MIA Already!

Well, the goal was to cook/blog about cooking at least twice a week. In over a week’s time, we have cooked, just forgot to take pictures or blog. Last Sunday we had Hank and Corkey over and made bruschetta for the appetizer. Then we had a salad with candied almonds, strawberries, goat cheese and raspberry vinaigrette. For the main course we had Chicken Saltimbocca alla Romano with roasted baby red potatoes. It was delightful and deemed our “go to” meal for when we have guests. We really just need to work on the timing.

Then on Tuesday, we took our show on the road. We were meeting to talk about Fantasy Football, and what better food to have those discussions over, than pizza. We made each person a mini-pizza dough and they added their own toppings to each one.

The toppings included ground Italian sausage, pepperoni (par boiled to reduce fat/grease), fresh spinach, garlic, mushrooms, red onions, green peppers, artichokes, and fontina and Parmesan cheeses. We grilled them on a Weber grill that was heated to about 500 degrees. Each pizza only took about 5-6 minutes to cook. These were delicious and it was fun too!

So since I am supposed to write ABOUT cook, not just about what we cooked, I’ll get started with that portion now. I am going to tackle the ingredients for the pizzas.

The Italian sausage was easy, it just needed to be browned and drained. The pepperoni was also easy. Just bring a small pot of water to a boil and throw the pepperonis in. You will be amazed how much fat/grease is released this way. Making your pizza more enjoyable and less soggy. The spinach was coarsely chopped. The garlic we sliced thin. Same with the red onions and green peppers. The mushrooms and artichokes were pre cooked. I like to cook the mushrooms first with just a bit of EVOO. Once they are cooked through, I removed them and cook the quartered artichoke hearts. We like to do this to get most of the moisture out and get them nice and brown. The cheeses were just grated.

Make sure and remember the crushed red peppers for the table!