pizza Archives - Popcorn and Pandas

Cyclones and Princesses

We ventured out to Coney Island a couple weeks ago with friends to attend our first Brooklyn Cyclones baseball game. I have to admit, a majority of the draw (aside from the lovely company) was the fact that it was Disney Princess night complete with fireworks to Disney tunes! I am a sucker for anything Disney, so this event was right up my alley. We had a lot of fun enjoying the game, the views, and the bright lights.

We’ve been hunkered down in the city waiting for our little boy’s arrival and getting some things done around the house. We hung out at Rockaway Beach on Saturday which was a gorgeous, relaxing day complete with arepas at Caracas…my favorite! We also met up with my sorority Grand Little who was in town from Boston for an amazing pizza dinner at Grimaldi’s. It was my first time there, and I will definitely be returning! Sunday, we completed a small DIY project at the house that we’ve been wanting to do for a while and created some fun artwork to hang up in the garden.

Hope you all had a great weekend, and wishing everyone a Happy Monday!

XO,

Gina

Girl’s Weekend

Oh how I love my girls!!! A couple weeks ago, some of my besties from Maryland came to visit for a fun Brooklyn weekend. The hubby went out of town, so this was actually the first time I had a real girl’s weekend at our place. It was honestly such a blast. I love spending time with my favorites. There is never any drama. Never any bullshit. Just plain old fun. It was really great to have a bunch of girls around to borrow clothes from and talk about make up and hair and just get dressed up. After living with my man for so long now, I sometimes start to miss those girly things that come with having females for roommates! It was also great to just have them there to snuggle and have deep conversations about life face-to-face rather than on the phone or through e-mail. I had such a great time, that I already want to start planning our next girly adventure together.

This little photo session was captured by my amazing cousin, Marisa of Misa*Me Photography. Unfortunately, she never made it to the other side of the lens, but the fact that these photos were taken are proof enough that she was there with us as well! This documents our little Saturday at DiFara Pizza and walking around my neighborhood. What you don’t see is the 90’s dance party that we got into later that night, but I have to leave something to the imagination, right?

Playing some cards while we wait for our pizza…worth the wait!

Most amazing pizza EVER

Teri’s hood rocks my world…

Black Coat Mafia…

All photos by: Misa*Me Photography

Coat: ASOS / Bag: TJMaxx / Sunglasses: Vintage / Gloves: H&M / Scarf: Christmas gift / Lip: Lancome Groupie

Happy Friday everyone! Hope you all have a great weekend!

XO,

Gina

Pizza With Pears

Happy Friday everyone!

Sorry for my lack of posting this week. I have been out sick most of the week, and haven’t felt much up to blogging (or anything else really.) Been trying to work from home a bit, but mostly been watching endless episodes of Top Chef and Project Runway, and I’m finally caught up with my DVR.

I did make it into the office yesterday and for our 2nd week of our Race to the Oscars event. I saw Zero Dark Thirty. WOW. Amazing. Intense. Well done Kathryn Bigelow. If you haven’t seen this film already, it’s definitely a must see.

Anywho, back to pizza with pears!

While scouring through my recipe books for something new and interesting to cook, I came across a delicious looking recipe for pizza with pears. I credit this original recipe to Maxine Clark from her book Pizza Calzone & Focaccia.

Of course, due to time constraints and the inability to find all the ingredients in my local grocery store, I tweaked this recipe a bit–which is very typical of me anyway.

So here we have Pear, Pecorino, and Fontina Pizza with Honey and Sage

Ingredients:

Pizza Dough – original recipe has you making homemade dough, but I opted for a quicker, easier version and went with Pillsbury Pizza Crust (it’s no NY pizza, but not bad!)

2 tbsps. extra virgin olive oil, plus some extra to drizzle

4 oz. Fontina cheese cubed (original recipe called for Tallegio, but could not find in my local store – this was a great substitute!)

1 very ripe pear, cored and thinly sliced

12-15 small sage leaves

1/2 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese

1 tbsp. of honey (or more depending on how sweet you would like)

sea salt and fresh ground pepper

Pre-heat the oven at 425 degrees F. Open the pizza dough package and spread it thinly onto a pizza pan. Pre-heat the dough according to directions on the Pillsbury package.

Rub the pizza crust with the olive oil and scatter over the Fontina. Arrange the pears over this, then the sage and the pecorino. Drizzle with honey, then season with salt and pepper. Finally, drizzle on a little more olive oil.

Bake until the cheese is bubbling and the crust is golden.

Eat & Enjoy!

Meet Finley

Meet Finley…my new nephew pup! My sister and her boyfriend went to Deep Creek Lake for the weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family, so Mom, Dad, Zack, and I got to meet and spend lots of quality time with this little guy over the weekend. Isn’t he precious? Besides, being ridiculously handsome, I found that Finley was actually quite smart! At only 9 weeks, he was sitting, shaking paw and other paw. By the end of the weekend, Zack had taught him to play fetch, and I had taught him to go up and down the stairs. I was very impressed. I am missing this little snuggle bug already.

Long Sleeved Tee: J. Crew / Knit Sweater: ZARA / Jeans: Seven for All Mankind / Boots: Kohls / Necklace: H&M / Watch: Coach / Skull Chain Bracelet: Oia Jules / Ring & Earrings: Passed down from Grandmother / Lip: Lancome All Done Up

Photos by: Zack Notes

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday weekend with our friends and family in Maryland complete with a potluck dinner with friends, two family Thanksgivings, a lunch date with a friend, a trip to DC to celebrate my cousin’s 21st birthday, a jam session with the Notes fam, and of course playing endlessly with little Finley.

We returned to Brooklyn last night and ate the famous DiFara Pizza for dinner which definitely hit the spot. Not that we really needed pizza after all the feasting, but we didn’t have any food in the fridge, so it is what it is. We also tried to honor our tradition of picking up the Christmas tree when we got back to NY, but unfortunately, our local spots did not have any trees yet. I’m hoping the trees will arrive by at least mid week so I can get started on my decorating!

Hope you all have a fantastic week!

XO,

Gina