Last week I made an amazingly tasty salad from arugula, butternut squash, and roquefort cheese. While the meal was missing just a little bit of crunch, there was no denying that the flavors were a great combination of sweet, pungent, peppery, and creamy. Since I had only used half the butternut squash and a little of the roquefort and arugula, I set out to make something else from this medley of flavors. Given the cold weather, I was really craving something warm and comforting. I was debating between a polenta dish or a pizza dish. Since the grocery store I stopped by on my way home didn’t have polenta or pizza crust, I was forced to improvise. (more…)

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Dinner, Pizza, Quick and Easy by Courtney

This is one of those recipes that was born of what was on hand. A while back I began to get super excited that my first batch of greens was ready in the garden, and it happened to be one of my favorites — arugula! Ever since I first had arugula and proscuitto on a pizza, I’ve been enamored with the idea of ever-so-slightly wilted greens on top of my pizza. I happened to have mozzarella on hand, but no proscuitto.

What did have on hand? (more…)

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Dinner, Italian, Lunch, Pizza by Courtney

One of my favorite prepare-ahead meals is pizza. Every month or two, I make up a big batch of pizza dough (usually doubling or quadrupling the recipe I have for 2 12-inch rounds), and I portion those out into large size and individual size lumps that are frozen for later.

When I do this, I also like to cube up some mozzarella and portion it into baggies (generally around 5 – 8 ounces per bag) and make a few batches of pizza sauce, freezing those in individual baggies as well. At some point in the month or two, I end up poaching a bag of sauce here, a baggie of mozzarella there, and I end up with just the pizza dough. So there are a couple of go-to pizzas I make when missing the other ingredients. (more…)

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Dinner, Italian, Lunch, Pizza, Prep for Later Use, Vegetarian by Courtney