Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Pizza. Need I Say more?


Friday nights are perfect for pizza; such a comforting food after a long week....with a glass of wine. Here are some of my favorite pizzas:

Best Value: Little Caesar's $7 Large 1-topping Pan pizza deal! At the end of a long week, this value pizza makes the world right.

Best Frozen Pizza: Palmero's Primo Thin, Supreme. Palermo's packs a lot of taste into each cardboard box. Low calorie compared to other frozen brands.

Best way to cook a pizza: Making a frozen pizza on a Presto Pizza Pizzaz can make an ordinary frozen pizza extraordinary (this gadget is no gimmick). If I'm making homemade pizza baking on a hot pizza stone makes the crust amazingly crisp.

Best Homemade Pizza toppings: Blanco (spinach and goat cheese)

Pizza Fantasy: Visiting the Original Home Run Inn Restaurant (Yes, the frozen Home Run Inn pizza is double the calories of your average pizza), but if their frozen pizza is that good, I can only fantasize about how good the pizza is at the actual Home Run Inn restaurant! Someday I will go there, field trip anyone?

Bops: The tastiest breakfast food you never knew about


Since my last post i've made some great recipes: Cooking Light's Spinach artichoke dip, Irish soda bread muffins, zucchini fritters, blackened fish sandwiches on homemade buttermilk biscuits with cilantro lime mayo, chocolate peanut butter pie, and experimented with two sugar cookie recipes to make one similar to the Loft house brand at the grocery store (without the chemical taste). Lately i've been craving a favorite recipe called Bops from the America's Best Lost Recipes cookbook.

Bops date back to the 1800's and are as simple to make as pancake but waaaaay more memorable for your taste buds. A bop is the texture of a crepe with the thickness of a pancake, the picture doesn't do this breakfast food justice. You will need 3 pie plates since they're baked however don't let that deter you from the recipe since you can get some aluminum pie plates at the dollar store and wash and reuse. Bops are perfect for Saturday mornings and since they contain 3 eggs, they also contain plenty of protein to start your day.

Bops Recipe:
serves 4

3 large eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1.) Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease three 9-inch pie plates. With an electric mixer on high speed, beat the eggs in a large bowl until pale and thick, about 2 minutes. Add the flour and mix on the lowest speed until just combined. Add the milk, oil, and salt and mix until incorporated (the batter will be thin).

2.) Add 1 cup batter to each of the prepared pie plates and bake, switching the plate positions halfway through baking, until puffed and browned, about 25 minutes.

3.) Cool the pancakes until warm (they will collapse as they cool). Place one pancake on a serving plate and spread with 1 tablespoon of the softened butter. Spread the remaining two pancakes with the remaining butter in the same manner, then stack the pancakes, butter-side up, on top of one another. C ut into wedges. Serve with lots of maple syrup!