Pizza is the most important meal of the day

Say good morning to pizza. I don’t mean cold, leftover pizza from the prior night’s delivery. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. No judgments here.

I mean authentic breakfast pizza. A truly delicious use of that supermarket pizza dough you keep stashed in the freezer. What’s that you say? You don’t keep supermarket pizza dough stashed in the freezer? Why the heck not? It doesn’t take up much room, it’s easy to use, and it’s the beginning of so many yummy things, like calzones, breadsticks, garlic knots, flatbread, pizza (duh, or should I say, doh) (sorry), and…

Breakfast Pizza!

Of course, a teeny bit of advance planning is required (other than obtaining the ingredients). You do have to defrost the dough, which means moving it from the freezer to the fridge the night before. Some frozen dough also needs to rest on the counter for an hour or two before using, which is more advance planning than I can usually manage, so I either (a) try to buy the kind that doesn’t require this extremely arduous step or (b) don’t bother doing it.

You could also serve Breakfast Pizza for lunch or dinner, in which case you'd have to change the name.

I’m not going to offer an actual recipe, because I am too lazy to measure all the ingredients I used there are so many different ways you can do this, and I wouldn’t want to limit your creativity. If you must have an actual recipe, you can start with this one. But please add some creativity of your own. Don’t be afraid, it’s really hard to ruin Breakfast Pizza.

Here’s a version I recently made:

Start with the dough, stretching and pulling it gently into the shape you plan to use, which could be the traditional round, or, if you don’t own a pizza pan, rectangular, in which case you would use a cookie sheet. Very lightly oil the pan or sprinkle it with flour or corn meal so the dough won’t stick. 

Then make a pretty layer of thinly sliced tomatoes, sprinkle with chopped garlic, top with crumbled crisply cooked bacon, grated or crumbled cheese (my favorite is chevre, but you can use whatever is on hand; gruyere and cheddar and mozzarella are all good). Bake in a very hot (450 degrees is good) oven for about 10 minutes, until the cheese is melted and it’s starting to bubble. 

Now here's the breakfast-y part. Take it out and gently break 4 (or more, if you’d like) eggs on top and slide it back into the oven. Bake another few minutes until the egg whites are firm but the yolks still runny. Top with chopped basil or chives. Let it cool for a bit to firm up, then cut into wedges (I use a kitchen shears) and serve. Such a good morning!

Breakfast pizza is very welcoming to creative variations. Some possibilities: chopped spinach, arugula, asparagus (blanched first), caramelized onions, cooked sausage, mushrooms, scallions, whatever you can think of.

Or you could just go here.

Good morning!

The poached egg epiphany

I used to joke that I was going to write a cookbook for raw beginners and call it How to Boil Water. Then somebody (Food Network, of course) actually did. My birth mom, who was an amazing cook as well as an author of cookbooks and culinary history books, wrote a beginner's cookbook that she called, How to Slice an Onion. It makes a wonderful gift for kids heading off to their first apartments or any other kitchen newbie, and you can pick up a copy here.

But no matter how experienced a cook you are, there's always something new to try. I've mastered lots of what appear at first to be pretty challenging recipes and techniques. I bake my own bread (baguette recipe coming soon), have made cheese (mozzarella and ricotta), cure my own bacon, and there was even, once, the infamous Night of the Crackers. Yes, I made my own crackers, which took an entire day, and I served them to dinner guests with the cheese platter before the meal. They were a little oddly shaped, and somewhat less tasty than a Ritz. But they were homemade crackers! I was so worn out from the cracker-making that I don't think the rest of the meal was much good. They did, however, become legend, as an example of over-the-top do-it-yourselfishness. And I learned a good lesson. There are some things better left alone, especially things that are completely incidental to the meal. Have you ever heard anyone leave a restaurant exclaiming, "Oh, those crackers!"

A Dementor. Pretty ugly, no?

But despite all the bacon curing and baguette baking, there's one simple item that I've never managed to master: the poached egg. I've tried adding lemon juice and drops of vinegar. I've tried swirling the water clockwise and swirling the water counter-clockwise. But no matter how I swirled and dipped, my poached eggs ended up looking like the shredded ends of Harry Potter's Dementors (but white). Ugly things, my poached eggs.

Until I found a little secret on this cute video, which also reveals the easy way to tell a fresh egg from a not-so-fresh egg (fresher eggs poach more tidily). Don't you love knowing these little cooking tricks? The video reveals this easy tip: crack the raw egg into a fine mesh sieve. That way the watery part of the white drains away, so that when it cooks it stays nice and tight and pretty.

Maybe my fine mesh strainer is finer than most, or my eggs thicker, but I found that the fine mesh did not strain any of the white away. So I tried using a slotted spoon, and that worked perfectly. Plus it made lowering the egg into the simmering water very easy, since the egg was already sitting pertly on a spoon. Very lightly oiling the spoon beforehand made it slide off more readily.

It's a little bit of a balancing act, handling egg and spoon, so cracking each egg into a small cup before starting makes it easier. Then you can just tip an egg into the spoon, let the watery white drain away, and lower it into the water. Use the spoon to gently move them around while they cook, and to lift them out when they're done.

In addition to making my first nicely poached eggs, I also made my first hollandaise sauce. And I used the food processor, so it was ridiculously easy (recipe below). Which means I also made my...drumroll, please...first eggs benedict. Served to a very pleased Figlio Minore. What's next? I'm heading to the country for a bit so I'm thinking smoking. Fish, that is. Onward!

Food processor (or blender) hollandaise

INGREDIENTS

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 large egg yolks, room temp

1 1/2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Salt and pepper

Pinch of cayenne

DIRECTIONS

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan or microwave.
2. Place the egg yolks, lemon juice, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1/5 teaspoon pepper, and cayenne in the processor. Blend for 15 seconds. With the processor running, slowly pour the hot butter in and blend for 30 seconds, until thick. 
3. You can leave the sauce in the processor at room temp for up to one hour. Or make in advance and refrigerate. When ready to serve, add about a half-tablespoon hot water and pulse for a few seconds before serving.