Pizza in the morning/Pizza in the evening/Pizza at supper time

If you’ve read the “About us” page (do it NOW), you already know of my undying love for pizza. I really do believe it is the perfect food. There are so many ways to do pizza, whether it be Bettola/Dolce Vita syle with arugula and buffalo mozzarella, or Papa Johns style (Hawaiian happens to be my current favorite). I don’t even discriminate against Totino’s party pizza style (that crust is GOOD). I personally believe that there is a pizza to fit every craving- sometimes I want good old fashioned red sauce with pepperoni, and then at totally different times I want pesto, or some fancy white pizza concoction. And that is exactly what I went with the other night.

In order to use up some leftover shiitakes, I whipped up a Caramelized Onion and Shiitake Mushroom pizza (loosely based on a Bon Appetit recipe). I didn’t write down quantities, but it’s more of a guessing game depending on how big your pizza is. I started by caramelizing the onions (can anyone teach me to do that without burning some of the pieces?). Once they were good and brown, I turned the heat down and sauteed some minced garlic. I added a little bit of dried rosemary at the end. I spread ricotta cheese on my pizza crust, topped with the onion mixture, added the shiitakes, and grated some fontina cheese over the top. You will notice that I haven’t mentioned my crust yet. I will admit that I cheated a little bit. I bought a pre-baked crust from Central Market. It was definitely easy, but maybe a little bit too dough-y for my taste. I like my pizza thin crusted for the most part.

The before shot

The finished product was pretty dang good, if I do say so myself. I paired it with a green salad with homemade balsamic vinaigrette, and it turned out to be such a quick and easy dinner. This won’t be the last of my pizza making endeavors… Next time I may even attempt my own crust.

Dinner, featured on the place mat Rosie chewed.

Flank steak = FAIL

I typically have high hopes for any form of carne that crosses my path. Flank steak is a cut that I am not very familiar with, other than the fact that it seems like it is in every other Cooking Light recipe (that and pork tenderloin).  I’ve always heard that it is a close relative to shoe leather, and of course that challenged me to prove that theory wrong. This particular recipe is from Cooking Light (shocker), and got really good reviews for its sauce, so I thought it would be the perfect recipe to test drive flank steak on.

Poor gal’s broiler pan

When it was all said and done, I went as rare as I could go- basically it was still mooing. It STILL closely resembled leather. Unfortunately, the sauce failed to redeem this recipe. It was a fail as well. Not bad per say, but shiitake mushrooms aren’t cheap, so it better be impressive if I’m spending $5 for those suckers. Oh, and I bought an extra package of shiitakes; so Em, if you have any recipe ideas, throw ‘em my way. Here’s a picture of dinner anyway (looks a lot better than it tastes):

I should probably learn how to center pictures.

I had planned on making brown rice to soak up the sauce, but completely forgot. Also I wasn’t totally starving because of my fabulous brunch!

Dad and I went to Jasper’s in The Woodlands during his layover in Houston. He had the Flat Iron steak and eggs, and I had the prosciutto wrapped shrimp and grits. I had the Butterfinger creme brulee for dessert and Dad had a trio of gelato flavors. I don’t know that I’d make a special trip for it, but it was nice to have a good excuse to head out to the ‘burbs to test it out.