Dinner During Lent - Tomato Pesto Pizza

Do our plans get in the way of our lives? Or, do our lives get in the way of our plans? Either way you look at it, we humans get overly busy from time to time. That I'm sure we can all agree upon. Being busy makes me hungry! Less time to cook, less time to eat, increased likelihood of jamming 4 doughnuts/tacos/grande cappuccinos into my face in a hurried mess. Don't do that, though, it's not good for your sanity or your blood pressure.

My favorite bloggers are those who are most honest and transparent about life's ups and downs. It's easy to speak to the 'ups' although the 'downs' are where I'm able to truly relate to people as actual human beings, know what I mean?

That all being said, I vowed to make a different meat free meal every Friday, right? Sounds fun! Except when it's Friday and my colleagues want to go to happy hour and my husband is at the gym. Then, on the way home, we stop to pick something up from a friend. We run in the house, quickly, to retrieve the borrowed item. We get to meet her Mom, and her brother, and the dog! 45 minutes later we're on the way home to relax... NO, we need to make that meat-less meal! Luckily I'd planned something quite simple. Tomato Pesto Pizza is our 4th Dinner During Lent recipe and it's the easiest yet.

Pizza in Napoli

[Get ready for another post beginning with my singing!]

In Napoli, where love is King, where boy meets girl, here's what they sayyyyy...

...When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie - that's amore!

That's Amore is one of my favorite songs. In college I worked at a bar that was owned by an Italian guy named Tony. We'd play that song during last call while turning the lights on, letting the drunkards know it was time to go. The next year I was a patron of that same bar and the sound of That's Amore somehow became an unnwelcomed burden rather than a call to rejoyce in tip money and freedom! 

Last year at our wedding we played That's Amore as one of the very last songs at our reception and we all sang along. Now I'm sure not everyone knows or loves the song and that's OK. I know there's something we can all agree upon and that's pizza. Do you know where the college kids and all of the bartenders all went after That's Amore played and the bar closed? That's right, they all went to get pizza.

True Neopolitan pizza (although it was our second favorite, see below for photos of our actual favorite!)

Bacon and Kale Pizza

After posting this week for the first time in 2 months, I think I'm back in the groove of blogging!

Please excuse my absence. We moved, I started a new job, Bryce graduated from college, both of our parents (and his brother) visited, we spent a week on the North Shore, and a weekend on the Big Island! I have a lot to tell you about. For now, here's what was for dinner the other night: Bacon and Kale Pizza!

Bacon and Kale Pizza

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Ingredients

1 pound of pizza dough

1/3 of a pound of fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced

1/4 of  a white onion, thinly sliced

4 slices of bacon, cooked and chopped

3 cups of kale

grated parmesan cheese

EVOO

salt and pepper

flour for work surface

Begin with the oven set to 400 degrees F, pour a glass of wine, and place your (peppered) bacon on a wire rack over a cookie sheet. Rather than buying a pound of prepackaged bacon (and leaving half to spoil in the fridge) I got just 4 slices from the deli and it was so much better! Bake until the bacon is crispy to your liking. Remember that it's going back into the oven again so don't over do it.

Fruit Pizza

Breakfast or dessert? Savory or sweet? What exactly is a fruit pizza - we need to know! 

Remember my dear friend Christine, whose baby shower I hosted back in November? She and her husband were blessed with baby Stephen just hours after leaving my birthday BBQ! 

Pizza Dip and the Super Bowl

Another year of football has come and gone. It was just an OK year for my Steelers. The highlight had to be beating the Pats and the worst part was, of course, losing in the first round of playoffs to the over-popularized Tim Tebow and the Broncos. This season marked a first for me personally, as I traveled to San Fran for my first ever away game! I'm not sure if I'll ever do that again. Plus, they wouldn't even keep the lights on for me. I went to my annual Christmas-time home game, too.

Needless to say, the SB wasn't a big deal for me this year. Unlike last year, I actually dressed like a girl and paid little attention to the game. 

I also made a delicious pizza dip! I found a recipe in the new HGTV magazine and changed it quite a bit.

Pizza Dip with Sausage

feeds many!

3 links of Italian sausage

1 (24 ounce) jar of sauce

15 ounces of ricotta cheese

1 package of fresh mozzarella pearls

2 baguettes

fresh basil

I'm a wimp so I get the mild sausage!

Impromptu Pizza

On Friday night I finally made it home at 8 pm.  After a long, long week all I wanted to do was relax, have a drink, and dinner.  Bryce was at the baseball game and I had the apartment to myself.  

After assessing the food situation in my home, I could have selected from the following for dinner:

• Cannoli filling
• Ramen noodles
• Peanut butter and jelly on the ends of the loaf of bread

Thoughts of take out began bombarding my brain!  I could get thai food from the restaurant down the street, enjoy my annual trip to Taco Bell via the drive through window, or call Papa John's and order a pizza with extra, extra, extra garlic sauce.  As indulgent and tempting as those all sound (Yes, I LOVE Taco Bell and have a problem with PJ's garlic sauce - both habits I picked up in college.  Maybe that's why I gained those 15 pounds!) I wanted something simple that also wouldn't put me into cardiac arrest only to have Bryce come home to find me dead in a pool of takeout and vodka, club soda, and cranberry juice.  I took another look in the fridge, this time getting a little more creative.

I took roll:

• Crescent roll dough - here!
• Mozzarella and fontina cheeses - we're here!
• Tomatoes - present!
• Basil - (Who yelled from the porch) I'm out here!

It was perfect, I was making a pizza!  Sorry Papa John.  

Pizza

Preheat the oven to 375

Pop the crescent roll dough tube (isn't that so fun?) and roll the dough out on a baking stone, pressing all the seams together to create a big, seamless crust

Seed and slice 2 tomatoes and add them to the dough

Shred copious amounts of mozzarella and fontina cheese and evenly distribute to every inch of the pizza

Pick, rinse, and tear basil leaves, then add to the mix

Drizzle olive oil all over, then put into the oven for 11 - 13 minutes

My impromptu pizza before:  Colorful, cheesy, doughy, and fresh

Impromptu pizza after:  Golden brown, melty, flaky, and yummy

It was perfect!  The crescent rolls made a buttery, flaky crust and the fresh basil was a nice punch through the gooey cheese.  Is it just me or do tomatoes always seem to hold heat the longest?  I cut the pizza into 8 squares.  I immediately scarfed down 2, Bryce came home from the game and devoured 4, and the other 2 were my lunch on Saturday.  Maybe next time I'll find a recipe for homemade garlic sauce... now there's a good idea!    

Potato Pizza

Last Tuesday Bryce and I returned from our trip to the East Coast to an empty fridge.  After an emergency trip to 7-11 to get coffee creamer, it was still a food-less situation on Friday.  The work day was finally winding down and I decided I wanted to cook (in an attempt to do something enjoyable before babysitting Friday night, working Saturday morning, and babysitting again Saturday night - EEKS).  A quick search on the Food Network's website and I came across a recipe for Potato and Pancetta Pizza, MMM! 

I printed the recipe and headed to the store along with hundreds of other we-just-got-off-work-and have-no-food shoppers...  The store didn't have pancetta, taleggio cheese, or pizza dough - 3 major players in the recipe!  After carrying around a package of prosciutto for 10 minutes trying to remember what the hell the difference is I finally gave up.  In an attempt to improvise I bought an already made crust, Parmesan and mozzarella cheeses, and salami.

The result was delicious!  I'm a big fan of potatoes on pizza, which Bryce had never had before but now likes, too.  We added some fresh basil from our neighbor which makes everything better, if you ask me!