Pizza and Cranberry Cobbler - An Easy Sunday Dinner

Sunday nights are big cooking nights for Dan and me and we try to make something together. Besides it being a lot of fun, it saves me a lot of grunt work and preparation. This time, we decided to go semi-homemade, as we made our own giant pizza with store bought dough and I made a cranberry cobbler from scratch. The meal was a big success and there were no pizza leftovers in sight. We shared the cobbler with our family and it was also a big hit.

Giant Pizza a la Foodista and Dan

Ingredients:

Store bought pizza dough (1 lb)

Store bought pizza sauce

Fresh mozzarella cheese

Dried Italian sausage

A dash of Italian seasoning (use your judgement)

1 shallot, sliced

Preparation: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Roll out the pizza dough to the desired size--when rolling, make sure you put enough flour on the rolling pin and board. Spread a thin layer of sauce on the dough and then sprinkle with fresh muzz, sausage, shallots and seasoning. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until top is golden brown. This is so much more fun--and better tasting--than a store bought pizza!

Cranberry Cobbler

This recipe comes from the January '08 issue of Bon Appetit. It's official name is Cranberry-Maple Pudding cake--click for recipe--but to me it looks and tastes like a good ol' fashioned cobbler.

My Variation: I wanted to make my version lighter on the tummy so I substituted the whipping cream for 1 percent milk and it worked just fine. I also skipped the crem fraiche topping, used for the big finish. The cornmeal is what made this a comfort dish, and it was nice to bite into the chewy cornbread topping and then into the gooey cranberry filling. What a great winter dessert!