Pizza Night

Every Friday night at my house is (homemade) pizza night. Period. So even with the oven out of commission, nothing was going to stop me from enjoying this (albeit new) tradition. But the task was not a difficult one, as a toaster oven is just a teeny, tiny, tabletop oven…right? Whatever the toppings, the crust is always the same. I found this recipe a few months back and absolutely love it. Made as it, it is crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside and rises to heights that put some chain pizza restaurants to shame. I say “made as is” because I no longer make it as is. I am real big on whole wheat, so I simply replace the all purpose flour with whole wheat. I started doing half and half, then slowly whittled the ratio down until I was brave enough to try it all whole wheat. This crust still is crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, but it doesn’t rise as much and has a nutty flavor to it. But that is to be expected. I still love it, though (I love whole wheat), and will continue to make it this way. I've included three pizzas in this post, a calzone, southwestern chicken, and oreo. There are no recipes, just a description of what I did.

For the calzone, I rolled my balls of dough out, topped half with cheese and turkey pepperoni and put some green pepper on one side for Justin (because I could only cook one at a time and neither of us was waiting to eat), folded the empty side over, and crimped the two sides together. I dipped mine in pizza sauce while Justin ate his without.

The next weekend I decided to make a southwestern chicken pizza. I first took a chicken breast and cut it into bite size pieces. I then sprinkled them with a little cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, and red pepper flakes before grilling. For the sauce, I (not all the way) drained a can of black beans and put it in the food processor with the same spices. When it was to the sauce consistency I like, I spread a little over a prebaked crust (which I had sprinkled with a little garlic powder and red pepper flakes before baking). I topped with a little cheese, the chicken, then a little more cheese. I baked it for about 15 minutes on 400.

I'm sure by now everyone has seen the commercial for Domino's new Oreo Pizza. If you can get past the disgustin Oreo beards on the actors, you see nothing but a glorious crust filled with crushed Oreos. When I first saw it I thought "that's my kind of pizza!" So tonight, though I have never had one, I decided that was going to be our dessert to go with the chicken pizza. I prebaked that same white pizza dough (I know, I know I said I use whole wheat, but I didn't think the Oreos would taste very well on ww dough) and topped with cream cheese frosting. I then crushed about 10-15 oreos and piled them on the crust, after which I drizzled with a powdered sugar/milk glaze. I put it in the ove just to warm everything, since the crust was already baked, for about 8 minutes. It also gave the powdered sugar and the oreos a little chance to brown, so it was really yummy. I will definitely be making this again (though not on a reguar basis because look at the sugar on that!).

Baked french toast???

I've been wanting to make bread pudding for a few months now. Not that I had any idea what it tasted like or if I would even like it. I tried to find a recipe, but I couldn't find anything that appealed to me. So I hopped on The Nest and asked the girls on the What's Cooking? board if anyone had a recipe. Carrie from Carrie's Cooking Adventure came to my rescue with a link to the bread pudding she had made.

The only changes I made was use wheat bread (that makes it healthy, right?), only 3 eggs, and I ommited 1/4 cup of sugar. My vanilla sauce was very runny, but I wasn't sure if that was how it was supposed to be or not. I poured sauce over the pudding but ended up pouring some of it out because it was drowning the bread. But it still imparted the flavor.

I liked this recipe. When I was mixing everything together I realized that this was kinda like baked french toast, so I figured I had to like it. I don't know how "authentic" this recipe was, but it was a great start for someone who has ever even tasted bread pudding (and also for someone who didn't have a lot of ingredients in the house). I also love how puffy it was when I took it out of the oven. It looked so yummy. The only change I would make to this recipe is to omit the raisins, which are optional anyway, because I just didn't like how they tasted burnt after being baked on top of the bread. And this is coming from someone who loves raisins.

We'll call this my pear phase

I go through phases with my food, especially with fruit. Let's say I really like oranges. For the next few weeks I will buy and eat nothing but oranges. Then I will get so sick of them that I won't even want to look at oranges for weeks! Then I will slowly lose my disgust and will incorporate oranges back into a normal part of my diet. Or start the vivious cycle over again...

A few months back my food of choice for my phase was the lovely pear. There is nothing I love more than a ripe, juicy pear. And at one point I might as well have been single handedly supporting all the pear farmers in America.

When I started to lose my interest in pears, I realized that I had so many and I needed to use them up. So I went to allrecipes.com and typed in "pear." One thing that caught my eye was pear bread. I had never heard of that. Banana bread I had eaten, zucchini bread I have eaten, but no pear bread. So I went with what looked like a good recipe, Pear Bread I. Click the title for the original recipe, below is the recipe with a couple changes. I normally don't like to make changes the first time I make a recipe (mainly because I don't like reviewers who change the recipe around and then give it a bad rating) but I figured my changes didn't change it too much (plus I wasn't reviewing it on the website).

Pear Bread

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tblsp ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup applesauce
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 cups peeled shredded pears (I used two large pears)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• dash of nutmeg (still not sure why I did that...)

In a large mixing bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Make a well in the center of the bowl.

In a separate bowl combine the oil, eggs, sugar, grated pears, and vanilla. Blend well. Add to well of dry ingredients. Stir until just moistened.

Spoon batter into 2 greased and floured 8x5x3 inch loaf pans. (I actually used one loaf pan, unsure of the exact size, and two mini loaf pans)
Bake in a preheated 325 degree F (165 degrees C) oven for one hour and 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack before removing from the loaf pans. (time varies, watch closely after about an hour)

I really liked this bread. Many reviewers thought this was too "cakey," but to me it was perfect and better than I expected. It was moist with just the right amount of sweetness. Overall the pear taste was very subtle, but every now and again I would bite into a shredded piece of pear and get a burst of flavor.

Is it ready yet?

Flipping through the March '07 issue of Cooking Light I saw what looked like one of the most delicious cakes: Italian Cream Cake. It just looked like this wonderfully moist two layer cake full of chopped pecans and covered in cream cheese icing. Now I normally don't like pecans, but I had to try this cake. Plus it got a four out of five star rating by reviewers on the website, so I figured it must be pretty good. So I beat my egg whites, folded in my sifted cake flour, and toasted my teeny chopped pecans. I imagined it to be a moist, cakey version of an angel food cake with pecans...This cake should been moist, the reviewers said it would be, but mine wasn't. But that was probably my fault. See, I checked the cake when at the appropriate time, but it just didn't seem done. So I left it in there. Every minute or so I would check it, and it just didn't seem done. Finally after about 10 minutes I gave up and took it out. By then I could tell it was overdone.

After it cooled I frosted it with the homemade cream cheese frosting. I should have taken the advice of the reviewers and used another cream cheese frosting, but I am stubborn and must go by the book the first time. The icing tasted alright, very cream cheesy and sugary, but it lacked something. It was also very thick and there just wasn't enough of it. I was able to cover the entire cake, but I really had to skimp on the inside between the two layers.

All in all the cake was good. But then again, not many cakes are bad in my opinion. I would probably make this again, but do 1 1/2 times the amount of icing (or use another frosting recipe) and pull the cake out of the oven even if I don't think it is ready...