Archive for April, 2010

Tonight it was time to make some pizzas for dinner.

The first pizza was my favorite, one I’d been itching to make for… ever.

Robiola Pizza

• robiola cheese (soft, runny, Italian)
• arugula
• truffle oil
• speck (in this case, applewood smoked La Quercia prosciutto
• chopped chives
• EVOO
• pepper

Roll out your dough, and put down the cheese, EVOO, and the chopped chives. Bake at a high-temp oven on a pizza stone.

When 2 minutes remain, pull pie, and cover in young arugula leaves and pepper. Continue baking, 2-3 minutes.

When the pie comes out, drizzle with truffle oil and then prosciutto or speck. Eat right away before all the meat melts!

BBQ Chicken Pizza

Choose your favorite BBQ sauce; I like a thicker, sweet variety for this pizza. Pre-cook your chicken breast with salt, pepper, and either chili powder or hot peppers in a grill pan (or over a grill). At the last 5 minutes of cooking, paint with sauce.

Paint the pizza dough with the sauce. Cover in thinly sliced purple, Bermuda onions. Put cut-up chicken breast on top, then cover in a variety of cheeses, to taste. I used a fontina-asiago mixture.

Bake until the cheese is bubbly.

Pear Macadamia Salad

• Asian pear
• Sweet pear
• greens mix (arugula, butter lettuce, radicchio)
• honey
• lemon juice
• EVOO
• salt, pepper
• spicy mustard
• toasted macadamia nuts

Make the dressing by whisking the lemon juice, mustard, honey, and EVOO with salt and pepper. Put the cut pears into this mixture, along with the onions and finally, toasted nuts.

Drizzle-out the dressing onto the greens before service, tossing to coat, then serve the salad family style, with the pears and onions on top.

Yumm-o.

Would it work? Sausage in a salad?

Apple Sausage Salad

There is one ingredient I omitted due to my own personal laziness in going to grab it in time to make this dish, which is, purple onion. If you don’t like purple onion, then you still missed a great salad.

Ingredients:

• apple and smoked gouda sausage (3 links for 2 people),
• red leaf lettuce,
• romaine lettuce, chopped,
• bacon (cut into small strips, and fried),
• thin slices red onion,
• 2 apples, sliced (here, yellow delicious),
• dressing

To make a dressing, I used equal parts honey and mustard, then combined that with red wine vinegar, a dab of EVOO, and the bacon fat used to cook the sausage. Whisked together, it was a creamy dressing.

Served with country-style bread.