Pumpkin posting on the way...

Off to the pumpkin patch with Joseph this morning. Okay, it's actually an apple orchard (http://www.wayfruitfarm.com/) that is having its big apple festival today, the highlight of which is...pumpkins. Yes, I know the logic is a little off, but I'm getting a hay ride out of it, so I'm not going to quibble.

This means I'll be bringing back pumpkins, but also a couple bushels of apples. And that means preserving them. Apple butter, apple jelly, apple pie filling. In my house, any one of those can end up on a pizza, so I don't think it's much of a stretch to include them here.

I'm trying a new apple butter recipe this year. In an effort to keep my other burners free, I'm making crockpot apple butter, courtesy of Stephanie O'Dea at A Year of Slow Cooking. Here's the recipe. I can't wait to try it. Several friends have tried it and tell me it's well worth the effort. http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/crockpot-apple-butter-recipe.html

And for the original portion, of our evening, I'll tell you how I like to use apple butter. On a pizza.

Take 1/2 c. apple butter, combine with 1/2 c. barbecue sauce (you know these numbers are flexible, right?). Simmer together (maybe with a splash of cider) to let the flavors mingle. Toss with shredded chicken. Spread on pizza crust (or French bread...or tortillas...or English muffins...or waffles...or....or...or...you get the idea). Top with sauteed red onion and shredded cheese. I like cheddar with the apple kick, but that's up to you. Bake until hot and bubbly. A great football snack, late night treat, quick dinner, or fun lunch.

See you after the pumpkin picking.

Say CHEESE!

The difference between a bad pizza, a good pizza and a really fantastic pizza can be summed up in one simple word.

Cheese.

If you go out and have a really good pizza, and can't really pinpoint what this one has that another one doesn't, chances are, it's the cheese. Good pizzarias guard three things jealously: their crust recipe, their sauce recipe, and their cheese blends.

Most people assume that "pizza cheese" is mozzarella, but mozz is only a part of the story.

See that? That's the good stuff. Fresh mozzarella. But I've got a secret. Not that great for pizza. Oh, it's got a place in the pizza pantheon, namely on the Margherita pizza, with sliced uber-fresh tomatoes and basil leaves. That's divine, but it's also high art, not really the kind of thing that goes with movie night or tailgating.

The more familiar mozzarella is what we know from the inside of a million pizza boxes and tubes of string cheese and molten hot crunch coated sticks of deep-fried goodness. It's drier than fresh mozz, and melts into delicious webs of stringiness.

And then, there's provolone. Shredded and mixed with the mozzarella, it's a fantastic way to add more flavor to the mild taste of the other cheese. Provolone has a slight nuttiness, and is sometimes smoked. As it ages, it becomes more sharp. Sliced provolone is great for creating layers of flavor in your pizza. Place a blanket of slices over your crust, then top with sauce and shredded cheese to keep crust from getting gummy.

Shredded parmesan is very different from powdery grated parmesan. It melts like mozzarella, but has a real flavor punch. A little goes a long, long way. I buy a quarter pound chunk of fresh parm every month. I use it in a lot of stuff, but those four ounces last and last.

A simple cheese pizza is one of my favorite things. Nothing extra. Nothing fancy. Just a couple kinds of cheese, tossed together on some bread with a little sauce. I can give you this easy formula for pizza success:

1 crust + 5 slices provolone + sauce + 1 c. shredded mozzarella + 1/2 c. shredded parmesan.

Easy to add any topping you want, but trust me. Just once, keep it simple. Stop and savor the cheese.

This one's for the girls

On my moms board, that is.

A good idea is always community property with us. It doesn't matter if it's a photography pose, a craft project, or a recipe. If someone comes up with something wonderful, we're always going to share the wealth. That's how we all came to the wonder that is salsa chicken.

I love the simplicity of salsa chicken. Take one slow cooker, add chicken and salsa, and anything beyond that is gravy. Literally. Yum. There are a couple of good recipes for it floating around the board, but my favorite way to do it is to go Iron Chef on it: take the secret ingredient, look at what I've got and make it work. Yesterday, after an unfortunate Lightning McQueen incident led to the destruction of my plans for roasted chicken with Paula Deen's cornbread dressing, I had to shift gears quickly. And I needed something simple since I suddenly had to clean two pounds of spilled cornmeal off my kitchen floor.

I threw my chicken in the Crock Pot, poured on a pint of mild salsa, and started to look around. Now, I've stopped with just the salsa before, and it was great. I've also added a variety of other things. At different points, my salsa chicken has included Velveeta, hand shredded cheddar, mushroom soup, queso fresco, sour cream, homemade bechamel, even mayonnaise. Today, it ended up with a can of cream of chicken soup, some chicken broth, and some cubed cream cheese. Six hours later? Tomato-y, spicy, creamy goodness. I poured it over green chile rice. Heaven.

But it was heaven that had leftovers. And in my house, that means a snack-time application of the Pizza Principle. Except there was a complication. No pizza crust.

That should never keep anyone from trying a recipe, however. Substitutions are part of that whole "necessity is the mother of invention" thing. So I looked around. What could stand in for a crust? Well, given the southwestern nature of the chicken, I drafted some flour tortillas.

But a plain old tortilla isn't going to say pizza. It's going to say drippy mess. That's why there was a quick spray of oil and a turn in a hot pan to crisp it up.

Next, a heaping scoop of salsa chicken, and a smattering of mozzarella and cheddar cheese, and it's ready for the oven.

And 10 minutes at 400 degrees later, I've got a delicious snack out of leftovers, improvisations and odds and ends. If I'd had them, I could have added peppers, olives, or other veggies to bump up the nutritional value. However, oddly, at midnight on a Sunday night, when you're watching True Blood and feeling a little peckish, nutrition isn't the first thing on your mind.

But from now on, I'm making sure I've got a scoop or two in reserve when I make salsa chicken, because this was totally worth the effort.

2AETH4QYFRQD

Listen up!

A while back, I got some feedback on the blog from some people with good suggestions.

First, I was encouraged to provide pictures. That's a great idea, and definitely one that would make things more interesting. Let me give you a short list of why that hasn't happened before:

1. I'm technologically backward. This means I am dependent on my husband to download my pictures and put them in a place where I can access them.
2. I am intimidated by blogs with good photography. The Pioneer Woman and Bakerella make me want to go hide under my bed, but I can't because the dust bunnies will eat me.
3. I don't actually eat pizza every night. Yes, it's a shameful confession, but it's true. Most of these recipes were tested over the course of a couple years, and I'm kind of spur-of-the-moment about which recipes I decide to include.

I'm going to try. I'm turning over a new leaf! Unfortunately, it's almost officially autumn, so my new leaf might fall off my old tree in short order. Sigh.

But here goes. And I think a picture of my son improves almost anything, so here he is petting a pig:

Wild Wild West

How was the West won? With breakfast.

Come on. Think about it. Those good ol' cowboys might have subsisted on beans for lunch and biscuits and whiskey for dinner, but that's just not going to cut it for breakfast. You can’t rope all those steers and round up those dogies without a good stick-to-your-ribs meal first thing in the morning.

And what chuck wagon chef wouldn’t have appreciated a Western omelet pizza? Handheld, no plates required, it’s perfect for a cowpoke on the go.

1 pre-baked pizza crust

2 oz. cream cheese

1 T. butter

4 eggs

2 T. milk

Salt and pepper

½ c. diced ham

½ c. diced red pepper

½ c. diced green pepper or 1 small can mild green chiles (Feeling feisty? Use a jalapeno.)

½ c. diced onion

1 c. shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place pizza crust on baking sheet. Bake 5 minutes. Remove from oven. Spread with cream cheese. Set aside.

Melt butter in large skillet. Beat eggs with milk. Over medium-low heat, cook eggs, stirring frequently, until soft set. Season with salt and pepper. Arrange over cream cheese on crust. Sprinkle with ham, peppers, and onions. Top with shredded cheese. Bake 10 minutes, until cheese is melted. Let stand 3-5 minutes until slicing and serving.

Taqueso

Yeah. That's my word. What about it?

I know it's not hard to get a kid to eat a taco. No harder than getting him to eat a pizza. Tacos are fun. It's a salad wrapped up in a big Dorito, for crying out loud. What's bad about that?

Well, some of these recipes aren't about getting a kid to eat something he wouldn't normally eat. They are about opening a kid's eyes to trying new things and exploring new ways of doing things.
I do recipe contesting. That means that a big part of my life is spent looking at one thing and figuring out how to recreate it in a new, unusual, and hopefully appetizing way. I think I'm pretty good at it. For Steak-umms, I rebuilt barbecue using steak. http://www.delish.com/food/award-winning-recipes/steak-umms-recipe-contest
For the National Beef Cookoff, I reinterpreted my husband's favorite Caprese salad as a burger with my favorite grilled polenta instead of a bun. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/caprese-polenta-burger-small-plates-big-taste-recipe/reviews/index.html (And yes, having a recipe listed on http://www.foodnetwork.com/? One of the highlights of my life.)

Looking at things in new ways doesn't just open you to trying my Taqueso (get it? Taco + Queso?) Pizza. It can be the start of seeing how you can take something good and make it something great. Looking at things from a new perspective is creativity at its most basic, and has taken us into space, into microchips, into the DNA of the human body.

So make some pizza. It's good for your brain.

Taqueso Pizza

Tacos are really just little pizzas bent in half. Already sporting meat, sauce, cheese and toppings, the dish is perfect to make the leap from crispy tortilla envelope to flat bread shell.

1 pizza crust

1 pound ground beef

1 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 small can green chiles

½ c. tomato sauce

2 t. chili powder

1 t. cumin

1 ½ t. sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Cayenne pepper or hot sauce (optional)

1 c. shredded cheddar

1 c. shredded mozzarella

¼ c. pickled mild banana pepper slices

1 T. chopped fresh cilantro or parsley

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place pizza crust on baking sheet.

In a large skillet, brown ground beef over medium heat with onions and garlic. Add chiles, tomato sauce, chili powder, cumin, sugar, salt, pepper and, if desired, cayenne or hot sauce. Simmer 5-10 minutes. Spread on pizza crust and top with cheeses. Scatter with banana pepper slices. Bake 20 minutes. Garnish with cilantro or parsley.

Serving suggestion – Instead of topping your taco pizza with lettuce, salsa and sour cream, serve them alongside. Wedges of iceberg lettuce drizzled with salsa and topped with a dollop of sour cream make a great salad accompaniment to a fun pizza.

Feeling hot, hot, hot

It's very cold out today. The kind of cold that comes in and grabs your feet in your sleep.

And then I look out the window. Snow. Piles of it. And I have to go outside and shovel the car out and scrape off the windows and wrestle my son into snow boots and zip-tie mittens to his hands, and I can just tell it's going to be one long, cold, cold, cold day.

And that makes me want something hot to eat.

I want something that isn't just steaming with warmth. I want a chemical heat, the kind that makes your eyes water when the full impact first hits you. In short, I want peppers. Chiles, to be precise. (Yes, there is a difference between a pepper and a chile. Don't ask me what it is. Go ask Alton Brown.)

I don't like a lot of heat. I don't need a habanero to make me happy. A little jalapeno, a fruity poblano, a smoky chipotle and I'm good to go. A little bit of spice can toast you like putting your shoes in front of the fireplace. (If you have a fireplace. I don't. Sigh.)

And nothing pairs with chile like cheese. Cheese tempers the fire of the chile, turning an explosion into a slow, pleasant burn.

To get the most out of this combo on a cold December day, I'm looking to my old appetizer menu friend...the jalepeno popper. But because I don't have a commercial fryer at my disposal, I'm getting the same flavor in a more convenient shape by turning it into a pizza.

Hot Popper Pizza

1 pizza crust
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 small can sliced jalapenos (use fresh, or more, or a different pepper for a hotter pop, or sub in chopped mild green chiles for all the flavor without the burn)
1 c. grated cheddar cheese
2 T. melted butter
1/2 c. breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place pizza crust on pan. Bake 10-15 minutes, until lightly golden. Set aside about 5 minutes.

Mix cream cheese with peppers. Spread over crust. Scatter with cheddar cheese. Combine butter and breadcrumbs. Sprinkle over cheese. (If you want to top with some more sliced jalapenos at this point, you can.)

Bake 5-10 minutes, until cheese is melted and breadcrumbs a golden brown. Let pizza stand about 5 minutes before slicing to allow cream cheese to set.