Homemade Pizza

While I admittedly still think greasy take-out pizza will always hold a special place in my heart, nothing truly beats the bubbling cheese of your very own homemade pizza peering out at you from the oven.

Making pizza is intensely satisfying. With each layer, a masterful piece of edible art comes into existence. While we have toyed with making the dough ourselves, the ease of supermarket fresh dough is convenient and reliable (whereas our homemade dough has certainly seen a series of disasters before). After we pull and stretch the ball of dough into final form, the endless mixes of toppings are ready to be placed.  While we attempt various experiments from time to time, three combos never cease from the rotation:

1. Chicken Wing: chicken cooked in hot wing sauce laid over a blue cheese sauce
2. Spinach Pesto: fresh baby spinach laid over a pesto sauce
3. Tomato and Ricotta: tomato with big globs of glorious ricotta dotting a layer of red sauce

These combinations really deserved to be credited towards Mark's mother, Shelley, who apparently avoided the greasy take-out every now and then by serving her delectable gourmet pizzas to her sons while they grew up.

Below is our Chicken Wing pizza.

Chicken Wing Pizza

Ingredients
About 1/2 lb skinless boneless chicken breast
About 3 Tb (or to taste) hot wing sauce
Your favorite blue cheese dressing (We like Marie's Chunky Blue Cheese)
About 1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
Fresh pizza dough

Equipment: Baking sheet (or pizza stone)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray lightly *very important for removal of pizza later! (Prepare pizza stone per instructions given with pizza stone)
3. Take ball of pizza dough and slowly stretch it out, rotating as you go. Continue until you have made a rectangle that fits the baking sheet and is about 1/2 inch thick (more or less depending on how thick you like your pizza)
   
4. Trim chicken breast of excess fat and cut into bite-sized chunks
5. Cook chicken chunks over medium high heat until cooked through
6. Turn off heat and add enough hot wing sauce to taste
7. Spread about 1/2 cup or so of blue cheese dressing on pizza dough, leaving about a 1/2 inch border
8. Sprinkle chicken evenly over pizza dough
9. Top with sprinkled mozzarella
10. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until dough is golden brown and cheese is bubbling
    

First Favorites

Before I begin to tackle the task of documenting our current meals, I found it appropriate to reveal a few of our favorites. It only seemed right to begin with our beloved Stuffed French Toast. To be fair, we modeled this breakfast item after the french toast we have enjoyed at a highly popular and colorful brunch stop, Sabrina's Cafe in the Italian Market area of Philly. Our particular french toast has a multitude of variations, but it always combines the tartness of mascarpone (an Italian cream cheese) with the sweetness of fruit. Though we began by experimenting with challah, we have come to enjoy a good crusty Italian loaf as our bread of choice. With a tall glass of milk and a bit of maple syrup, you might imagine the speed with which this is devoured.


Stuffed French Toast
Serves 2

Ingredients

• Two thick slices of crusty Italian bread
• 1 cup skim milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 large egg whites
  
• 2 large eggs

Filling (depends on what you want)

• 4 oz cream cheese
• 4 oz Mascarpone
• Brown sugar (optional)
• Fruit (berries or bananas work best)
  

Combine milk and next five ingredients (through eggs) in a large shallow dish, and stir well with a whisk. In a separate bowl, mix together ingredients for filling in varied amounts to your tasting (brown sugar is optional).

Cut bread slices in half crosswise; cut a slit through cut sides of each piece of bread to form a pocket. Stuff with filling until the bread is well-packed. Arrange stuffed bread pieces in a single layer in dish, turning to coat. From our experience, do not need to absorb very long (5 minutes or so).

Melt small amount of butter in skillet. Add soaked bread, cooking for a few minutes until egg cooked. Carefully turn bread over; cook a few more minutes until browned. Can then be put into oven at about 250 degrees to ensure that it is cooked through or to increase the crustiness of the bread. Serve immediately with maple syrup and butter (Smart Balance recommended).

And so it begins...

This is a story about two bumbling graduate students (one med student named Mindy and one engineering student named Mark) who love food. Now we certainly cannot claim to have any true culinary skills but we can declare an obsession with the art of cooking, baking, experimenting, and most importantly tasting. This blog is meant primarily as a means for us to file away our gustatory memories and perhaps share a couple of our ideas with those who stumble upon this site.

p.s.

• magirics (n.): art of cookery

p.p.s.

• we also like to make yummy drinks...