Goat Cheese, Apricot, & Arugula Flatbread

So, the other night on my way home from work I decided that California Pizza Kitchen sounded good.  Except I was tired, and didn't feel like going to the stupid mall to get dinner. Instead, I figured I could stop at Publix and get some stuff to make something close enough to what I'd get at CPK. I figured I'd make a goat cheese, fig and arugula flat bread.  Except Publix didn't have any fig jelly. Necessity is the mother of invention, right?

Here's what I got at the grocery store:
-Publix fresh Pizza dough
-a small log of goat cheese
-Publix reduced fat blue cheese crumbles
-arugula
-and  as a splurge, shrimp.

Here's what I used that I already had at home:
-apriot jelly
-I can't believe it's not butter spray
-minced garlic

First things first, I pulled out my wonderful roommate Jamie's George Foreman grill.  I pulled off about  1/3 of the dough, flattened it into the thinnest rectangle-ish shape that I could and slapped it on the GF grill on high.

While that cooked, I put the oven on broil and while that heated, in a pan, I tossed in about 10 shrimp (shell on) with about 3 teaspoons of butter spray and a teaspoon of garlic. By the time that was pink, my flat bread had gotten lovely grill marks on it and was a pretty even golden color...ready to go! 

I put maybe a REALLY heaping tablespoon of apricot jelly in the middle of the flatbread...which melted enough that I was easily able to spread it all over. Then I sprinkled that with blue cheese and goat cheese (this is up to you...I used enough so I'd have cheese in most every bite, but not enough to cover the entire thing) and popped it in the oven while I shelled the shrimp.

It really only needs a few minutes broiling...then pull it out, heap it with a good sized mound of arugula, shrimp on top of that...and there you have it.  I don't want to toot my own horn or anything...but I promise it was SO delicious that I made it again the next day.  ;)

Confessions of a wannabe chef...

I was taking a walk this morning and it occurred to me in light of some of the cooking "experiments" I've tried lately that I should start a food blog. I mean, I love food. Buying it, reading about it, cooking it, eating it...especially eating it. Now to be clear, I'm not perfect. I've made some duds. I've also made some amazing things. We can figure this out together. Before we get started though, I'm going to tell you a few things about my food philosophies. First...I believe that anything edible can be made edible and anything good can be made better with the addition of one of the three following ingredients: sour cream, ketchup, or peanut butter. I LOVE all three of those things, and I can't think of too many things I like eating that I wouldn't like better with one of those. Second...I hate onions, peppers, mushrooms, and celery. I probably hate some other things too, but those four above and beyond anything else. If a recipe has any of those things in it, I either ignore that recipe or delete that ingredient. Third...and this is directly related to #2, I am an improvisational cook. I mean, for baking I stick to recipes, but for most anything else, well...I'm eating it, so I should cook it how I want to, right? And so should you! If you want to add onions (yuck!), add them. If a 1/4 cup of shredded cheese doesn't sound like enough (and let's face it, you can't ever have enough cheese), throw in more. Fourth, I could probably live happily the rest of my life on a diet of cheese, bread, and tomatoes in varying forms. And finally, sprinkles! I love sprinkles. Everything should really have sprinkles. So that's it...let's start cooking together and see what we come up with!