Weekday Meals, Part 1: Naan pizza

Alas, I had such grand visions of blogging all week.  Now I know that should I, under tragic circumstances, be a single parent, I don't think I could keep up this blog.  Time was so not my friend for the past five days.

Nevertheless, I was able to capture our meals sans Adam.  On Tuesday, it was naan pizza:

This...well, this turned out not great.  Serviceable, at best.  My plan was for potato and ricotta pizza.  I heated the oven to 400 degrees with my pizza stone on the bottom rack.  I drizzled each naan with olive oil, then added salt and pepper to taste.  I spread each naan with Pomi strained tomatoes, followed by fresh ricotta.

I left Bug's as is.  To mine, I added some boiled potato slices and red pepper flakes.  Then both naans went into the oven for about 12 minutes.  Once out, I added fresh thyme to my pizza and shaved Parmesan to both our pizzas.

The result was nearly crap, actually.  I was entirely too generous with the sauce so, once combined with the already moist ricotta, turned the naan completely soggy - you can't really see it in the photo but there were POOLS of liquid on top of the pizza.  And because there was too much sauce, the pizza was overly sweet, in my opinion.  And it looked bland - I think a spell under the broiler would have done those potatoes good.

The good news?  Bug inhaled it.  Loved it.  So I guess that's good...

Eat, drink, and in all things moderation.

Ode to Naan

This is my latest favorite recipe: White Bean and Pancetta Flatbread from Food and Wine (April 2010). It is Damn Good, which was unexpected because I thought it might be too dry. Somehow it works, though. I attribute it to the perfect ratio of melting cheese to beans. Take a look:

I used the exceptional naan that I get from my local market, but this same naan is available at Whole Foods (I usually use the plain naan). Barring that, you can try using a pita. (Check out my well-documented love of naan here and here)

Now, on a weekday, I would pair this with greens and a vinaigrette for simplicity. But I made this on a weekend so I went fancier and paired this with the Mesclun Salad with Fried Shallots and Blue Cheese, also from Food and Wine (April 2010):

Both were incredibly simple and, lest you think that you can't make something like this, I followed the recipe to a T. Just follow the instructions and you'll be fine!

So as I typed that - "just follow the instructions and you'll be fine" - I was quite suddenly reminded of 6th grade. We had an assignment where we each had to stand in front of the class and teach everyone how to do something step-by-step, like teach everyone origami...or how to play guitar...or something. Up until now, I had completely forgotten that I taught the class how to make brownies. (How portentous!) I mean, it's a recipe. You don't get more step-by-step than that! So if you're thinking that you can't make the sort of food I make here, just channel your inner sixth grader, follow the instructions...

Eat, drink, and you'll be fine.