it once we had it sliced into pinwheels.  I started to slice it with the chef's knife I had used to chop the pepperoni, but it smashed the roll flat and didn't cut through the dough very well.  I switched to a serrated knife, and that was much easier.  There was still a little smashing, but nothing that couldn't be reshaped once we laid the slices flat on the baking sheet.

     It turned out that there didn't seem to be any good way to readjust the two end slices.  They looked like cinnamon rolls without the cinnamon.  We decided that Gracie would love those two pieces, because she is a bread fiend.

     The inside dough was staring to dissolve, and the filling was squirting out the tops of the rolls.  I think if I were going to try and make this again, I would try a different, more sturdy, crust, but for now, there was no turning back.

          Jennifer had said that they would be over around 7-ish, because Gracie had softball practice until then about a block away.  I waited until 7:05 to put the pizzas in the oven and start on our drinks.

CRANBERRY MINT MARTINI

6 fresh mint leaves

2 measures cranberry Moonshine (or cranberry vodka)

1 measure cranberry juice blend

½ measure Harlequin (or brandy based orange liqueur)

Muddle the mint leaves in the bottom of a cocktail shaker.  Add ice and remaining ingredients.  Shake well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with a fresh mint leaf.

     I got a text from her shortly thereafter, informing me that the practice was actually going to run until 7:30pm.  I let her know that her drink wouldn't wait for her.  She and Jonah showed up about ten minutes later without Grace.  She said it was close enough for Grace to walk by herself.

     The original drink recipe called for half a measure of grenadine, but we found it to be a little too sweet for our tastes.  It may have been different had we used unsweetened cranberry juice, but we had cranberry juice cocktail.  On our second batch, we replaced the grenadine with Harlequin, and it was wonderful.  It was still a little sweet, but it was balanced.  The mint was just barely there.  It was more of a feeling than an actual flavor.  Once a sip was swallowed, there was just this refreshing cleanness on the tongue.  These would be extremely dangerous on a hot day.

     It was a gorgeous day, and Pam and Jeff and I had already set ourselves and the flatbread pizza up outside on the deck.  It was just over 75º, and there was a slight breeze.  It was perfect for eating outside. 

     The flatbread was crispy and flavorful.  The garlic had softened and turned a nutty sweet flavor in the valleys of olive oil left in the crust.  The herbs joined together to give it a fresh, homey flavor.  It was a wonderful appetizer. 

     The pinwheels timer went off just as we were finishing our flatbread.  Jennifer and I went in to check on it.  It didn't look done.  The crust was still a pasty white, and the interiors of the swirls still looked a little gooey.  We put it back in for another 5 minutes while we refreshed our beverages.  Again, it still looked a little white.  We tapped the outside crust.  It was definitely cooked on the outside.

     These were tasty little morsels, and I think we all were wishing there were a few more.  The kielbasa added just an extra little kick that woke us up.  The exterior dough was just slightly crispy with a nice, soft interior.  The middles didn't bake up dry enough, and the line between cheese and dough was blurred, but it wasn't entirely unpleasant.  The rolls themselves held together better than I expected.  I think that with a little less sauce and a stiffer dough, these really could have been stellar.  They may have even been able to hold in some onions and olives.
     The pie turned out to be a big hit, too.  I didn't get the beautiful sparkles I was anticipating.  There were a few slightly sparkly pieces of sugar on the top, but nothing dazzling.  I did some reading on this subject too (guess I should have done that before-hand), and found suggestions like an egg or milk wash.  I think that would have at least added a little shine to the crust itself as proven by our previous month of calzones.
     The bottom crust stuck a bit to the pie plate.  I did a little internet research on the subject, and the most common answer I found was to brush the crust with some egg white before adding the filling.  Another suggestion was to prebake the crust somewhat before filling it.
     The flavor was great, though.  There was just a hint of the cinnamon.  The cherries were sweet but not overly so.   There was a refreshing lemony orange undercurrent and a flash of warmth from the almond extract.  Jeff's only complaint was that the cherries had a slightly different texture than the original pie.  In the original pie, they were still a bit firm, and each cherry was an individual.  In this pie, they were a little softer, and some of them melded into the next cherry.  I don't think I can duplicate the texture of the first pie, since it was cooked, drained, and cooked again.

     Maybe I will have to make another one next week....

Mexican Pizza; Meat-Crust Pizza; CC Kazi

MEXICAN PIZZA

8 ounces cherry tomatoes, chopped

2 ounces minced onion

2 ounces minced pickled jalapenos

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 can refrigerated pizza crust dough

1 (15oz) can fat-free refried beans

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons minced garlic

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs, diced

1 teaspoon cumin

½ teaspoon oregano

½ teaspoon taco seasoning

1 teaspoon Harley's seasoning salt

8 ounces shredded Mexican blend cheese

8 ounces shredded sharp cheddar

     Combine the tomatoes, onion, jalapenos, and apple cider in a small bowl.  Preheat oven to 400º.  Unroll pizza dough and stretch it out in a 9x13 pan.  Distribute the tomato mixture evenly over the dough.  Drop the refried beans by the spoonful all over the dough and tomatoes.  Smash the beans down with the back of a spoon to increase the amount of coverage on the dough.  Heat the olive oil in a saute pan over high heat.  Add the garlic and the chicken and the remaining spices and saute until the chicken is barely cooked (still slightly pink in the middle).  Distribute the chicken evenly over the beans.  Mix the two cheeses together and cover the pizza with it.  Bake in a 400º oven for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese starts to brown in places.

MEAT-CRUST PIZZA

½ pound lean ground beef

1 slice wheat bread

¼ cup half-and-half

1 teaspoon Harley's seasoning salt

¼ teaspoon oregano

½ teaspoon basil

¼ teaspoon granulated garlic

½ cup pizza sauce (see recipe below)

8 ounces mozzarella cheese

2 ounces portabella mushrooms, sliced

¼ cup diced green pepper

¼ cup chopped green onion

     Mash the bread in the half-and-half until it forms a sort of paste.  Add the hamburger meat, Harley's, oregano, basil, and garlic and combine thoroughly.  Pat the meat mixture into the bottom of a 8-9 inch glass pie plate and up the sides (as much as possible).  Cook this in the microwave for three minutes on high, rotating half way through if you do not have a carousel in your microwave.  Use a paper towel to blot off any fat that may have melted off the meat.  Cover the "crust" with the sauce and cheese and cook for another 2½ minutes.  Distribute the peppers, mushrooms, and onions evenly over the cheese.  Continue cooking for another 2½ minutes.  Let it rest for five minutes before serving.

   Jeff and I had a debate at the grocery store this week.  I wanted to buy the pizza crust in a tube, because that was what the recipe called for, and I was ready to take a week off of making pizza dough.  He argued that I could make my own and put it in the refrigerate, and then it would be "refrigerated pizza dough."  He almost won until I realized that it was only $1.49.  I guess I could make it more cheaply than that, but my time is worth something, too, even though no one is paying me for it right now...  I was about to say I would go ahead and make the wheat bread that the meat pizza called for instead buying a loaf.  The words died in my throat when we turned the corner and saw a loaf on sale for a dollar!  It wasn't exactly the whole wheat the recipe requested, but it was a dollar, and it was the squishy kind that Jeff likes for sandwiches.  The argument was narrowly avoided.

    I was a little "weirded out" about the meat-crust pizza.  Not only was a meat crust weird, but the recipe is built around only using the microwave oven for the cooking.  I was willing to try it, but I wasn't ready to jump in with both feet.  The recipe made two pie plates worth, so I cut everything in half.  If it didn't work, I wouldn't have wasted as much.

     I soaked my squishy wheat bread in half and half (instead of the cream that the recipe called for, because I had that) and combined it with my hamburger.  The only eight inch pie plates that I had were metal, so I ditched the size it called for and used my 9½ inch Pyrex pie pan.  I wasn't sure if I was supposed to spread the meat mixture all up the sides to mimic a pie crust or not, but I was guessing that I was supposed to.  I tried to do it anyway, but since I was using a larger pan than what was called for, I was only able to get the meat half-way up the sides. 

     I took a deep breath and put it in the microwave for three minutes.  I didn't try to do anything else while it was in there, because I was afraid that three minutes would incinerate the meat, and I wanted to be ready to stop it if it started heading that direction.  I checked it at two minutes, and the edges were starting to brown, but the center was still pink.  I let it go for the full three.  Nothing much had changed between two and three minutes.  The edges got a little darker, but the part that lined the bottom of the pan was still pink.

      I wasn't sure what the fat content was on the burger I was using, because it was a partially used package that had been in my freezer for a while (okay, it had been in there for a year, but don't tell anyone - I'm sure it's fine).  It hardly rendered any fat during that three minutes.  I was going to give draining it a try, nonetheless.  I tilted the pan over my sink, and of course the meat piled on top of itself in the pan.  Why did I think it wouldn't?  I had flashbacks to last week's "rustic" pizza and quickly abandoned my quest.

     I hadn't gotten away with shortening my preparation time by buying the pizza dough and the bread.  I realized after I had "cooked" the meat crust, that I had to make pizza sauce again.  I checked the Mexican Pizza recipe to see what kind of sauce that called for.  That one called for salsa, which I didn't buy, because I knew I had some, but Pam and I made tacos on Monday, and we ate up most of what I had for salsa (which really wouldn't have been enough any way).  I thought about running to the store, but I had tomatoes and onions and a lovely jar of pickled jalapenos that Pam had given me.  I bet I would even be able to find enough cilantro out in the green house to make it even better!

     First I started with the pizza sauce.  I resorted to my secret stash of canned tomatoes.  I drained one can and put it in the Vitamix.  To that, I added a can of regular tomato paste, half an onion, oregano, and basil and let the machine do its thing for about twenty minutes.

PIZZA SAUCE

1 15-ounce can of diced tomatoes, drained

6 ounces tomato paste

2 ounces yellow onion

4 teaspoons minced garlic

1 teaspoon basil

3/4 teaspoon oregano

Put all ingredients into the Vitamix.  Start on variable speed at its lowest setting.  Gradually increase the speed to 10.  Flip the switch to high and blend for twenty minutes. Makes two cups.

     The salsa wasn't that easy.  I had decided to use the cherry tomatoes that Jeff bought last week (because they were buy one get one free).  We still had one and a half containers sitting on our counter.  Once I started cutting them up, I realized my error.  It is really tedious cutting all of those little tomatoes.  They smashed under the knife I used for the onions, so I switched to a serrated knife.  That made it a little easier, but there really isn't much to cherry tomatoes.  They are all gush and no meat. 

     I also found no viable cilantro in my greenhouse or in the pots on my deck.  I could have sworn there were some fronds when I checked a couple of days ago. Maybe Jennifer sneaked over when I wasn't looking and pulled them all.  I forged ahead anyway.  It ended up being more like a chunky pico de gallo than a salsa.  It was so pretty, though, that I was disappointed that it would be covered in beans and cheese, and no one would be able to appreciate its summertime beauty.

     My next task at hand was the chicken.  There was no real direction in the recipe about how the chicken should be prepared, except that it should be "taco-seasoned".  I had thawed in the microwave some chicken thighs I had found in the freezer, and I was sorry that I had thawed them completely.  Raw, thawed chicken is sort of gelatinous and difficult to dice.  When I tried to get the knife into the flesh, it jiggles and slides away, and the knife didn't seem to want to bite into it.  If the chicken is slightly frozen it provides better resistance to the knife and makes it easier to get uniform pieces out of it.

     Once I had gotten it all chopped up, I heated a little oil in my saute pan and added garlic to it once the oil was hot.  I threw in the chicken and started looking through my cupboard to see what I could add to it to make it "taco seasoned".  I had something called "taco seasoning," but I have always found it to be lacking something.  I added some cumin (one of my favorite spices) and oregano and cooked up the chicken until it was mostly done.  I gave it a taste and realized it needed salt.  Instead of just using regular salt, I added Harley's seasoning salt.  This is a concoction of salt, chili peppers, and garlic, and it is good on everything.  I tasted it again, and it was perfect.

     I popped open my can of pizza crust dough and tried to unfurl it onto my 10x15 bar pan.  It was a stretch, literally.  I think the dough was supposed to be for a smaller pan.  At least the recipe I was starting with suggested a 9x12 pan, but I wanted to use my bar pan, so I was going to make it work.  I wasn't able to make a ridge to hold in the toppings, but I was willing to accept that.  I sprinkled my "salsa" over the pasty white dough. 

     I opened up a can of refried beans.  The original recipe called for three cups of refried beans.  My 15 ounce can was roughly a little over two cups, but I was going to make that work, too.

    I had a hard time "spreading" the beans over the salsa.  I think if I had to do it over again, I would just combine the beans and the salsa together and spread the combination over at once.  I ended up dropping little tablespoon-sized blobs all over the pizza and smashing the blobs down with the back of the spoon to get better coverage.

     I layered on the chicken and cheeses and preheated my oven.  While that was going on, I started the clean-up process.  I was cleaning my Vitamix, which consists of me running the Vitamix on high for several minutes with soap and water in the bowl.  It was very loud, so I didn't hear the door the first time Pam knocked on it.  The second time she used enough force to rattle the windows, so I shut off my machine and let her in.

     I was ready at this point to continue with the microwave pizza experiment.  I had cut a quarter of a green pepper into thin strips.  I had decided that half a pepper that the recipe called for would have would have been too much.  Also, the recipe called for three mushrooms.  It didn't say what kind or how big or anything.  I had some gorgeous "baby" portabellas (they were on sale, of course), but some were a good three inches across the cap, where some were only half an inch across.  I cut up three random mushrooms I had picked from the carton, but then only ended up using about half of what I had cut.

     The original recipe had called for "sliced Italian salad onion."  I had never heard of that before.  I tried looking it up on Google, but it just came up with different salads that contained onions.  I decided that it was going to be green onions.

      I layered the sauce and cheese over my partially cooked "meat crust" and was ready to put it in the microwave again.  I set the timer for 2½ minutes, and had Pam throw the vegetables on before putting it back in the oven for another 2½ minutes.

     We were particularly hungry at this point, and everything was smelling good.  The chicken pizza was in the oven, and the meat crust pizza was "resting."  We were supposed to give it a good give minutes rest before digging in, but I think we shorted it a bit.  I took a spatula and cut it into eight small wedges.  When I tried to lift a wedge out, it came out in a pile, not one cohesive piece. 

     I had been worried about the outside edges of the "crust" getting rubbery with all of that cooking in the microwave.  It really didn't, I was surprised.  The bottom of the pizza stayed slightly pink, like a medium rare hamburger.  It was moist and cheesy, and the vegetables were al dente.  The peppers and onions had a nice snap to them still, and the mushrooms were just slightly softened.  I think this had decent flavor, but nothing that really wow'd me.  It was a little bland.  I think if I were to make it again, I might try mixing an egg with the hamburger to add stability to the crust.  I would definitely add some spices to the meat itself.

     I had decided that tonight I was going to make a tequila drink to go with the Mexican pizza, but the trick was, I wanted to find one that we hadn't had before, and one for which I had all of the ingredients.  Since I don't work for the liquor distributor any more, it is a little more difficult to get some of the stranger items some of the drinks in my books require.  I chose something called a CC Kazi.  I took me quite some time to figure out why it was called that, and I am still not sure if I have it right.  The only thing I can think of is it is a carbon copy (sort of) of a cosmopolitan, and the "kazi" is just a shortened cutesy name for cosmopolitan?

CC KAZI

1 measure tequila

1 measure cranberry juice cocktail

½ measure lime

¼ measure simple syrup

Shake all ingredients together in a shaker filled with ice.  Strain into a cocktail glass.

     Regardless of the name, it was delicious!  It was tangy, a little smoky, and only slightly sweet.  It was a bit dangerous, though, because it was so refreshing and tasty with hardly any indication that it contained any alcohol.  It was a nice, cooling contrast to the jalapenos in the Mexican pizza.
     The Mexican pizza was fantastic with one complaint.  The crust ended up being a bit soggy, and in some places I couldn't detect it at all.  I think there were two problems with it.  I think I stretched it too far (I should have stuck with the 9x12 size, even on my 10x15 pan), and I think that it may have fared better if I had par-cooked it a little prior to adding the salsa and beans.  I think there was just too much moisture in those ingredients to allow the dough to cook properly.  The flavors, though, were spectacular.  The chicken was moist and succulent.  There were a couple of surprise hot spots lurking underneath the beans that woke the palette, and the beans served to cool it back down again.  They were creamy and gooey, and it was hard to tell where the beans ended and the cheese began.

     Jennifer and Roger and the kids arrived shortly after we had eaten our fill and moved the party outside.  I thought that Roger would be gaga over the meat pizza, since he was watching his carbs, but he and Jennifer gobbled up the remaining Mexican pizza in no time flat and declared it the winning recipe of the evening.  Gracie tried a small bite of it after Jennifer convinced her that it was "all that" spicy.