Today's food experiment went surprisingly well-- "Fruit Pizza."
I had gotten the recipe from someone (?) back when we lived in Naples, Italy. Though I've looked at the recipe many times, in over 10 years I've never attempted it... until today.
With fond rememberance of food gatherings with friends, I pondered the "Fruit Pizza," as the friend who made it moved away a couple years ago. Thus, today I attempted it, knowing full well it wouldn't turn out the way our friend made it.
The recipe begins w/ making a "sugar cookie" dough (I guess it's a sugar cooking dough, because that's what a friend substituted with; I have never made sugar cookies, so I'm clueless here). That went all fine and dandy, although I did use butter instead of the margarine. Probably added a bit too much sugar, but for a special occasion like this. . . okay there's no special occasion-- I just felt like making something new and I'd gone to the trouble of buying all the ingredients in advance. The dough didn't turn out like I thought it would, as I "spread" it onto the pizza pan (I was supposed to "pat" it, but it was too wet), and I was hoping that this experiment hadn't gone bad at the outset. I put the dough into the new oven (yes, for those who are in the know, we finally got a new range/oven-- my sincerest gratitude to the very nice neighbors who helped; there is no way on earth I could have pulled that beast up the stairs!)
With the soon-to-be crust in the oven, I began making the cream cheese spread. I added a little too much sugar to that, too, and also a bit of vanilla because it just seemed impossible that cream cheese, sugar and pineapple juice wold be sufficient. I realized, upon grabbing the little pineapple can off the big can of pineapple juice that I could have saved some money-- the pineapple was packed in pineapple juice! Here's to hoping the kids still like pineapple juice (they did back in our WIC days!).
After what seemed an extraordinary amount of time (the time Hubby wrote down on the directions was "8-10 minutes" of baking, or until golden brown), the crust was ready. I pulled it out of the oven, thinking with gratitude upon simple pleasures (yes, ovens are a pleasure when you go 6 months without one!), and set the pan on the table to "cool." I wasn't sure how long it would take to cool, because I keep it pretty warm upstairs w/ the wood stove (I love being warm!). I busied myself with other thoughts and doings while the crust cooled. My Boy was very curious (as usual) to what I was making. Since he had worked very hard in trying to catch up on his homework, he wanted to "help." I apologized, telling him "This is one recipe I've never tried-- I need to concentrate." Maybe I should have just showed him the juice can and told him to read it!
Okay, maybe that wasn't so funny. So the crust finally cooled and I put the cream cheese spread on, then sliced up fresh kiwis, bananas, apple, mandarin, and canned pineapple and placed it on top. This is not as easy as it sounds, because the OCD "tendancies" get in the way. Wait! The slices of kiwis are too close together on that side. Crap! The Boy kept licking his lips and practically drooling and dancing as he watched in excitement.
There wasn't enough color on the "pizza," and I had forgot to buy marachino cherries. I improvised with blackberries we'd picked from our yard this past summer, warming the frozen berries in a pan w/ organic coconut oil, raw honey, and a dash of cinnamon. I also threw a few of the berries (still frozen) on the "pizza" with the rest of the fresh fruit. The "syrup" was ready in no time, and added some wonderful color to the "pizza."
Finally, it was all done, and Boy did get to assist (he picked out the mandarin-- reminded we had fresh ones, in fact). I called for Girl, too, who was still trying to get her homework assignment done.
Both kids thoroughly enjoyed our non-typical dinner of "Fruit Pie," and there's even some left for breakfast.
Definitely a recipe to do again!
~~Cedeham
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