February 21, 2009 archive

Homemade Pizza – it’s what’s for dinner!

Inspired by Edwardo’s, my favorite Chi-town pizza.  

Stuffed Spinach and Sausage Pizza

Dough-

4 t. sugar

3 pkg rapid rise yeast

2 c. warm water

5 c. all-purpose flour

4 t. salt

6 T. butter, melted

6 oz. bag fresh baby spinach, washed and spun dry

1 lb. part skim mozzarella

8 oz. monterey jack

1-1/2 c. pizza sauce

1 c. diced tomatoes

2/3 lb. sweet italian sausage, browned and drained

1/2 c. parmesano reggiano

Preheat oven to 475F.  Lightly oil 14-inch deep dish pizza pan.  

Combine yeast & sugar in warm water. Let sit for 5 minutes.  It should foam up.  Combine flour and salt.  Add the butter, then add the yeast mixture. Combine and knead on floured surface until dough is soft and smooth.  Let rise 1 hour.  

Shred cheese. Put spinach in food processor to chop fine (or use frozen chopped spinach – defrosted and well drained). Mix mozzarella and jack cheese with the spinach. (You can use any cheeses you want – I added a little asiago because I had it in my fridge).   Reserve parmesano for topping.  Mix pizza sauce with tomatoes (canned or fresh).  Cook sausage.

Assembly instructions below…

Recipe based on Stuffed Pizza with Spinach in The Chicago-Style Pizza Cookbook (Pasquale Bruno, 1983).  

From Yin &Yang and the I-Ching written by Kelly L. Ross, Ph.D.:

Yin originally meant “shady, secret, dark, mysterious, cold.”  It thus could mean the shaded, north side of a mountain or the shaded, south bank of a river.

Yang in turn meant “clear, bright, the sun, heat,” the opposite of yin and so the lit, south side of a mountain or the lit, north bank of a river.

From these basic opposites, a complete system of opposites was elaborated.

Yin represents everything about the world that is dark, hidden, passive, receptive, yielding, cool, soft, and feminine.

Yang represents everything about the world that is illuminated, evident, active, aggressive, controlling, hot, hard, and masculine.

Everything in the world can be identified with either yin or yang. Earth is the ultimate yin object. Heaven is the ultimate yang object. Of the two basic Chinese “Ways,” Confucianism is identified with the yang aspect, Taoism with the yin aspect

Yin should not be confused with gender, by the way.

Although it is correct to see yin as feminine and yang as masculine, everything in the world is really a mixture of the two, which means that female beings may actually be mostly yang and male beings may actually be mostly yin. Because of that, things that we might expect to be female or male because they clearly represent yin or yang, may turn out to be the opposite instead.

Original article, by Ulrich Rippert subheaded German union seeks to divide European and North American GM workers, via World Socialist Web Site:

On Tuesday, General Motors announced plans to cut its workforce world-wide by 47,000, with 26,000 jobs to be slashed in Europe alone. The main German engineering union, IG Metall, and its shop stewards organized in works councils at GM’s German subsidiary Opel, reacted to the announcement by rejecting any joint struggle by GM workers in Europe and North America.