Banh Mi Pizza

I am not a fan of salad pizza.  I wish I was one of those people who loved salad so much that it would be my choice of pizza topping, but alas then this blog probably wouldn't exist.  This banh mi pizza however, gives traditional salad pizza a run for its money.

It's a totally refreshing dinner for the summer and if you are bold enough to cook it on the grill, you don't have to heat the house up!

Banh Mi Pizza
Adapted From Cooking Light

Ingredients
1 cup rice wine vinegar
1 cup water

1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup matchstick carrots
1/2 English cucumber, sliced
1 jalapeno, sliced and seeded
1 pizza dough
1/2 tsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tbps sesame oil, divided
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
1 1/2 tbsp sour cream
1/2 tsp Sriracha
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 500. In a small sauce pan bring vinegar, water, sugar, and salt to a simmer.  Stir until salt and sugar dissolve.  Remove from heat and add carrots, cucumber, and jalapeno. Set aside.
2. Stretch out your pizza dough and pierce with a fork all over to prevent bubbles. Brush with soy sauce and 1 tbsp sesame oil. Cook 5 minutes.
3. Sprinkle dough with grated cheese and cook 5 minutes more.
4. Remove pizza from oven an top with drained pickled vegetables. Mix sour cream and sriracha together, drizzle on pizza. Top with cilantro. Slice and serve.

Don't be alarmed by the fact that it's from Cooking Light.  If it makes you feel any better, they said it serves 4 and the 2 of us at the whole darn thing.

Zucchini Pizza

Zucchini is probably my favorite vegetable of summer.  As I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my garden zucchini, this recipe from Smitten Kitchen caught my eye.

It is perfect for summer not only because it showcases the zucchini front and center, but it also requires so few ingredients and comes together in a flash.  No time standing over a hot stove! Yes!

Zucchini Pizza
Adapted From Smitten Kitchen

1 pizza dough, store bought or homemade, you decide
1.5 lb zucchini
1 tsp salt
1 cup grated gruyere, or mozzarella, or a combination (I didn't have enough gruyere so I mixed it and everything was magical.  I imagine you can mix up the cheese any way you see fit)
red pepper, to taste
2 tbsp bread crumbs

1.  Grate your zucchini in a food processor or box grater.  Then place in a large bowl with salt.  Let stand 30 minutes or more if you have the time.
2. Preheat oven to 500. Drain zucchini over a colander, squeezing the water out with your hands.  Try to get as much water out as possible.  Wipe out bowl from before and mix cheese, drained zucchini, a few dashes of red pepper flakes and some more salt if you'd like.
3. Stretch your pizza dough on to an oiled 13x9 sheet pan. Spread zucchini mixture evenly over dough. Sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake 20-25 minutes.

Oh goodness I hope I can make this again with some garden zucchini.

Chicken Pot Pie Pizza

Two comfort foods come together to make one delicious dinner. The magical creamy filling of a pot pie on top of a pizza crust, covered in cheese.  Since winter doesn't seem to want to quit anytime soon, this will surely warm up your kitchen and your belly.

Chicken Pot Pie Pizza
From i am a food blog

Ingredients
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella or cheddar
1/3 cup shredded cooked chicken
1/4 of a small onion, diced
1 smallish potato, diced and cooked
1 carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
salt and pepper to taste
1 pizza dough

1. Preheat oven to 500. In a small pan melt butter, then whisk in flour. Slowly whisk in chicken stock. Stir until slightly thickened. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Stretch out your pizza dough. Spread on the sauce, then top with onion, potato, carrot, celery, chicken, and cheese.
3. Cook about 15 minutes until crust has browned and cheese has melted.

Yes. Yes. Yes. This is absolutely as good as it sounds. Make it to celebrate Pi Day!

Greek Pan Pizza

You have to make this! Skip straight to the ingredients list and get right to it.  As soon as I took a bite I was already dreaming of the next time I would make this and what topping combinations I could mess around with.

Greek Pan Pizza
Adapted from My Baking Addiction

Ingredients
1 and 1/2 cups flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp garlic powder
2 envelopes rapid rise yeast
3/4 cup milk, 120-130 degrees
1/4 cup olive oil

4 oz feta cheese
2 cups fresh spinach
1/2 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes
1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella cheese
1/2 tbsp Italian seasoning, or a dash of each: oregano, parsley, basil

1. Grease an 8x8 pan. Mix first set of ingredients (flour-olive oil) in the greased pan. Yes! In the pan! Press dough evenly in pan.
2. Top dough with feta, spinach, and tomatoes. Then top with mozzarella and herbs.
3. Bake by placing in a cold oven set to 350.  Cook 30-35 minutes until cheese is melty and begins to brown at the edges.

Hello sweet delicious one pan pizza. I love you and can't wait to see you again.

Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese Calzones

YES! You read that title right! Buffalo chicken! Mac and cheese! Calzones!!

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat! YES! All the things!

I am going to let you guys in on a MAJOR secret here.  You can make pizza dough in about 10 minutes with no resting and waiting for it to rise! And it tastes exactly like it should. This dough recipe is a serious game changer. Make it with whatever toppings you like or mix up some buffalo chicken mac and cheese  calzones like I did.

Quick No-Rise Pizza Dough
From The New York Times

Ingredients
1 package fast rising yeast
1 cup hot water (120-130 degrees)
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt

1. Mix yeast and 1 cup flour in a large bowl. Stir in hot water. Stir in second cup of flour and salt until a dough ball forms.
2. Using some of the last cup of flour, dust your kneading surface. Knead dough for 5 minutes, slowly adding in the remaining flour as needed.
3. THAT'S IT! Can you believe it!?

Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese

Ingredients
1 box mac and cheese
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter
2 cups shredded chicken
2 tbsp hot sauce of your liking (like it hotter? add more as you see fit)
3 scallions, chopped
1 cup blue cheese

1. Boil mac and cheese according to package directions, drain, stir in milk and butter and cheese packet.
2. Mix in chicken, scallions, and blue cheese.

The dough recipe makes enough for 4 calzones.  The mac and cheese recipe gives you plenty of extra for lunch the next day.

Bake the calzones in a 500 degree oven for about 15 minutes.  Serve with extra hot sauce and blue cheese dressing for dipping.

Ok, I need to be done with this post because it is making me want to cook these up again...

Pizza Burger (way better than that one Domino's is selling in India...)

Ok fellow internet-ers, many of you might have see the headlines about Domino's new pizza burger in India.  The lament of the writers seemed to be why oh why isn't this available in the USA.  To me I just didn't understand the idea, mainly because there is no actual hamburger involved here.  No patty at all in fact.  It's really a pizza grilled cheese sandwich.

From Dominos/Facebook

So naturally my brain started churning, how can we have pizza + burger become a reality without Domino's getting involved.  Perhaps sliders on Bagel Bites? Maybe I could make tiny pizza with actual pizza dough? But really this is a disgustingly unhealthy idea, it needs convenience and frozen ingredients.

Enter Mama Celeste and a burger patty.

I sliced one personal cheese pizza in half and did the same to my burger patty.  Laid the patty side by side on one half of the pizza and topped it with the other pizza half.

Voila! Pizza + burger in it's most simple form.

This, my friends, is what dreams are made of.  You are an adult now so you can eat whatever you want for dinner!

Don't worry we also ate a salad.

Shaved Asparagus White Pizza

So I seem to have taken a month off from blogging.  I haven't taken a month off from cooking, I can assure you of that, but I have been pondering whether or not anyone reads this darn thing. Turns out, people actually do read it! 

So hey, I'm back.

I made this pizza months ago, but couldn't find the beautiful photos anywhere.  I got a new laptop recently and discovered the photos during some tedious file transfers.

Shaved Asparagus White Pizza
From Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients
1 pizza dough, make your own, buy it, whatevs
1/2 lb asparagus
1/4 cup Parmesan
1/2 lb shredded mozzarella
1 cup ricotta cheese
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
pepper

1. Preheat oven to 500. Set up your asparagus for shaving: don't snap off the ends because this is what you will hold onto when shaving with a peeler. Shave those asparagus with a regular ol' peeler.  Discard the ends.  Toss shavings with some olive oil, salt, and pepper.
2. Stretch out your pizza dough. Place onto whatever pan you cook your pizza on. Spread the ricotta cheese on the dough first, then sprinkle the mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses.  Finally, top with asparagus. Cook 10-15 minutes.

Yay, finally got myself to write a blog post for the first time in a month! And it was a recipe from months ago! Hah!

Pizza Dogs

I'm sure you have all been drooling (or fighting the nausea) over Pizza Hut's hot dog crusted pizza.  I have been perplexed by it.  It just doesn't make sense to me because the hot dog and the pizza aren't coming together harmoniously.

Here I tried to bring pizza and hot dogs together in one perfectly harmonious bite.

Pizza Dogs

Ingredients
4 hot dogs, cut into 4ths
about an 8th of a block of mozzarella, cut into small rectangles
1 tbsp oregano
1/2 tbsp garlic powder
1 can of crescent rolls
marinara sauce, for dipping

1. Preheat oven to 375.  Unroll crescent rolls and cut into 16 pieces, halving each triangle.
2. Mix oregano and garlic powder in a small bowl.
3. Place a piece of hot dog and a piece of mozzarella onto each small piece of dough. Wrap dough around cheese and dog, closing completely. Dip in oregano and garlic mixture.
4. Cook approximately 15 minutes, until dough is golden brown. Serve with marina sauce.

YES! Eat it Pizza Hut!

Pizza Monkey Bread

This beautiful creature graced the cover of Cook's Country Magazine a few months ago.  Since then it has been staring my down from the coffee table daring me to undertake the recipe.

As with most Cook's Country recipes, there are plenty of steps to follow.  There isn't anything particularly challenging about the steps, but this is definitely more involved than making a regular pizza.  That is meant to just be a heads up, not to frighten you.

Pizza Monkey Bread
From Cook's Country Magazine

Ingredients
2 balls of pizza dough
4 oz pepperoni, sliced
3 tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp dried oregano
8 mozzarella sticks

1. Roll out each dough ball into a 10 by 6 inch rectangle onto a floured surface.  Let sit for 15 minutes.
2. Microwave pepperoni for a minute to render it's fat.  Remove pepperoni from its container.  Mix pepperoni juice with olive oil**.  Use  this mixture to grease your bundt pan. Combine Parmesan and oregano in a small bowl.
3.  Roll dough into larger rectangles (18x9 inches).  Starting 2 inches from the long end of the rectangle, line up half of your pepperoni slices. Lay 4 mozzarella sticks on top.  Sprinkle half of the Parmesan mixture alongside mozzarella.  Roll dough tightly, pinching ends to seal.  Repeat with other dough.
4.  Cut each log in half, pinch ends. Cut each half into thirds, pinching the ends.  Place a layer of dough balls into prepared pan.  Brush tops with oil.  Layer remaining balls, brushing with oil each time.  Let rise for 30 minutes.
5.  Cook in a 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes.  Let cool for 10 minutes in pan, 10 minutes more on the serving platter.  Serve with your choice of tomato sauce.

**I am not a fan of pepperoni so I did not flavor my oil with it's rendered fat.  Instead I heated the olive oil with oregano and garlic and used that to brush my dough balls and pan with.  I did put some pepperoni into a few of my dough balls to please my hubby.

Nom-nom-nom!!

Check out that gooey cheesy inside! Yum!

Pizza monkey bread is the perfect dinner in front to the TV meal.  Make sure you have a nice bowl of marinara for dunking!

Caramelized Onion, Brussel's Sprouts, and Potato Pizza with Balsamic Reduction

This is one of those posts where I'm just going to boast a bit.  I'm not even going to bother with typing out a recipe here for you all.  We are just going to sit back and enjoy the food photos. K? K.

It all starts with a balsamic reduction.  I used probably 1/2-1 cup of balsamic and reduced it down to this spectacular syrup.

I caramelized some onions and Brussel's sprouts and placed them atop thinly sliced potatoes.  All toppings got covered in mozzarella cheese.

Give that whole pie a healthy splattering of balsamic reduction when it's all done cooking.

Eat up!

Broccoli Cheese Pizza Roll

This pizza roll can be customized any way you like.  I used a handful of ingredients I had on hand at the time, but the possibilities are really endless.

Broccoli Cheese Pizza Roll

Ingredients

1 pizza dough, store bought, homemade, you decide

1 cup mozzarella cheese

2 cups chopped broccoli

2 tbsp olive tapenade

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tbsp parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 400. Roll out pizza dough on an oiled, rimmed, rectangular baking sheet.  Leaving a 1 inch boarder, spread tapenade evenly over dough.  Top with broccoli and cheese.  Roll dough long-ways and press together to seal.

2.  Sprinkle pizza roll with parmesan cheese and garlic powder.  Bake until crust is browned, about 15 minutes.

Pizza rolls would be great for dinner or game-day snacking.

Now what should go inside my next pizza roll.....

Homemade Pizza Dough

I got this pretty fabulous book for my birthday this year: How to Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman.  If you're looking for a simple, but exhaustive cookbook bible; this book's for you.

I have already looked to this book several times.  This time I used his recipe for pizza dough.

I was really excited to use my stand mixer, but Mark also recommends using a food processor if you have that.

Pizza Dough

From How to Cook Everything

Ingredients

3 cups all purpose or bread flower, plus more as needed

2 tsp instant yeast

2 tsp salt

2 tbsp olive oil

1. Combine flour, yeast, and salt in a mixer or food processor. While machine is on add 1 cup of water and the oil.

2. Mix for 30 seconds, add water a little at a time until mixture forms a ball and is slightly sticky.

3. Turn dough out onto floured surface and knead by hand for a few seconds to form a smooth ball.  Put dough in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Let rise until dough doubles in size, 1-2 hours.

4. When dough is ready, stretch it, top it, cook it, eat it!

Although the dough didn't rise as much as I anticipated, it had a nice stretch and held it's shape.

 This was my first time making pizza dough on my own, as well as my first time making the pizza from start to finish.  I usually get some assistance in the dough stretching portion.

I was pretty damn proud of the outcome here and would definitely go through the effort to make my own dough again.

Chipotle Chicken Pizza

Remember when I made those kickass Cinco de Mayo burritos with chipotle chicken?  In case you forgot you should go refresh your memory here.

We had some of the burrito fix-ins leftover and I decided they would be the perfect topping for a pizza.

I used a combination of cheddar and mozzarella cheese, chipotle chicken, corn, and my lovely co-pilot made a beautiful siracha swirl on top.

It definitely sounds weird, but I promise you it was fantastic.

Everything I Ate For My 30th Birthday

On Wednesday I turned 30.  I'm really not too torn up about it though because 30 is going to be a pretty incredible year for me, buying a home and getting married!

I celebrated my birthday the only way I know how....lots of FOOD!

To begin with I had an apple fritter at Dean and Deluca that basically blew my mind.  I could have had nothing else the whole day and still been in a happy place from this fritter.  It's totally packed with nutrients because it has apples in it and they cancel out all the sugar and deep-fried bad stuff.

For lunch I dined at the famed Ippudo. I had the akamaru modern which is described as "a more bold, modern translation of the original pork broth; thin noodles topped with Ippudo's secret "umami dama" miso paste, pork chashu, cabbage, sesame kikurage mushrooms, scallions, and fragrant garlic oil."  It most definitely lived up to all the hype I had been hearing.  And I surprised even myself with my chopstick noodle skills!

After a total mind-blowing Aladdin experience, we got dinner and craft beers at Tink's.  This little lower east side restaurant serves comfort food style tapas.  It was pretty damn incredible for my introduction to the world of tapas, as nontraditional as it may have been.

We had the chocolate pig sliders with cabbage slaw.  These might have been the winner of the evening: braised pork butt, chocolate mole sauce, brioche bun, cabbage slaw.

These are the pretzel crusted chicken fingers served with a chipotle honey dipping sauce and cornichons. Loved them.

This won the most challenging to eat award, making it no less delicious I assure you.  "A lotta buratta"  consisted of buratta, sliced baguettes, tapenade, chili honey oil, balsamic vinegar, and sliced tomato.

I think this was my favorite of the night. The naan pizza was topped with goat cheese, red wine braised figs, bacon and arugula.  Surprise, it was fantastic!

To top the night off right I had my long standing birthday cake flavor: strawberry shortcake.  We went to this little Asian bakery, Panya, and you guessed it...it was delicious!

So there you have it folks, my 30th birthday food fest.  I hope you were able to live vicariously through me a bit here.  If you weren't then I highly recommend you eat at each and every one of these restaurants I visited.

P.S. Did anyone know they sell 32oz beers in Penn Station, and they have 20 different kinds!  That was the real finale of the evening and it was a welcome surprise.