So...whats for dinner?

DH and I make "personal" pizzas using naan bread. It's nice and thin, crisps up well. We load it up with whatever we want/have on hand - chopped fresh tomatoes & shrooms to start with. Pesto as a "base" is my favorite. Cherry - Never had Hawaiian until lived in London - Good stuff - We like it made with Canadian bacon. Hands down, best pizza was in Italy. Also, have had some great ones in Florida, CT - around Greenwich, NYC, San Francisco and of course, Chicago. Not as big a fan of Chicago style as I am a thin crust lover - but great pizza.

CeliaC, Hawaii is quite good, I agree, but nowadays there are so many new toppings that made their way into the menu. Some of them being pure Italian, or at least perceived to be Italian, like pizzas topped with prosciutto crudo and ruccola after they take it from the oven, or some topping that reflect domestic preferences like smaller pieces file mignon with chèvre and sun-dried tomatoes that comes with Choron sauce. Still some prefer to have the same topic they first tasted as children and after that there is no room for any variation. My youngest likes tomato sauce and mozzarella, the cheapest on the menu))

I had to google Chicago-style pizza, and it looks like quiche but with tomatoe sauce, well I am sure it is good but I would never call it a pizza if I did not know, now I do. When I will go to Chicago, because one beautiful day I hope I will, to try this pizza will be on my list. Very funny, my former manager who is fond of Hawaian pizza actually took his family for a trip to Chicago a couple of years ago. He never mentioned the pizza, maybe it was too traumatic for him)

I did buy a pizza cook book the last time I was in Rome, I love Rome, it is my favorite of all European cities, so I am trying to go there as often as I can. The cook book is shaped as a pizza, I know, I know, a tourist trap and I bought it at Colloseo, but still it was not a crapy souvenir, it was a book (!) and it has interesting toppings. The dough recipe, even though there are both one for a thin and a thick crusts, turned out to be bland, so now I am using more salt in it. There is no recipe for the tomato sauce but half of recipies do not require it. But the variety of toppings is so incorriging claiming all of them being Italian. Like the one with onion, apple and walnuts, or Sardinian pizza with potatoes and anchovy, or Calabrian pizza with eggs, boiled (!), ricotta and sausages. I remember I promised myself to try every topping in this cook book when I bought it, so far I only did the one with eggplants. This talk has inspired me for a pizza tonight, I think I have yeast at my fridgeand I will send my eldest for mozzarella)))) I think I will try this Sardinian with anchovy) Cherry

Chicago deep-dish pizza resembles quiche in shape only (and in that both are eaten with knife & fork). Quiche has a tender, flaky pie crust; deep-dish pizza has a heavier yeast-dough crust like regular pizza--only all the way up to the rim of the pan and thicker. Quiche is made in a tart or regular pie pan (plain or fluted); deep-dish in a round layer cake pan, only heavier-gauge and black (or blackened from years of use). The cheese in quiche is a delicate custard, whether or not it has bacon or vegetables; the cheese in deep-dish is straight mozzarella (dried--like provolone or Emmental, not fresh like mozzarella di bufala), with no cream or eggs added--and it gets gooey, very gooey when melted. And of course, deep-dish always, always has tomato sauce or crushed canned tomatoes (with a much sweeter sauce than thin-crust). Order a deep-dish "bianco" and you will be asked why you're bothering to order deep-dish in the first place.Sometimes, it's "stuffed" with added veggies, sausage or mushrooms and then topped with another crust (which itself gets topped with cheese & sauce). When I first moved here, I was fascinated by it and ordered it all the time, but as I've matured I am less tolerant of wretched excess and prefer my pizza to be NY, Roman or Neapolitan style (occasionally, pillowy Sicilian with much sparer toppings--here it's called "tomato bread" and has little-to-no-cheese--atop a focaccia-like base, only thicker. It's much more common, and more generously topped, back East).

Oh, and in my Peapod grocery delivery order tomorrow will be a panettone, deeply discounted. (It makes even better French toast than do challah or brioche).

ATK did an entire show on Chicago pizza. They studied the crust and tried to copy it. As I recall there is butter in the crust and a lot of folding and rolling in the process. Interesting story. Soldiers from WWII ate pizza in Italy (I believe this is accurate) and had a taste for it when they came home to Chicago. What's the famous pizza maker in Chicago, Sandy? Uno?

Another part of the original Chicago pizza making technique is putting the cheese next to the crust and then the sauce on top to keep the crust from getting soggy. That's what I don't like about regular crust, sogginess. When I first tasted thin crust, I was in love with it.

My own home-made pizza does not have a lot of wet toppings to "soggy" the crust. Lots of melted cheese is another thing. Yum.

Tonight is seared catfish fillets, either broccoli or cauliflower and romaine salad. I had planned to cook that meal last night but took the easy route and warmed up the turkey veggie noodle soup, which tasted much better the second round of eating it.

DH bought a package of dried black-eyed peas and a big cabbage yesterday for the traditional New Year's Day southern meal.

dodgersgirl - omg - I need this...thanks for posting!

auntienance-- Ember has a 12 ounce mug (which is what I am using) and a travel mug.

My mug looks like a sleek coffee cup with a curved lower part of the mug. I can get 3 fingers in the handle. Empty it feels a bit hefty (assuming that isfrom the Magic inside). Didn't really notice the heft while drinking from it.

Minus Two- for cold drinks I use Primula Avalanche 20 oz tumblers. They keep ice for over 24 hours inside my home. They do not sweat. You can use fir soda ( not all tumblers say it's ok to use soda) and it holds 20 oz.

The lid is like a hot coffee cup lid with a small piece that lifts up so you can drink directly from the tumbler or you can use a straw.

It is NOT dishwasher safe as the secret to keeping drinks hit or cold is in the vacuum sealed edges.

carolehalston, I do not like soggy crust either, so lots of cheese and the topping on top of it is how we are doing it here, everywhere in Sweden actually. What is traditional southern New Year meal?

I did found Sicilian pizza in my book while baking today and it looked like rustique pizza but I could not see any topping and I have TP ho back and read through the recipe. I baked five pizzas today, I am on my good half of the EC cycle so I am feeling much better now and I even draw my eyebrows when I went grocery shopping today. In a hat with eyebrows I look almost normal. Sardinian pizza with potato and anchovy, well, I could eat those without any pizza crust, so I was not impressed, but white pizza with porcini that I picked myself this fall and kept in the freezer, that was amazing! I have a lot of porcini, I will be doing a lot of pizza. And I did whole grain dough, mostly because I run out of flour but it turned out very well, I had one third whole grain and the rest the regular flour. Cherry

DodgerGirl, Bluetooth, pairs with iPhone and iWatch?! Omg! Get out!)))) What is next?! Really, I love America, you have no idea, we do not even heard of those stuff here and I should now because I am, well, until I started chemo, responsible for the agreement for give-aways and promotional items, our supplier never mentioned those to us, now I have to ask them. My question is why does it look like a regular pottery mug?))) I am kidding, it sounds awesome. I myself drink either from pottery mugs or china cups. I got one from my youngest for Christmas, it is cobolt blue))) Cherry.

DodgersGirl, Gordy got me an Ember travel mug for Christmas, but only the charging coaster & A/C cable were in the box. WTH??? He'd ordered from Amazon. Turns out Amazon is shipping the mug separately; both kinds of mugs are backordered and won't ship till at least Sunday. At least I have a cabinet full of mugs (most of them souvenirs from pen shows) and a microwave.

Cherry, Chicago-style pizza was conceived at Pizzeria Uno (originally envisioned as a Mexican-style restaurant) by the owner--a U. of Texas football star, Ike Sewell; but Uno's chef Rudy Malnati actually devised the recipe. Sewell then opened Pizzeria Due a block north, and then Su Casa (the Mexican place Sewell wanted). Uno, Due & Su Casa are still in business downtown (Uno's only Chicagoland location outside of an airport), as well as franchised worldwide (Boston alone has 23 branches of Uno) and in food courts--not as good as the restaurant. Then came Gino's East, Giordano's (which has branches all over town and basically "rules the roost"), Nancy's (which simultaneously with Giordano's invented stuffed pizza, and is now defunct), and Edwardo's (which specializes in stuffed with spinach, but has shrunken from its former empire to only 4 branches in the Chicago area). Then there's Lou Malnati's, which ships it (as well as brandmates' Portillo's hot dogs and Eli's Cheesecake) frozen all across the country. Lou is the son of Rudy Malnati...the inventor of deep-dish pizza. Will the circle be unbroken?

Malnati's also has the only low-carb (starch-free) deep dish pizza in town: the "crust" is made from a base layer of crumbled Italian sausage, salami and pepperoni. Interestingly, South side thin crust ("tavern-style," round, thinner than in Italy and "party-cut" into little squares much smaller than Roman al taglio--with the pieces along the edges being sort of mini-wedges) is more popular than deep-dish in Chicago. And while pepperoni is the nation's favorite topping, Chicago's favorite is mild Italian sausage chunks or crumbles. Interestingly, the only pizza I had in Sicily--in a little Taormina counter-service chain place called "Strit Fud"--was closer to Roman style. I suspect that what East Coasters call "Sicilian" style was developed by the kids of immigrants from Sicily, or by Army veterans who'd served there.

The traditional Southern New Year's Day meal is black-eyed peas and collard greens, which is believed to bring prosperity and good luck in the coming year.

Dinner tonight will be rigatoni alla barese (with porcini and sliced sausage), which Bob brought home as leftovers from last night's meal at our nearby Italian restaurant at which we've been eating nearly 40 years. (I was in my PJs and staying put. Tonight I'm in my sweats but still staying put). Tonight, he's eating at the Oak Lawn Hilton, walking distance from one of the hospital's in which garage he's parked--the S. side is getting 5-6" of snow to our 3". Then he'll catch up on his charts before heading home...slowly and very carefully.

Sandy - All my friends raised in the South do their new years meal of black eyed peas and CABBAGE. In fact that's what we're having Sunday. I guess greens are acceptable but I haven't met anyone in 45 years who doesn't do cabbage. Black eyed peas for luck & cabbage for prosperity.

KB870, so glad to hear! I tried it with different types of chocklad, from milk to really dark, works every time. This recipe comes from one of the Swedish TV-chefs, Tina Nordström, and is called Tina’s zebra cake

ChiSandy, you are like a Wikipedia, so interesting, I love learning about food. We also stayed close to Taormina, Naxos beach, too many Russian tourists for my taste but beautiful surroundings and Etna had a eraption the whole time. But I liked Palermo more, so want to go there again.

I actually never was in Rome in spring, always in autumn, I was planning to go there on either my birthday this year or before Christmas, but, wel, who knew. From Stockholm you can either fly Norwegian or Ryanair, really cheap and the accomodation in Rome is not that expensive. We used to take some trips very often before, the youngest is missing it I can see and the eldest is missing to have the house to herself))

Pantheon is one of my favorite places, the place in front of it is so cozy and small and then this huge ancient building that had been trapped by all these houses that slowly were built around it. We lived once very near, in Pantheon Inn, great place, Via Caterina da Sienna, they have these huge Roman doors that were briefly in the Eat, pray, love movie the concierge told me. But Pantheon is quite far from Spanish steps, well at least 30 min walking if I remember correctly. I like living near Piazza Navona but it can be crowded and loud at night. The last time we booked an appartment there but the heater got broken there and we were offered to stay at another place near Piazza Venezia, very quite and pythoresque quarter between the palace and the Tiber, we loved it there, they had a fontain with turtles. Have a great time there! The best restaurants are in Trastevere but something tells me you already know it, I am though fine dining even with an al taglio pizza slice sitting on the steps of fontain at Pantheon. We once found a restaurant there that we could not find again, my husband ordered two main courses so delicious it was and the youngest was so hungry that she ordered rague bolognese after finishing her polpetti, it like never ever happened before. When her dad was finishing her rague later, which was being his third main course, or at least half of it, I saw the waiters were looking at us and I sad to Max, well, I am sure they are betting each other whether you will order another dish. I was try to send people to this location but they could not find it, I have to there myself.

I am feeling so well that I do not want to do this last EC, but I guess I have to. Great preparations at our place since New Year is the highest ranking holidays among Russians. It is a time for called layered sallads, fish row and smaller toasts with different fillings. I will be doing litterally a bucket of Russian chicken salad called Olivier, salted herring under the layers of cooked veggies, eggs and mayonnais, we bought lobsters, anglerfish and scalopes to sear, Kamchatka crab leg, shrimps, forell roe and I still have half of my brined salmon in the freezer. Some small finger food and the zebra cake, yay, it will be us only but the eldest and her BF will come home in the morning so any leftovers will be appreciated Cherry

I usually do Hoppin' John for New Year's day with greens. DH won't eat greens or cabbage (he will eat slaw however) but has come to like the black eyed peas and rice combo. Since I have a quarter smoked ham in the fridge, I expect that's what we'll be eating. Perhaps I'll make cornbread to go with it. DH will like that.

Tonight we'll be going to a friend's house for her daughter's birthday. Daughter requested pasta for her birthday meal so I volunteered to make the pasta noodles. First time I've made fresh pasta for eight people. Should be fun.

I've been to Rome in mid-December (pleasant) and July (brutally hot). My favorite restaurants there are Glass Hostaria in Trastevere, and Taverna del Ghetto and Piperno in the Jewish quarter across the river from Trastevere. Taverna del Ghetto is 100% kosher, but except for some matzo in the bread basket we didn't even notice the lack of pork or shellfish. The carciofi fritti (deep-fried artichokes) at both places are wonderful. The best gelato I found in the city was Fior di Luna in Trastevere and a small shop near the steps leading down from the Borghese Gardens. (There was a restaurant near there with sculptures of operatic characters, and it was delightful). Near the Trevi fountain, past a tourist trap cheap sandwich shop/pizzeria/newsstand, we found a small hotel restaurant. The decor was simultaneously opulent and slightly threadbare, but the salad and linguine alla vongole were fantastic. The background music was recognizable American pop songs, but sung in Italian by "soundalike" artists.

Finished the leftover rigatoni alla Barese for dinner--I added some sauteed kale and tomatoes.