Corned Beef, Cabbage and Dubliner Pizza

A St. Patrick's day pizza: corned beef & cabbage smothered with creamy Irish cheese.

I will probably be all over the place in these notes, so I apologize in advance. Squirrel! At least I'll try to break them up with official-looking subheadings.

The pizza

Since we eat pizza every Friday--and some Sunday afternoons while I'm working on shooting recipes for my first-in-a-series pizza ebook--food holidays are a great way to explore new flavor combinations. We've enjoyed 'Tremendously Green' cabbage and potato pizza and Irish cheddar, chicken, leek and potato pizza already, so I thought a corned beef & cabbage pizza was the next logical step. I like how this Irish cheese melts, so that addition was a no-brainer.

The behind-the-scenes photos

After my spouse returned from Afghanistan he bought a camera. While he was deciding if it fit his hand, I'd attempt to use it for photos. Once he determined that it wasn't right for him, he'd return it and buy a different one. He repeated these actions over the course of the winter, eventually settling on one. [The camera that I am still, a year later, attempting to use for photos!] The common thread--through the camera shopping and the marriage--is that I adapt to whatever works best for him. Adaptability is an excellent trait in a military spouse.

On the day I made this pizza we happened to have 2 cameras in the house--and a hungry assistant eager to get the photos taken so she could dig in. My spouse was using the new camera to take photos of me doing my thing with the previous new camera. The distraction is probably why I left an unfolded napkin in the corner of the photo, but at least it provides a place to overlay the recipe title.

Don't ask me which cameras he went though before ending up with his final choice. It doesn't matter because it's not the camera that takes a great photo, it's the person pushing the button. Whatever fits your hand and is easy for you to understand and use is the right camera for you. The brand name, the numbers on the lens--they are secondary to how it feels to you. Just make sure that something in the photo is in focus! There's no reason to have digital photos that are blurry. It's pizza, not a gazelle bounding away causing you to snap quick before the moment is gone.

There is nothing to disclose

I realized that there are an awful lot of brand names visible in these photos. Thanks to my spouse's hard-earned money I was able to buy everything at a variety of stores, and I'm choosing to share what I bought because the items worked really well in this recipe. There are plenty of times that I'm just not that into making pizza dough in advance, nor do I have any pizza crust yeast (Amazon affiliate link) to make a fast dough. I've tried a bunch of prebaked crusts and know what we like best. Use whatever products work best for you.

For other St Patrick's Day-inspired or 'any random day' pizzas, please see my Visual Pizza Recipe Index. For other recipes using cabbage, please see my Cabbage Recipes Collection. For other recipes using leeks, please see my Leek Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

Fast Pasta with Slow-roasted Tomatoes

Pasta sauce sourced locally from ingredients put up in summertime to be enjoyed during wintertime: slow-roasted tomatoes seasoned with hot turkey sausage served over ricotta-feta tossed fettuccine.

Permission and Encouragement in today's post.

Did you put up a bit of summer's bounty in your freezer or pantry last year? Perhaps you dabbled a bit in freezing some strawberry jam, pesto, or tomatoes? If so--have you started to use what you put up? If yes--I should have made a flow chart--good for you. If no--what are you waiting for? Now is the time! It's cold enough to crave hearty homey hot dishes but the lengthening days tease you with the promise of seasons to come.

If you didn't put up any of the bounty from your garden, your neighbor's garden, your Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share or farmer's market--no worries! Let this recipe plant itself like a parasite in the back of your brain so that, when the days become shorter and the tomato plants are laden with ripe tomatoes, you'll think about trying your hand at putting some up. Then, through the magic of Pinterest (link to my Pinterest page where my first board, Farm Fresh Feasts, is all the posts I've ever posted on the blog) you can find this recipe next winter and enjoy your own homegrown tomatoes. In the meantime, a can of good crushed tomatoes will do.

About a year ago I shared a recipe for Creamy Tomato Soup with Home-canned Tomatoes. It was one of my most popular recipes of 2014. In that posted I planted the seed about canning your own tomatoes. It worked in at least 2 folks that I know of, and I couldn't be more delighted. Your turn?

Today I'm going to share a recipe for pasta with a slow-roasted tomato sauce, and I'll nag you to roast some tomatoes in the Fall. Oh, I mean plant the seed [forget the parasite analogy now] that you should consider slow-roasted as a method of preservation. Slow-roasted tomatoes require an oven, a rimmed baking sheet, and a freezer. I am fortunate to have all 3, and according to the results of the Hunger Study 2014, most folks in my area have access to the same kitchen appliances. No excuses!

Consider slow-roasting some tomatoes this year. Head to Alanna's excellent tutorial for step-by-step info and photos. For other ideas on how to use slow-roasted or fresh or canned tomatoes, please see my Tomato Recipes Collection, part of my Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. I pin interesting tomato recipes to my Tomatoes Pinterest Board.

Honey Banana Oat Muffins

Soaked oat and whole wheat muffins sweetened with honey and a banana.

When I was a kid, my mom would sometimes whip up a last minute dessert that consisted of a bowl of sliced bananas topped with a spoonful of brown sugar and a generous splash of milk. It was fast, sweet, and used stuff she had on hand.

Making something out of nothing is a learned skill in the kitchen. 

I don't mean literally nothing, this is not a Stone Soup type post. No, I'm talking about some of the items I consider kitchen staples:  bananas, oats, and baking powder*. I don't add buttermilk to this list because if you were to run the stats [I've been working on getting my info ready for my wonderful tax preparer so stats are on my mind] buttermilk cannot be found in my fridge as often as bananas, oats, and baking powder can be found in the pantry.

Once you've got buttermilk to use up, though, you can assemble several sets of the base of these muffins and store them in the fridge for up to a week. You could make buttermilk pizza dough or roasted garlic & pesto buttermilk pizza dough and store that in the freezer for a month. You could make a double batch of Butternut Squash Waffles and freeze the extras for weekday breakfasts or waffle sandwich lunches.

These muffins are my version of mom's frugal dessert. They are easy to throw together out of stuff I have on hand, sweet enough for a mid-afternoon snack at work, and healthy enough for me to give my kids for breakfast.

For other recipes using bananas, please see my Banana Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other muffin recipes check out the drop down menu on the right sidebar and let this serve as a kick in the pants to update that, or just tell me to put all the banana muffin recipes that are piled up on the dining room table into an ebook so you can grab that when you're in a muffin mood.