Inspiration from a comet

One of my favorite things to do is to go to really good restaurants enjoy their food and then go home and learn how to make what I just ate. Recently, i have been enjoying a little pizza joint in upper northwest dc - comet pizza in Van Ness right next to Politics and prose. Aside from this location being a bit in the middle of no where, it has a special place in my heart- I used to live in a basement right behind Comet ( which previously was a nondescript thai restaurant) and outside my basement door was a colony of 50 turtles that my landlady collected. Additionally, the sign for comet is from another old neighborhood of mine- the comet wine shop in adams morgan. With a combination of turtles and a really cool sign, before i even stepped foot into comet I knew that I would love it. Then I walked in and noticed that the whole place is decorated with a ping pong motif. Ping pong tables, lights that look like ping pong balls, and the best part- the bathrooms, where aliens play ping pong in an idilic english country setting.

That is not to mention the good pizza. So on new years day a friend and I ventured to Van Ness and shared two personal sized pizzas. A whole carafe of wine and a broken wine glass later comet inspired us to make our very own green bean pizza.

So last night we whipped up our own comet inspired green bean pizza:

1.) Prepare a white sauce (butter, garlic cream, flour thyme and salt and pepper)

2) spread on pizza dough

3) Blanch green beans

4) Toast hazlenuts

5) carmelize onions

6) add all on top of pizza

7) finish off with mozerrella cheese and feta

YUM!We also made a second pizza:

1) red sauce, Tomatoes, garlic, onion and italian herbs (put through the food mill)

2) slices of fresh tomatoes

3) Mozerrella

4) mounds of bacon

A pizza extravoganza inspired by comet!

Teabagging!

Thanks to a thoughtful friend I now have the proper tools for teabagging - a Squeasy from oposum design. I love it. It is perfectly designed to allow one to coax the tea bag into the crevice and has a special slit for the string. Then you slightly squeasy with ever such ease the squeasy and it pumps the remaining flavors of the tea into your cup. Now my Good earth original blend, and Celestial seasoning Bengal spice will be so Yum. Yay for teabagging accessories!

New Apartment New Kitchen

I recently moved into a new apartment. As soon as all the boxes got to the apartment (even as my friends were still there eating pizza and drinking beer) I couldn't wait to unpack my kitchen stuff. It has been in storage for 4 months and was gasping for air! I felt like little kid on christmas day opening each box and getting excited about the contents. Moving into a new kitchen is also exciting because I got to figure out where i want everything to go and how to decorate.

Now I face a small dilemma: How do I stock my cabinets? I have very limited cabinet space. Plus in the process of moving everything i realized that i store a lot of food that i end up never eating. But now the real dilemma: I am having my best friend and her husband over for dinner ( my first meal i have cooked in a while) and I don't have any staples. Now olive oil, no salt no pepper, no herbs, no spices!!

It is either going to be a bland dinner or I am going to have to take out a small loan to stock the kitchen. Needless to say, the fact that I now have my kitchen back I am looking forward to more cooking, having friends over and sharing here.