Which Came First the Chicken or the Barnyard Pizza?

Even before our granddaughter Julia was able to walk; her love for all animals was evident.  We have pictures of her when she was less than 6 months old,  sitting in a box with her grandma Bubbie’s dog who was giving birth to a litter of puppies at the time.  The look on her face was one of pure love – she was at one with those pups!  In addition to the family pets, a German wire-haired dog named Ophelia and a really fat cat named Smithers, she is the proud “mother” of 5 chickens, 5 ducks, 2 guinea pigs and 2 rabbits, all of which she lovingly cares for and feeds. She takes after her grandma Bubbie who loves all animals and has taught Julia about the responsibility of having pets.  I still cringe when I think of the day that Julia, who was about three years old, was showing me how she feeds her guinea pigs.  Before I knew what she was doing, she had the cage open; guinea pig cradled in both her hands and was stretching her arms up toward me, asking me if I wanted to hold him.   Well, my daughter-in-law Kim probably noticed the blood drain from my face as I fumbled for a reason to say no.  “Ammie Lin can see him better if I hold him,” Kim said.  We laugh about it now, but I didn’t think it was funny at the time.  I love dogs, but I keep any other creatures at arm’s length, not really understanding my unrealistic fears.  I read stories to Julia about animals, we sing songs together about animals, but that’s as far as I can go with it.  She is 5 years old now and I can still see her as a little bit of a thing singing “Old MacDonald”….she knew every animal sound before she could even put a sentence together.  While you are preparing this pizza with your children, encourage them to sing a few verses of that wonderful old song being sure to sing about the toppings - with an oink, oink here and a cluck, cluck there.....E-I-E-I-O!!!

Julia's Barnyard Pizza

Julia’s Barnyard Pizza is easy to make and great fun to eat.  The ‘big kid’ in our household, Charlie, loves having an entire breakfast on one piece of pizza.  I tested this pizza a while ago and decided to write about it when I received the picture of Julia and one of her chickens that was taken this Easter.  If you notice, in the story I said she was 5 years old and now she is nearly 7….time is passing way too quickly and I have been working on this book way too long! 

To make this pizza, simply cut some breakfast sausage links into small pieces, sauté about two cups of frozen shredded potatoes until nearly done, stretch and shape your pizza dough and you are ready to assemble the pizza.  Spread the dough with a thin layer of tomato sauce (Hunt’s works well).  Sprinkle on some shredded cheddar cheese and, using tongs, make four ‘haystacks’ out of the pre-cooked potatoes and, using the back of a spoon, make a well in the top of each haystack.  Scatter sausages around the potatoes and bake in a very hot oven for about 5 minutes; remove from oven and carefully slide one egg into the well on each of the four haystacks.  Top with more cheddar and bake for about 7 minutes longer or until eggs are set and crust is golden.  Another option is to cook the eggs separately and place on pizza after it is baked. 

The first time I tested this pizza, I placed the raw eggs into the potato ‘haystack’ wells before placing it on the hot stone in my gas grill.  It looked quite beautiful and I was so proud thinking that this was a winner and I would not even have to revise the recipe.  Well, that was a short lived dream.  I opened the grill and deftly jerked my pizza peel to position the pizza on the hot stone and to my horror – thunk, thunk, thunk, and thunk!  Each of the four eggs kept going after the dough stopped in its place on the stone.  Oh yes, now I remember something I learned long ago about an object in motion.   What a mess – eggs everywhere.  I quickly scooped them back into their wells, which were clearly not deep enough and baked the pizza for which I had already lost my appetite.  Of course, that didn’t stop me from eating it.  After finishing it with a nice squirt of ketchup, salt and pepper, I cut it into four pieces and the real fun began.  We folded the crust around the sausage, potatoes, egg and cheese and we experienced a taste more remarkable than any breakfast sandwich we had ever eaten.   

The second testing of the pizza was considerably more successful.  Pre-baking the pizza for 5 minutes helps the crust to firm up so you can just slide it off the pizza peel when placing it back onto the stone for the remaining baking time.  So, not to worry about flying eggs if you try this pizza, just remember to pre-bake and enjoy the process.

You will find the complete recipe for Julia's Barnyard Pizza in Pizza Memoirs.

Spana~KO~Pizza

Spanakopita is a surprisingly savory strudel of sorts that is to Greeks what pizza is to Americans.  My first and only attempt at making it for my husband, whose mother was Greek, was somewhat of a failure.  My problem was that I did not know how to work with phyllo dough.  The fine sheets tore as I handled them, came apart as I brushed butter on them and dried out completely while waiting to be used.  The spinach filling was quite good, though, and I baked it in a casserole, admitting defeat.  Many years have passed since then and my fear of phyllo stands firm. Thus, I decided to eliminate it from my repertoire and create a pizza using a traditional spanakopita filling on amazing whole wheat pizza dough.  This pizza is my way of ‘thumbing my nose’ so to speak at phyllo.

For the topping, I lightly sautéed chopped onion and scallions for a few minutes.  I then stirred in frozen chopped spinach that had been thawed and drained, parsley, dill, nutmeg, salt and pepper.  I found the dill and nutmeg gave the mixture a complexity of flavor present only in the best spanakopita.  After this mixture cooled a bit, I folded in a good amount of crumbled feta cheese.  Now to top the pie - I scattered shredded mozzarella over the oiled dough and distributed the spinach/feta mixture evenly over that.  Pine nuts and freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano completed the pizza topping.  It baked up to golden perfection in about twelve minutes on my smoking hot pizza stone.  After removing it from the heat, I topped it with freshly grated lemon zest.



Spana~KO~Pizza



Since I have to be mindful of portion sizes in order to stay within my daily points plus range, I allowed myself two small slices – for lunch.  It was so amazingly savory and gooey; I then proceeded to have another slice – afternoon snack.  OK, so now I was trying to wait for another fifteen minutes so my brain could catch up and register satiety which takes the normal brain about twenty minutes; time to package the rest of the pizza and put it away for dinner.  As I placed the package into the refrigerator, the struggle continued.   “You know you are going to eat the rest of this for dinner,” I said to myself, “so why let it get cold?”  “Just take it out of the ‘fridge and let it sit on the counter,” I continued, “There is nothing in it that will go bad.”  So onto the counter went my tidy foil package containing the rest of that fabulously, delicious Greek delight of a pizza.  Twenty minutes passed and I realized that the voice in my head must have been so loud it prevented my brain from doing the satiety thing it was supposed to be doing.  Now I had to put my new behavior modification skills to work.  In order to break an old habit (eating when not hungry, for example), one should do a new activity in its place to form a new habit.  Taking a walk is a good example; so I did what I was taught.  I took a walk – right over to the counter, placed the last two slices of the Spana~KO~Pizza on my plate, sat down and had dinner at 3:00 P.M.  What is it they say about not being able to teach old dogs new tricks?  That afternoon put me about three days into my points plus value for the week, but I did not give up.  Lesson learned – for now.  But let me tell you, it was worth every bite.  That savory spinach filling on a pizza crust satisfies sufficiently – who needs phyllo?

SHRIMP COCKTAIL REVOLUTIONIZED

Over the years, I have served shrimp cocktail more times than I can count.  Eventually, boredom set in and boiled shrimp with no frills cocktail sauce held no charm.  I began experimenting with new sauces and dips, trying everything from sickeningly sweet to killer spicy – learning the hard way to use wasabi powder in moderation.  Realizing that the shrimp also played a part in this lackluster appetizer, I marinated them in garlic, oil, salt, and crushed red pepper, grilled them and dipped them into a fragrant, nutty roasted red pepper pesto.  Success!  The combination was incredible and thus became my go to shrimp cocktail appetizer.  This revolutionized shrimp cocktail was the inspiration for my Shrimp and Red Pepper Pesto Pizza.

I have tested this recipe before and found it to have amazing depth of flavor resulting from the interplay of the roasted red pepper pesto and the piquancy of the Manchego cheese.  There were also several varying textural levels from the crispiness of the crust to the smooth, buttery texture of the cheese and the slight crunch remaining in the freshly sliced red peppers and onions that added to the overall complexity of this pizza; and the shrimp, because they were nestled in the pepper pesto and cheese, were cooked to juicy perfection.   With such great results from my first test run of this pizza you might be wondering why I must test it again.  For the first test, I baked the pizza on the outdoor pizza grill and it now needs to be baked in a conventional oven as per the recipe.  Yes, the amount of testing that is needed before finalizing recipes for Pizza Memoirs is mind boggling.  So, let the testing begin. 

I placed my cold pizza stone on an oven rack in the top third of the oven and began heating the oven to 500^o Fahrenheit.  Wanting to insure that the stone was truly heated to the maximum my oven would allow, I preheated the stone for one hour.   After slipping the prepared pizza off my pizza peel onto the very hot pizza stone and quickly closing the oven door, I began shredding the fresh basil leaves to use as the final garnish.  Within four minutes, I noticed the top of the pizza was already beginning to brown.  Oh no, that’s not good.  I probably should have placed the stone a little lower in the oven; isn’t hindsight wonderful?  Within nine minutes, the pizza was browned, glistening with the oil from the cheese and ready to come out of the oven for its final garnish of basil leaves and freshly grated lemon zest.  As the blend of yeasty, peppery, buttery and herbaceous scents reached my nose, I was jolted back to reality by two words that raced across my mind like an Arizona dust devil,  ‘Points Plus’.  Yes, my dream of eating half of this amazing work of art was dashed against the rocks of reality and with renewed resolve to remain faithful to my Weight Watchers plan for another day; I sat down at the table and SLOWLY consumed two small pieces of my Shrimp and Red Pepper Pesto Pizza. 



SHRIMP AND RED PEPPER PESTO PIZZA



 Yum, yum, and yum…it tasted as good as it looked and smelled; I could have easily eaten two more pieces.  Two, who am I kidding?  I probably could have eaten the entire pizza.   Instead, I silently repeated a quote I read in one of my Weight Watchers books – “Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.”  Hang in there all my friends who are working so hard to improve your health; if you believe you can do it, you can do it.    Linda