Food post

I hadn't done much cooking lately because I'd been feeling sick (on the bright side, I could do my grocery shopping for the week and spend about $10), but since I went for my treatment and then had a three-day weekend for Memorial Day, I decided to try some recipes.

On Saturday, I tried a "recipe" for Hawaiian Chicken, and I put that in quotes because it came from my mother, which means it's more like vague guidelines than an actual recipe, lol. I marinated chicken in a mixture of Lowry's Hawaiian marinade, pineapple juice, and white wine. I don't really have measurements, I just kind of poured. I used about half the bottle of marinade, a couple splashes of pineapple juice, and one splash of wine, lol. My mom browned the chicken in a pan and then simmered in the sauce, but I was lazy and decided to bake it instead and served it over rice. It was yummy and easy to make.

On Sunday, I made Asiago, Ricotta, and Spinach Rigatoni. I really need to get myself a regular food processor. Remembering the parsley sauce failure, this time I tried the immersion blender to combine the spinach and cheese, which sort of worked. I cut the recipe in half-ish, and did the bread crumb topping my way (melt butter and mix it with the bread crumbs before adding it to the dish, instead of drizzling the olive oil). It was good, but somewhat dry when reheated as leftovers.

The experiment for Monday was to duplicate a dish that I had a while ago at The Cheesecake Factory, their Roasted Pear and Blue Cheese Pizzette. I didn't bother to roast my pears, but it came out pretty similar. Here's the recipe:

pizza dough (I used Pillsbury refrigerated dough - I recommend thin crust, but any kind will do)
1 Vidalia onion, thinly sliced
pinch of dried thyme
3-4 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup beef stock
1 Bartlett pear, thinly sliced
1/4 cup chopped pecans
2 tbsp crumbled gorgonzola cheese
handful of arugula
salt and pepper

Follow instructions on package for pizza dough (mine had to be prebaked for 5 minutes at 400 degrees).

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add onion and thyme and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions begin to brown. Add the stock, a tablespoon at a time, until the onions are caramelized to a dark golden color.

Drizzle pizza dough with olive oil, then spread onions in an even layer. Top with pear slices, gorgonzola, and pecans. Bake as directed (mine took an additional 10 minutes at 400 degrees), adding arugula when there's about 3 minutes left.

Now I have leftover gorgonzola cheese, and also havarti cheese, which I bought by accident and don't know what to do with, so if anyone's got any recipe ideas, let me know.