I have a lot of cookbooks. Also, I love love love to read cookbooks. Before Andrew was born I loved to go to the bookstore and browse the cookbook section for hours at a time. (Now it’s in and out before any meltdowns or property damage occur.) Whenever I get a new cookbook or new cooking magazine, I save it for a time when I can fully enjoy it. You know, sit down in a quiet place and look through the whole thing undisturbed. It’s a guilty pleasure for me. Ben gifted me The Pastry Queen Cookbook for Christmas last year and that’s exactly what with it. One night I finally broke it out as my bedtime reading material. We were both laying in bed reading quietly, Ben with his book and me with The Pastry Queen when I suddenly sat up and exclaimed, “Oh my gosh, what a GREAT idea!” Ben nearly fell out of the bed I scared him so bad, and then we could not stop laughing. I was referring to this recipe. It combines two of my favorite things – Caesar salad and pizza. Brilliant, I tell you!
This meal was exactly what I was hoping for. The Caesar salad was absolutely wonderful and definitely good enough to eat all on its own (in fact, I did just that after finishing my pizza). The combination of the salad and the crust was reminiscent of the Caesar salad with a baguette slice on the side I like to get for lunch sometimes. My only slight disappointment was that the crust was much thicker than the picture in the book showed, and I thought the crust to salad ratio was a little too high. Next time I will cut the quantity of dough in half and roll the crusts out to the same size so they are thinner and more crisp. I did end up with quite a bit of leftover dressing so if you don’t want the extra, you might consider halving it. This is a fun twist of a meal and I think it would be great for entertaining as well.