Jeff volunteered to go to the store this week. I thought that was a fabulous idea. I hadn't made time to go earlier in the week. I hadn't gotten much sleep the last couple of days, and by Tuesday, I hadn't grocery shopped and neither did I feel like grocery shopping. I sent him my list without remembering to edit the amounts of the spinach and cheese.
Jeff called me while I was on my home from work Wednesday night and said that he didn't buy the Fontina or the spinach, because, with the amount I had asked for, it would be cheaper to get it at Sam's or Costco. We decided to go to Costco when I got home from work.
We started in the cheese aisle. We looked high and low for Fontina and were unsuccessful. Actually, we were quite disappointed with the cheese selection at Costco. They didn't have an Cambozola, a cheese we fell in love with while vacationing with my parents and have only been able to find at Costco. They didn't have any specialty blue cheeses - there weren't any unique cheeses there at all. Disappointed, we got our spinach and pine nuts and left.
I went to Byerly's during my lunch hour on Wednesday. They have one of the most wonderful cheese selections I have seen, and I could spend hours there lusting after all of the different varieties. They had two kinds of Fontina - Italian and Danish. I asked the cheese lady which was better. She said that they were pretty much the same, but the Danish was cheaper. She told me, it was cheaper, in fact, than the domestic variety, too. Being the frugal (i.e. cheap) person that I am, of course I purchased the Danish variety. It was probably wrong of me to do so, when the recipe was called "Roman-Style Spinach Pizza". I am sure that the recipe author never even considered Danish cheese for this dish.I tried it when I got home. It was very soft - almost Velveeta-like in texture. It had a mild, creamy, nuttiness to it. The recipe indicated that the cheese should be "freshly shredded". There was no way I was going to be able to shred it - it was much too soft. It would be almost like trying to grate cream cheese.
Adapted from James McNair's Vegetarian Pizza
1 cup warm water
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
3-1/4 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
2-4 tablespoons cornmeal (for rolling out the dough)
3/4 lb spinach
6 tablespoons pine nuts
6 tablespoons spinach
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
1/4 cup melted butter
7 ounces Fontina Cheese (I used Danish, but I would recommend Italian), sliced
Combine the water, yeast, and sugar 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 ¼ cup olive oil, while the mixer is on at a low speed. Continue to mix until dough starts to cling to the dough hook. Scrape the sides of the bowl and continue mixing until dough becomes smooth and elastic. Set dough in a greased bowl, cover with a damp cloth or loosely with a piece of plastic wrap, and leave in a warm dry place for an hour.
Preheat oven to 500º F with a pizza stone inside, if using. On a cornmeal or flour dusted pizza peel or board, roll or stretch dough out into a 15 inch circle, pinching up the edges to form a small rim around the dough. Brush the dough all over with a tablespoon of olive oil. Put the raisins in a bowl and cover with warm water for about 15 minutes until they plump up. Drain the excess water.
Rinse the spinach and remove any tough stems. Put damp spinach into a large saucepan or frying pan. Cook over high heat, stirring continuously, until spinach has wilted - about five minutes. Allow to cool. Squeeze the spinach, releasing as much liquid as possible. In a bowl, mix the spinach, pine nuts, garlic, and melted butter together. Set aside. Arrange the cheese evenly over the dough. Distribute the spinach mixture evenly over the cheese. Transfer the pizza to the pizza stone or place on a greased pizza pan and place in the oven. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and the cheese has melted.
I only bought a 2½ pound bag of spinach at Costco. It doesn't sound like much, but it is a huge bag of spinach. It took up my entire fruit drawer of the fridge (yes, I said fruit drawer - believe it or not, my vegetable drawer was already full). I wasn't sure how much I was going to use. Obviously, it wasn't going to be four pounds. Looking at the giant bag of spinach, I decided it wasn't going to be 2½ either. In my mind's eye, I was thinking I would use about a pound. However, I started to put the spinach in my large saucepan, and even with the spinach mounded up past the edge of the pan, I could only fit 3/4 pound in there. I decided I would go with that amount.
Once it had wilted, I questioned that decision. It just looked like a really small pile of spinach. I hemmed and hawed about it for a while and decided I didn't really feel like wilting another batch, so I was going to go with 3/4 of a pound. Once I mixed the spinach with the garlic, raisins, pine nuts, and butter, it was looking more like it would cover my 15 inch pizza well enough. I grabbed the spinach mixture with my hands and sprinkled it over my slices of cheese - I had started to try and spoon it over the cheese, but I was getting an uneven mixture of spinach and nuts and raisins. Sprinkling the mixture with my hand allowed me to place all of the bunched up ingredients in different areas of the pizza, facilitating more even distribution. Once I had it all on there, I compared it to the picture. They looked awfully similar. I do not believe the pizza in the picture was made with four pounds of spinach. 
It seems I barely had enough time to make my drink before the pizza was ready. I think I had it in there for ten minutes exactly, and the crust was a nice golden brown, threatening to be a bad, darker brown. I pulled it out and let it cool, while I finished making my drink.
2½ measures light rum
1½ measures dry vermouth
½ measure grenadine
lemon twist
Pour all ingredients in an ice-filled shaker. Shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a twist of lemon.
My first version of the cocktail had equal parts of rum and vermouth. It was bright red and a little sweet. The vermouth was a little strong and gave it a minerally quality. It was good, but I thought it could be better with a little less vermouth, and I was right. My second batch was delicious!
Once my drink had been made, I cut into the pizza, and Jeff and I sat down to eat it. It was good, but I was a little disappointed that the cheese didn't really impart much flavor to the dish. I was wondering if it was because I only used a little more than a third of what the recipe called for. I did a little research and found a website that said that Italian Fontina was aged longer than Danish, and it was stronger and more pungent with a richer nutty flavor. As far as texture and cohesiveness was concerned, it seemed like the right amount of cheese, so I attributed the lack of impact to this new discovery about a stronger Fontina that I was too cheap to purchase.
Aside from the cheese issue, the pizza was flavorful. The pine nuts had browned nicely, and the occasional squirt of raisin made it interesting. I would really like to make this again and try it with the Italian Fontina to see if would make a difference. Jeff didn't care for the spinach - he said that the texture was unappealing and reminded him of being forced to eat spinach as a kid. Maybe I will have to try it again when he is out of town.
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