The Barefoot Kitchen Witch: Two Pizzas

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Two Pizzas

I made two pizzas tonight.

Here's what I did:

Took two 16 oz packages of store-bought pizza dough out of the fridge about a couple hours before my projected dinner time. Set them out on a counter - still in their packages - to come to room temperature.

Then I got the toppings ready...

First pizza -

Chopped about 3 strips of bacon into 3/4 inch square pieces (approximately). Cooked them over high heat in a large saute pan until they had rendered most of their fat and were crisp. Took them out of the pan and set them on a few layers of paper towel on a plate.

Next - dumped in about, oh, 8 cups of sliced onions. (I'm guessing - I just used up what I had, which was maybe 8 to 10 small to medium onions.) Sprinkled a little salt over them and stirred them all around to coat the onions with the bacon fat. Turned the heat down to medium low and let them go, stirring every now and then, until they just started to caramelize - roughly a half an hour.

While the onions were cooking, I combined about a third to a half of a cup of crumbled feta cheese with about the same amount of ricotta cheese. Set that aside with the bacon.

Preheated the oven to 450 degrees F.

Then I started working on the topping for pizza number two.

I combined about a third of a cup of basil pureed with olive oil (this had been in the freezer all ready to go from when we harvested all the basil a few weeks ago) - with 3 big fat cloves of garlic, minced. And about a tablespoon (all I had left) of grated parmesan. Set that aside.

Assembly:

Pizza number one: I spread the dough out on the baking sheet. Rubbed a little olive oil over the surface. Dotted the top with blobs of the ricotta/feta mixture. Topped that with about half of the caramelized onions, and then sprinkled the bits of bacon over the top.

Pizza number two: I drizzled olive oil over the pizza dough (already stretched out and ready to go). Then smeared the basil mixture on top, and dotted (my word of the day) with ricotta cheese and sprinkled with salt and pepper.

They both took about 25 minutes to cook. Alex liked the basil pizza. Julia liked both. So did Bill and I. Bill's been sick, so he had tea. Alex and Julia had juice, and I had some pinot grigio...hang on, let me see which one...Carsasa - estate bottled in Italy...it's actually a pinot grigio/pinot blanc blend (51%/49%)...and oddly enough, I couldn't see the year anywhere on the bottle...I'll look again later. Maybe it was hiding.

Anyway - that's what we had for dinner tonight.

Oh! Almost forgot - I've put the other half of the caramelized onions in the freezer. I figured they'd be nice to have on hand. If we were planning to have, oh, steak tomorrow, I'd have kept them in the fridge...and I would have bought mushrooms while I was at the store today, too....

Posted on October 15, 2005 in Gardening Goodness, Had Hooves, Say Cheese!, Starchy Comfort | Permalink

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Comments

yummmm

Posted by:mere | October 16, 2005 at 07:24 AM

Jayne- I stole your idea for the bacon and carmelized onion pizza. I put a thin layer of pesto on the crust, then added the onions and bacon as well as a bit of ricotta cheese, fresh parmesan and a small amount of mozzarella. Then I added some roasted red peppers. I can't wait to eat it!!!!!!!!!

Posted by:Beth | October 18, 2005 at 01:26 PM

Beth - that sounds really good!!

Posted by:Jayne | October 18, 2005 at 03:42 PM

Books of Food and Cooking

Theodora FitzGibbon: A taste of London: Traditional food
Recipe mentioned: Crumpets. A bit of my history: Like "Great British Cooking" below, this belonged to my late grandmother. I like this book because of all the old photos interwoven with the traditional recipes. I also liked the flavor of this crumpet recipe better than the one in "Great British Cooking" - but I can't really say which recipe is more authentic, since I don't have firsthand knowledge of how a crumpet is REALLY supposed to taste. (***)
Jane Garmey: Great British Cooking: Wellkept Secret, A
Recipe mentioned: Crumpets. A bit of my history: this originally belonged to my mom's mother. It's interesting to me that she had cookbooks about British cooking, as she was born and raised in London, and wouldn't she just KNOW how to cook like a Brit? And of course that's a totally ridiculous assumption, as people aren't just born knowing how to cook their native cuisine. Anyway, I've also made the Yorkshire pudding from this book, and it's just as good as the recipe my grandmother and mother had/have used all these years. So that's something. (***)
Dorie Greenspan: Baking: From My Home to Yours
Recipe mentioned: As of today (4/10/08), only the Most Extraodinary Lemon Cream Tart. A bit of my history: Actually, more like the future - I've joined the group Tuesdays with Dorie - and so just about every Tuesday you can expect to see another recipe from this book. I've got a separate recipe category just for those posts, too. This is gonna be fun! (*****)
George Greenstein: Secrets of a Jewish Baker: Authentic Jewish Rye and Other Breads
Recipe Mentioned: Potato Rye Bread with Onion and Caraway. A bit of my history: I bought this book years ago, when I was in the midst of either a breadmaking frenzy or a Judaism frenzy - or probably both at the same time. Though I messed up the posted recipe when I made it recently, I've baked plenty of other things from this book which have turned out fine. Clearly the problem with the Rye bread was mine and mine alone! (*****)
Charmaine Solomon: The Complete Asian Cookbook
Recipes mentioned: Mutton Kari (Lamb Curry), Garam Masala. A bit of my history: I think we bought the hardcover version of this as a bargain book. It's a huge treasure trove of all dishes Asian. So much to explore...so little time. (*****)
Lynne Rossetto Kasper: The Italian Country Table: Home Cooking from Italy's Farmhouse Kitchens
Recipe mentioned: Apricot-Pistachio Pockets (Ravioli Dolci). A bit of my history: I have two of Ms. Kasper's books - this and her huge success - "The Splendid Table." I may have said this before, but I think somewhere in my soul there's some Italian in me. Something about the food resonates with me. I can't explain it - but there it is. (*****)
Janice A. Wilke (editor): For Days of Auld Lang Syne
Sorry - you won't find this one anywhere. I have the only copy. Before I got married, my mother compiled recipes provided by family and friends on both Bill's side and my side of our soon-to-be-joined families. The result is a cornucopia of familiar and new recipes for everything from my sister's Cinnamon Toast to Lemon Sponge Pie, to a couple of Bill's mom's German Christmas cookies. The book is a treasure trove of ideas, and clearly a labor of love. (*****)
Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine: The Best Recipe
Recipe mentioned: American Pie Dough for Fruit Pies. A bit of my history: Our friend John gave this to me for Christmas in 2002. Inside he wrote "Jayne, I'm not quite sure this will help, as you are already the best cook..." A very kind and flattering inscription indeed. Anything produced by the Cooks Illustrated people is gold. I love their trial and error approach to finding these "Best Recipes" - and the explanation of what they did, what happened, and what ultimately worked best. (*****)
Bernard Clayton: Bernard Claytons New Complete Book of Breads
Recipe mentioned: Royal Hibernian Brown Loaf. A bit of my history: I bought this years ago while I was on a bread baking kick. Not really a kick. A reunion. Mr. Clayton's tome is 724 pages of recipes and tips and history and background and culture and back story - not including the index. The chapters and the recipes they contain are well organized and easy to follow, easy to understand, and inspiring. (*****)
Brinna B. Sands: The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook/Dedicated to the Pure Joy of Baking
Recipe mentioned: Irish Whiskey Soda Bread. A bit of my history: It's not so much a history as it is an everyday facet of my life. Not the book, specifically, but King Arthur Flour. Never Bleached, Never Bromated. I don't think I've ever bought any flour other than King Arthur, unless it was a less-popular kind of flour purchased from a small, organic mill. I receive the King Arthur flour catalog year-round. It's where I buy my 100-pack of half-sheet-pan sized parchment paper. I've been to their retail store in VT. I attended a bread baking seminar they sponsored years ago - with my mother and Bill's mother. King Arthur flour runs in my veins. Okay, not really. They'd be really clogged if that was happening. Anyway. I've made some of the muffin recipes in this book, probably a quick bread or two, and who knows what else. Everything has come out great. It's a huge book, very friendly in tone, and filled to overflowing. (*****)
Alice Benjamin and Harriett Corrigan: Cooking with Conscience
Recipe Mentioned: A Mess of Pottage. A bit of my history: I think this was my mother's book originally and somehow I ended up with it. Published in 1975, the subtitle is "A book for people concerned about world hunger." So it's vegetarian and healthy and socially conscious. I need to go through this book again and try out some of the other recipes - I've only ever made the "mess of pottage." (****)
Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck: Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Volume 1)
Recipe mentioned: Leek and Potato Soup. A bit of my history: As I've mentioned elsewhere in this blog, I grew up watching Julia Child on PBS and she and my mother were my two biggest food influences growing up. Julia was like family, somehow. She was a regular person who goofed up now and then and could laugh about it. Her fearlessness and sense of humor appealed to me tremendously (and still do) and that, combined with my mother's cooking and adventurousness in the kitchen were a flesh and blood example of Julia's message, I think. I also love cooking shows that are in the Julia tradition. Programs that teach by example. Chefs and cooks who are passionate about food and can convey that effectively, so that you are ready to rush out and buy ingredients and try that recipe right away. That, I think, is part of Julia Child's legacy. She rocked. (*****)
Howard Early: Fast Breads (Crossing Press Specialty Cookbooks.)
Recipe mentioned: Quick Onion Flat Bread. A bit of my history: I bought this book many years ago when I was obsessively buying bread books of every kind. I lived in a cockroachy apartment outside of Boston and had a tiny kitchen with a half inch of counter space, but I managed to bake a few things anyway. (***)
Rick Bayless: Mexico One Plate At A Time
Recipe mentioned: Chiles Rellenos. A bit of my history: We've made quite a few recipes from this book and every single one of them has been fantastic, such as the Ceviche (lime-marinated seafood) and the Tamales. (*****)
Betty Crocker: Betty Crocker's Mexican Made Easy
Recipe mentioned: Green Sauce. A bit of my history: The first meal my husband ever cooked for me was Mexican, and some of the recipes came from this book, which he bought as a bargain book at Building 19 for $2.99. I think it's out of print now. The Green Sauce is fabulous. (***)
Nobuyuki Matsuhisa: Nobu: The Cookbook
Recipes mentioned: Soft Shell Crab Roll; Seafood Ceviche, Nobu Style; Ceviche Sauce. A bit of my history: Actually, not a long history with this one - I've had it maybe a year or so. But I'd heard of Nobu and had seen him on an episode of Martha Stewart years ago, and we love sushi here, so it was a natural addition to the library. (*****)