IT CAME FROM THE LEFTOVERS!!!!

Okay...last one. I promise.

If cranberries are too tart and Asian's too out there for your picky eater, go simple and familiar. Go barbecue.

We have Wolfgang Puck to thank for giving us barbecue chicken pizza. I'm considering building a small, tasteful altar. Just a few candles. Nothing showy. I first found Wolfie's (yes, I call him Wolfie) barbecuey wonderfulness at his restaurant in Orlando. It was lifechanging. Okay, maybe that's a little excessive. But it was what opened my eyes to the idea that a pizza can be more than marinara and pepperoni.

And then we have California Pizza Kitchen to thank for spreading the barbecue glory to grocery store freezer cases all across America.

Barbecue sauce and poultry, after all, is a flavor combination our nuggetized youth have been conditioned to accept with an almost Pavlovian response. Add the shape and cheese of pizza, and it's really hard to go wrong. So hard, they may not realize they are eating leftovers. Again.

Start with that crust. Smear it with your favorite barbecue sauce. I like to take a cheap bottle of something pre-made and doctor it a little with some brown sugar and orange zest until I get exactly the tangy-sweet flavor I like. But if KC Masterpiece or Sweet Baby Ray's is already just what you want, why make it harder on yourself.

Then I get liberal with the turkey. Dark meat, white meat, whatever you've got left will be fine.

Get wild at this point if you want. Red onion, green pepper, whatever you want to do. I actually served it with slaw, so I wasn't concerned about the veggie content. Then, bring on the cheese.

I bypassed your typical mozzarella and went for provolone. It's slightly smoky, and that flavor paired perfectly with the barbecue sauce. What you've got is the perfect snack for football games...that gets rid of leftovers without having people groan at you about "casserole again?"

Now, like all good trilogies, our leftover journey has come to its conclusion.

OR HAS IT????

The Leftovers Before Thanksgiving

As much as everyone loves that giant bird, most of us have a love-hate relationship with what comes after the big meal. Oh, yes. I'm talking leftovers.

Getting a picky eater to approach leftovers can be like making seating arrangements for a Mafia wedding. Difficult and dangerous. It has to be familiar but it can't be a Xerox of the original meal. It has to be new but not too alien. It has to be all things to all people.

This week, I smoked a turkey, trying some new ideas before the big day. Naturally, that left me with piles of meat. After turkey soup, turkey and noodles, turkey sandwiches and turkey salad, even my husband, who would eat an ostrich whole given the opportunity, was starting to look slightly fearful when he asked what was for dinner. I needed something different. Something appealing to an almost-3-year-old, a guy with a big appetite for bold flavors, and, well, me.

So...okay...where's my pizza crust?

Ah. There you are. Let me tell you about this crust, first. If you go to Pittsburgh, to the Strip District, there is a magical place called the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company. PennMac to the natives. It's an Italian market that caters to restaurants and in-the-know afficianados, selling everything from gigantic sides of salt cod and every pasta under the sun to olive oil by the tanker truck and breads like these freshly made, par-baked pizza shells. They did not give me these shells. I wish they had. I love them to death. No, I paid for them. And then I did this to them.

That's my homemade cranberry sauce. It's a bag of cranberries, a couple of oranges, a chopped apple, a cup of apple cider and a cup of sugar, cooked down to a sweet, tangy jam. Do you have to do that? Of course not. Your favorite cranberry sauce is fine, whether it's from a can or a jar or the deli. Just spread a nice layer over the shell.

The turkey was next. I used chunky strips instead of sliced or diced pieces, looking for a substantial, thick layer of meat over the puckery cranberries. I used white meat, but whatever you have will be fine.

That took us to the cheese. Every pizza needs cheese, right? But what works with both the mellow smoke of the turkey and the tart jamminess of the berries? And what is special enough for a holiday meal? Brie. I peeled and diced up some slices of a mild and buttery Brie and scattered them over the turkey.

I popped it in a 400 degree oven for a few minutes, waiting for the cranberry sauce to melt into a glistening glaze, and the Brie to take on its trademark melting texture.

You see that? That's what happens when you combine the pastry-wrapped goodness of a fruit-topped Brie en croute with a good old turkey sandwich. It's perfect. Cut it into narrow strips and it's a perfect holiday appetizer for a tree-trimming party. Slice up nice wedges and you have the perfect snack for cuddling up with some sappy Christmas movies.

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.

Vampire B-Gone

For some people, the best part of an Italian meal is the pasta. Or the sauce. Or the antipasto. Or the salad.

For me, it is garlic bread. The kind that is absolutely saturated with butter and smells like a can of vampire repellent. Covered with a melted blanket of gooey cheese? Even better.

My husband is unnatural and wrong. He doesn't like garlic bread. He's a very bad Italian, in my opinion, but I'm willing to go with it because he is content, even happy, to eat naked slices of plain bread while I retain possession of all the butter-soaked goodness.

In my opinion, there is no better example of garlic bread the way God intended it than Schwan's Five Cheese Garlic French Bread.

Isn't it lovely? Sigh. The crust is basically just a vessel to contain the butter, and a platform for the cheese. It should come with a vial of nitroglycerin, and I just can't bring myself to care.

It's hard to get exactly the right effect at home. Too much butter and it gets soggy. Too little and it's light on flavor. Not the perfect bread and it falls apart. I've tried it a dozen different ways, and it's always paled beside my ideal. Until now.

My recent forays into the doctoring of store-bought pizza have had an unforeseen benefit. I may have made the best garlic bread ever.

I started with a plain cheese pizza. I used a store-brand rising crust. A DiGiorno knock-off. I followed the package directions for oven temperature.

And then I got out the butter. I melted 2 ounces in a small saucepan, and added the same amount of olive oil. Before it was too hot, I threw in two cloves of chopped garlic, and cooked over low heat. I threw in a tablespoon of fresh parsley from my garden, and a half-teaspoon each of dried basil and oregano. I added a dash of pepper. (I might throw in some crushed red pepper next time, just for kicks.) And most important, I watched it carefully and pulled it off the flame before the garlic turned brown. Burned garlic makes for nasty garlic bread.

When I heard Dracula pass out cold on the porch, I drizzled the fragrant mix all over the frozen pizza. Then I popped it in and...

Yeah, don't be ridiculous. Like I'd stop there. That's when I broke out more cheese. A cup of mozzarella, and a few tablespoons of parmesan. The shredded kind, not the grated stuff in a can. I'm not usually a big ingredient snob, but everybody has the hill they choose to die on, and decent parmesan is mine. At least in this instance.

Then in the oven it goes. No pizza pan. Just straight on the rack, or if you are lucky enough, on a blistering hot pizza stone, like this one.
                                                                














I've actually got a professional restaurant kitchen pizza oven, a souvenir from the days when my husband actually offered some of the finest pizzas in the greater Pittsburgh area. I love it. But I find it easier to just use my regular oven with a pizza stone most of the time, and a good stone gives you almost exactly the same quality. If you can get the effect of a $1000 oven with a $36 stone, go for it.

When you're done, you get something that looks like this:

It's got everything my favorite garlic bread does, with the added punch of extra herbs and pepper, and the slight background tang of the smattering of pizza sauce, which is reduced to a condiment instead of a starring player by the garlicky butter.

There's also another perk. Eating garlic bread for dinner can get you some side-eyeing. But pizza is clearly a meal, even if it's one that will keep the Twilight crew at bay.

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.

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