a toast to crem and jeremy!

What better way to spend a Sunday morning than by raising a glass (and a piece of pizza) to some of our nearest and dearest friends who just got engaged last week?! I've been so happy ever since Crem told me the good news and I just had to find away to celebrate and share the celebration, so here goes...cheers c + j!!

The pomegranate, or in german granatapfel, in champagne is a little trick I learned from Crem. The beautiful magenta seeds in the bubbly champagne are both beautiful and delicious. What a treat when you take a sip to get a couple little seeds that pop when bitten and release a sweet, yet tart juice - yum!
I settled on a sweet breakfast/brunch pizza - mozzarella, ricotta and parmesan cheese with cinnamon and sugar coated apples and a drizzle of honey. In thinking back on it I obviously should have added some sausage to the mix considering Crem and Jeremy's shared love for sausage. I actually think sausage would be a wonderful savory companion to the sweet apples.
Zach and I decided that I should have added more apples to the pizza. They were delicious, but not overpowering, and a full coating of them would have made the pizza even yummier.
ingredients:

- 1 newly engaged couple

- a good playlist of Wilco, Neko Case and Bitter Greens(Jeremy's band!)

- lots and LOTS of love!

- pomegranate + champagne

dough: I discovered this dough recipe on Alexandra Cooks, a fellow Yalie who has one of the best food blogs out there.

- 1/4 cup whole wheat flour

- 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

- 1 2/3 luke warm water

- 2 tsp sugar

- 2 tsp active dry yeast

- 2 tsp olive oil

mix the flours together in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl add the lukewarm water, yeast and sugar and allow it to sit for about 5 minutes or until little bubbles start to form on the top. Add the olive oil to the yeast-water mixture and stir. Once mixed add slowly to the dry ingredients. I don't have a mixer so I kneaded the dough by hand. It gets very sticky, but it is still workable. Once combined divide into 4 smaller balls. This might require some extra flour in order to really handle the dough. I've also found that a little olive oil helps.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and put some olive oil on the parchment paper, to ensure that the dough does not stick. Place the four dough balls on the parchment paper and cover with plastic wrap. You can put a little olive oil on the dough balls to ensure the plastic wrap will not stick. Find a reasonably warm spot to put the baking sheet and allow the dough to rise for 2 hours, or until it appears to have doubled in size.

If you don't want to make all four pizzas at once then wrap the dough you aren't using in plastic wrap and put it in a plastic baggy and into the freezer. The dough keeps incredibly well frozen.

pizza time:

preheat the oven to a toasty 500 degrees.

To roll out the dough put a bit of flour on your work surface and dust the dough ball with a bit of flour. I work the dough by hand first - moving it around in a circle and stretching it out from the center and then to the edges. Once the dough has spread out into a nice flat circle I put it back on the work surface and use the rolling pin to roll it out. I bake the pizza on a reasonably small, non-stick, 9 x 13 pan, so I try to roll the dough out so that it roughly fits those dimensions. Once the right size place on your baking sheet. If you don't have a non-stick pan I would put some olive oil on your baking sheet before you put the dough on.

the fun part...put whatever you want on your pizza! a bit of olive oil is a good start and the some cheese of your choosing. I chose mozzarella and ricotta with some parmesan shavings. Once the cheese was on I placed the apples, which I had mixed with a bit of cinnamon and sugar, on to the pie. I then drizzled a bit of honey over the entire pizza and stuck it in the oven for about 10-15 minutes. When the crust is perfectly light brown you'll know the pizza is done.

The picture on the right is a snapshot from our day trip to Luzern yesterday. I'm going do another post on that trip, but the heart shutters had to make an appearance in this post.
champagne + pomegranate seeds + a giant bottle of delicious Belgian beer = a few of Crem and Jeremy's favorites, and ours too! We ended our celebration with a little reading of the New Yorker in front of the "fire." While Zach was reading the New Yorker I started The Dirty Life, a book about a couple who started a farm from the ground up. I just finished reading about how they slaughtered a pig...thought of Pork and Chop now sitting in your freezer. A celebratory bacon meal in your future perhaps?

LOVE YOU BOTH!! CHEERS TO YOU AND YOUR LIFE TOGETHER!! xxox