Multivitamin Pizza

With the recent acquisition of a working oven, I am now a full-blown hazyaika (housekeeper, homemaker, domestic goddess). My oven is beautiful, the apple of my eye. In fact, I think I'll refer to her as "Apple" from here on out (apologies to celebrity children). It's a long time since I felt so proud of a thing in my possession (dang! That's hard to spell! But it does yield a deliciously Freudian word list) as I now feel about my wonderful little Apple.

I have to admit, the whole concept of having an oven on my countertop was a little disconcerting at first, and it was kind of weird to reconcile myself to. Like, why couldn't I use the one in my stove? (Aside from the fact that it's the perfect, out-of-the-way corner for my landlady to stash her dirty frypan and assorted random, mostly plastic castaways from the - I'm assuming - cleaning-out-of-the-apartment-for-the-new-tenant process.)

But now that I can once again experience the joy of baking cookies for the teachers at school or my students during our "extraordinary lesson", the sheer pleasure of baking myself a pizza (oh, sweet deity, pizza whenever I want it and reasonably plan ahead for it!), or the good times of drinking too many homemade (and I do mean that!) White Russians with my friend from the next village over and baking a good, old-fashioned tuna casserole, I've gotten quite used to my little oven. I'm proud of her, in fact. She's a miracle of modern science! She has options: upper and/or lower heating elements! A timer! And she's red!


Little Apple, Hard At Work

Enough gushing. You get the point. What I really wanted to tell you about was the thing that happens after you live in Ukraine for 7 months, which is: you start fusing. Especially when it comes to food.

The crowning feature of my food fusion so far is the multivitamin pizza I created yesterday. In Mironovka, my host mom made pure Ukrainian pizza: ketchup, caramelized cabbage and onion, kalbasa, mushrooms, mayo...oh, and a little cheese. This is actually pretty tasty food, but not really in line with what I culturally considered in the category of "pizza". So I took it to the next level. Oh, yes.

First I created a sauce from tomato paste (widely available in this land of borshcht and galubsie, or cabbage rolls), fresh homemade tomato juice, and preserved peppers (also widely available in the local magazine). I added some fried onions and garlic for flavor. This is the first layer on my pizza.

I sauted, in this order: shredded beets! Yes, seriously, shredded beets. But you have to start with them because they are tougher than nails, and take a little while to soften up. (See how I just avoided your shocked expression and silent question? Beets are a fact of life here, get used to it!) Next, garlic, sliced onions, and cabbage. Finished with shredded carrots. This was the next layer on my pizza, and lends credence to the "multivitamin" part of my claim.

Finally, I finished the delicacy off with some chopped pineapple, "milk" sausage (really just bologna) slices, and a ton of cheese. I'm lucky enough to have found a source (recently developed, but I hope my weekly - sometimes biweekly - purchase keeps the luck flowing) of "cheddar" cheese in my town. I have to call it "chye-drrrrr" but well, I adjust.

I baked this creation in Apple and out came delicious pizza! I have been eating pizza my whole life and this pizza tastes good. Don't flinch at the beets, they absorbed the caramel sweetness of the onions. Don't cringe at the pineapple, there's a rather large contingent of "Hawaiian Pizza" lovers out there, we can't all be wrong. Don't wince at the cabbage or carrots, they cook down to a lovely afterthought, really. The overall effect is a mellow, savory-sweet experience that comes with the extra bonus of being "healthy" (it's the food pyramid on a plate!). Am I crazy? Nahhh...