Multi-Grain Veggie Pizza with Daisy Duke

     I was motivated Wednesday.  I started with the dough.  I had never made this dough before, and I was intrigued by a multi-grain dough and wondered if I had all of the ingredients.  When I read through the list, I was a little disheartened at the simple "multi-grain" listed.  What is "multi-grain" flour?  I was pretty sure I had never seen a bag labeled that way.  I certainly didn't want to buy another type of flour, considering I already have buckwheat, wheat, rye, durham, graham, semolina, rice, millet, and various other types.  My darling husband decided one day to surprise me with a dozen flours, so I have a few...  He is very thoughtful and practical (at least in this instance) all at once.
     I decided that if I were to combine three of these flours, it could then be called "multi-grain", and I was good.  I picked rye, buckwheat, and oat bran flours.  I was a little worried about it, because it was very gray once they were all combined.  I imagined that this was going to turn out to be a very dense, drab crust, but I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.  The dough actually came together quite nicely.  I thought I would have to add extra water to make it become a smooth ball, but it did fine all on its own.

   I substituted fresh mozzarella for the regular shredded mozzarella it called for, because I had some that was soon going to be not-so-fresh.  Since it doesn't grate, and I wasn't necessarily thrilled about slicing it and trying to fit round slices together onto a pizza to cover the whole thing, I just chopped it up.

   I used my fancy chopping device to make little cubes of yellow squash in a flash.  I also used it to dice the tomatoes, slice the mushrooms and slice the onions.  The orange peppers I chopped by hand.  I find that if I use my chopper for peppers, they tend to get mushed and damaged a little bit.  They also gunk up my blades and the grid that pushes the veggies through the blade.

 With most of my veggies chopped, I pulled out the broccoli and blanched it.

      I just love how bright and beautiful dull, drab broccoli becomes with only a minute long bath of boiling water.  It is such a quick and easy way to brighten up a dish's appearance.  Once it was blanched, I chopped it up into pieces that were roughly the same size as the squash and tomatoes.  I bagged up the squash, tomatoes, broccoli, and peppers together in one bag.  The mushrooms and onions I put into the now empty mushroom container and covered them with plastic wrap.

     I had found a sauce in the freezer that was unlabeled, and I was pretty sure that it was the slow-simmered sauce that the original recipe called for.  I took it out and put it in the fridge to thaw.
     Thursday, I sailed through assembling the pizza.   My dough was soft and pliable - it hadn't risen a whole lot, but it did rise, so I was encouraged about the end result.

      I opened the container of sauce and gave it a sniff.  It smelled sweeter than I had expected.  I dipped a finger in and gave it a lick.  It was definitely not the slow-simmered tomato sauce.  It was sweet and tangy.  It was barbecue sauce.  I thought about my options at this point and decided - why not?  It had tomatoes in it.  It wasn't super sweet like commercial barbecue sauce, and it was a little spicy.  I used it anyway.

 I put on half the cheese (I had already decided that all of the cheese wasn't going underneath the veggies, because I wanted that brown bubbly cheese and the cohesion that only comes from cheese on top).  I topped the cheese with veggies, and put the rest of the cheese on top.  It was in the oven a mere fifteen minutes after I had started in on it.

DAISY DUKE

2 measures bourbon whiskey

1 measure lemon juice

½ measure grenadine

berries for garnish

Shake all ingredients in an ice-filled shaker.  Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with berries of your choice.

      I thought maybe this week I could entice Jeff with drink of the week, since it was mostly whiskey, but he declined.  It was delicious.  He made me the first one and "eyeballed" the measurements, so I cannot be sure if the first one tasted the way it should have.  It was a little too lemony for me.  For the second try, I asked him to up the whisky, lower the amount of lemon juice a little, and keep the grenadine the same.  That was pretty good.  I was hoping to try a third mixture, but I didn't last that long.  I was done halfway through the second one.

     The timer went off, and the pizza looked beautiful.  It was golden brown with those bright little trees poking up out of the cheese, and the crust had turned a nice toasty brown, too.  Because I had put half the cheese on the top, the lovely array of colors that the tomatoes and squash and peppers would have provided were lost, but it still looked great.  I opened the fridge to get some more lemon for my second drink, and that's when I saw it!  The container of mushrooms and onions that were supposed to go on the pizza that was now completely baked and sealed up with cheese.  Jeff suggested sautéing them and adding them to the top of the pizza, but I was done cooking for the evening.  I just wanted to eat.  So, the mushrooms and onions were spared for another time.

     The pizza was delicious just as it was.  The crust was crisp and snappy with a hearty, warm flavor to it.  The broccoli was still slightly firm and added a really nice chew to the toppings.  The tomatoes and the sweet peppers kept the cheesy concoction from becoming too rich.  The whole thing was warm, cheesy, and homey.  The barbecue sauce had a hint of sweetness and smokiness that was intriguing.  Had I not known the pizza was supposed to have onions and mushrooms, I don't think I would have missed them.

MULTI-GRAIN VEGGIE PIZZA

Adapted from The Everything Pizza Cookbook by Belinda Hulin

Crust:

½ cup + 2 tablespoons warm water

1 teaspoon active dry yeast

½ tablespoon (or 1½ teaspoons) honey

¼ teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup bread flour

¼ cup buckwheat flour

¼ cup rye flour

¼ oat bran flour

½ tablespoon (or 1½ teaspoons) olive oil

Sauce:

1½ teaspoons vegetable oil

2 ounces onion, roughly chopped

2 ounces green pepper, roughly chopped

1 large clove of garlic

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

1 ounce fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1½ teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

4 tablespoons brown sugar

½ ounce crumbled bacon

¼ cup ketchup

1½ tablespoons water

Tabasco sauce to taste

The Rest of the Story:

5 ounces broccoli

7½ ounces fresh mozzarella, diced into small pieces

5½ ounces shredded sharp cheddar

2 ounces diced yellow squash

3½ ounces diced Roma tomatoes

2 ounces diced orange bell pepper

Make the crust:  Combine the ½ cup of water with the yeast, honey, and sugar.  Set aside for at least five minutes.  Combine the salt and flours in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the yeast mixture and the olive oil and stir on low until the dough starts to combine.  Scrape the sides of the bowl to incorporate all of the ingredients.  Add more water, a tablespoon at a time until the dough starts to come together.  Continue to stir until dough starts to clings to the dough hook and becomes smooth and elastic.  Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover with a damp towel or loosely drape with plastic wrap.  Set in a warm, dry place for at least an hour.

Make the sauce:  Heat the vegetable oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add the onions, peppers, and garlic and sauté until they begin to soften.  Place vegetable mixture in the blender.  Add the remaining ingredients to the blender and purée until smooth.  Pour the sauce back into the saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat while stirring.  Once it is boiling, lower the heat and simmer for about twenty minutes, stirring often, until the sauce has reduced to about half of its original volume and has become thick.

Assemble the pizza:  Preheat the oven to 500º F with a pizza stone inside, if using.  Fill a large bowl with ice water.  Set it aside.  In a medium-sized sauce pan, heat a couple of cups of water to boiling.  Drop the broccoli into the boiling water.  After about one minute, using a slotted spoon, fish the broccoli back out of the boiling water and place in the bowl of ice water.  Drain the broccoli and separate into small florets  chopping the larger stem pieces into a small dice.  On a cornmeal or flour dusted pizza peel or board, roll or stretch dough out into a sixteen inch circle.  Spread the barbecue sauce over the dough, leaving a little bit of the edge of the dough uncovered.  Sprinkle half of the mozzarella and half of the cheddar over the sauce.  Combine the broccoli pieces, the squash, tomatoes, and peppers together.  Distribute the vegetable mixture over the  cheese.  Sprinkle the rest of the cheeses over the vegetables.  slide the pizza onto the preheated pizza stone or transfer the pizza to a greased pizza pan and place in the preheated oven.  Bake for 10-15 minutes or until cheese is brown and bubbly.  

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Nacho Grande Pizza; Fried Cream Cheese Dessert Turnovers; Colonel Collins

     I love nachos - chips, piled high, with all manner of items mounded on top and smothered with cheese.  I frequently make them with anything I find in my fridge - leftover chili, shredded chicken, diced onions, jalapenos, pulled pork, barbecued ribs - add cheese and microwave until bubbly.  I'm drooling a little bit just thinking about it.  So naturally, I was really looking forward to this menu.
     The picture that came with the recipe, however, did not look very thrilling, though.  Pizza crust, sparsely sprinkled with a few beans and a couple of jalapenos - while, it was pretty, it just seemed a little bare.  Reading the ingredient list, though, it didn't sound bare.  Sure, there were only a few ingredients, but they were in large amounts.  I concluded that the photo was not taken of a pizza made with strict adherence to these directions.  Mine was going to look much heartier.

NACHO GRANDE PIZZA

Adapted from James McNair's Vegetarian Pizza

Crust:

½ cup warm water

1 teaspoon active dry yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup + 2 tablespoons bread flour

½ cup cornmeal

½ tablespoon olive oil

Guacamole:

2 avocados

2 ounces minced red onion

2 ounces minced sweet pepper (I used a combo of red and green bells)

2 tablespoons minced garlic

¼ cup prepared salsa

juice of 1 lime

1 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro

The rest of the story:

1 tablespoon olive oil

8 ounces Mexican blend cheese (I used Sargento's Authentic Mexican cheese)

15 ounces canned pinto beans, drained and rinsed

15-18 pickled jalapeno slices

1 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro

½ cup sour cream

½ cup prepared salsa

Make the crust:  Mix the water, yeast, and sugar in a small bowl.  Set aside for at least five minutes.  In the bowl of a mixer, fitted with the dough hook attachment, stir the salt, flour, and cornmeal together.  Add the olive oil and yeast mixture.  Continue stirring until the mixture starts to form and dough and clings to the hook.  Scrape the sides of the bowl and continue stirring until dough becomes smooth and elastic.  Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover with a damp towel or loosely with plastic wrap and set it in a warm, dry place for an hour or until doubled in size.

Make the guacamole:  Cut the avocados in half the long-way, working around the pit.  Remove the pits.  While still in the skin, slice the meat of the avocados diagonally one direction without cutting through the peel, then the other, forming a crosshatch pattern.  With a soup spoon, scoop out the inside of the avocado and place in a medium-sized bowl.  Add the onions, peppers, garlic, salsa, lime juice, and cilantro.  Stir well to combine.

The rest of the story:  Preheat the oven with a pizza stone inside, if using, to 500º F.  On a cornmeal or flour dusted pizza peel or board, roll or stretch the dough out to a 14 inch  circle.  Brush the dough all over with the tablespoon of olive oil.  Sprinkle half the cheese over the dough.  Scatter the beans evenly over the cheese.  Arrange the jalapeno slices over the beans.  Top with the remaining cheese.  Transfer to the preheated pizza stone or place on a greased pizza pan and put it in the preheated oven.  Bake for 10-15 minutes or until crust starts browning and cheese has melted.  Remove the pizza from the oven and top with cilantro.  Cut and serve alongside the sour cream, salsa, and guacamole for each person to add to their tastes.

     Had it been summer, I may have used fresh jalapenos and made my own fresh salsa, but alas!  We were in the middle of another blizzard (ugh!) in April, and at the end (at least I hope it's the end) of a long winter, grocery store tomatoes are pretty dull and lifeless.  I had this lovely jar of salsa I had purchased at the Kaukauna farmer's market last fall.  It tasted fresh-like, and it was zippier than regular commercial salsa with a great pepper flavor and a rich tomato base.

     I would have liked to make the guacamole in advance, because, while it is easy to make, the chopping is a little time consuming and tedious.  However, once the insides of avocados are exposed to the air, they start browning and become really unappealing.  I could have chopped and mixed the onions, peppers, cilantro, garlic, and lime juice Wednesday night to speed up the process on Thursday, but it really hadn't occurred to me.  It turned out okay, though, because I just had Pam work on our drinks while I chopped veggies for the guacamole on Thursday and assembled the nacho pizza.

COLONEL COLLINS

2 measures whiskey (we used Jack Daniel's)

1 measure freshly squeezed lemon juice

½ measure simple syrup

soda

orange slice

cherry

Pour whiskey, lemon juice, and simple syrup into an ice-filled shaker.  Fill a tall glass with ice.  Strain shaker ingredients into the ice-filled glass.  Top with soda.  Thread a toothpick through the orange slice and cherry, with the cherry in the center of the orange slice.  Float orange and cherry sail in the glass.  Serve with a straw.

     The first drink wasn't bad, but it was a little thin, I thought. Then, I found out that Pam had not doubled the ingredients to make two drinks, so we were actually splitting one drink with twice the amount of soda than we would have had otherwise.  I made her try again (after we finished the first one, of course).  The second time was the winner.  It was lemony and fizzy with just a hint of whiskey.

     When the nacho pizza came out of the oven, it really wasn't much to look at.

     Unlike the original recipe that had all of the cheese on the bottom, I put half on the bottom and half over the beans and jalapenos.  It acted a little bit like a glue, but muted the reds and greens of the toppings.  It was sort of drab looking.  Oh, but when we added the cilantro, salsa, sour cream, and guacamole, it didn't matter what it looked like.  It tasted fantastic!  The crust was crisp and thin, the jalapenos were zippy and juicy, the cheese salty and gooey.  The guacamole and sour cream tamed the heat of the jalapenos and salsa and brought the pizza to a heavenly level.

Each slice was like a giant tortilla chip with all the good stuff on it.  No naked chips here.  Every bite was delicious and spicy.

FRIED CREAM CHEESE TURNOVERS

Adapted from The Everything Pizza Cookbook by Belinda Hulin

15oz package pie crust

6 tablespoons cranberry sauce (or jelly)

8 ounces cream cheese

2 tablespoons sour cream

1 cup superfine sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup sweetened dried cranberries

vegetable oil for frying

Heat a deep fryer filled with oil to 375º F.  Cut each pie crust dough into three equal triangles.  Spoon 1 tablespoon of cranberry sauce over each  triangle, leaving the edges bare for sealing.  In a mixer, combine the cream cheese, sour cream, superfine sugar, and vanilla until mixed well.  Spread one sixth of the cream cheese mixture over half of each triangle.  Sprinkle the cranberries over the cream cheese mixture.  Brush the edges of the triangles with a little bit of water to help with the sealing process.  Fold the unfilled half of each triangle over the filled side and pinch the edges to seal.  Fry each turnover for about 4-5 minutes or until golden brown.  Carefully remove turnovers from oil, as the crust will become very delicate.  Drain on paper towels.  Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.

     We waited until we were done with the nacho pizza to start assembling the dessert.  We wanted our fried turnovers to be hot when we were ready to eat them.  I had mixed up the cream cheese filling the night before.  The directions said to "combine" the cream cheese, sour cream, vanilla, and sugar together in a bowl.  It made it sound so easy.  I had chosen a bowl that had a lid, so when I was done stirring it together, I could easily store it in my refrigerator for Thursday and not have an extra dish to wash.  However, "combining" those ingredients with a regular spoon was not an easy task.  I ended up having to dirty up my mixer and let it do the work.

     The original recipe had called for apricot jam and dried apricots, which I had fully intended on using.  I had some dried apricots in my cupboard, and I knew somewhere in the depths of my fridge, there was apricot jam or something similar.  However, when I checked out my apricots on Wednesday, they looked a little dark.  I figured that was fine, they probably still tasted good and definitely weren't poisonous or anything.  I decided to try one to make sure and almost broke my tooth.  The apricots went into the garbage can.  I searched through the cupboards for something else.  I had dried blueberries, but I had used the last of the blueberry jam on last week's turnovers.  I had prunes (ahem!  I mean dried plums), but they were awfully hard, too, and I couldn't think of any jam or jelly I had on hand that would go with them.  The black raspberry might taste good, but then Jeff couldn't eat any because of his berry allergy.  Then, I found a bag of sweetened cranberries.  I wasn't sure how long they had been in my cupboard, but I tried one and it seemed fine.  Perfect!  I had some leftover cranberry "sauce" (from a can, with those beautiful rings around it) that I certainly wasn't going to eat and I doubt that my darling husband would think to eat it on his own.

     I had taken the lazy way out on the crust.  The original recipe called for the same crust I had made for last week's turnovers, but I didn't feel like making it again.  I bought a box of premade pie dough instead.  Then, there was a little dilemma.  How do you make two circles of dough into 6 circles of dough.  I would have had to smoosh the dough back into a ball.  Divide each ball into three pieces and roll it out again.  My shortcut would then have not been all that short.  Instead, I decided my turnovers were going to be triangular.  I could easily cut the dough into three triangles that could be folded over on themselves for the turnovers.
     I proved myself not very adept on that particular procedure, however.  When I tried to pull the non-filled side of the dough over the filling, the dough ripped, and I couldn't get the edges to seal.  I washed my hands of it and Pam took over.  She expertly fixed my holes and sealed the three turnovers (I had decided to put half the goo back in the refrigerator for another time, since there were only three of us).

     Only one turnover at a time would fit in the basket of my fryer, so I had to fry each one separately.  This turned out to be a good thing, because the crust became so delicate and the filling was so heavy, that if I were to have two or more turnovers in the basket when I turned it upside down on the plate, they would probably have all oozed into one gooey mess.  As it was, when I turned them out of the basket, they threatened to fall apart.

     I had forgotten that I was supposed to sprinkle turbanado sugar over them as soon as they came out of the fryer, but I don't think we missed it.  These were quite delicious!  Jeff said it was like liquid cheesecake in a flaky crust.  We all decided, however, that they would be better if they were smaller.  This was not so we would eat less, of course, but so we could eat them more easily and there would be more crust to filling.

     The inside was very creamy and sweet and rich.  The tang of the cranberry sauce cut through it a little bit and dialed back the richness a little bit.  I didn't particularly care for the cranberries in there.  They were a little too chewy.  It may have been because they were a little old, but I think they really should have been rehydrated before adding them to the mixture.  I think soaking them in hot water or maybe even in some brandy would have improved their texture and made them a little less of a contrast to the sweet, creamy filling.  Perhaps if they were added to the cream cheese mixture the night before, they would have been softer.  I do think it requires more research.  Maybe I will try that with the rest of the goo and the other pie crust from my box.

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Roasted Garlic, Eggplant, and Fresh Basil Pizza; Mushroom and Pepper Pizza; Fruit & Chocolate Turnovers; and Cobbled Raspberry Martini

     I may have taken on a bit too much this week.  I had planned to go back to one of the Eggplant pizzas that we had skipped, because Jeff was not going to be there for Pizza Night.  And, I had to make the pepper and mushroom pizza that I didn't make last week for lack of guests, because I had bought all the ingredients last week and didn't want them to go to waste.  However, I had already bought the ingredients for the dessert turnovers before I realized Jeff wasn't going to be there.  Not only that, but I had made him trapse all over town with me, trying to find the best price on marscapone cheese (for the turnovers), and I think he would notice if there wasn't marscapone in anything (or maybe he wouldn't notice - he is, after all, a man).

     The weather gods had replaced April Fool's Day with April Fool's Month (at least for us Minnesotans), and made it snow all week.  Just lovely.  It really is lovely, but at this point, there has been so much snow this winter, that just the thought of it makes me nauscious.  I mean - I heard on the radio that summer vacation for schools is only 6 weeks away - and we're having a three-day blizzard??????  If my poor parents could hear my thoughts, they would know that I am silently cursing them for bringing me up in this "God-Forsaken" place (their words, not mine), and tying me to this location by some sense of familial duty.  Oh yeah, and becoming partners with my husband in his Minnesota business venture, so I cannot leave.  Yes, they have brought this additional snow to me, and they will pay.  Not to mention that they e-mailed me in March to ask me if it was snowing and were disappointed when it wasn't because they wanted it to get it out of it's system before they came back from MEXICO!  They deserve this snow, and I think it should only be over their house in Nisswa - far, far away from me!

     Okay, enough ranting. My point about the weather was that Jeff had been planning on going to Iowa to sell the rest of his grain and prepare the fields for planting.  This little trip was called off because of the snow, and now he was going to have to eat the eggplant pizza and like it.  

     I thought that the eggplant pizza was going to be very similar to the Eggplant Parmasan Pizza we had a few weeks ago.  I was looking forward to comparing them and seeing what elements I liked better and how I could combine the two recipes to make the most delicious eggplant pizza my husband has ever eaten.  However, I found that this pizza was a totally different animal.  Yes, some of the elements were the same - there was a tomato based sauce, there were slices of eggplant, there was lots of cheese, there was garlic.  But, each of those elements came out so differently, that I don't think a comparison is workable.

     The eggplant pizza of yore was rich and tomato-y and chunky and flavorful and heavy.  This pizza had huge chunks of simmered garlic,

which I thought would be a little weird  but they were rich and nutty and sweet, but nothing else in the pizza was "rich".  The eggplant was light and almost crispy, where the eggplant on the previous pizza was thin, but burried and therefore almost undetectable.

  The chunky sauce on the previous pizza had a venue all its own and was almost the star of the show, where this sauce was uniform in texture and barely perceptible, but packed a powerful punch on the finish.  The cheeses on the first eggplant pizza were fantastic in their own right and contributed to the party going on there.  The cheese on this pizza was fresh mozzarella, which is a lovely cheese, but it only enhanced the flavors of the eggplant and garlic rather than competing for the headline.   Okay, so I compared them, but I think there is a little bit of a tie here.  Pam gave overwhelming points to this week's pizza over the previous, but I wonder how much of that is about what is in front of you versus what is in the past.  Jennifer made no comment either way.  Jeff said he "even liked the eggplant pizza" this week.  Whereas, he said "the eggplant pizza was actually good" on the previous occasion (guyspeak translation: "I could tolerate this week's pizza" (about this one) versus "I can't believe I really liked that eggplant pizza" (about the previous one)).

     All right - I know - I said I couldn't compare them, and that is just what I did.  Well, you will have to decide for yourself.  Make both of them together and see if they can be compared.  I recommend doing it in the same evening, because one can forget, over time, the interesting bits of flavor that they experienced previously.

ROASTED GARLIC, EGGPLANT, AND FRESH BASIL PIZZA

Adapted from All the Best Pizzas by Joie Warner

Crust:

½ cup warm water

dash of sugar

½ teaspoon active dry yeast

½ cup bread flour

¼ teaspoon salt

Sauce:

1 garlic clove

10 ounces Roma tomatoes

1½ tablespoons tomato paste

dash of sugar

dash of salt

½ teaspoon dried oregano

2 teaspoons dried basil

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

The rest of the story:

12 ounces sliced eggplant (¼" slice, unpeeled)

5 tablespoons olive oil, divided

18 large cloves of garlic, peeled

8½ ounces fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced

½ teaspoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon shredded fresh basil

For the crust:  Mix the water, sugar, and yeast in a small bowl. Set aside for at least five minutes.  Stir the flour and salt together in a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the yeast mixture and stir until well-combined.  Scrape the sides of the bowl and continue to stir on a medium-low speed until dough starts to form and clings to the dough hook.  Keep running the mixture at a medium-low speed until the dough looks smooth and elastic.  Place the dough in a greased bowl.  Place a damp towel or piece of plastic wrap over the dough and set it in a warm, dry place for at least an hour.

Make the sauce:  Place the garlic in a Vita Mix, blender, or food processor.  If using a blender or food processor, process until finely chopped.  Cut the tomatoes into quarters and remove the seeds and surrounding gelatinous material.  Place tomatoes in blender.  Add sugar, salt, oregano, basil, and cayenne and process until smooth.  Set aside.

Prepare the eggplant:  Brush the eggplant slices with olive oil on both sides (about 3 tablespoons).  Place eggplant slices on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray.  Broil the first side for approximately seven minutes or until starting to brown.  Turn slices over and broil for about five minutes or until starting to brown. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Prepare the garlic:  Heat two tablespoons of olive oil up in a small skillet over medium-low heat.  Add the cloves of garlic and cook on a more low heat than a medium heat until they are soft all the way through and slightly brown in some areas, about fifteen minutes.  Do not overcook them, or they will be bitter.  Remove the cloves from the pan and drain on paper towels.  Reserve the oil in the pan.

The rest of the story:  Preheat the oven to 500º F with a pizza stone inside, if using.  On a corn-meal dusted pizza peel or board, roll or stretch the dough into a thirteen inch circle.  Spread the sauce over the crust evenly.  Place the mozzarella slices over the sauce, leaving as little sauce open as possible without overlapping the slices.  Arrange the eggplant over the cheese.  Skatter the garlic clovers over the eggplant.  Drizzle with the reserved garlic-olive oil.  Slide pizza off of the peel or board and onto the prepared pizza stone, if using.  Otherwise, place pizza in a greased pizza pan, and put it in the oven.  Bake for 10-15 minutes or until crust is golden and the cheese is melted.  Remove pizza from the oven and sprinkle with the fresh basil.  Cut and serve.

     I had been looking forward to the mushroom and pepper pizza.  It was familiar, comforting, "normal" - a pizza menu item we haven't really had for a while.  It was everything I had hoped it would be.  The sauce added a lovely little kick.  The baby bellas gave it a little more depth than the regular old button mushrooms, and the peppers added beauty and sweetness to it all.  It may have been improved by the Parmesan cheese I was supposed to put on it (but forgot), but it was still lovely.  We didn't miss it at all.

MUSHROOM, RED AND GREEN PEPPER PIZZA

Adapted from All the Best Pizzas by Joie Warner

Crust:

½ cup warm water

dash of sugar

½ teaspoon active dry yeast

½ cup bread flour

¼ teaspoon salt

Sauce:

1 garlic clove

10 ounces Roma tomatoes

1½ tablespoons tomato paste

dash of sugar

dash of salt

½ teaspoon dried oregano

2 teaspoons dried basil

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

The rest of the story:  

8 ounces sliced provolone

5 ounces fresh baby portabella mushrooms, thinly sliced

5 thin rings sweet red pepper

 5 thin rings sweet green pepper

For the crust:  Mix the water, sugar, and yeast in a small bowl. Set aside for at least five minutes.  Stir the flour and salt together in a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the yeast mixture and stir until well-combined.  Scrape the sides of the bowl and continue to stir on a medium-low speed until dough starts to form and clings to the dough hook.  Keep running the mixture at a medium-low speed until the dough looks smooth and elastic.  Place the dough in a greased bowl.  Place a damp towel or piece of plastic wrap over the dough and set it in a warm, dry place for at least an hour.

Make the sauce:  Place the garlic in a Vita Mix, blender, or food processor.  If using a blender or food processor, process until finely chopped.  Cut the tomatoes into quarters and remove the seeds and surrounding gelatinous material.  Place tomatoes in blender.  Add sugar, salt, oregano, basil, and cayenne and process until smooth.  Set aside.

Assemble the pizza:  Preheat the oven to 500º F with a pizza stone inside, if using.  On a cornmeal or flour dusted pizza peel or board, roll or stretch the dough out to a thirteen inch circle.  Spread the sauce over the dough, leaving the edges of the dough bare.  Arrange the cheese slices over the sauce, leaving as little sauce showing as possible.  Scatter the mushrooms over the cheese.  Arrange the pepper slices decoratively over the mushrooms.  Slide the pizza onto the prepared pizza stone, if using.  If not, slide pizza onto a greased pizza pan and put it in the oven.  Bake for 10-15 minutes or until crust is starting to brown and the cheese has melted.

     The dessert turnovers were good, but they were a hot mess.  I am going to put the recipe here (as I made them), but I am just leaving a warning that it was not pretty, and there has to be a better method to make these.  

     Now, I hadn't read the recipe completely through before I started making them.  I had gotten as far as reading the dough recipe and the ingredient list before Thursday.  I assumed that since this was a pie-crust-like dough, this would be baked - like a pie would be baked.  Actually, I never even gave it that much thought - I just simply assumed they were going to be baked.  Jennifer and I had gotten as far as assembling the first one, before I read ahead to see that they were supposed to be deep fat fried.  I decided that I was not going to drag out my fryer or start in on heating up a big pan full of oil while our entree pizzas were getting cold.  I decided baking at 425º F was going to work.  I was betting that it was hot enough to brown the outside of the dough without bubbling the inside right out of the air vents.

     My first problem, though, was actually the dough.  Jennifer and I had decided that it would be best to roll the circles out between to sheets of waxed paper.  It was essentially pie crust dough, and that is what we would do with pie crust dough.   I think that there either should have been more flour in the recipe, we should have floured both pieces of wax paper, or the dough should have been much colder.  When we tried to pull off the wax paper, the dough would stick to it, rip, melt away, all kinds of horrible things were happening.

  We may have needed to put the rolled out, wax paper covered dough in the fridge or freezer for several minutes before trying to peel off the paper, but we didn't have time.  Or maybe we just needed to roll it out thicker - make smaller dough circles.  I wanted to get those babies in the oven while we were eating the other pizzas, so they would be ready before anyone had a chance to realize they were already full.

     Pam came in to help and actually (thankfully) took over with the peeling of waz paper and the filling and sealing of the little pockets.  She did a great job, but got one sealed up before she put the chocolate in.  She then painstakingly unsealed it and was still able to add the chocolate and close it back up again with minimal damage.

     I arranged for a slightly different version for Jeff.  The original recipe called for strawberry jam as the base, which I didn't have and didn't plan on using.  I had blackberry jam, and I was planning on using that, but when I found out Jeff was going to be here, I had to make different arrangements.  He is allergic to berries with tiny seeds - strawberries, raspberries, blackberries.  I found a small amount of blueberry jam in the back of my refrigerator, and I had found my solution.  One of the pockets was going to have blueberry instead of blackberry.

     Well, after a few minutes in the 425º oven, the filling had oozed out all over the pan (and some on the oven floor).  It looked terrible, and the crust still wasn't browning.  I put it in for a few minutes more, and the crust still wasn't browning, and we were losing more filling to the oven floor.  The crust had ceased to be gooey, though, so I pulled them out.

     When serving them, we cut the crust shell in half, placed it on the plate, then scooped some filling off the baking sheet and plopped it on top of the crust.  Like I have already mentioned, it really was not pretty, but the flavor was fantastic.    It was rich and creamy and sweet.  The vanilla and marscapone made a comforting warm concoction that melted on my tongue.  The hint of blackberry under the burst of chocolate just seemed to intensify the chocolate flavor and push over the edge into dessert euphoria.

FRUIT AND CHOCOLATE TURNOVERS

Adapted from The Everything Pizza Cookbook by Belinda Hulin

1¼ cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup (4 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter

4-6 tablespoons ice cold water

3 tablespoons fruit preserves (I used blackberry for two turnovers, and blueberry for the third)

1 cup marscarpone cheese

2 tablespoons superfine sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

3 ounces semi sweet chocolate chunks

In a medium-sized bowl, stir the flour and salt together to mix well.  Chop the butter into pieces and cut it into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives until the mixture resembles small peas.  Add cold water, a tablespoon at a time, until the mixture is barely able to be pressed together to form a ball.  Cover dough ball in pastic wrap and refrigerate for at least half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 425º F.  Divide dough into three pieces.  Roll each piece out into a six inch circle between two pieces of wax paper or parchment.  Peel the wax paper off both sides of each circle and place on a greased baking sheet. Spread one tablespoon of fruit preserve over each circle.  Mix the marscarpone, the sugar, and the vanilla extract together in a small bowl.  Spread one third of this mixture over half of each circle.  Place an ounce of chocolate over the marscarpone on each circle.  Fold the other half of each circle over the filled half and press the edges together to seal.  With a sharp knife, cut three slashes into the top of the dough for ventilation.  Bake at for about 10 minutes.

     As if the dessert calzones weren't going to be enough fruity goodness for one day, we preceeded them with our drink of the week - cobbled raspberry martinis.  They were wonderful!  The wine seemed to deepen the raspberry flavor that was muddled into the vodka, and the addition of simple syrup ensured that there was just a touch of sweetness to pull everything together in one delicious martini.

COBBLED RASPBERRY MARTINI

12 fresh raspberries

2 measures vodka

1 measure merlot

½ measure simple syrup

raspberries for garnish

Muddle 12 raspberries in the bottom of a shaker.  Add ice, vodka, merlot, and simple syrup.  Shake vigorously.  Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with fresh raspberries.

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