Pizza Night

Pizza is alway fun to make at home and I love thinking of new combinations.  Byrd and I couldn't agree on just one type of pizza so we made two.  I was going to make a thick crust pizza with the left over rib meat from a previous cook, Byrd a more traditional style. I say I was going to make mine thick crust, but when I tried to get the dough out of the tube it came in, it basically fell apart.  I am not sure what happened, but it was bad. Byrd very easily rolled her thin crust out of the tube and it was perfect.  I persuaded her to let me use 1/2 of it, stating that "we don't really need to make two large pizzas."  She agreed then noticed the huge ball of dough that I rolled up and tried to hide. She asked why I didn't just throw it away, I said it would still be good for something.  After she was finished laughing at me, she cut hers in half.  After the dough was out of the oven from the proofing stage, stated on the tube, we began to build our pizzas.

I started mine with a mix of two BBQ sauces I had on hand.  One was too sweet and thick, one too thin.  Together they made a fine base for my pizza. Byrd used some left over spaghetti sauce from the fridge.

After the sauce was down, I added rib meat, cheese, diced jalapeno, cilantro, onion, mushrooms(on half), and cheese.  Byrd made a cheese, pepperoni, onion, jalapeno, and mushroom pizza.  

After the 8 minutes in the oven at 425,  they were ready to eat. Here is the BBQ Rib Pizza

Byrd's traditional pizza

The pizzas were delicious like most pizzas are.  I was happy that my combination worked. Now back to the discarded pizza dough.  I just couldn't throw it away and had a thought of a recipe for pork stuffed biscuit dough, well this was like biscuit dough, so I went for it.  I cut the ball down into workable pieces then put a little bbq sauce, rib meat and cheese inside.  Not the prettiest of things, but the idea was great.

Not really sure how long to cook these, we threw them in with the pizzas and checked them every 5 minutes.  They ended up taking about 20 minutes total.

Not near as good as the ones from the site would have been, but they were good. The thick crust pizza dough made them a little to bready.  But at least I tried. And they were fun to eat.

Roast Pork Loin Stuffed with Spinach, Bacon and Onion

I've had stuffed pork on my mind for about a week now.  There were a couple of blogs that I read that really got my mouth watering.  Both Nibble Me This, and My Year on the Grill had different takes on stuffed pork recently.  I had to have one.  I have been reading Frank Stitt's Southern Table for a couple weeks and guess what I came across last night, right there on page 223, a stuffed pork loin.  A pork loin stuffed with rosemary, bacon, and onions of all things.  Pork stuffed with pork.  What a great idea. There was only one problem with the recipe from the book, Byrd does not enjoy rosemary.  So I had to make a few changes.

The original recipe calls for:
1/2 lb. slab bacon, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 medium onions, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 cups 1-inch cubes crustless day-old French bread
2 garlic cloves, crushed and finely chopped
2 rosemary sprigs, leaves removed and finely chopped
1 small bunch flat-leaf parlsey, leaves removed and finely chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil or chicken broth, if necessary

This is what I used for the stuffing:
3 slices of bacon, diced
3/4 medium white onion, diced
3 slices day old white bread, crustless
3 cloves of garlic, crushed and finely chopped
1 frozen package of spinach, drained of all liquid
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons of olive oil

Other than those changes to the stuffing, I followed the recipe exactly.
I sautéed the bacon and onions.  Then set them aside to cool.  Once cooled I added the spinach, bread, and garlic, in with them.  The bread was a little dry, even with all of the delicious bacon drippings, so I added the 2 tablespoons of olive oil. I added salt and pepper to taste. Then I put the stuffing in a pastry bag, well the only pastry bag I have is a zip lock bag with a hole cut in one of the bottom corners.

I took a knife and inserted it in the center of the loin, turned it in a circular motion to create a hole.  Then with the back end of a wooden spoon, I widened the hole by pressing against the sides until it was about an inch in diameter.  Then stuffed it, by piping the stuffing into the whole in the center of the meat.  Then seasoned the pork with salt and pepper.

I put it in the oven on 450 for 20 minutes, then turned the oven down to 325 and cooked it for 25 minutes. When the internal temperature reached 145 degrees I then pulled it and set it aside to rest for 10 minutes.  I might have over stuffed it, but it looked and smelled great.

Still trying to go easy on the carbs, I made some steamed broccoli and carrots.  All together it made quite a meal.  This is my plate, I am not a huge fan of cooked carrots.

This was exactly what I wanted.  The stuffing was great, the flavor from the spinach, bacon, onion and garlic worked perfectly with the pork.  I am sure the original stuffing from Southern Table is divine, but I am pretty proud of what came out of my kitchen tonight.  Plus now that I have this under my belt the possibilities are endless.