Recipe #24: Potato Leek Pizza

Recipe: Potato Leek Pizza
Source: Pioneer Woman Cooks
Time: 45 min (if you have a ready pizza crust)
Ease: 6
Taste: 7
Leftover Value: 4
Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

When I must face vegetables like leeks, I always wonder who it was that first decided that a leek was food.  Who was it that observed this strange green plant and imagined that it might be worth eating?  And who later realized that it was a great flavor inducer for meals like soup and apparently pizza, too?

I'm pretty sure if I belonged to the people of the ancient days, the guinea pigs as I like to call them, I would have been one who had a very limited diet.  I would have refused to try something different for fear that it would be inedible and either taste horrible or kill me.

That said, the star of this meal is the leek.  A strange, seemingly worthless bunch of green.  The hidden star, however, is the potato.  Hubby didn't even realize there were potatoes on the pizza until he was half way through his first slice.

I, however, was more excited about the bacon.

Bacon on pizza...can life get any better?

The reason I gave this pizza a '6' for ease is because there are a lot of prep steps.  The leeks need to be sliced and fried, the bacon needs to be fried then chopped, the potatoes need to be sliced (into thin slices with a mandoline), the cheeses need to be sliced, shredded, and crumbled, and that doesn't even include making the pizza crust and pressing it into the pan.  

Needless to say, it's a lot of work! 

Though red potatoes are my favorite, I went with the Yukon gold ones because that was what I had on hand.  I scrubbed the five small potatoes the recipe called for, but only needed two to cover the dough, so that is something to watch for with this recipe.  There is nothing worse that scrubbing down a potato that isn't going to be used, do you know what I mean?

If you don't, you must be much better at planning and organizing than I am.

Good for you.

Slicing the potatoes should be saved for last to prevent them from turning color.  

Though I doubt I'll ever have interest to seek out a recipe with leeks in it again, I will admit they had a very appealing aroma as I fried them in the pan and then scattered them on top of the cheese.

Then again, so did the bacon.  I had to restrain myself from nibbling the especially crunchy looking pieces.

From this pizza and this recipe that you might remember from summer, I have determined that I do not prefer goat cheese.  It isn't unbearable, but it isn't a flavor which I prefer.  It is a little too strong for me and I always find in recipes that call for it, I wish in the end that I had used half the amount called for. 

Parmesan, on the other hand, I can never have enough of.

More than likely, I won't make this recipe again, but I would certainly eat it again.  Reason being, it was simply too much work for pizza only.  I might even say it falls into the fried chicken category.  I'd love to eat a gourmet pizza of this sort, but I don't find the need to spend my own time making it.  I'd rather pay for it.

Or have a good friend cook it for me.

However, I do think I will experiment in the future with potatoes on my pizza, sans leeks, sans goat cheese, perhaps with the addition of ground beef and a white or pesto sauce.

Recipe #13 and #14: Pizza Crust and Cowboy Calzones

Recipe: Pizza Crust
Source: The Pioneer Woman Cooks
Time: 1 hr 10 min (or longer, dough can be refrigerated for up to 2 days)
Ease: 1
Taste: 8
Leftover Value: No leftovers! (But again, dough can be make ahead of time and will keep for 2 days)
Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

Recipe: Cowboy Calzone
Source: The Pioneer Woman Cooks
Time: With pre-made dough, 50 minutes
Ease: 7
Taste: 9
Leftover Value: 8
Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

I'll be using this dough a few more times as I cook through The Pioneer Woman Cooks when I make her two different pizzas, so I'll learn quickly if this dough is versatile enough to be used for pizza and calzones.

So far, it's a winner.

Any dough stacked with ingredients or too many steps isn't worth making.  This dough is simple, taking under ten minutes to mix together.

Just be prepared to wait an hour before you can begin making your calzones.

Then the dough will look all puffy like this:

About a half hour through the wait time is when you'll want to begin making the meat for the calzones.

Unless you're smart and make your dough ahead of time.

Unlike me.

The meat mixture is so easy, and as it begins to combine you will want to scoop it from the pan and eat it right there.

But wait, because there is an equally as tempting cheese mixture to be combined next.

The meat mixture should cool a little before being combined with the cheese mixture, I assume to keep the cheese from instantly melting.  I used this time to start separating my dough into eight portions for my calzones.

This part was the most difficult, and perhaps that is because these weren't a typical calzone in the Italian sense of a calzone.

The calzones I've always enjoyed have been as big as half of a pizza.  Though these were obviously smaller, after rolling out the dough according to the specifications, it felt like I was over packing them with meat.  In the end, I still had leftover meat in the bowl.*

*It didn't go to waste since my garbage disposal brother, Joel, was over to enjoy these for lunch.

They felt especially large when I closed them up.  I expected the dough to stick a little to the table (even though I floured it beforehand) or start to rip apart when I picked up each calzone so I used a spatula to pick them up.

But they lifted fairly easy.

The next problem I ran into was that I could only fit 2-3 on a pan.  I'm still working on a solution for that problem.

If you like a crisper shell, you'll want to bake these for longer than the 12-15 minutes baking time.  We were pretty hungry so the first six calzones were devoured without a golden brown crisp about them.

Regardless, the dough wasn't too doughy and the center was piping hot and delicious.

I might have been just a little too excited to get a great picture.  PW doesn't say to serve these with any sauce, but it seemed like a necessity to me.

Chocolate Chip Cookies Are Like....Pizza?

Recipe: Chocolate Chip Cookies

Source: Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook

Available at Amazon.com

Time: Approx. 1 hr 30 min

Ease: 4

Taste: 10

Leftover Value: 9

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

In New Jersey, pizza is a big deal.  Everyone has a favorite...and everyone swears their favorite is the best.  The passion is so powerful that people take to the streets to fight for the honor of their favorite slice.  There is one viewpoint Jersians all can agree on: only Jersey can do pizza right. 

Chocolate chip cookies are like pizza...but I think this issue might be a national battle.  It's the cookie of choice for most.  It's the one you search for in the assortment of cookies Aunt Martha gives you at Christmastime.  Every little housewife has a staple chocolate chip cookie recipe she goes to whether it is the one on the bag of chocolate chips or her great-great-great grandmother's.  

I'm convinced you can't ruin a chocolate chip cookie.  Sure, the presentation can suffer sometimes---Can someone tell me why all during my high school and college years my cookies always turned out flat as pancakes?  Or why I never can seem to get the distance between cookies right in the pan and they end up cooking into one another?---but usually any combination of butter + sugar + chocolate is going to equal heaven.

That said, I think I've stumbled on the absolute best combination of these ingredients.

The first time I made these cookies, I didn't find them as thrilling as when I recently began making them again.  My major downfall was that I went against my usual goodie-two-shoes-follow-every-single-step-of-the-recipe behavior when I saw that each cookie was supposed to be a quarter cup of batter smashed on the pan.

A quarter cup?  Good God...that's a lot of batter in one cookie.

The ingredients were exactly the same, but something about changing the size of the cookies, I swear, made them not as delightful.

And yes, that is salt sprinkled on top of them.  Aside from the complete perfection these cookies are, it is one of the first things people ask me between chews, "Do I taste a hint of....salt?"  Sometimes they think it is sugar sprinkled on top, but as soon as they bite into the cookie they marvel at the genius of the slightest sprinkle of sea salt.*

*I use Hawaiian sea salt that my friend, Danielle, gave me.  I'm a little addicted to it and scared what I might do when I run out.

Making the cookies isn't the difficult part, it's figuring out how to get them on the pan!  With using a quarter cup of batter per cookie, you can imagine the limited number of cookies that can be baked per pan.  I use half size sheet pans--but still can only get six cookies to fit.  I have been contemplating getting the full size pans just for these cookies, but that seems a bit drastic.

Although I'm sure I have done crazier things.

These cookies get the kind of reaction that chocolate chip cookies deserve.  My recommendation is to go out and get yourself a copy of The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook today--you'll be happy you did, I might, just might, have a few more of their recipes to rate and share with you.* 

*Note: I get no kick back from recommending this cookbook.  If only I did.  That would be great.

I don't want to brag, but, I'm pretty sure I make the best chocolate chip cookies in the world now.