Three cheese-garlic pizza on pumpkin pizza dough

Well, here is my first post of 2015! I can't believe it's January again already. Winter time is a good time for pizzas (actually we eat pizza pretty regularly around here - homemade pizza is a common Friday/Saturday dinner!) 

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Ever since I saw this Pumpkin Pizza Dough recipe, I've been very intrigued by the idea of incorporating winter squash puree into a pizza dough. I was surprised by how nice the pizza dough turned out - I thought the puree would make it too wet or difficult to work with, but that wasn't the case at all! It turned out perfectly. 

You can't really taste the pumpkin/squash flavor in it, but it adds a depth of savory flavor to the crust. For a first try, I stuck with a cheese pizza to see how the crust tasted, but now I think you could put pretty much any pizza toppings on it that you'd like. 

This dough recipe will make two 10-11 inch pizzas. The pizza recipe is also for making two pizzas. I think the dough would also make terrific breadsticks or dinner rolls - something I will likely try in the future. Also, you can use pretty much any cooked and pureed winter squash in this dough. 

I used Long Island Cheese Pumpkin because we have so many, but others like butternut, regular pumpkin, hubbard, etc. would work as well. I used homemade pumpkin puree, but canned is perfectly fine.

Chocolate chip snowball cookies

Mini chocolate chips are nestled into these delicious little buttery cookies that are coated in powdered sugar to look like festive snowballs. 

Roasted heirloom sweet meat squash and chestnut soup

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A sweet, rich, and creamy soup that is perfect for a cold autumn or winter day. It's made with a beautiful blue heirloom squash called "sweet meat" and it lives up to its name. This squash is sweet, dense, and meaty and the flesh is a beautiful bright orange - you just know this sucker is going to fill you up with vitamins. 

My father-in-law grew it in his huge garden this year, so we received a few of them. I had never seen these squash before so as a HUGE winter squash lover, I was very excited to try a new kind! Look at how pretty it is!

Of course, if you can't find your very own sweet meat squash, you can substitute a blue hubbard, kabocha, or red kuri squash as they are somewhat similar in texture and sweetness. You can also grow you own sweet meats next year! They make beautiful decorations, too! 

This soup will serve four as a side or starter. It's filled with other holiday flavors like chestnuts, apple, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.

Orange-scented cranberry cake with sugared cranberries

Sugared cranberries are something I've been wanting to make for a while now because they just look so pretty and festive. Recently, we had a birthday dinner for my mom and I was in charge of the dessert. She requested a cranberry cake and this gave me the opportunity to make sugared cranberries to decorate this cake studded with fresh cranberries and orange zest. My mom doesn't like frosting, so I went with a very light glaze made with fresh orange juice - or you could top each slice with some freshly whipped cream and the sugared cranberries. Everyone enjoyed the cake and my husband really enjoyed the sugared cranberries and was eating them like candy!

This cake was adapted from this recipe that I've had marked for a while now. I'm really glad I gave this cake a try. It was only lightly sweet, but sweet enough, with punches of tartness from the fresh cranberries. I really do love fresh cranberries and do not use them nearly enough in my cooking. I'm changing that for sure. If you are looking for an elegant holiday dessert, look no further! It's a bit of a process, but the results are worth it. I'll definitely be making sugared cranberries more often now!

Smoky garlic, delicata squash, and bacon pizza

I love delicata squash because not only are they delicious, but they are so pretty and very quick cooking. I've been thinking about putting winter squash on a pizza for a while now and finally decided that delicata would be the winner. 

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The sweet, creamy squash pairs so nicely with the salty, smoky, and crispy bacon. To up the smoky deliciousness of the pizza, I used smoked mozzarella.

For my pizza crust, I almost always use this recipe. For this pizza I used this crust which I find usually makes two pizzas that are about 10-11 inches in diameter (this depends on how much flour your dough takes that day given the humidity, etc.) 

This recipe is for two pizzas about that size. We make pizzas probably about once a week or every two weeks. We love pizza and now that I've discovered these simple dough recipes, it's so simple to make at home. Plus, you can try out all sorts of toppings and combinations!