Andoiulle Sausage Pizza

     Most of our family spent Christmas in Nisswa at my parents' house.  Roger wasn't able to make it, because he had to work.  Pam and I came together the Friday prior.  Jen and the kids came on Saturday night.  Jeff drove up after work on Christmas Eve.  Mom and Dad, of course, were already there.  Jeff and I had decided to stay until the following Friday and host pizza night there.
     Jennifer had planned on going back to Bloomington Thursday morning, but Roger was unable to get a flight back to Minnesota at a reasonable time, so she decided to stay for pizza.  I had only planned one pizza, because I had originally thought it was just going to be the four of us.  Our family tradition for Christmas Eve is to make and eat appetizers all day.  We still had quite a few of those left by Thursday, so we added that to our meal to stretch it out a bit.

     My dad got into the spirit of things and bought me the andouille sausage I needed.   He took Jeff with him to shop for it - I think it was safety in numbers - one of them was bound to remember what the sausage was called.

Andouille Sausage Pizza

Adapted from The Everything Pizza Cookbook by Belinda Hulin

½ cup warm water

¼ teaspoon active dry yeast

¼ teaspoon sugar

1¼ cup flour

½ teaspoon salt

1½ teaspoons olive oil

1 cup barbecue sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray's)

10 ounces sliced cooked andouille sausage

3 ounces shredded monterey jack cheese

3 ounces shredded sharp cheddar cheese

     Combine the yeast, water, and sugar in a bowl and set aside for at least five minutes.  Stir the salt and flour together in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the yeast mixture and the olive oil and stir on a low speed until the mixture forms a ball around the hook.  Continue mixing a little longer  until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.  Let rest for an hour in a greased bowl in a warm, dry place.

     Preheat the oven to 450º F with a pizza stone inside, if using.  Roll or stretch the dough out into a 15 inch circle on a cornmeal dusted pizza peel or board.  Spread the barbecue sauce from the center of the circle almost to the edges.  Sprinkle half of each of the cheeses over the sauce.  Arrange the andouille sausage over the cheese.  Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the sausages.  Slide onto the preheated pizza stone or onto a pizza pan and into the oven.  Bake for about 15 minutes or until the crust is lightly browned and the cheese is melted.

     I had cheated a little.  The original recipe called for making your own barbecue sauce.  If I had been at home, I might have done that.  However, I was visiting my parents, and I wanted to spend time with them, not alone in the kitchen.  Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made in order to preserve the spirit of the moment.  I also did not grill the sausages first.  They were precooked when we (Dad) bought them, and I took one look at the 10º on the thermometer outside and decided they didn't really need to be grilled first.

     The pizza was easy to put together (especially since I had premade sauce and precooked sausage).  The biggest challenges were making the crust using someone else's machine and shredded all of the cheese for our toppings.
     I rolled out the crust as thinly as I could.  I wanted to make sure that the pizza was going to be large enough for each of the seven of us to at least try a piece.  I think I may have overdone it a tad, or maybe I should have increased the amount of sausages to make up for a larger base.  They seemed a little lonely out there on that large expanse of dough.  None-the-less, I forged forward.  I sprinkled my cheese on and put the pie in the oven.
   

     This pizza was a great success.  My dad wouldn't stop commenting on how wonderful it was.  The kids even liked it, and Mom had no complaints.  Even the sad distribution of sausages couldn't make me criticize this pizza.  The sauce was slightly sweet and combated the hidden heat of the sausages.  The cheese held everything together perfectly and acted as a neutralizer between the sweet and spicy of it all.  This was definitely a great, easy, weeknight pizza.

Meatballs-in-Blankets Pizza Turnovers; Bacon and Egg Pizza; Cable Car

 

    I was glad to come across the recipe for the meatball turnovers.  We had put on a party over the summer for my parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary, and my husband had originally thought that we would make our own food for the party.  While that would have been a great cost-saver, and I love saving, my sisters and I decided it would be too much stress to plan the party, keep it a surprise from our parents, make the food, and try to transport it (secretly) to the party hall.  Before we broke the news to him, he had started storing up items to make.  One of the items on his menu were meatballs, so I now have a freezer full of bags of meatballs.  It was nice to see a recipe using them for something other than barbecue sauce in a crockpot or in a pile of spaghetti.

Meatballs-in-Blankets Pizza Turnovers

Adapted from The Everything Pizza Cookbook by Belinda Hulin

1 cup warm water

2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

1/2 teaspoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 1/4 cups bread flour

1 tablespoon + 1 3/4 teaspoon olive oil, divided

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1/2 cup jarred pasta sauce

2 1/2 ounces diced tomatoes

1 tablespoon dried basil

Pinch of crushed red pepper

15 ounces ricotta cheese

8 ounces meatballs (I used Simek's turkey meatballs)
4 ounces Romano cheese

4 ounces mozzarella cheese
1 egg

    Combine the yeast, water, and sugar in a bowl and set aside for at least five minutes.  Stir the salt and flour together in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the yeast mixture and one tablespoon of olive oil and stir on a low speed until the mixture forms a ball around the hook.  Continue mixing a little longer  until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.  Let rest for an hour in a greased bowl in a warm, dry place.

In a saucepan, combine olive oil and garlic.  Cook over medium heat, stirring for a couple of minutes.  Add the pasta sauce.  Puree the tomatoes in a blender until smooth.  Add to saucepan with the basil and red pepper.  Bring the sauce to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for twenty minutes.  Set aside.
     In a saucepan, combine 3/4 teaspoon olive oil and the garlic.  Cook over medium heat, stirring for a couple of minutes.  Add the pasta sauce.  Puree the tomatoes in a blender or food processor until smooth.  Add to saucepan with the basil and red pepper.  Bring the sauce to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for twenty minutes.  Allow to cool.
     Preheat oven to 500º F.  Divide the dough into four pieces.  On a floured board, roll or stretch each piece into a nine inch circle.    Place the dough circles on a greased baking sheet.  Spread one fourth of the sauce over each of the circles, leaving the outer edges of the circles bare.  Dollop one fourth of the ricotta (roughly 3.75 ounces) over one half of each of the circles.  Press the ricotta down with the back of a spoon to spread it evenly over the half.  Distribute 2 ounces of meatballs over the ricotta on each of the circles.  Distribute the Romano cheese evenly over the meatballs.  Distribute the mozzarella evenly over the Romano.  Fold the circles in half over the toppings and press to seal, wetting the edges with water, if necessary to get the dough to stick together.  With a sharp knife, cut slits in the tops for ventilation.  Beat the egg and 1 teaspoon of olive oil together.  Brush the tops of each calzone with the egg wash.  Bake for fifteen minutes or until dough becomes firm and golden.  Let stand a few minutes before serving.

     The original recipe in the book called for "18 small meatballs".  Well, I only had one size, and I wasn't sure whether they were small or medium.  They definitely weren't large, in my book.  I used 18 of them, which turned out to be eight ounces.  Now, I can see dividing 8 ounces over four dough circles, but how do you distribute 18 meatballs evenly over four pizzas.  In hindsight, I should have cut them in half and put nine halves in each calzone.  the thought had occurred to me at the time, but I wanted whole meatballs in my blankets.
     My dough, thankfully, rose quite a bit.  This is sometimes an issue in my house in the winter, because most days I tend to keep the heat set at 65º when I am home alone.  Today wasn't one of those days.

      I did, however, forget to cover the dough while it was rising, so there was a little crustiness to the outside of my dough ball.  It rolled out just fine, though, and I figured if I put the dry parts on the inside of the calzone, it would not be noticed or adversely affect the finished dish. The sauce covered it up nicely (if a little scarcely).

     I had an issue with the ricotta again.  I found it very difficult to get even coverage of the ricotta without pushing the tomato sauce out of the way.  I settled for dropping spoonsful of the cheese over the half and pressing each dollop down with the back of a spoon to minimize tomato relocation.

     I was following along the recipe in the book, when I noticed that the next instruction was to put the lobster over the ricotta.  Lobster???  There wasn't any lobster listed in the ingredient list.  I read further, it instructed me to distribute the pancetta and minced green onion over the top of it.  Those weren't in there either!  Obviously, the writer just copied the recipe over from the bacon and lobster calzones (see November 29, 2012), and the editors never caught it.  That kind of stuff always amazes me.  Does that person still have a job?  I would like to take it from them!
     Since there were only a few ingredients left on the list, it was pretty self explanatory, but I would never know how they expected me to divide up those 18 meatballs.  I decided to keep them whole, giving us two calzones with 4 meatballs each and two calzones with 5 meatballs each, and I hoped I would a piece from the 5 meatball version.

     As seems to be the case with my "rustic" dough circles, I had a difficult time sealing them up.  Not only were they suffering from what Jeff calls "Burrito Blow-Out", because there were too many ingredients for the size of the circle, but they were also not quite circular, so the edges didn't match up nicely.  One would think that after making pizzas every week for the last seventeen years I would have mastered both of these techniques.  After some brief struggling, I did get them closed.  I gave them their egg wash and cut slits in them for venting, and set them aside while I worked on the other recipe for the evening.

     Once again, I found myself making breakfast for dinner.  Bacon and Egg Pizza.  This recipe I had to modify significantly.  It was originally supposed to be one ten inch pizza with one egg on it.  That just wasn't going to work for a crowd of seven or more people.  I don't think that would even work for two people.  I decided that I was going to use the same amount of crust, cheese, and tomatoes, but that I was going to make 5 little pizzas - one for each adult - and each pizza was going to have an egg.  That way, those who wanted to try the pizza wouldn't miss out on the egg, and I could make one specially for Pam with a scrambled egg instead of a whole egg.

   

Bacon and Egg Pizza

Adapted from All the Best Pizzas by Joie Warner

½ cup + 1 tablespoon warm water

1¼ teaspoon active dry yeast

¼ teaspoon sugar

1¼ cup bread flour

¼ teaspoon salt

1 ounce cooked and crumbled bacon

6 ounces provolone cheese

3 ounces of tomatoes, seeded and diced
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

1 ounce Romano cheese

    Combine the yeast, water, and sugar in a bowl and set aside for at least five minutes.  Stir the salt and flour together in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the yeast mixture and stir on a low speed until the mixture forms a ball around the hook.  Continue mixing a little longer  until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.  Let rest for an hour in a greased bowl in a warm, dry place.
     Preheat the oven to 500º F.  Divide the dough into five pieces.  On a cornmeal dusted board, roll or stretch each piece into a three inch circles.  Make sure that each circle is thicker on the outside edge than in the middle, rolling up the edge a little to form a lip all the way around.  Place the dough circles on a greased baking sheet (or a baking sheet lined with parchment paper).  Distribute one-fifth of the provolone cheese over each of the circles, with more cheese around the outside edge than in the middle, forming a "nest" for the egg.  Break the egg into the center of the circle, trying very carefully not to break the yolk.  Carefully top with the bacon and the tomatoes.  Lightly salt the egg and crack a little pepper over each one.  Sprinkle with Romano cheese.  Bake for 5-10 minutes or until egg is almost set (it will set up a little more while resting).  Rest for a couple of minutes and serve.

     After carefully rolling out the dough, I had noticed that there was one dough circle that was a little bit larger than the rest.  I decided that would be the one for the scrambled egg, since I could make a thicker edge with that one to (hopefully) keep the egg from running out onto the .  I had all of my provolone distributed and was ready to add the egg.  I carefully cracked an egg into a bowl to minimize the risk of getting shells on the pizza.  I tipped the bowl over one of the dough circles, and as it slid onto the cheese, the yolk broke open.  After some carefully chosen expletives, I decided this one was going to be the scrambled one, and hopefully no more yolks would break.  I stirred it up with a fork as well as I could while it was still on top of the crust, trying not to incorporate too much of the cheese into the scramble.
     Three out of the remaining four were good, whole eggs.  One of them, however, broke while I was cracking it into the bowl.  I was thankful for that, because I really wanted beautiful baked eggs with their yolks in tact.
     Jennifer and Roger arrived with their troupe and Pam, and Jeff came shortly thereafter.  The Liggetts had brought a Papa Murphy's pizza to add to the meal.  I think it may have been the same order we had last week from Paul and Leslie.  It was a hit then, so I had no doubt it would be again.

     I started mixing our drinks while the pizzas were in the oven.  I was trying hard to do it while Pam wasn't watching, because the recipe called for (gasp!) a raw egg white!

Cable Car

2 measures spiced rum

1 measure triple sec

½ measure freshly squeezed lemon juice

¼ measure agave syrup

½ fresh egg white

Vigorously shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass.

     I shook up all of the ingredients and tried to pour it equally into the three cocktail glasses.  When I got to the third, one big lump of slimy egg white plopped out of the shaker and into the glass.  Ew!  Hoping no one was looking, I quickly poured all of the drinks back into the shaker and reshook the ingredients as vigorously as I could.  I wanted to make sure that the second time around the egg would break up and froth up, and I hoped no one would notice the reshaking (whether your ovaphobic or not, slimy globs of egg in your drink is extremely unappetizing!).  I was successful in the frothing, but I was caught.  Jennifer saw me pour the slime back into the shaker and asked if that was an egg white.  "Yes," I murmured under my breath, "but don't say anything."

     Egg whites get a bad rap.  Part of that is their own fault for being so jiggly, I think.  The jiggliness really does put me off, but I am trying to get over it. The risk of salmonella is very minimal these days, and the citric acid and the alcohol will kill most of the bacteria that would cause such a thing, anyway.  The benefit of the egg white is the froth.  It froths a drink up very effectively (if agitated enough), which makes it much more attractive and fun.  It adds a nice richness and creaminess to the drink, too (again, only if you shake up the whites enough).

     If Pam had heard us whispering about egg whites, she didn't seem to care.  She took her drink and sipped it up.  Jennifer mentioned that she thought the drink tasted a bit like egg nog.  I shot her a steely gaze. It did, though.  The spice from the rum with the creaminess and frothiness of the egg white had a nog-esque aura about it.  The lemon juice kept it light, though, and it was so rich as to make us refuse another serving

     The pizzas were ready in no time, and they looked great.  I pulled the egg pizzas out a little before the jiggliness of the whites had worn off.  I didn't want to overdo the yolks like I did with the asparagus egg pizza.  My hope was that the whites would completely set while I was slicing the pie and serving it up.  I didn't have to worry about Pam's, though, since I had scrambled hers.  The only problem with her serving was that the egg had escaped the crust barrier and oozed all over my sheet pan.

     The egg pizzas were delicious!  My whites hadn't completely set up as I had hoped, but enough to get the quiver out of it.  The combination of the creamy egg yolks and the cheese with the slight crunch and smokiness of the bacon was dreamy.  The tomatoes kept everything in check and reduced the richness overload.  These were complete delicious breakfasts in cute little pizza packages!

     The calzones, despite my added egg wash didn't golden up as well as I had hoped.  I think on the next run (if there is one), I will try more oil or maybe go back to the milk variation of the wash.  More research must be done.

     

     The flavor was fantastic.  Big, fat meatballs were nestled in a bed of ricotta and cheese with just a hint of the tomato sauce that lay underneath.  While I enjoyed the whole meatballs, I did wish that I had cut them in half before assembling the calzones, because I would have liked to enjoy the flavor of the meat with every bite, not just the couple of bites that had meatballs in them.

     Jonah, my nephew, actually ventured to try the meatball calzone (he is thirteen and a bit locked into the traditional pizza mentality).  He gave it rave reviews and had several pieces during the course of the evening.

     All of the pizzas were hits, and we barely had any leftovers.  There were a few "resized" pieces of calzones, where someone had cut a little of the edges off to sneak into their mouths, because they were too full to have a whole piece and only two pieces of the "cowboy" left.  I deem that a success.

     We ladies had accidentally polished off our drinks halfway through dinner and had run out of triple sec.  Also, the jig (ha ha) was up on the egg whites.  We told Pam (after she drank it and declared it tasty) that there were egg whites in the drink.  I figured she wasn't up to a third round of those at this point, and I was over cracking and separating eggs for the evening.  We switched it up and made something else with what we had on hand to round out our evening.

Raspberry Rum-Tini

2 measures light rum

½ measure black raspberry liqueur

½ measure freshly squeezed lime juice

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice.  Shake and strain into a martini glass.  Admire, sip, and swallow.  Repeat.

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Spinach Chiffonade and Bacon Pizza; Hot Shrimp Cocktail Pizza; and Butterscotch Daiquiri

     There was a last minute menu change this week.  A bacon and egg pizza was scheduled (I was going to make a portion of the pizza with scrambled eggs for Pam), but Paul called and said that he and Leslie and the girls were coming.  Now, I have mentioned that my sister, Pam, has partial ova phobia, but Leslie fully has it. To hear Paul tell it, she cannot even stand the smell of eggs cooking.  She finds everything about them repulsive.  I decided something a little less controversial might be warranted, especially since it is a rare Thursday that the Dahlens come to join us.
     After searching the next few recipes in line, I found one for which I already had the ingredients: spinach chiffonade and bacon.  What is chiffonade, you ask?  I'm glad you did.  It is a culinary term (originating in France, of course) for greens that are cut into strips by stacking them, rolling them, and slicing the roll.  There is a good  video on U-Tube, showing how to do just that.
   

Spinach Chiffonade and Bacon Pizza

Adapted from All the Best Pizzas by Joie Warner

1¼ teaspoon active dry yeast

¼ teaspoon sugar

½ cup warm water

1¼ cup flour

¼ teaspoon salt

3 slices thick cut bacon, chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

4 ounces grated mozzarella

2 cups shredded spinach leaves

     Combine the yeast, water, and sugar in a bowl and set aside for at least five minutes.  Stir the salt and flour together in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the yeast mixture and stir on a low speed until the mixture forms a ball around the hook.  Continue mixing a little longer  until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.  Let rest for an hour in a greased bowl in a warm, dry place. 

     Preheat the oven to 500º F with pizza stone inside, if using.  Roll or stretch out dough into a 15 inch circle on a cornmeal or flour dusted pizza peel or board.  In a small skillet, cook bacon until just crisp and remove to a paper towel-lined plate. Brush the dough all over with olive oil.    Distribute the cheese evenly over the dough.  Sprinkle the spinach ribbons over the cheese.  Top with the bacon crumbles.  Bake for 5-10 minutes.

    This pizza was incredibly easy to make.  Just make the dough, put the cheese, spinach, and bacon on it, and it is oven-ready!

     The other selection of the evening, however, was a bit more putzy.  Make the dough, make the tomato sauce, make the horsey sauce, peel the shrimp, and then you are ready to start assembling.
   

Hot Shrimp Cocktail Pizza

Adapted from The Everything Pizza Cookbook by Belinda Hulin

for the dough:

1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon warm water

1 teaspoon yeast

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil

1 1/2 cups bread flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

for the tomato sauce:
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 cup prepared pasta sauce
2 1/2 ounces diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon basil
pinch red pepper

for the horsey sauce:

1 teaspoon butter

1 tablespoon minced garlic

2 teaspoons freshly grated horse radish

3 tablespoons heavy cream

3 tablespoons cream cheese

1 ounce Parmesan cheese

salt 

pepper

remaining ingredients:

3 ounces mozzarella cheese

3 ounces Monterey jack cheese

12 ounces medium-sized shrimp, cooked and peeled

1/4 cup minuted fresh oregano

     Make the dough:  Combine the yeast, half a cup of water, and sugar in a bowl and set aside for at least five minutes.  Stir the salt and flour together in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the yeast mixture and stir on a low speed until the mixture forms a ball around the hook.  Add the additional tablespoon of water if dough doesn't come together easily.  Continue mixing a little longer  until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.  Let rest for an hour in a greased bowl in a warm, dry place.

     Make the tomato sauce:  In a saucepan, combine olive oil and garlic.  Cook over medium heat, stirring for a couple of minutes.  Add the pasta sauce.  Puree the tomatoes in a blender until smooth.  Add to saucepan with the basil and red pepper.  Bring the sauce to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for twenty minutes.  Set aside.

     Make the horseradish sauce:  In a clean saucepan, melt butter.  Sauté garlic for a moment.  Add the grated horseradish, the cream, cream cheese, and Parmesan cheese, whisking as you do so.  Continue whisking until well-blended and the cheese has melted.  Cook for a few minutes longer until it is thick.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Let cool slightly.  Mix the tomato and horseradish sauces together.

     Preheat the oven to 500º F with pizza stone inside, if using.  Roll or stretch the dough into a fifteen inch circle on a flour or cornmeal dusted pizza peel or board.  Spread the sauce over the dough circle.  Combine the mozzarella and jack cheeses together and distribute over the sauce.  Place the shrimp on top of the cheese in an even layer.  Sprinkle the oregano over the shrimp.  Bake for 5-10 minutes or until cheese is melted.

     I started with the speed scratch sauce, cursing myself all the while, because I only made enough last week for last week's pizza, just so I could get the right amounts down for one pizza's worth.  It would have been so easy to make double that and have enough for this week.  Hindsight is twenty-twenty, they say.  Although, I am glad that I was able to work the recipe into a one-pizza portion, so I guess there are trade-offs.
     After the speed scratch was done, out of my pan, and cooling in another container, I started on the horseradish sauce.  I still had some horseradish roots in my freezer (shocking, I know) from two summers ago, when we thought we had dug up our entire horseradish plant.  We were wrong, and we grow more and more horseradish every year but never harvest it.  I am wondering if one summer, we are going to look out our back door and see a sea of horseradish plants.  They are very prolific, and I had been warned that if you do not remove the entire plant, it will eventually take over all vegetation in the area.  We will see.
     It is a very ugly thing, horseradish.  At least the root part of it, which is what you need for horseradish sauce or anything like that.  That is the part of the plant that is used when people simply refer to "horseradish".  The leaves are edible, too, but they hardly ever are eaten (at least by me and my husband).  I suspect you need to pull the leaves when they are really young to get them while they are tender and not quite as bitter.  It is prepared somewhat like ginger.  The bark-like exterior gets peeled off and the interior is grated.  Before it is cut into, it doesn't have any smell, and I imagine that it doesn't have much of a taste.  Grating it releases enzymes that break down organic compounds within it and produce an organosulfur compound.  This is what gives horseradish its zing. If the grated root is left exposed for too long without being combined with vinegar, it will lose it's pungency and could become bitter.
     Once the horseradish sauce was done and cooled a little, I combined it with the tomato sauce, making a pretty salmon colored sauce to serve as a base for the shrimp pizza.

     I covered this with the cheeses and topped it with the shrimp.  I was a little worried about the shrimp.  What I had in the freezer was precooked shrimp.   I usually like to buy uncooked shrimp and barely cook them before putting them on a pizza, so when the pizza goes in the oven, the shrimp don't overcook and become rubbery.  However, I had used this brand (Cub's generic, believe it or not) before with good success, so I thought I would give it a try and not spend the extra money for a new bag of shrimp. 

     The original recipe called for 18 "large" shrimp.  Mine were what I would call medium.  There were 36 in my 12 ounce bag, and I was going to use the whole thing.  I couldn't see refreezing the extra shrimp, and I didn't want them sitting around my refrigerator either.  So I piled them on.  OK, maybe "piled" is the wrong word.  I was very careful not to overlap any of them.  I squeezed them into any open space on the top of the pizza.

     The Dahlens, the Liggetts, and Pam arrived.  Jeff came shortly thereafter, and the house was full.  We all oohed and aahed over the latest antics of the two little Dahlen girls.

     Allegra really enjoyed playing with Pele's mice while we mixed cocktails and put pizzas in the oven.  The Dahlens had brought a "cowboy" pizza from Papa Murphy's: mushroom, olive, sausage, and pepperoni.

Butterscotch Daiquiri

2 measures light rum

1 measure butterscotch schnapps

½ measure freshly squeezed lime juice

Pour all ingredients into an ice-filled shaker.  Shake and strain into a cocktail glass.  Drink.

     

     The daiquiri was incredible.  For me, the butterscotch was the perfect winter addition to the original daiquiri recipe.  It added an underlying richness and warmth to the flavor.  It mellowed out the lime, turning it from a fruity party drink to an elegant sipper.  There was a little extra sweetness from the butterscotch, but it was almost neutralized by the lime zing.  They played off each other wonderfully.

     The pizzas came out beautifully.  The fluff of the spinach (I had actually doubled the amount of spinach the original recipe had required) had cooked down somewhat.  The leaves were a little al dente, so there was a nice toothsomeness to it and none of the slickness that sometimes comes with (over)cooked spinach.  The bacon had a nice crunch to it, and the sparseness of it drew my attention to it and almost intensified its flavor.

     The shrimp did not get overcooked.  They were tender and moist with just the slightest bit of firmness to the bite.  The horseradish was a little more subtle than I had hoped (maybe I was too slow getting it into the sauce?), but it was creamy and rich and delicious.  The hint of tomato cut through some of the richness and added just a little sweet to the brininess of the shrimp.

     The cowboy pizza was great, too.  It was hearty and meaty with the nice tang of olives shining through.

     As we ate, Allegra entertained us with songs.  She knew all of the words, sang them all on key, and projected well.  She stood on a chair and delighted us all with her cute little voice.

     Our friend, Michelle showed up after the show and joined us for another daiquiri.  It was a great evening with great company, and there were no leftovers of anything!

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Asparagus Egg Pizza and Bramble

     Asparagus is a weird vegetable. The stalks have always reminded me of the sleestacks from the Land of the Lost.  You have to admit that there is some resemblance....

     It is related to onions, garlic, and lilies.  When eaten raw, it tastes almost exactly like a fresh pea.  Speaking of pee, it contains some natural compounds that change the odor of urine.  After a little research, I found out that it affects most of the people that eat it, but only 22% of the population can detect it.  I must be one of the lucky ones that has the sniffer gene, because it is one of the more pungent aromas I have ever encountered.  I was also amazed at how many studies were done on this topic.
     On a good note, asparagus contains certain enzymes that are helpful in breaking down alcohol in a person's body.  This is good news, because if you have the bad drinking gene and suffer from hangovers, you can have an asparagus omelet in the morning and feel much better.  I wonder if eating it while drinking would prevent the hangovers from ever occurring in the first.  I would imagine so.  Perhaps instead of garnishing martinis with olives or lemons, we should garnish with a stalk of asparagus!
     This pizza had originally been scheduled for earlier in the month, but I couldn't find any asparagus at the time (OK, I didn't try really hard - they didn't have it at Cub, so I gave up).  I found some at Costco when I went with my sisters and Gracie last Friday.  However, the delicate spears were severely jostled on the ride home with so many other bulk items careening around in the back of Jennifer's SUV, that by the time Thursday rolled around, the asparagus was a little worse for wear.  Some of the tips had broken off, and some were bruised and starting to mush up.  These were problems on top of the fact that they were extremely fat and a little woody (actually, a lot woody - I ended up breaking off almost half of each piece to get to the good stuff).  I guess I can't complain when buying a vegetable out of season.

     Jeff and I had a private pizza night.  Both my sisters (and Roger) were out of town, and none of the usual additional personnel had called in a reservation.  Pam was probably relieved to find out she missed an egg pizza.  She has a weird form of ovaphobia, where she doesn't fear the whole egg itself, just the white part.  She will not eat the egg if she can see the whites.  Scrambled eggs are fine, because the whites are mixed with the yolk to make a yellow curd.  It is strange, but true.  It may not be a fear, per se, maybe just a texture/aesthetics issue, but her reactions to the whites are so strong that I would prefer to refer to it as a phobia.

Asparagus and Egg Pizza

Adapted from James McNair's Vegetarian Pizza

1½ teaspoons active dry yeast

1 cup warm water 

1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

3¼ cups bread flour

¼ cup olive oil

6 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese

6 ounces shredded cheddar cheese

6 eggs

12 asparagus tips

Make the dough:  Combine the yeast, water, and sugar in a bowl and set aside for at least five minutes.  Stir salt and flour together in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the yeast mixture and the olive oil and stir on a low speed until the mixture forms a ball around the hook.  Continue mixing a little longer  until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.  Let rest for an hour in a greased bowl in a warm, dry place.  

Preheat the oven to 500º F with a pizza stone inside, if using.  Roll or stretch the dough out on a flour or cornmeal dusted pizza peel or board.  Make it into roughly a thirteen inch circle, keeping the outside edges thicker than the middle of the circle.  Prick the dough all over with a fork.  Slide docked dough onto pizza stone, if using, or onto a pizza pan and into the oven.  Bake for about 5 minutes until dough is a little puffy and begins to slightly brown.

Hollow out six evenly spaced divots into the dough, either with your fingertips or a spoon, making sure not to go all the way through the crust.  The indentation should be a couple inches in diameter.  Combine the cheeses together and sprinkle over the crust, leaving the hollows mostly uncovered.  Crack an egg into a bowl, making sure there are no egg shells in it.  Pour egg into one of the divots.  Repeat with the remaining give eggs.  Arrange asparagus in a spoke pattern between the eggs - two in between each egg.  Sprinkle the pizza with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil.  Bake until eggs are just barely set - up to fifteen minutes, depending on how thick the egg is in your hollow.  Slice and serve immediately.

     Jeff was really excited about this pizza.  About 15 years ago, we had another egg pizza where the eggs were baked on top in their original form and looked and acted like a fried egg.  He loved it, never forgot it, and still talks about it on occasion.  I think I may have ruined this one for him, though.  I had a really hard time getting the eggs to set.  I was beginning to see the rationality behind Pam's ovaphobia.  Every time I pulled the oven rack out to get a better look at the pizza, the whites, some of which were barely white at this point, were extremely jiggly, and I feared that the yolks were going to solidify before the whites became a tolerable texture (and look).  I think the problem may have been that the "cups" I had made in the crust were a little too deep.  If they had been larger around, the egg would have been flatter and the whites may have cooked faster.

     When I finally pulled it out of the oven, a couple of the yolks were almost solid, three of them looked nice and runny, and the other one was somewhere in the middle.  The whites had lost all of their translucency (and their jiggle).  By the time I had finished cutting the pizza, though, the middle-of-the-road yolk had completely moved out of the liquid stage, and the two "good" ones were somewhere in between.  I guess I should have pulled it out before it looked done, since the eggs continued to "cook."  The flavor was good, but I think it would have been better if I could slather the rest of the piece and the asparagus with ooey gooey yolk.  It was a little like having a breakfast sandwich with asparagus on it.

     If I were to do it again, I would definitely make sure that there were six people ready to enjoy it, because this is definitely something you need to eat right away.  I really don't think that it would make good leftovers.

Bramble

2 measures gin

1½ measures freshly squeezed lemon juice

½ measure agave syrup

½ measure black raspberry liqueur

Combine first three ingredients together in an ice filled shaker.   Shake and strain into a low-ball glass half filled with crushed ice.  Drizzle liqueur over the the top.

     The drink of the week was a nice match for it, too.  It was breakfast with juice.  The bramble was sweet and tart and cut right through the richness of the cheese and yolk.  And, it was a gorgeous lavender color!