Tomato, Garlic and Herb Pizza

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It’s been a looooooong time since I’ve made pizza, and really, what I’ve been itching to make is Nacho Pizza (hopefully soon to come!). Instead of experimenting with Nacho ingredients to make a Nacho Pizza hybrid; I decided to stick with what I know for tonight’s pizza: tomato, garlic and fresh herbs with loads of cheese.

I purchased about 6 cups of heirloom tomatoes intending to make a Tomato Salad for my dad’s arrival in town. But he didn’t make it in this weekend and the idea of that many tomatoes taking up room in my fridge made me a little anxious. Hence the tomato pizza. To really add some flavor to a primarily tomato pizza I added the fresh herbs and almost an entire head of garlic.

ingredients.

• 16 oz. pizza dough
• salt and pepper, to taste
• olive oil
• 1/2 to 1 c. fresh herbs (I used basil, thyme and oregano), finely chopped
• 8 oz. heirloom tomatoes sliced in half
• 1 head of garlic, cloves chopped finely
• 8 oz. fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced
• 6 oz. fontina cheese, shredded

directions.

1. Remove pizza dough from the refrigerator and let sit at room temperature for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425 degrees and spray a 16-inch round pizza pan with cooking spray.
2. Using flour (if necessary), begin to stretch the dough out into as large of a circle as possible. Place on the pizza sheet and work the dough at the edges using the heel of your hand to press and stretch toward the edge of the sheet. This will take a few minutes. Try to make the crust of the pizza as even as possible or you’ll have pockets of thicker chewy crust when the pizza is cooked.
3. Once the crust is stretched all the way to the edge of the pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper.
4. Pre-bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool.
5. Spread the olive oil evenly over the pizza crust and sprinkle with cheeses, tomato, herbs and garlic.
6. Place back in the oven and bake the pizza for 25 to 30 additional minutes or until edges of the pizza are beginning to brown and turn crisp.Remove from the oven and let sit for five minutes before slicing. Top with freshly shaved parmesan cheese, if you’d like. Enjoy!

If you don’t have a great recipe for pizza dough, you should look through my blog. I have a handful that would work well. If you’d rather not go through the effort, Trader Joe’s has what I believe is an excellent pizza dough that’s relatively inexpensive to boot.

This pizza was so loaded down with cheese, it took almost 30 full minutes to cook the pie. If you’re not a huge fan of garlic (or don’t like it at all) you can reduce (or omit completely). Although I used an entire head of garlic, I didn’t think garlic overpowered the rest of the ingredients. To be fair, in my mind you can never have too much garlic.

Recipe rating: 

Dear Abby’s Brownies

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It must be good. It’s Ann Lander’s! Is what my mom said when I asked her why she decided to try this recipe for my Grimm debut party. It wasn’t until later that she realized the recipe came from Dear Abby, not Ann Landers.

My family has nothing if not a plethora of time-tested recipes for everything from casseroles to bread to desserts, brownies being no exception. I didn’t mind one bit trying a new brownie recipe as it gave me a chance to blog.

brownie ingredients.

• 1 c. butter
• 4 oz. bittersweet chocolate
• 2 c. sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 c. chopped walnuts
• 1 tsp. vanilla

frosting ingredients.

• 1 c. heavy cream
• 8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

directions.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line the bottom of an 18x12x2 inch baking pan with baking parchment paper and spray generously with cooking spray.
3. In the top of a double boiler, over medium heat, melt butter and 4 oz. chocolate. Reserve.
4. In a large bowl beat sugar and eggs until fluffy. Add flour and salt, mixing well. Add chocolate mixture, blending thoroughly. Stir in nuts and vanilla.
5. Pour into prepared baking pan. (Batter should be about 1/2 inch thick, no more.) Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the top is crisp and the toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool before pouring frosting over the top.
6. For frosting: Bring cream to a boil, stirring constantly. Place chopped chocolate in a medium bowl; pour boiling cream over the chocolate and stir to blend well. Spread a thin layer of warm frosting over the brownies. When cool cut into two-inch squares.

These brownies taste best when served at room temperature. Also, they seem to overcook easily; so if you have a fear of over-baking anything; you’ll want to undercook these!

Recipe rating: 

Buttermilk Blueberry Cream Cheese Muffins

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I found a recipe for Blueberry & Cream Cheese Muffins in the June 2012 issue of Glamour magazine, which I intended to try. However, I inadvertently made this recipe my own by improvising on ingredients and compensating for mistakes when reading the directions. Luckily they turned out great!

ingredients.

• 14 T. butter
• 6 T. vegetable oil
• 2 c. sour cream
• 6 large eggs
• 3 c. buttermilk
• 7 c. all-purpose flour
• 2 T. baking powder
• 2 c. superfine sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 4 c. blueberries
• 8 oz. cream cheese
• Turbinado sugar, for garnish

directions

1. Line a muffin pan with wrappers; preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Melt butter in a medium nonstick pot over low heat. Remove from heat and let cool a bit. Whisk in oil, sour cream, vanilla, eggs and buttermilk.
3. Sift flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar and salt, then make a well in the middle.
4. Pour the wet mixture into the flour well. Lightly fold in the dry ingredients into the wet using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until the mixture just comes together.
5. Drop a few berries into the bottom of each muffin cup, then spoon batter on top, fill about half-way. Drop a few more berries and 1 teaspoon of cream cheese then add remaining batter to fill the cup. Drop additional berries on top and add another teaspoon of cream cheese to the top.
6. Bake muffins for 18 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with Turbinado sugar. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a rack and let completely cool.

This recipe should make about 48 muffins, though I intended to only make 24. The mistakes I made when reading the recipe caused me to somehow double the ingredients. That or the original recipe portions are wrong.

The original recipe called for yogurt, which I didn’t have. As I did have sour cream, I used that instead. Also I accidentally added half a cup too much flour. The dough would not come together at all for me so I kept adding buttermilk until I felt as though the dough was the right consistency. I imagined it would only take 1/2 to 1 cup of buttermilk. Instead it took three cups!

I opted not to fold the blueberries into the batter and instead strategically place them in the muffin cups, which takes longer but I believe is worth it. Blueberries tend to get crushed easily or lump together when used in baking breads and muffins – in my experience. I once made Fresh Blueberry Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze that was to die for – buuuuuuuuut all the blueberries congregated at the bottom of the bread (because I mixed them into the batter).

Recipe rating: 