Tuesday, April 7, 2009

spring pizza and molly's dressing


A Bon Appétit inspired Sunday dinner:








Miracle of miracles, I actually made something from one of my numerous magazines. 2 things actually. It started with Molly's version of Chez Panisse's Green Goddess dressing. I'm so lazy with salad dressing. I pretty much exclusively rely on olive oil, salt and lemon, but it was a beautiful Sunday, I was feeling motivated to make something tasty. Plus I was thinking about Jora's post on Design Mom a few weeks ago... good dressing=easy delicious salad for the week. Good point.

I left out the anchovies because of the vegetarian thing, added a little extra salt, and substituted red wine vinegar for the white wine vinegar (because I didn't have the former on hand) and it was still totally delicious. Also, due to aforementioned laziness, I blended the herbs in the food processor instead of finely chopping and whisking by hand. I mean if you have the appliance out, you might as well use it for everything.

And then to go with our friendly new dressing, a pizza serendipitously born from random selections at the Farmer's Market. Mini heirloom potatoes, leeks (just watched the Jamie Oliver leek episode and could not leave the market without them), asparagus... all of which added up to a lovely version of the pizza in this month's issue. I added the buttery leeks as a first layer and left off the goat cheese because we didn't have any, but it still turned out acceptably tasty. The crust wasn't great, but I'm not a whiz with bread so it definitely could have been user error as opposed to a suboptimal recipe. And if I make it again, I think I'll toss the potatoes in a little garlic and olive oil before arranging them on the pizza.

I love making pretty dinners when it's still light out in the evening and we have a kitchen full of new produce. It tricks me into believing that I don't have to go to work the next day. For at least those few hours.

6 comments:

Rachel said...

There is pretty much nothing better than homemade green goddess dressing. I looooove it. Now I want to try Molly's recipe.

jora said...

I am absolutely crazy for green goddess dressing (plus, it has the best name on earth). I will have to try that recipe for sure.

Melissa said...

Everything looks so good, I love green goddess dressing too especially on cucumbers :)

Amy@OldSweetSong said...

This looks delicious. I really must make that dressing. And homemade pizza is on my list too.

Dang girl. Now I'm hungry.

Tracey said...

Yum- I am so with you about the evenings staying light longer and pretty dinners. I feel like I can finely leave the nesting of winter behind.

Joslyn said...

oh this looks gorgeous. i just saw that recipe and i'm dying to try it.