Pear-brie pizza

uddies are playing together (Seth and Jake) and that means pizza. I have been working around the place all day, and in no state to go out pizza-getting. The delivery options seem to be getting slimmer and slimmer around town too, so that leaves homemade. Once I got the yeast to play properly, it was a snap.

For the boys I did the basics of sauce and cheese. But there was a little crust left over, and that made me want to play... So here's my experiment of the day, based on what was around: Pear-brie-blue cheese-parmesan-white cheddar-arugula pizza. But I'll shorten it, just to make it easy on you: 

Pear-brie pizza
Pizza crust
1/2 cup blue cheese dressing (Litehouse worked great)
1 red pear, sliced thinly
Brie slices (about a dozen, cut into 1-inch pieces)
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/2 cup white cheddar, grated
1/3 cup pine nuts

Preheat the oven to 425 F.

Spread the pizza dough out on a sprayed and floured pizza pan. Spread out the blue cheese dressing and arrange the pear slices around the pie; scatter the brie, parmesan, cheddar and pine nuts over the pears. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the cheese and crust are golden.

In homage to California Pizza Kitchen's pear and gorgonzola pizza, I couldn't resist tossing some arugula in a light vinaigrette with some thinly sliced red onions and placing that on top of the pizza (if I'd had blue cheese crumbles on hand, I'd definitely have tossed those in too).

This pizza made for a lovely accompaniment to watching the Golden Globes, fast-forwarding through those speeches and checking out movies I haven't seen... (I think I might just check out The Tourist. I'm not usually a fan of Johnny Depp, but the preview looks interesting and he seems different than his usual one-trick "thing.")

A wonderful supper, and a great reminder of how easy the pizza dough is. I'll be pulling that out again soon, especially for calzones, which are a great school lunch for Seth.

Keepin' my word: Salad day

ust to prove that meant what I said about some leafy greens today, here's my salad post! But I didn't stop with just greens, oh no. This is one of my favorite winter salads. And I swear, there really are greens under all that other stuff, really!

 

One of Sher's favorite winter salads
A couple generous handfuls of greens--I used romaine and arugula
1 red pear, sliced
2 Tbsp. chevre, crumbled
1/2 cup toasted pecans, coarsely chopped
Croutons to taste (you can see from the picture I was in the mood for croutons! Freshly made just yesterday!)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
Champagne vinaigrette

Assemble and devour. I did!

We love croutons around here. Our small person can sidle up to a bag of croutons and do serious damage. And I like to make them myself whenever possible, but have neglected that task recently. In my kitchen binge yesterday, I decided to remedy that.

Homemade croutons
2 loaves homestyle bread--one wheat, one sprouted wheat, cut into 3/4 inch dice
Olive oil, rosemary oil, vegetable oil--whatever you have on hand and is your flavor choice
Salt and pepper
Garlic salt

Chop the bread up and toss with the oils in a big bowl. I usually drizzle a little oil, stop and stir, drizzle some more. I used some of the rosemary oil I still have on hand and it made this batch especially lovely. Add salt, pepper and garlic salt (or minced garlic cloves too!) to taste and spread over a couple of baking sheets. Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 10 minutes, then flip the croutons with a spatula and bake for another 10, or until roasty toasty and golden. Cool on the counter before storing in an airtight container. These will get eaten long before they could possibly go stale!

 

And I claim not to like bread. Obviously that's nonsense.