Okay, so I designed the invitations...but I'm talking about food. Two dishes were my favorite of the weekend and real crowd-pleasers. Below you'll find the recipes and lots of comments for Heart-Shaped Fig & Spinach Pizzas and Mini Heart-Shaped French Toast Casseroles. You might notice a heart-shaped theme here. That was one of a few themes we played with over the course of the weekend, but we won't go there...
Heart-Shaped Fig & Spinach Pizzas
Dairy
Inspiration for this recipe came from an art therapy conference I attended last November in Dallas. I stayed at the Fairmont Hotel and because the conference took place entirely there, I didn't have much time for food options. Because it was in Dallas (my home state, mind you), the veggie options were few and far between--except for the hotel bar. The Pyramid offered an amazing pizza. It was a thin crust, crispy and warm delight. Instead of tomato sauce, they used a fig jam. Layered on top of the jam were leaves of baby spinach and baby arugula. In addition to shredded mozzarella, the restaurant used Feta and shredded Parmesan. I'm not ashamed to say that I had at least one pizza a day during my stay.
When I make this at home, I follow the above description pretty closely. Because this time I was cooking at Lauren's family beach house, though, I had to make a few adjustments. The grocery store didn't have fig jam or fresh figs, so I improvised with standard white pizza base and dried figs. It was also too time consuming to make the pizza crust dough from scratch and I didn't have access to Whole Foods for my trusted frozen dough, so I used Pillsbury's refrigerated dough instead. I happened to end up with some extra pizza crust dough, so Stephanie R--my handy co-bridesmaid sous chef--and I braided it to make three loaves of challah, as you'll see in the photo below.
Heart-Shaped Fig & Spinach Pizzas
1 pkg Pillsbury refrigerated pizza crust dough
8 Tbsp Ricotta cheese
8 oz shredded Mozzarella
4 oz Feta
4 oz Parmesan
fresh baby spinach & arugula, torn in pieces
1 cup of sliced dry figs
olive oil
salt and black pepper, to taste
Directions. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Roll out the dough into a large circle. Use a pastry cutter or a pizza slicer to create 8 slices of pizza dough. Shape each triangle into a heart shape and stretch to make it longer and thinner. Brush each heart with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Sprinkle half of the desired amount of Mozzarella on each heart. Layer with spinach and arugula, followed with the other half of Mozzarella. Sprinkle some Feta on top of that and add two dollops of Ricotta per heart. Add the sliced figs and top off each heart with a small sprinkle of Parmesan cheese and a scant pinch of black pepper. Bake for 10 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly and slightly golden.
Mini Heart-Shaped French Toast Casseroles
Dairy
I've been making variations of this recipe for years. It's so easy and a great make-ahead dish for breakfast or brunch. It could also work as dessert. If you'd like to make the dish a little more complex, you could add raisins, bananas, apples, or peaches to the batter or use day old challah or cinnamon/raisin bread.
Mini Heart-Shaped French Toast Casseroles
1 loaf of day old bread, cubed
6 eggs
2 cups of milk
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (or the seeds of 1 vanilla bean)
maple syrup, as desired
powdered sugar, as desired
butter or margarine
Directions. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, milk, cinnamon and vanilla. Combine with bread cubes until fully coated. Scoop into individual heart-shaped tins or a 9x13 baking dish and chill overnight, if possible. Remove from the refrigerator and dot with butter. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, or until puffy and golden. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with warm maple syrup, if desired.
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