Yesterday I did my dip picks for the Super Bowl, today we have the real contenders. I failed to mention on yesterday’s post that light cream cheese may be used in each and every one of the four dips, with virtually no taste difference. Please just don’t use the non-fat disgusting cardboard thing they call cream cheese. That stuff should be illegal! There are a plethora of lovely non-fat dairy products, but non-fat cream cheese is not one of them.

Thinly sliced and lightly toasted French bread, baguette, or sourdough work perfect for both dips.  For the pizza dip, the bread simulates a pizza crust and for the clam dip, it reminds me of enjoying clam chowder in a sourdough bowl on Pier 39 in beautiful San Fran. Which coincidentally, is where I am headed later today to visit my sweet Marissa – for a food and shopping filled weekend!

Happy Super Bowl Weekend!

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… is kinda like red and green, which makes this very pretty appetizer or brunch pizza perfect for Christmas.

Naan can be found on the bread aisle at most grocery stores, at Trader Joe’s, or at Costco. And smoked mozzarella with other specialty cheeses. But if you can’t find the mozzarella, substitute smoked Gouda.

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While I may be on the road in a U-Haul, towing a VW beetle behind, I still want to share with you some more of the fig recipes I created to use up the harvest from my tree.  The figs for this recipe and another one coming up tomorrow, were all that I had left after I fought off the birds to get the last few.  While I was out picking, there was this one little finch who was mighty angry that I was stealing his figs.  I’m serious, he was acting like he planted, waters, and prunes the darn tree… and I was stealing from him! The nerve!  OK, honestly I don’t prune the tree, my yard man, Tony, does.  But hey, I am the one who pays Tony, so take that you selfish (and pretty darn cute) little bird!

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And now for a little easy-breezy summertime pizza.  This comes together quicker than all the ingredients might lead you to believe – especially if you buy the cheeses already shredded.

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Here we have another recipe installment for the 1931 themed upcoming birthday celebration for my dad…

Although the television was already invented by 1931, regular commercial network television programming did not begin in the U.S. until 1948.  And it was many more years until it was commonplace for families to own a black and white television.  So it is not so much the television, but black and white photos that these pizzettas are meant to represent from the year 1931.

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Friday, January 7, 2011

7:30 AM – Awake, shower, dress, eat breakfast, and put up blog post for the day.

9:40 AM – Open email and find this gem:

Happy New Year Linda!
Been following your blog and your bumper crop of citrus. I bought an ACME years ago when our landscape included many prolific citrus trees. It juices at lightening speed! Would you like to borrow mine? Let me know and I’ll drop it by ; )
Jeanie

9:43 AM - Immediately Reply:

Oh Jeanie, you are a lifesaver! YES, a thousand times, YES! Thank you so much, I was actually thinking of putting out a neighborhood search for a juicer I could borrow. I’ll have to show you the one I have, you will die laughing when you see it! Thank you! xoox
Linda

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Today and tomorrow feature more recipes from the weekend with Marissa’s friends visiting from Tucson. When they arrived late on Friday afternoon, they promptly hit the pool to cool off and play volleyball and basketball.  There were also some wicked ping pong matches happening under the patio.  I took a dozen pictures of the guys doing the “jump shots” at one end of the pool… showing off for the ladies and for each other.  In every single photo, you can see the guys (John, Will, and Chris above – not pictured: Albert, Kevin, and Shoaib) totally enthralled with their moves – while the girls, (Paige, Astrid, and Marissa) at the other end of the pool, are completely oblivious of them… cracks me up!

There are two ingredients here that you may or may not be familiar with. If you’re not sure what either Nduja or piquillo peppers are, just click on their name and a link will take you to a previous post all about them. With all the young men to feed, I of course, doubled the recipe.

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After yesterday’s post about “reading the recipe”, I thought I would show a couple (of the many) students who really do understand the importance of that very thing. We all know that “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” For four full days these two cuties never needed a thing from me and sometimes you feel as if you’re ignoring such independent kids.  I just hope they know, that I know, how very competent and capable they are and that my goal is to make all my students be just like them! Great job, girls!

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Right # 1 – Pizza! It is one of the most popular foods for a huge majority of Americans. Why? Because it is packed with flavor; you’ve got the great bread, with melted gooey goodness, and tasty toppings. It can be eaten in hand and is the perfect food to share. It is fabulous eaten hot or cold.

Right #2 – Chocolate! Another all time favorite of people world-wide. Why? For starters, chocolate melts at about 98 degrees and not so coincidentally, our body temperature is about 98 degrees. The soothing quality achieved  by merely placing a piece of chocolate in your mouth and just having it melt away is simply luxurious and luscious. Plus chocolate is known to be a mild mood elevator, stimulating brainwaves and pushing your stress levels down. When your stress levels lower, you become more relaxed which in turn is beneficial to your health. Chocolate also raises antioxidant levels in the blood, which in turn help fight any foreign bodies that can cause illnesses. And of course there is the benefit your taste buds feel when consuming chocolate-which keeps you in touch with that happy little child within.

Excellent overall - combining Pizza and Chocolate! Sounds like the perfect food to me! You’ve got the great bread, the gooey melted chocolate, which not so coincidentally are also the tasty toppings.  You eat it out of hand either hot or cold, and you’ll want to share so your friends can ooh and aah along with you!

But…. before we get to the recipe of the day, I have to once again share a post from one of my favorite bloggers (heck one of my favorite writers) out there. Cheryl Sternman Rule of “5 Second Rule” has such talent, humor, humanity, and style that I just can’t help but share.  Sure, she’s on my Blogroll (in fact, right near the top) but you really must read her post from yesterday, please click this LINK, and thank me later.

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If you’ve been looking at restaurant menus for the past year or so, you’ve noticed that chefs are putting eggs on top of just about everything. Poached or fried eggs on top of pasta, salads, pizzas. The egg is the world’s most perfect food, it is economical and a great way to add protein and richness to just about anything. So take a crack at this current trend at the most natural time of day, for breakfast or brunch, but with an unconventional twist, breakfast pizza!

Small eggs work best if you’re making large pizzas to slice into wedges. The challenge – small eggs can be difficult to find. Try your local Asian market because most mainstream grocery stores only carry extra-large, large, and if you’re lucky, medium eggs. If you go with the medium eggs, remove about half of the whites before placing on the pizza, or the eggs will overflow and make a mess of the oven.  Or, divide the dough into 8 portions and make individual pizzas, then you can use the entire medium egg. You won’t get the same bang for your buck though, since you’ll get two large pizzas, or 16 servings if you follow the recipe as written. And the look of the large pizza is much more impressive than the individual, as you can see for yourself in these photos.

Side note: Almost forgot to mention – watch me at 4:30 PM on Channel 12 (NBC) Valley Dish tomorrow with Tram Mai.

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