20s (2023)

Another group post! Some with great results, some stuff that we probably won't make again, but always good to try new things.

Week 21: hot sauce

Hot sauce was a tough challenge, trying to make something that would be palatable to a 4-year-old who doesn't really like spice yet. I didn't want to make my own hot sauce, didn't want to buy a new hot sauce that we weren't going to use much of, and didn't want to really make hot sauce the focus. After a lot of searching, I found a recipe for yuzu hot sauce pound cake on Ciao Bella Kitchen, and decided that would work. It used the yuzu hot sauce from Trader Joe's, which we already had and enjoy adding to various dishes, so at least it wouldn't be a purchase gone to waste. The cake was fine, but I learned I don't really prefer my cake with a little zing.

Week 23: boards

I'm not a huge fan of the "arranging" or "plating" type challenges, so A helped me choose what type of board to make that B might actually eat. We went with a chopped salad with red onions, tomatoes, olives, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, cucumbers, and artichokes with a homemade vinaigrette consisting of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, maple syrup, and dijon mustard. Really good salad!

Week 24: most requested

This challenge choice was a little tough because what did it really mean? Who was doing the requesting? In the end, I consulted Food & Wine's list of the most popular recipes of 2022 and chose the first on the list, an Italian wedding risotto. I love risotto and have been making it more and more (got to use up all the rest of the arborio rice!). This turned out well, and we could see why it was so popular last year.

Week 27: alliteration

I was really ambitious for the alliteration challenge, at least with the name. I had started out with chicken corn chowder and carrot cake cookies, but then just kept adding to it until I ended up with cheesy chicken, carrot, celery, and corn chowder with crushed cheez-its covering + carrot cake cookies with cream cheese and confetti coating. The soup was based on a recipe from Lil Luna, and we really liked it. I would definitely make that again, although the cheez-its weren't really necessary. I just wanted more letter Cs.

The cookies came from Love and Lemons, and while tasty, I only have a mild like for carrot cake, so that one might not be repeated. We do still have some in our freezer though since it made a bigger batch than we could eat at one time, so we can still have more!

Week 29: candying

My original plan for this challenge was to make tanghulu, but I never got around to it and then made some candied lemons. I don't remember what recipe I followed, but I think most candied lemons are made the same way, so anything on Google would probably work. I think my expectations were completely off though, because I was expecting something like those sugary lemon slices that you could just eat as candy, and these were... not. The rind was a little too hard, and they were extremely sour, even with all the sugar that was added to them. I think maybe my brain and taste buds were expecting actual candy versus candied lemons, but once I realized how sour these were, I had no idea what to do with them. We tried eating some plain, but never figured it out before they were out too long and ended up tossing a bunch. I don't think I would do this again without a specific plan for them.

Week 49 - Modernist

Back in 2014, the first year I (unofficially) did the 52 week cooking challenge, one of the themes came up as molecular. It was one of the few challenges that year that I skipped (more here), since I didn't want to buy any new ingredients or equipment that I was probably not going to use again, and I also just couldn't find anything I wanted to make. Fast-forward to 2022, and my philosophy about it hasn't really changed, but now I actually had to do the modernist challenge if I wanted to complete the challenge for the year. What was I going to make?! Thankfully, someone linked recipes from the Modernist Cuisine site/cookbook, and there were a couple there that piqued my interest.

One thing I hadn't realized until scrolling through those recipes was that food made in microwave could also fall under the umbrella of modernist cooking. That made a huge difference in getting this challenge done! We've made fish before in the microwave, so I didn't want to do that again, but I was very intrigued by their recipe for a microwaved eggplant parmesan. 

The ingredients for this challenge were:

- eggplant, about 1 lb

- olive oil

- garlic marinara sauce

- ricotta cheese

- mozzarella cheese rounds

- 1/2 cup torn basil leaves

- grated parmigiano reggiano

- panko breadcrumbs

We ate some tomato parmesan focaccia from Trader Joe's on the side (was hoping for more olive fugasse but they had none). I intended to price this out, since I was curious about how much these challenge meals were adding up to considering the increased price of groceries, but it's been over three months now, and that's just too much work to figure out.

I was actually impressed by how this turned out and how simple it was to make in the microwave. The first steps of microwaving the eggplant were easy, and it really did end up with very tender slices. The only issue with our eggplant was that it wasn't "strong" enough to hold the rest of the ingredients in the stack, but I had to use baby eggplant because all the larger eggplant at two different stores that day looked terrible. So instead of one large circle wherever eggplant was required, I had two or three smaller pieces instead. Still turned out okay!

As far as flavor, we thought it reminded us a little more of lasagna than eggplant parmesan, but that could be because the ricotta was a pretty dominant flavor and the eggplant got a little bit lost since the pieces were so small. Either way, it was delicious. Would I make it again? Not sure. It was pretty simple to make, and it did taste good, but I haven't made eggplant parmesan the "regular" way, so I don't know yet which way we like better.

Cotechino con Lenticchie

In our year in review for last year, I mentioned that we've done a lot of hoppin' John and collard greens for New Year's Day, but that this year we wanted to try something different. The plan was cotechino con lenticchie, the traditional Italian New Year's dish of pork sausage with lentils, maybe with some collard greens on the side for extra vegetables (although the side dish didn't end up happening). Pork and lentils are both supposed to be good luck ingredients, which is why they often feature in New Year's recipes.

I looked at two recipes when putting together our dinner plan: one from Spruce Eats and one from Not Quite Nigella, and combined them along with elements from the many YouTube recipes I watched. Cotechino is the star of the dish, a Northern Italian sausage, but I had no idea where to get it (and not much time to look), so I just went with sweet Italian pork sausage, a substitute I did see in some recipes. The sausage is simmered in broth until done (about 40-45 minutes) and then sliced up. I saw that some people gave it a quick saute in a pan afterwards, so I did that too. I also pulled off the casings post-boiling, which I think was a good move texturally. I saved the broth (straining out all the fat) to cook the lentils.

For the lentils, I soaked them while I was preparing everything else, so they cooked really fast since I am so slow at prep. Before the lentils themselves went into the pot, I added onions, celery, carrots, garlic, sage, and tomato paste (one at a time, in steps), and then once ready added the lentils with the broth, topped up with another cup or two of water to fully cook the lentils. Once they were done, the sausage was put on top, and some parsley sprinkled for garnish.

This was a tasty dish. The lentils didn't have any seasoning besides the broth (a little distracted that night), but still had a fair amount of flavor (would have been better with some salt, pepper, and other stuff added, but too late once realized). Combined with the sausage, it was pretty good together.

While the plan was to eat this for dinner on New Year's Day, it ended up being a rushed dinner on the 2nd of the year. Unfortunately, B was sick all through New Year's, and on the 1st of the year, we were monitoring the severity of his symptoms, and it just got too late in the night to make it. I started cooking earlier on the 2nd even though his symptoms were worse, and finished making dinner shortly before we made the call to go to the hospital. So, I did fully make the dish, we did try it, and it was tasty, but I will probably never schedule it for New Year's (or possibly ever) again given all the surrounding circumstances that I do not want to repeat.

Week 23 - Stinky

I am not a fan of stinky cheese, which is where my mind immediately went upon reading the theme for Week 23. That and durian, which I'm still a little afraid to eat/purchase. After looking around a little bit, I stumbled on a thread on Reddit where someone wanted suggestions for things that smelled really stinky but still tasted good. That was an idea I could get behind for choosing this meal. Among the ideas, which included things made with fish sauce, asafoetida, and others, was a recommendation for bagna cauda. I had always wanted to try that, and it was already on the list for the Italy part of the AtWCC (who knows when that will be, as we're still in A), so bagna cauda was the plan!

If you've never heard of it before, bagna cauda is a garlic and anchovy dip that originated in northern Italy in the Piedmont region. The primary ingredients are olive oil, garlic, and anchovies, with some variations adding in butter or cream to make the dip even richer. It's served with bread, lots of raw vegetables (like endives or peppers or other crunchy things), and onions, which are roasted whole and skin-on.

Following recipes from Marcellina in Cucina and Serious Eats, I intended for ours to be made with olive oil, garlic, anchovies, and butter with sides of toasted country bread and some raw crunchy vegetables. Of course, life happens, and we ended up being in quarantine thanks to a potential COVID exposure at the time we made this, and we couldn't get a grocery delivery order in time, so the plan had to be adjusted. The main ingredients remained the same, but I ended up serving ours with toasted wheat sandwich bread (the old loaf of country bread we had was ... a little too old; I need to start freezing bread instead of putting it in the fridge) and the whole roasted onions instead. I think I just missed the discussion about the onions the first time I read the recipes, because otherwise they would have always been part of the plan. Not a very colorful meal, but it would have to do.

The first thing I did was roast the onions. I'd never actually roasted onions whole before, but I think I kind of love it now. I could just eat onions whole like this as a snack. I ended up covering them in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then roasting them at 375 for about 25 minutes. I don't remember what site I got that from because I read 5 or 6 of them when I was looking into this, but they then said to raise the temp to 400 degrees for another 15 minutes. As soon as the temperature went up, oil started splattering all over the inside of the oven, which was making me incredibly uncomfortable, so I turned it off and figured they would be done enough for dipping by that point anyway. They probably cooked a little longer, because I just left them in the oven until it cooled off. I don't know what the onions are supposed to be like for this, but for us, they were actually the perfect texture for dipping at that point.

The next thing was to prep the garlic - peeling all 30 cloves, removing the germ if it was starting to get some color, and then slicing it up. That, as expected, took forever, but at least I could watch YouTube videos while doing it. The garlic then was simmered in some water for about 10 minutes to help it soften, and then combined with the olive oil in a cold pan over low heat to soften some more. This was supposed to take about 10 minutes, but it was still not smash-able at that point, so I raised the heat a bit, figuring maybe our low heat was actually too low. It got better, but it did take longer than 10 minutes even after poaching it first.

Anchovies were next, and this was my first time ever cooking with them. I guess anchovies are packaged in all different ways, but the only ones I could really find were canned. I drained them, and then added them to the sauce so they could melt. That happened far more quickly than I expected, especially considering some of the garlic was still not very smashed at the time. I added a few tbsp of butter at this point, and then after some more stirring and smashing, the sauce really did come together.

I usually try to make our cooking challenge meals toddler-friendly and accessible to all of us, but I had a feeling (which turned out to be correct) that this one would be for just me and A with the strong fishy and salty flavors and also B's current aversion to sauces. We thought this was really good. Very salty, far more salty than what we would normally make at home (at least on purpose), but quite tasty. The best bites were the ones with the onions, which seemed to both temper the saltiness a little bit and add another layer of flavor. Those bites were amazing. We did enjoy it, but I don't know if I would make it again, partially because of the saltiness and partially because B probably won't eat it until he decides he likes sauce again. But the roasted whole onions? That I would 100% do again.

Week 25 - Italian

Choosing an Italian recipe was so hard! I wanted to make something I hadn't made before, and I also didn't really want to make pasta, so after some looking around, I decided on arancini. I found a recipe for air fryer arancini at Cadry's Kitchen, and that sounded like the perfect plan.

The first step was to make the risotto, which I did in the Instant Pot the day before and then refrigerated. Our version was a mushroom and pea risotto. The risotto was formed into balls, rolled in seasoned panko, and then fried up in the air fryer.

We made this over six months ago, and I didn't take any notes, but I think I remember liking this and wondering about all the different variations we could make. Thankful for other people testing these things out in the air fryer so I don't have to deep fry!

Gnocchi alla Sorrentina

Reviews of Trader Joe's products aren't usually that long or time-consuming, yet somehow it's November and we haven't posted in ages despite trying a ton of new stuff (even if not new to TJ's, new to us). I've really been trying to write more, hoping to exercise that part of my brain regularly, so hopefully I can get more of these up soon. They're very helpful to us, even if no one else out there is actually reading them, because it's so hard to remember with so many products which ones we've tried and liked and which ones aren't our thing. Without further ado, the next up is the gnocchi alla Sorrentina ($2.99)!

These gnocchi are in the frozen section and are pretty easy to make. They have both microwave and stovetop instructions, but we made them on the stove in a skillet. Just add some water to the skillet, add the contents of the bag (gnocchi and large circles of pasta sauce and cheese), and cook until everything is melted and warm. There aren't any surprise or hidden ingredients here; it's just gnocchi (wheat and potatoes), tomatoes and tomato juice, mozzarella cheese, and seasonings, like onion, basil, garlic, and some white and chili pepper. But since that's all there was to it, we were looking to make it a more complete meal and added some Mediterranean vegetables (really just squash, green beans, and carrots, but that's what 365 has deemed "Mediterranean"). They were a good match for it, and overall, it was a good meal, but it wasn't anything extraordinary.

Buy again? Maybe, if we're in the mood for gnocchi and too lazy to make our own dish with the shelf-stable ones and some sauce. This is a quick and easy way to prepare it, and convenience would be the main reason we'd get it again.

Week 6 - Italian

With so many options for the Italian challenge, the toughest part was figuring out what to make. I narrowed down the options and then let A pick one since we were already at the store shopping and I couldn't decide. That's how we ended up choosing an Italian sausage and chestnut pasta recipe from BBC Good Food. I had been really intrigued by it since I had never made a pasta recipe like that before and was excited to try it.

The ingredients for this recipe, as adapted, were:

- 1 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)

- 1 large onion, chopped ($0.50)

- 1 lb sweet Italian pork sausage, removed from casings ($4.71)

- 100 g package of roasted chestnuts, chopped ($1.50)

- a few garlic cloves, chopped ($0.10)

- dried rosemary, a few tsp ($0.20)

- fennel seed, about 1 tsp ($0.15)

- 1 glass of red wine ($0 - gift)

- tomato paste, a couple of tsp ($0.45)

- about 1 cup of water ($0)

- one bag of zucchette pasta ($1.99)

- 1/2 package of parsley, chopped ($0.90)

- parmesan for serving ($0.75)

Not the most inexpensive dinner at approximately $11.45, but totally worth it and cheaper than it would be to get this much pasta at an Italian restaurant.

We followed the recipe fairly closely and the steps were:

1. Heat olive oil and fry onions until soft. Start pot of boiling water for pasta.
2. Add sausage meat and chestnuts, and cook for another 10 minutes or so while breaking up the meat.
3. When meat and chestnuts are done, add garlic, rosemary, and fennel seeds and cook for a couple more minutes.

[As an aside, this all tasted really, really good at this point. I think I tried a little bit of the sausage mixture at every step to see how the flavors changed, and was so excited at this point because it tasted so good.]

4. Add the red wine and let most of it boil off.
5. Mix the tomato paste and water (or just use tomato sauce, but we didn't have any), and add to the mixture. Add a little more tomato paste if it doesn't have enough tomato flavor.
6. Cover and simmer sauce for 10 minutes while cooking pasta in salted water.

7. Reserve a cup of pasta cooking water and then drain pasta.
8. Add pasta, a few tbsp of the cooking water, and most of the chopped parsley to the skillet with the sausage pasta and mix well together.
9. Season to taste if necessary. [We didn't, although I suppose we could have added a little more rosemary.]
10. Top with freshly grated parmesan (and freshly ground black pepper if needed).

On the side, we made some simple sautéed zucchini with tomatoes. It didn't really go that well with the pasta, but we needed some more vegetables. They were fine but not a great match.

The pasta itself, however, was amazing. It actually tasted like a restaurant-level dish, and with the pasta cooked perfectly al dente by A, it was restaurant quality to us. We loved the zucchette pasta as the big pumpkin shaped shells held so much meat sauce in them and were perfect for this recipe. I would absolutely make this again. It was so good.

Parm

For our last restaurant meal of 2016, we found ourselves at Parm in Nolita. We had spontaneously gone down to the New Museum for the Pixel Forest and because it was the last day to sign up for a membership under IDNYC, and afterwards it was late and we were really hungry. Parm was one of those places we had always intended to go to at some point, and they were close by and open, so it seemed like the perfect time to get some sandwiches.

Although a lot of the menu sounded good, we decided to concentrate on the namesake parm sandwiches. They had eggplant, chicken, and meatball parm options, and after some deliberation, we decided to get the latter two, each as a hero, and split them in half.

Our favorite of the two was the meatball parm. The meatballs had a lot of flavor and were really moist and tender. We're both huge fans of meatball sandwiches, and this one was certainly a good one. The cheese was melted perfectly with just the right amount of "char" on it. The basil gave it a refreshing herbaciousness, and the sauce added just the right amount of tartness and sweetness.

The chicken parm was good too, but didn't seem to have as much flavor as the meatball. The chicken also seemed a tad dry. One interesting thing we noticed was that the chicken that fell out of the sandwich tasted better on its own without the bread, so maybe it was also the bread dulling the flavor of the parm a little bit. The chicken also came with the same cheese, basil, and sauce.

We liked the soft sesame bread used in the hero, and M was especially happy that it wasn't hard, crusty, toasted bread. The soft bread worked really well with the parm. Both sandwiches could have used more sauce though. We thought both were pretty light on the sauce and we had expected a lot more on the sandwiches, even if it would have made them messier. Overall we were very happy with our choice to finally try Parm. The sandwiches are tasty, and they're a good size too. It's definitely a place we wouldn't mind going back to again.

Week 41 - Bottled Sauces from Scratch

I wasn't thrilled when I saw the Week 41 challenge was bottled sauces from scratch. We have so many condiments and sauces in the pantry, and the last thing we really needed was to add one more. A had a great idea though - why not just make pasta sauce? It's technically a bottled sauce, so that worked for us. I decided to make bolognese sauce, since we've always wanted to make that at some point, and used a recipe we found on Vintage Mixer as a guide.

The ingredients for the sauce were:

- 1 tbsp olive oil ($0.20)

- 2 tbsp butter ($0.16)

- 1 onion, chopped ($0.50)

- 1 bunch of carrots, chopped ($0.89)

- 1 bunch of celery, chopped ($0.90)

- 1 lb of ground turkey ($4.30)

- salt ($0.05)

- pepper ($0.05)

- cayenne ($0.05)

- nutmeg ($0.05)

- 1.5 cups milk ($0.43)

- 1.5 cups white wine ($1)

- 28 oz canned whole tomatoes with liquid ($1.59)

- 2 cups water ($0)

The total for the sauce was about $10.17, and since we paired it with homemade pasta (for the Week 42 challenge), the total for the entire dinner was under $11. It cost more than a jar of sauce would, but no single jar of sauce from the grocery store would have this much stuff in it or yield this much sauce.

The recipe said it would take 5-6 hours to make the sauce, and they weren't kidding. I probably could have ended it a little earlier than I did, but we were still making the pasta, so I just kept simmering the sauce. The basic steps were:

- prep: chop onions, chop carrots, chop celery

- heat olive oil and butter in large pot (should melt butter first and then add oil)

- saute onion, carrots, celery

- once softened, add ground turkey, season with salt and pepper, and cook, breaking up the turkey as it cooks

- add about 1/2 tsp cayenne and a couple of dashes of nutmeg

- reduce heat to low

- add milk, bring to simmer, and simmer until all milk is absorbed, stirring periodically (this took a while)

- add wine, and simmer until all wine has evaporated/absorbed, stirring periodically (much quicker than the milk)

- add liquid from canned tomatoes and also the tomatoes, breaking the tomatoes up by hand while adding them

- add about 1/2 cup of water and let sauce simmer

- add water (1/4-1/2 cup at a time) and add salt and pepper to taste periodically and let simmer for at least an hour (I just kept tasting it and once satisfied let it go until pasta was ready)

Although there were a lot of steps and it took a lot of time, it wasn't really that difficult to make. There was just a lot of waiting, a lot of checking, and a lot of tasting (at least the last part was fun).

The sauce was pretty good. It didn't have the richness of some of the bolognese sauces we've gotten at restaurants, which is probably because our version was made with ground turkey instead of some sort of red meat. But it was still really tasty, and we were glad that we finally tried making it.

Uncured Pepperoni Pizza

We first tried this pizza as a sample a few months ago and liked it, but didn't end up getting it for dinner until recently. Here's the quick review.

Product name: Wood Fired Naples Style Uncured Pepperoni Pizza

Price: $4.99

Quick review: This pizza combined pepperoni with a bunch of different cheeses (primarily provolone, but also fontina, monterey jack, and parmesan) and tomato sauce on top of a crust that they describe as hand-stretched and cooked in a wood-burning stone oven. It was pretty quick to make, about 12 minutes in the oven on our pizza pan, and came out well. The texture of the crust was good, better than some other frozen pizzas, the pepperoni was bold and full of flavor, and the combination of cheese worked well together. We also liked that the pepperoni was uncured pepperoni with no nitrites.

Buy again? Yes. It was good, but it remains to be seen whether it is our favorite TJ's frozen pizza.

Week 29 - Fat

Most cooking involves some sort of fat, whether it's oil, cheese, or some other type of animal fat, so when the theme for Week 29 turned up as "fat," it seemed like you could just cook anything you wanted. Of course, the goal was to put the fat front and center, so I went with bacon fat. After looking through some recipes involving bacon, the one that stood out to me was spaghetti carbonara. I had always wanted to make it, and not only would it use oil and bacon, but there would also be cheese. Perfect.

I started with a spaghetti carbonara recipe from Allrecipes, and mostly stuck with it, with minimal adjustments. The ingredients we used were:

- 1 lb spaghetti ($0.99) *
- olive oil ($0.30)
- 10 slices of bacon, chopped ($4.49)
- 1 onion, chopped ($0.50)
- about 3 cloves of garlic, minced ($0.10)
- 4 eggs, beaten ($0.40)
- about 3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese, divided ($1.30)
- salt and pepper ($0.05)
- 1/2 bunch of parsley, finely chopped ($0.50)

* The recipe called for 1 lb of spaghetti, so that's what we made. We didn't end up using all of it for this recipe and certainly didn't need to make it all. More on that later, but I'm counting the full cost of the spaghetti here since we did make it all and I ate the rest (plain) for lunch.

The total for the meal was about $8.63, most of which was (as expected) the cost of the bacon. Not too bad for dinner.

The first step was to cook the pasta al dente, and then drain it and toss with a little bit of olive oil. I didn't measure it, but it was probably about a tbsp. It didn't "toss" very well since I didn't add the olive oil immediately after draining because I was busy doing other things and I forgot.

The next step was to cook the bacon, which A helped me with while I prepped other stuff. The goal is for the bacon to be slightly crisp, but ours didn't get that crispy. We decided it was done when it was well-cooked and had released a lot of bacon grease in the pan. After that, we removed the bacon from the pan and drained it on towels.

To the bacon fat that was left in the pan, first I added a splash of olive oil. Then we added the onion and cooked it until it was translucent, and then added the garlic for another couple of minutes, stirring frequently.

Once the onions and garlic were done, it was time to add the bacon back into the pan, followed by the spaghetti. On the TV cooking shows, they're always cooking pasta in large skillets with tongs, so I thought I would try doing the same. Maybe their skillet is larger, or maybe their pasta was easier to work with, but I found it really tough doing this and getting everything to mix together. Most of the bacon and onions refused to mix with the pasta when I was doing it, so A took over and really worked hard to get it all to combine.

We added the pasta in small batches into the skillet and after a while, I just stopped. This is how much pasta was still left when I quit adding it to the skillet. We definitely didn't need to make it all for this recipe, as it was just an overwhelming amount of pasta compared to the amount of other stuff in the recipe (and I was already using a pretty large onion and more bacon than the original recipe called for). I guess if you prefer carbonara with tons of pasta, maybe it's the right amount, but it just seemed a little too much for us.

Once the pasta, bacon, and onions were well mixed together, there were only a couple more steps to finish making the carbonara. I added about 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese to the bowl of beaten eggs since some of the comments to the recipe suggested doing that, and then it was time to add it.

This is where it was really helpful that we both were working on dinner at the same time. The next step was to add the beaten eggs, and to toss constantly until the eggs were barely set, followed by the parmesan cheese (another 1/4 cup), and continuing to toss. Since A was tossing the pasta, he just kept doing that while I added the eggs and the cheese. Otherwise, I'm not sure how that would have happened "quickly." The last step was to add a little bit of salt and pepper to taste. I added more pepper than salt.

Once it was all mixed, we spooned out the pasta, and then added the remainder of the parmesan cheese and the parsley as garnish.

We were pretty happy with this spaghetti carbonara. Although we've known what it was and seen it made before, we had never really eaten it before. It was a rich, decadent dish, but so full of flavor. We were quite pleased with the result and would definitely make this again (although maybe with less pasta).

Arugula Pizza

Now that our favorite spinach and kale pie is done and discontinued (still very sad about that), we don't really have a go-to convenient frozen dinner to take its place for busy nights, like nights we go grocery shopping. As a result, we've been trying new things, like frozen pizzas we've never tried before. I originally intended to pick up the new pepperoni pizza for dinner, but they were out. Plan B was this arugula pizza ($3.99), which is apparently imported from Italy.

The arugula pizza takes pizza dough and tops it with mozzarella cheese, cherry tomatoes, arugula, parmesan cheese, manchego cheese, provolone cheese, pecorino cheese, and a bunch of other seasonings. We had never had this as a sample before, but it sounded good. Also, I liked that it had actual tomatoes and arugula in it, instead of tomato sauce being the only "vegetable." (Remember when Congress declared pizza a vegetable because of tomato sauce?)

The pizza was very easy to make. They suggested putting it directly on the oven rack, but I've never really been that comfortable with that so we used our baking sheet and added a little extra time. Their recommendation for baking on the oven rack was 12 minutes if you wanted a crispier crunch. We probably did it for 15, since we like our pizza cheese a little bit browned.

We liked this pizza. The flavor was good. It crisped up nicely in the oven. It wasn't that expensive. It had vegetables. Good enough for us. Was it as good as actual restaurant pizza? No, but we weren't expecting that. We were pretty satisfied with the choice (especially when paired with a salad, more on that another time), and it reminded us that we used to buy frozen pizza a lot more back when we lived in Chicago. Not sure why we don't do that as much here, but maybe it was easier transporting the giant pizza boxes home when we drove to the grocery store there. Who knows. What we do know is that we have a lot more TJ's pizzas to try.

Buy again? Yes. We might try some other ones first so we can pick a favorite, but this was good.