Tasty Tuesday: Margarita Pizza on a Honey-Wheat Crust

I'm a pizza fan.  I love the concept of it: hot, melted cheese on top of deliciously crispy dough.  I love the execution of it: the smell of the sauce permeating my kitchen as its cooking time dwindles down.  I love the versatility: you can put ANYTHING on a circle of dough and call it pizza and chances are, it will taste amazing.

One of the biggest catalysts for creativity lies within the abundance of choices for toppings.  But for me, I think the true test of culinary ingenuity is found in the crust.  I don't care how delicious the plethora of toppings you chose are, if that crust is burnt, I'm not eating it.  

Most places you go do the standard yeast-water-flour combo, which is fine, it serves its purpose.  But when I found this delightful sweetened take on the traditional whole wheat crust, I was floored.  It was so simple but it tasted sooooo good.  It didn't overpower the rest of the flavors in the pizza but it didn't fade into the background either, complacent enough to just peacefully coexist.  It seemed like the two competing sides, the crust and the toppings, had somehow formed a symbiotic relationship, bringing the other to its richest offering.  Suffice it to say, I was quite the happy little pizza maker.

So, to honor our Tasty Tuesday (even though it's Wednesday), I give you my favorite pizza to make (and eat) with a much more delicious crust.

(and yes, if you're going to make pizza, you HAVE to make your own dough too, it's just good practice)

Margarita Pizza on a Honey-Wheat Crust

1 (.25 oz) pkg active dry yeast

1 cup warm water

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 cup wheat germ

1 tsp salt (I usually leave this out since family members are on low-sodium diets)

1 1/2 tbsp honey (you can lower or increase this to suit your tastes)

16 oz fresh mozarella, thinly sliced

5-6 fresh tomatoes, thinly sliced

1. Mix yeast with warm water, let sit for 10 minutes.  In a large bowl, combine flour, wheat germ, and salt.  Make a well in the middle and add the honey.  Then add the yeast mixture.  Stir well to combine.  Form dough into a ball, cover bowl with plastic wrap, then set aside until it doubles in size.

2. Preheat oven to 350F.  Punch dough down, then knead for 2-3 minutes.  Roll out onto floured surface until it's about 1/4 inch thick.  Using a fork, perforate the dough in a few sections to give allow air to flow through (prevents those giant bubbles, and allows for even cooking).

3. Alternate tomato and cheese, overlapping each other, to top the dough.  Drizzle with a little olive oil, sprinkle fresh chopped basil (if you want).

4. Place either on a regular baking sheet or (if you have one) a pizza stone that has been sprinkled with cornmeal.  Cook for 8-10 minutes.

And Voila!  Yumminess has been achieved.

Temporary Shift

due to technical difficulties...or the simple fact that my computer and all my recipes and pictures are sitting in the repair office of my local apple repair shop, tasty tuesday has been temporarily moved to wow thats yummy wednesday.

i promise its worth it.  and please excuse the horrible punctuation. blogger doesnt like my droid.

Tasty Tuesday - Spinach and Artichoke Dip

Here at the Diaries of Eugene, we love sharing.  And by we, I mean the singularly solo person who writes this blog and posts adorable pictures on tumblr (shameless plug alert).  One of the things I really love sharing is recipes.  If I have something incredibly yummy, whether at a friend's house or at a restaurant, I immediately have to have the recipe and will probably go home that night and try to recreate it.  It's a compulsion that I just can't (and quite frankly don't want to) stop.

With that in mind, I'd like to share one of my favorite, and most requested, recipes.  It's the famous Spinach and Artichoke dip recipe.  It's a combination of a couple different recipes that I found online (allrecipes.com) and one that my aunt made.  While all the recipes I tried were good, there was always something missing or just slightly off from making them GREAT.  It took me two years to finally get the right combination of ingredients and voila!  Perfection has been achieved.

Eugene's Spinach & Artichoke Dip
10 oz pkg chopped frozen spinach, cooked and cooled
13 oz can artichoke hearts, roughly chopped
4 oz can diced green chiles
1/2 pint heavy cream
8 oz sour cream
1/2 cup asiago cheese
1/4 cup romano cheese
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1/3 cup mozzarella cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.  Lightly coat 13x9 inch baking pan with a non-stick spray.
2. Cook the spinach as normal, let it cool.  Take small handfuls and squeeze out the extra water.
3. Roughly chop the artichokes, then add to the spinach.
4. Add in the chiles, heavy cream, sour cream, asiago, romano, and parmesan cheeses, then stir until thoroughly until well-combined.
5. Spread evenly into prepared pan, then sprinkle mozzarella cheese on top.
6. Bake uncovered for 20-25 minutes.  Stir and serve immediately.

For me, it's all about presentation, which I why I'm a big fan of the bread boule.  Slice off the top, hollow out the boule, toast it and the top in the oven until just before crispy, then let it sit out so it hardens.  Not only does it make for easy clean-up, but when you bring out a boule into a roomful of hungry party people and remove the top top to reveal a delicious pile of awesomeness...I believe the "Glee" kids call it "Theatricality."  To put it simply, that's a big, giant win right there.

What's your favorite recipe?  Why?  How did you come to find it?

*I know it's not a great picture but the dip is usually gone before I can actually take a good photo of it.

Can This Just Be Mine?

When you meet new people, one of the first natural inclinations is to ask about their hobbies, what they like to do for fun, their social habits.  I jokingly tell people I'm an old lady because the things I like to do are akin to the habits of the blue-haired beauties you see at the pharmacy counter every Wednesday afternoon. I like to knit and crochet, I scrapbook with pizazz, I watch "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy," and I like to bake.  These are things I like to do for me.  The fact that most of these hobbies (television programs not withstanding) usually result in a product that benefits someone else as well, that's just an added bonus.

I gave almost all of my cousins hats and scarves for Christmas last year (still working on Devon's blanket, my goal is to have it done by December 23rd).  It gave me something to do instead of staring at my phone and email inbox, impatiently waiting for job interview requests that I knew would never come.

I have made a scrapbook for every year of college (and I actually might finish my senior year by the end of summer...five years after graduation).  It's fun to look back and see photos not just haphazardly shoved behind a piece of plastic, but arranged with flare and decorative purpose atop of colorful background.  Because of this natural inclination towards unnecessary paper accessories (and a whole lot of time on my hands), a friend asked if I could turn her wedding guest book into a scrapbook, something she might actually look at more than once after her actual wedding day.  I accepted the challenge, with enthusiasm and excitement, of course.

I started baking because Food Network made it seem so fun (and easy).  One thing that I loved most about it was you had to be precise.  Everything had to be measured out otherwise your cake will fall, your dough won't rise, or your cookies will taste like molasses instead of gingerbread.  You can't force your dough to rise before it's ready.  Cook the bread at too high a temperature because you think it'll cut the baking time in half, and you end up with a loaf of hard, burnt, charcoal.  Yuck.  You have to take your time, it forces you to relax, breathe, and just enjoy the process of turning many seemingly innocuous ingredients into one delicious piece of flavorful comfort.  And because of the joy I take in this, and I guess a modicum of talent, my cousin asked me to make the cake for her wedding day.  No pressure.  While I wasn't entirely pleased with the final product, my cousin and her (now) husband were overjoyed.  I don't think I'll ever forget the look on my new cousin-in-law's face as I showed them their cake, the pastillage toppers I made to represent them, and the porcelain figurine (bearing an uncanny resemblance to their puppy) that was theirs to keep.

But if this last forray into the world of pastry arts has taught me anything, it's that I would not last one day in a professional cake baking/decorating setting.  While I will be more than happy to offer my cake-making services to anyone who asks, it's something I do for me.  Taking that pure love of a craft and turning it into a money-making task would ruin it for me.  I wouldn't find the fun in it anymore.  I wouldn't get excited by my finished product.  I'd just box it up, push it aside, and start on the next one, like an assembly line automaton.

Which brings me to the Question of the Day: If you love something and/or you're good at it, does that mean you should/would make it your job?

Oh Come On, It's Not THAT Bad

I think today qualifies as a big giant poop stain on my week.  My car is STILL in the shop despite being told at 11am that it would be ready in an hour.  My computer is hanging out in the back of a store, waiting impatiently to be fixed because it somehow fell off my bed in the middle of the night.  While it turns on and works just fine, the casing is precariously clinging to only three of the four corners of the screen.  My family have all left the area, leaving me by myself, singularly alone.  Work was, to put it simply, four hours entirely devoid of reason and sanity.  I spent the hour immediately following the end of my work day eating my feelings and, quite frankly, I don't feel guilty about it. 

Since I was using a borrowed car and my brother was originally going to take my car camping, he is now taking my borrowed car and I'm left without transport.  Thankfully, my family has stepped up, as they always do, and made sure I knew they had my back.  Hopefully, my car will be fixed and ready to go tomorrow morning, my computer will be an easy and cheap fix and will find her way back into my life by the weekend, and my family enjoys their respective vacations (none of which I am a part of).

A day like this sends me directly over the edge, clinging to whatever semblance of normality I can get my hands on.  But I have to remind myself, it's not really that bad.  I've had conversations with several friends recently who are dealing with much bigger issues.  While the combined trifecta of no car, no computer, no family may feel like too much to handle, Car RamRod will eventually get fixed.  My Dear Prudence computer will eventually be repaired.  And my family will eventually come back home.  Work will probably always be a little crazy, but some of my coworkers feel my pain and rise above and beyond what they should ever be asked to do.  I will eventually find my sanity.

It will, eventually, be ok.  In the meantime, there's wine and beer and the anticipation of the new season of "Dexter."