Pizza Rustica

I love making pizza on the weekends when i'm being lazy and I want a quick dinner, and this is a tried-and-true recipe that my apartment-visitors inhale quite often.

Ingredients:
1 pre-made pizza dough (for two)
5-6 oz. of fresh mozzarella
7-8 tablespoons sundried tomato pesto (recipe follows)
15 large leaves of fresh basil, torn
About a handful of pine nuts
Freshly shaved parmesean
1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

First, start off with your dough in a baking pan, with your oven preheated to 375 F. I like to use a pre-made dough, since I don’t have time to make dough on my own. The Central Market by my house sells rich, whole-wheat thick pizzas for 99 cents, and they’re aready pre-baked a little, so it saves me time. First, spread your tomato pesto over the pizza, using the back of the tablespoon you’re measuring with as a make-shift spatula (this saves time on dishwashing). Next, break apart the fresh mozzarella with your fingers and sprinkle bite size pieces around the pizza- don’t crowd the pieces, since they will melt a lot. Next, take your basil leaves and tear the leaves into halves or thirds. Damaging the leaves ensures that you release the oils and aroma of the basil, giving you more flavor than you’d have if you simply lay the leaves atop the pizza. Now, sprinkle pine nuts and parmesean evenly over the pizza. I like to use a handful of each, but that all depends on how big your hands are or what your tastebuds prefer. Top it off with a drizzle of olive oil- don’t put too much, the cheese will create enough oil. Also, if you’d like to top it with some sausage or any other ingredients, do so now. I like to use Applewood Farm’s (because it’s organic and gluten-free) chicken-&-sage breakfast sausage, halfway cooked and chopped on top of my pizza.


Sundried tomato pesto:
Any pesto can be done perfectly by remembering the ratio 4:1:1:1, that is, 4 parts fresh herbs to 1 part nuts, 1 part garlic, and 1 part extra virgin olive oil. For this pesto, I use 2 cups sundried tomatoes with ½ cup pine nuts, ½ cup garlic, and ½ cup oil. Puree all ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth. I’ve found that it keeps in the fridge for up to a week, and I also spread it on sandwiches, or stir it into vegetables when i’m roasting them (any pesto is excellent over fingerling potatoes).

Beasts

I often wonder how much i'd flip out if I didn't have my moleskine on me.
However, two years ago my grandma generously gifted me with a pack of six 5x8" notebooks for me to fill, and I just started my third this past February. It's quite interesting- my first one was full of doodles and poetry and to-do lists, my second was filled with more poetry, but also recipes. So far, my third one is quickly being filled up with not only recipes, but collages, free-hand drawings, and magazine cut outs i've glued in to provoke thought-conversations, like a picture of the inside of a spaceship I found that created paragraphs around it recalling my fear of space as a child, despite my father's want for me to become a rocket scientist. He plastered my bedroom walls with posters of astronauts and NASA launches and planets, to which I was horrified for years to come.

Anyway, thanks Gram. I owe you a drink. She can drink me under the table, really- my first inebriation was with her at 13, but that's another [long] story.

I'm thinking about stitching this one. Perhaps on canvas, or heavy weight paper.
It will most likely fall under "summer projects", which is becoming a long list.

Gentle monster: rapidiograph pen with a cut out from a 1960s National Geographic

NO!

How did I miss finding out that David Sedaris is coming to SMU to perform in the auditorium on campus on April 19th?!

It's sold out, anyway. McFarlin auditorium always sells out quick.

I'm so tired

Okay, I guess this is senoritis. Like, hardcore.

All i've been wanting to do is sell all my stuff and go out and party with friends and sleep in with Mike every morning. Don't tell me I have a 35 page distinction paper to write. Don't tell me I have to make twenty prints for a show at the end of the semester. I just want to start my life, so I can save up for a couple months and go up to Chicago. Or to Seattle. And go to grad school for my masters. And be in a community that really appreciates art. My whole body is buzzing with energy for everything to begin.

But now I have this ugly, ugly, theory paper to write. I used to love social theories and reading ethnographies, but this class is ruining them for me.

I'll cope.

Currently listening to: "The Man In Me" by Bob Dylan