April Let'sLunch: Spring Break Foods

Happy April's LetsLunch, everyone!

I volunteered to act as our host this month and suggested the theme: "Spring Break Foods." I've been super excited the past few weeks, planning for my "adult spring break" trip to Disney World.

I didn't know I was going to make pizza as my Spring Break Food. But, as luck would have it, a friend gifted a set of Mickey pizza plates to me last week and I knew my LetsLunch was set.

There's nothing fancy about this pizza. I used a garlic herb crust from Trader Joe's, some whole milk mozzarella, and a simple homemade tomato sauce.

To make the sauce: heat 1 can of whole tomatoes, mostly drained, plus half an onion, and a pinch of salt for about 15 minutes. Remove about half of the tomatoes and most of the onion, and pulse with a hand blender, then break the remaining tomatoes gently with a spoon. Stir the blended tomatoes back into the broken ones. Add a splash of red wine and continue cooking at least 5 more minutes. If the sauce seems too thin, stir in some tomato paste, 1 TBS at a time. 

I pre-baked the crust for about 8 minutes with a little cornmeal underneath to add some texture. Then sauce and cheese (less of both than might think), and back in the oven at 475 for about 15 minutes.

And, this is the part where you get to see how ugly my pizza turned out. Which is fine, if you ask me. In the competition between food being delicious and beautiful, I'll take delicious. The cheese aggressively sliding off my slice just means it was a) abundant and b) incredibly melty.

So, I hope the rest of my LetsLunchers are finding ways to get away or find some R&R at home this spring. A week from today I'll be heading to Disney World (again!) to visit a friend of mine who works at Animal Kingdom.

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Let's Lunch is a monthly virtual lunch date made up of foodies and bloggers from all over. Want to join us? Send us a tweet to introduce yourself using the hashtag #LetsLunch.

Check out what everyone else made this month:

Jill's Basil-Infused Cotillion Cocktail at Eating My Words
Lucy's Pepperoni Pizza Swirl Muffins at A Cook and Her Books
Lisa's Beetroot and Salmon with Horseradish at Monday Morning Cooking Club
Linda's Instant Carrot Cake at Free Range Cookies
Karen's Sourdough Sandwich Bread at Geofooding
Linda's Guide to Eating in Cancun at Spicebox Travels
Ann Marie's Mofongo with Ground Beef at Sandwich Surprise

Summer dinners: pizzas on the grill

Jake and I have been talking about grilling pizzas pretty much since the day we purchase our new grill. Last week, we finally got around to it.

And, since I've been trying (with on-again-off-again success) to eat lower carb, we decided to walk from our house to Cosetta's Italian grocery (and restaurant) in downtown St. Paul to pick up our ingredients. If you're not familiar with St. Paul's geography, this walk, though only a mile each way, involves the trek up a GIANT hill from our neighborhood to downtown.

Not wanting to make that trek again any time soon, we picked up an extra pizza dough for the freezer. Here's my dough, stretched out on my cookie sheet (we split the dough into 4 and each made two little pizzas)

We made a quick sauce out of a can of San Marzano tomatoes seasoned with basil. This made a ton of leftover too, so I split the remainder and popped it in the freezer. I also added hot pepper flakes and sliced garlic to mine.

The toppings station: tomato sauce, basil, spinach, artichoke hearts, garlic, oregano, red onion, zucchini, and fresh mozzarella

Pizza 1: basil, zucchini slices, artichoke hearts and cheese:

Pizza 2: sliced garlic, artichoke, red onion, spinach

Some tips? don't over do it on the sauce! Mine got a little wet in the process. Jake likes to use foil on the grill under the pizzas to make them easier to get on/off the grill.

The pizza was delicious, and made plenty for leftovers. And, since we had extra supplies, we'll be able to grill pizzas again sometime soon!

And, as an added bonus, I made cannolis! We picked up some shells from Cossetta (the Alessi brand ones -- they were $6 for six shells, but totally worth it). 16 oz of whole milk ricotta was enough to fill all 6, with a good amount left over. I mixed the ricotta with powdered sugar (about 1/2 cup), cinnamon (about 1 tsp), chopped chocolate and crushed pistachios, then piped into the shells. Delicious!