My favourite BBQ Pizza

This has been one of my favourite recipes for a long time. I even told my Husband that it just might be my choice of last meal if I had to decide. I know morbid, but that is just how much I love this Pizza. This is a different type of pizza. The tomato sauce has been replaced with a balsamic vinaigrette, & the veggies have been roasted on the BBQ.

I haven't made it for many years, becasue I have been living in an apartment without a BBQ for two years, & I was busy for a year before that planning both my wedding, & my Sister's wedding. Oh ya & the whole graduating from Nursing thing. I guess I have been just a little busy. Now with the impending arrival the new addition to the family we will once again have a very busy period in our lives. I have been wanting to make this recipie since we bought the BBQ in the spring & I have finally got around to it.

The recipie I make has been slightly modified from a Grilled Pizza with Spicy Italian Sausage recipie originally printed in Bon Appetit, July 1997. This recipie has a lot of steps, but most of the prep is done while the dough is rising. In My opinion it is worth the trouble.

I have never used the Spicy Italian Sausage or the green onions. I also like to use feta instead of goat cheese because of price & the tang of the Feta with the balsamic vinaigrette. I have also cut out the Parmesan cheese in the past because I didn't have it on hand, & the resulting pizza was still yummy.

BBQ Pizza:

The Crust Part 1 of 3:

The thought of making crust by hand may be daunting, but this is a really easy crust, as it is made with a food processor. Any Pizza crust with rosemary added would probably work. I have made the dough in a breadmaker (following the recipie for pizza crust that came with the Breadmaker) with chopped rosemary thrown in, & I've made it by hand. All have produced a yummy crust. I do want to stress that the chopped rosemary in the crust for me is one of the things that makes this Pizza swoon worthy. Not to mention the amazing sent while cooking the crusts on the BBQ.

After the Dough has been mixed in the food processor & rosemary kneaded in it has to raise for 1 hour. I have never had the best luck with dough rising, so I like to turn on the stove to 200 0F then turn it off after a few minutes & put the bowl with the dough on top of the element with the heat vent. You have to be careful because if you use a highly conductive bowl it can slightly cook the dough, or if you forget to turn the oven off.

While the Dough Rises:

I usually take this time to prep the vinaigrette, cheese &, all my veggies.


I like to prepare the vinaigrette using a hand blender, but whisking would do as well. I find that the hand blender emulsifies all the ingredients & I do not have to remix all the ingredients during the preparation process. I love this vinaigrette. I think I could eat it by the spoonful like soup. I like to pour the remainder into a bowl & add it to my pizza as I eat it.

It makes it easier later to have the cheese all grated & ready for assembly. The tomatoes need to be seeded & chopped. The peppers have to be seeded & quartered, & the onions cut into 1/2 inch wedges & peeled. According to the recipie it's important when you cut your onions into wedges that you cut through the root end in hope of the wedges staying together. I have found that to be wishful thinking. I have never had them all stay together on the BBQ. I still recommend that you cut the onion wedges as the recipie states. I like to use a grill pan, grill basket, or BBQ wok will make the onions easier to cook, & you will not have to chase them through the gill.

Preheat the BBQ to medium heat

The Crust Part 2 of 3:

After the dough has risen you will need to punch it down & knead the dough a second time, then divide into 4 equal pieces & shape into 9 inch rounds.

Well to that I say ya right. I have never been able to get dough into lovely rounds. Why let that stop you from enjoying pizza goodness. I prefer ugly blobs anyways. Trust me they taste just as good as lovely perfect round crusts, & they look more rustic & homemade.

Final Preparation of Toppings:

Baste the veggies with the vinaigrette on both sides & season with Salt & pepper to your taste. Then place on the BBQ to grill for approximately 8 minutes (4 minutes per side), or until nicely charred. This is where the grilling basked comes in handy.

After the veggies are grilled bring the peppers in to be cut into strips, & I like to split the pieces of onions into strips, especially if you are using a larger onion, but they could also be left in wedges.

The Crust Part 3 of 3:

Now it's time to grill the crust. With the BBQ on medium heat, place the crusts on the grill. I usually grill all 4 at one time. The crust will stick slightly at first, so do not play with them until they are crispy on the bottom with grill marks, & have puffed up slightly. Then flip the crust to the second side for half the time the fist side was grilled. The recipie states 3 minutes on the first side & 1 minute on the second side (for once I actually listen to them).


Final Assembly:

Top grilled crusts (well grilled side up), with 1/4 of the mozza & 1/4 of the Parmesan. Then follow by pepper strips, & onions. Next a 1/4 of the feta (or as much as you can fit on without it falling off), followed by the tomatoes. Finally drizzle 1 1/2 Tbsp of the vinaigrette over each of the Pizzas.

After all the parts are assembled, & your Husband (life partner or guests) exclaim "that is a lot of stuff on there" slide 2 of the pizzas back on to the grill, using a large spatula, until the cheese is melted, & the crust is browned. Then repeat with the 2 other pizzas. Serve with the remainder of the vinaigrette if you like.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Pies form hell/Imbecile cook.

For a long time I couldn't figure out why everyone liked Pumpkin pie so much. In fact I never liked pumpkin pie until I had a piece of homemade pumpkin pie. The next year I tried making my own. I figure out that it was the amount of spices that store bought pies have that turn me off. They always tasted like they were trying to cover something up. So for years now I have made pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving.

This year I had a couple of pumpkins that needed to be used or moved to the compost bin, so I thought I would truly make the filling from scratch. I used to do this until I found out that canned pumpkin is better for you than fresh (it has to do with the canning process). I decide to make the filling using my food processor since I have recently aggravated my left wrist, & didin't think I could manage the mashing & mixing needed to make the filling.


As I mentioned earlier I have made pumpkin pies for years now, & I have never had so many thing go wrong. I came very close to scrapping the whole thing & buying pies.

So here is a list of all the strange things that happened:
- Couldn't get the food processor to run (Yes it was plugged in & turned on), finally figured out that the mechanism that clicks into the base of the food processor was stuck in the handle.
- Spilt sugar all over the stove, floor, & in the element.
- Splashed myself with evaporated milk, & an egg.
- Forgot that the food processor was more for dryer ingredients & not high quantities of wet ingredients, it overflowed down the center post if the food processor & all over the base.
-Dropped the food processor blade in the measuring cup I transfer the filling into for easier pouring into the crusts, & almost toppled the whole thing over.
- while transferring the filled crust to the oven the oven rack wouldn't advance, so I had to take them out & readjust the rack.
- 2 minutes after putting the pies in the oven I heard a loud bang in the oven & realized that the high temp had warped the pan, & the filling was pouring out of the pies onto the cookie sheet. -I sacrificed my spoon rest to prop up the pan, & they seemed to level out.
-The crust guards I use to stop the crust from burning adhered themselves to the crusts.

While these pies were cooking I was so scared to leave the pies after this for fear of them bursting into flames. It was the only thing that hadn't gone wrong. Well in the end the pies turned out just fine. Maybe not the prettiest pies I have ever made, but they will do for Thanksgiving dinner, & were even tasty.

Sneak peek

I have had many requests for pictures of our nursery. My plan is to do a before & after of the nursery once all the details are in place. As we still have a few elements to figure out & create it will still take us a while to complete all the detail before I document it photographically. For those of you who are asking for pictures, here is a little sneak peek. I first want to apologize for the iPhone pic. It was all I had with me upstairs in my craft room, and as the stairs are not really my friend these day, I was not wiling to run downstairs for my point & shoot.

The pic is of an acorn I made out of felt for a mobile that I am altering because I was not able to find a mobile that fits with our theme, and color scheme. I bought a second hand mobile, and I removed the animals that came with the mobile, and converted them into cute farm animal toys, by removing their cords they were hanging from. Now I am making new objects out of felt to coordinate with our nursery theme & linens. I hope it all comes together soon, and can share all the details with you.

Amazing Quotes

There are time when I wish I had a better memory, even pre-pregnancy. I love fabulous quotes. Not quotes by writers, historical figures, or politicians, although some are amazing like one of my faves from Winston Churchill "Attitude is a little thing that makes a BIG difference". I have a love for real life regular people quotes. As I have mention in a previous post writing & grammar are not my strong points, so when people succinctly encapsulate a feeling or experience I relate to in an amazing quote. I am always so speechless, which for me is amazing. Today there were three quotes I loved.

The first was from a blog I follow Alphamom. She described diapering as toddler with this quote
"trying to change a toddler is sometimes more like wrestling with a greased pig in a pile of mud"
If you have ever tried to diaper a toddler, this is an amazing accurate quote.

The second quote and I think my fave of the day was from a friend of ours Jeope "Awesome" Wolfe on facebook of all places. Who was congratulating another friend of ours Christine on her recent engagement. He gave one of the most amazing descriptions of engagement & the final commitment of marriage in a way I have never hear before.
"I loved being engaged! The beginning of a most excellent adventure!"
I loved this statement. If you could see Jeope & his equally lovely wife Kerry together you would know that this truly came from his heart. I love hearing positive statements about marriage in a world full of negative ones. I could easily write a longer more extensive angrier rant than my recently posted pregnancy rant, about "advice" people chose to tell you prior to marriage. None of these statements comes close to how incredibly positive, & heart warming his quote was.

The third was amazingly also on Facebook. Friends of ours Stacey & Joel just a baby & was excited that amazingly they were able to sleep for 6 hours with a new born. A contact of hers made the most amazing statement about baby's, & there unpredictable sleep patterns.
"Quit writing about it. They know. They always know. Don't even think about how good sleep is, either. They know that, too. Babies are stealth-like-sleep-ninjas.... they know when you get complacent and they will steal your nights. And days. No more jinxing!"
Being that I am an expectant mother & expceting to not get much sleep, & just became a Aunt to my super cute niece who has not always given her parents the same gift of sleep, this was an hilarious & accurate quote.

Always Read the Recipie or Happy Accident

Last Friday Al had suggested that we have dinner at Bistro 71/4. One of our all time favourite restaurants. We managed to get a reservation at the chefs table. A much suggested experience if you can. While eating dinner we started talking about the restaurant Blog by Chef Alexander Svenne. Turns out there are two blogs his side the previously mentioned blog & her side by Danielle Carignan-Svenne written from the point of view of running the front of house.

Chef Alexander at times post recipes on his blog & Al had mentioned a Baked Apple Pancake recipie he though sounded really tasty. The next day I checked out the blogs & decided that the recipie sounded like something I could handle. The best part was that I had some local apples from a family friend's to use.
I did take a few liberties. I decided to use a 91/2 x 91/2" pan, becuase it was what I had on hand, & I used more apples than the recipie calls for. I wanted to use all the apple, because they were getting old, & I didin't think that a few more apples would spoil the recipie, as they are on the bottom of the pan & not mixed in to the pancake mix. In the recipie you have the choice of using apple pie filling, or make your own. I decided to make my own apple filling using the suggested brown sugar, butter, & cinnamon sauteed in a pan with the sliced, peeled, cored apples.
After the apples have softened, and the brown sugar & butter have melted spread apple mixture in the bottom of your chosen grease baking pan.

Always Read the Recipe:
Now for the part where I screw up the recipie. I read over the recipe several times. On the internet, after printing it, before starting the recipie, & as I made the recipie. My problem is that I have the type of brain that fills in what I think recipie reads vs. what the actual recipie reads (oops!). So in my special interpretation I mixed all the ingredients that are listed for the pancake part of the recipe together including the sugar & cinnamon that were to be reserved for the top of the pancake once it was done. Being that I have made pancakes & cakes before I decided to try it out with the extra ingredients.

I poured the pancake mixture on top of the apples & baked it until (as the recipie states) it was puffy, firm and golden brown. I found probably because of the extra apples, the smaller pan, and the extra ingredients to bake a little slower int he middle & I had to add a few more minutes to make sure it was baked through.

The happy accident:
The result was a yummy fluffy cinnamon pancake with tangy cinnamon apple bottom. We didin't have the ingredients to make the Cinnamon Cider Syrup, so we use maple syrup. It was so good that we ate the whole thing. I will definitely make this recipie again. It was easy, yummy, and a nice treat for a weekend breakfast. I think it would make a nice dessert, especially toped vanilla icecream & the Cinnamon Cider Syrup drizzled over top.

Pregnancy rant in 3...2...1...

First I want to thanks everyone for the helpful advise & suggestions. I love helpful advice.I'm getting tired or advice like "just wait it will never be the same" or "get your sleep now because you will never get sleep after the baby" that... one gets a DUH!!! The best has been "buy your gadgets now" What gadgets???? We aren't gadget people.

I still don't understand why parents & women don't support each other rather than cutting each other down & making a huge comparison game out of parenting. No wonder why children are self conscious, from the very moment they are born they are continuously judged by others,& often don't meet others standards. Why can't we just let babies grow at different rate, talk at different ages,& walk in their own time.

No one gets a gold metal at their child first birthday. It's not a game it's your life. More importantly it's your child's life.

That feels better. I have been holding that in since the moment we made our pregnancy popular knowledge.

I will get off of my pregnancy soap box now.

Bryan Scott

I have been a member of Flickr Since 2006. I love the camaraderie of my fellow photography contacts & the inspiration of other members. There are several contacts that I look forward to seeing every time I log in. Bryan Scott tops this list. He is an outstandingly talented Photographer. He captures Winnipeg in a way I wish everyone would see it. The most interesting part of his photography, other than the amazing beauty, is the inclusion of historical dates with his photography. One of my favourite shots of his is this wintry Wolseley back lane. He has done some really cool time laps videos of Winnipeg. He also has a blog Winnipeg: Love and Hate. On his blog there is a very cool city map function, the ability to purchase prints, & coming soon Winnipeg love Hate (The Book).