Easy Chile Relleno Pizza

Chile Relleno Pizza is an easy 5 ingredient vegetarian pizza which echoes the flavors of a cheese-stuffed, batter-dipped, roasted chile pepper. I just skipped the frying aspect, and tossed it on a pizza crust instead.

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This pizza can be enjoyed year round because the basic ingredients--eggs, salsa, roasted peppers--are accessible year round. It's got enough heat to make it interesting, and it's a meatless pizza that appeals to vegetarians and omnivores alike. You don't need a lot of preparation--a quick trip to the grocery store should set you up just fine--and making pizza at home is often faster than take out.

How do I make pizza at home faster than delivery?

Good planning is one of my keys to success in the kitchen--which sounds lofty but simply means that I've got a roll of parchment paper next to the foil and wax paper in the drawer, a pizza stone that lives in my oven and another that lives on my grill, and I'm likely to save that last cup of taco meat or that bit of leftover cooked potatoes because I'm thinking "I could put this on a pizza".


At any given moment you could open the door to the fridge or freezer and find a wide variety of vegetables and meats that would make a decent pizza. It's in my daily plan on Friday mornings to make a batch of pizza dough--something I do while the dogs are eating their breakfast.


If it's just two of us I'll still make a pair of pizzas but I'll divide the dough into thirds and save one in the freezer for a busy Friday. If you're interested in exploring more about making pizza at home, here's my Pizza Primer post--a brain dump (with images!) of my pizza wisdom from the past 20 years of making pizza at home.

Copycat Recipe CPK White Spinach Pizza

Fresh spinach, feta and mozzarella cheese on a roasted garlic oil-brushed crust. A copycat recipe for a homemade version of CPK White Spinach Pizza.

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One of my favorite items in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share or at the farmer's market is a bag of spinach. There are so many possibilities! If I'm overwhelmed with greens, unwashed spinach can hang out in the crisper longer than lettuce or even be frozen--to use in smoothies later on. My favorite is my Allergy Friendly Peanut Butter, Spinach, and Banana Smoothie. Today I'm sharing an updated version of a favorite way to use fresh spinach on a pizza.

Cheesy Broccoli Pizza with Mascarpone

The classic combination of broccoli and cheese--in pizza form! With a creamy layer of mascarpone cheese on the crust, this pizza lets the beloved flavors of broccoli and cheddar shine through.

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On Friday nights I make at least two pizzas. One is usually a vegetable-topped vegetarian pizza for my spouse, the other is something I know the kids will eat. Rarely do I make a pizza exactly the way I want it [but when I do, it's My Deployment Pizza--why is it that I'm comfortable putting my wants last?] however I generally like every pizza I make. I'd better like it, since we have pizza weekly!


I'm always looking for ways to incorporate vegetables into our meals, partly because I want to use up the contents of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box and partly because vegetables taste good and are good for you. No nutritional advice I've ever seen tells you to cut back on carrots or celery, you know? So it seems to me that increasing the amount of vegetables in my family's diet is a worthwhile goal.

Broccoli is a pretty tame vegetable pizza topping from my perspective, but I realize I'm kinda out there. Honestly, if you're making pizza every week and you have vegetables to use up, you'd be kinda out there too. I think broccoli is a good bridge between fresh tomatoes like my Tomato Basil Pizza and shaved kohlrabi like my Shaved Kohlrabi with Meat (or No Meat) Pizza. Last year I put up a large amount of chopped broccoli (blanched, then frozen) for use throughout the off season. It's one of the ways I feed my family from the farm share year round.

Honey Semolina Wheat Pizza Dough

A recipe for basic pizza dough, with a bit of honey, semolina and wheat flours to make a nice chewy crust that stands up to whatever toppings you'd like to use.

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This pizza dough is a good basic dough. I've been making it weekly for a couple of months now, and it fits with a variety of toppings and sauces. It's sturdy enough for a heavier topping or deep dish pizza, mild in flavor, and has a nice chewy crust.

Pizza dough is best made ahead. The dough has time to relax and chill, and so do you.  Usually for me that means I throw the dough together sometime on Thursday for our family's Friday Night Pizza Night. Lately I've pushed the envelope on what 'make ahead' means. Typically I'm mixing up dough while my first cup of tea steeps, around 6 am, shaping it into a ball and bagging it, then chilling until I get off work or the kids get home from school. One of us transfers the dough bags to the counter to sit for 1-2 hours until it's back to room temperature. At dinnertime it's time to shape it, top it, and bake it as described in the photo exhaustive My Pizza Primer post.

How to Make White Pizza with Arugula and Sausage

A fast and easy white pizza with fresh creamy burrata cheese, peppery arugula, and Italian sausage.

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This colorful pizza is a tasty way to involve cool weather greens in a family style pizza. When your Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box is heavy on the greens, which happens at the beginning and end of the typical temperate season, it can be overwhelming. I wrote about my Greens Paralysis here, in a recipe for Slow Cooker Spicy Mustard Greens Soup. Rest assured, new seasonal eaters, even though I've been eating from the farm share for 11 years now, I still get stuck. There are myriad ways to eat greens. Having an idea of how to use each type of green (raw or cooked) helps a lot and is part of the reason I started this website.



Arugula is such a versatile green. This Fall we've been enjoying it as the basis for hearty main dish salads, tossed with a red wine vinaigrette and topped with boiled eggs, beans, peas, goat cheese, dried fruits and nuts. I've tossed arugula into pasta dishes for color, nutrition, and to get it out of the crisper while it's still fresh. I've processed and frozen arugula as arugula pesto when I didn't think we'd have time to eat it fresh. A leafy green that's yummy both raw and cooked is useful indeed.

Regular readers know that I am often working up to a year ahead. Since I'm a seasonal eater, by the time I get the photos out of the camera and the scribbled recipe notes onto a screen we're onto a new season. In fact, the Thanksgiving recipes I'm sharing now were created (and photographed and enjoyed--hot!) last year. I enjoy sharing ways to use the farm share here, but my family likes to eat food while it's hot, and I like to kick back and enjoy our Friday Night Pizza & Movie nights with them. So what I'm fixing for dinner tonight may appear on Instagram, but won't be on the website for a while.

Green Tomato Pizza with Pesto and Feta

This vegetarian pizza showcases green tomatoes at their finest--topped with feta and mozzarella cheese on a garlic scape pesto-spread crust.

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Friday nights are pizza nights around here, and I'm always looking to what vegetables are in season to add to our pizzas. After trying a fried green tomato sandwich with goat cheese at a local restaurant, I decided to throw some different cheeses on top of sliced green tomatoes and see if I could make a tasty vegetarian pizza. This one turned out well--the pesto complements the cheeses nicely and perks up the green tomatoes in a pleasing way.



September may make some folks think of All the Pumpkin Spice All the Time, but for me September means Green Tomato Season. While I've had a terrible year tomato-wise in my garden (more than made up for with terrific pickling cucumber and tomatillo harvests) I do have plenty of green tomatoes still on the vine.

Cooler nights mean that those tomatoes will ripen much slower than in the heat of summer . . . so why not make good use of green tomatoes?  No matter if you grow them yourself, find them in your Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box, pick them up at the farmer's market or come home to a basket on your doorstep from an overwhelmed neighbor--get your mittens on some green tomatoes this month.



The main thing I make with green tomatoes is my Green Tomato Bacon Jam. It's a freezer jam, sweet and savory, and I think it is amazing mixed with ground meat for burgers. I put up several jars in the Fall and try and use the last one up mid-summer. I also like to make chili with green tomatoes, and have shared 2 recipes so far--one with beef and one with pork. Pork pairs pretty nicely with green tomatoes  in my Cabin Casserole, too.

Grilled Sausage and Peppers Pizza

This post is sponsored by the Ohio Pork Council. I bought my ingredients then created this recipe, the Ohio Pork Council paid me for my time.

Grilled Italian pork sausages, bell peppers, and onions top this pizza with plenty of cheese from both provolone and mozzarella. Since everything is cooked on the grill, your house stays cool while you enjoy the flavor of a sausage and pepper hoagie in pizza form.

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The purpose of this post is to get my readers to take a short survey about Ohio pork (you don’t have to be an Ohio resident to respond). When you take this survey, you’ll be entered into a Le Creuset Dutch oven giveaway. Since it’s free for you to be here there’s not even any purchase necessary to enter. You’ve got nothing to lose! Why not? Go take the survey now, I’ll be waiting with the pizza when you get back. 

The link to the survey is here. Enter to win!

I’m supposed to share what I love about Ohio pork today, and since we’re talking about love that means talking about my spouse. He returned from his 5th deployment a different man. I'm not talking about the time he went on his 4th deployment, and he went online and fell in love. Instead, my spouse now prefers to know more about the protein he eats than just “it was marked down at the grocery store”. For him, it’s a natural evolution from knowing who grows our produce—by joining a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share—to knowing more about the proteins we choose to eat by sourcing them locally as well. Since I want to keep my time in the kitchen simple and fix one entree for the family, I needed to find new sources of protein.

My spouse took this photo (cuz that's me on the right).

Heirloom Tomato and Mascarpone Pizza

This grilled pizza is a gourmet version of the cheese and tomato classic.  Flavorful heirloom tomatoes on a mascarpone-spread crust topped with feta, fontina, and mozzarella cheeses. Simple is good when you start with fresh, amazing, local flavor.

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Sometimes it's good to keep things simple on a pizza. Just some cheese and tomatoes.  You could order in a plain cheese pizza or you could make it yourself, a variety of ways. You could pick up a box on the shelf of the grocery store, grab a fork, and have a simple cheese and tomato sauce pizza.
You could pick up a bag of dough, a jar of sauce, and a wedge of cheese and get busy. Or you could get an heirloom tomato in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share and decide to go gourmet, like I did.


One of the reasons I like to eat locally grown produce is because it tastes better than something trucked in from off. That flavor discrepancy is never more pronounced than in a tomato. There's something about a fresh tomato, picked at the height of it's ripeness, that cannot be matched by anything trucked into a grocery store.

When tomato season starts, I make it a point to enjoy a fresh tomato sandwich every week. That sounds easy, now, in the beginning of the season. Let me tell you--it can be a drag come September. But I do it anyway--changing it up with bacon, avocado, whatever looks good that day to me.



I also like to put fresh tomatoes on pizza. The trick to keep your pizza from getting soggy is to slice your tomatoes a good 30 minutes to an hour before you put them on a pizza, like I share in my Tomato Basil Pizza recipe. If I'm using my oven, I'll have my pizza dough sitting on the counter for a couple of hours before I plan to bake, just to get up to room temperature so I can work with it. I'll slice my tomatoes and leave them on a cutting board to drain, then turn on the oven to preheat my pizza stone for an hour. By the time the dough has relaxed and the stone has warmed up, the tomatoes have given up a fair amount of juice. I can tip that off the cutting board and I am good to go.

Grilled Eggplant & Chicken Parm Pizza

Take the classic flavor combination of eggplant parmigiana or chicken parmigiana and turn it into a pizza! This grilled pizza keeps the kitchen cool during the summer months.

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When I mention that eggplant is often one of the summer vegetables found in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box, I hear 'oh I love eggplant parm'.  So do I. However, I hate to bake a hearty casserole in the summer when the eggplant is ripe. I've had success this past winter with using frozen (but already grilled) eggplant in baked dishes, but that's a recipe for another time.

Grilled Ciabatta Pizza with Chicken and Vegetables

Skip messing with raw dough and use ciabatta bread for this grilled pizza. Topped with grilled chicken, eggplant, peppers and zucchini, this flavorful pizza comes together quickly and keeps your kitchen cool.

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This pizza is an easy one to throw together during the summer. It uses previously grilled zucchini, peppers, eggplant, and chicken. These are combined with feta cheese and mozzarella, then used to top a grilled ciabatta loaf. I topped it with fresh basil for a real summer treat.

It's a common theme, for me, to use what I've got on hand for our meals. During the growing season I am using what I've got from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. During the colder months I'm using whatever I've put up--by freezing, dehydrating, or canning--combined with whatever looks good on sale at the grocery store.

Grilled Mozzarella Stick Pizza with Pickled Peppers

This pizza has mozzarella sticks and pickled peppers for a gooey cheesy pie with a bit of a kick. Throw a few handy toppings on a pizza, then throw it on the grill for a fast, easy, and cheesy meal.

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I don't wish to give the impression that everything I make is healthy. What is "healthy" anyway? Different people define it in different ways, and I'm sure not about to tell you how you should define healthy. I'm here to offer choices in how you can eat the foods produced in your local area, and if that means putting them on a pizza--I'm all for that.

My family loves to eat pizzas and watch a movie on Friday nights. Most of the time I make the pizza, as I can fire up the grill, stretch out the dough, make the pizzas, and be finished within 30 minutes. And I'm slow in the kitchen! No need to call for delivery if I've got all the supplies at home. Unless, of course, my kitchen has been taken over with the 4 hour installation of a new dishwasher, as happened recently. I shared the photo on my Instagram feed, in lieu of an 'as it happens' pizza photo/video. In that circumstance I called for delivery and tossed the boxes in the oven. When the dishwasher was finally set up, we sat down to pizza.

This pizza came about because my daughter and I went shopping when we were hungry. We bought a giant box of mozzarella sticks. I do not believe there were hundreds of sticks but at one point it seemed like it.  If mozzarella is good on a pizza, why not a mozzarella stick?

Fish Taco Naan Pizza

A fast and easy fresh tasting pizza this simple naan crust is topped with mahi mahi, sautéed Napa cabbage, avocados, watermelon radishes, and crumbled queso.

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If you're cooking, you will organically move to a healthier diet . . . and support farmers--Michael Pollan, last night during his talk at the University of Dayton. I'm paraphrasing the end a bit.

I'm sure I sound like a broken record at times, or maybe a scratched disc, but if you're going to the trouble of cooking you may as well cook more than you'll eat during that sitting and plan to repurpose the leftovers into a new meal. It's a great way to plan to use the produce from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. When the Spring weather is so conducive to being outside--someone I know calls it "productivity poison"--meals that you can throw together from previously prepared ingredients are just the best.

This pizza is one example, and a terrific way to enjoy long-storing farm share ingredients. As a matter of fact, since my photos are date stamped, I know I made this pizza 3 weeks after I picked up the last farm share of the Fall season. Cabbages and radishes store for many weeks in the crisper, and can be used into the winter for fresh crunch in your meals.

When I say many weeks, I will be honest. I polished off THE LAST WATERMELON RADISH OF 2015 on April 17th, 2016. We're talking 4 months in my crisper. Four months!

Deep Dish Pizza with Artichokes, Kalamata Olives, and Garlic Scape Pesto

This pizza is layered with mozzarella cheese, marinated artichoke hearts, and kalamata olives tucked under an Italian sausage blanket spread with garlic scape pesto.

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I'm working on refining my "elevator speech", a way to describe what it is I do to people I meet.

In the 30 second version, I'll touch on the flavor of a freshly picked tomato or strawberry vs their store bought counterparts and comment that it's easy to choose to eat locally for the flavor. In the longer version, I'll bring up garlic scapes--one of the more unusual, you've never seen this before therefore it must be locally grown, items in a Spring farm share basket. I specify Spring because, even though you'll only find garlic scapes right after they are harvested in the early part of the growing season--you can put up garlic scapes to enjoy year round.

I'll be giving a talk about local eating at my neighborhood community center in May, and I'm hoping for a couple of garlic scapes to harvest as props. Conveniently I missed a few bulbs of garlic when I harvested last June, and those older established bulbs have a jump on the garlic I planted last October so it's possible I'll have my 'visual aids'. If you're puzzled by what a garlic scape is--it's just what would be the flowering portion of garlic. You can see some gorgeous shots of a scape here on my Garlic Scape Recipe Round Up. I plant my garlic cloves, just like my daddy plants daffodils, in the Fall. Instead of enjoying the pretty flowers, though, I cut off the curly scape while the blossom is still a tight bud, and pulverize those stems for their mild garlic flavor.  With no energy needed to go for a showy floral display, the resulting garlic bulb is bigger--my end goal.

Now, I'll rave about garlic scapes to anyone who will listen, but the way I love them most is in pesto. I will freeze scoops of pesto (I make it thick so it stays in a clump when freezing) for up to a year. Initially I'm hoarding my garlic scape pesto stash, but this time of year I'm seeing the garlic pop up (and sharing it on my Instagram feed) and knowing that scape season is approaching so I can be free and easy with my stash.

This ^^ is all to say that, in this pizza, I used some of my garlic scape pesto as the sauce. If you don't have a stash in your freezer, use any pesto you feel like using. It will be delicious because you made it with love, and that's what matters the most, right?

Chive Blossom and Potato Focaccia

A seasoned and seasonal bread, this chive blossom focaccia is spiced with roasted chiles and chunks of potato. This savory Spring bread is great with a bowl of light soup or along side a simple grilled dinner.

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I am thinking about inheritance today. After touring some lovely homes yesterday and learning about the items my hosts inherited, I got to thinking about what I've inherited. Material things, not values and quirks--that's for another post. I've inherited jewelry. I've inherited furniture. But today, I'm thinking about the plants I've inherited.


While I was stationed overseas, houseplants were one item that I inherited from folks moving on to new duty stations. I enjoyed them during my time, and when I left I passed them on to a new arrival. Houseplants are a quick way to make a new place feel more like a home, and my worms and I nurture more than we kill so our net is positive.


Most of the plants  are ones I have inherited on a more permanent basis. Even though I don't live in Virginia any more, the daffodils and tiger lilies my dad planted are still blooming each year. My dad is to daffodils what John Chapman was to apple trees--he's planted bulbs in 3 states and the District of Columbia. The daffodils Dad planted our first Fall here in Ohio are just starting to bloom.

Yes, I am kicking myself that I didn't raise the camera just a tad more.

My newest plant inheritance is a clump of chives. My folks' most recent downsizing coincided with the beginning of gardening season and their giving up their last community garden plot (after more than 20 years as community gardeners in 2 places). My dad dug up the chives one morning in Maryland, and I plunked them into a hole in my backyard the next day in Ohio. Last Spring was my first year with chive blossoms, and I happily harvested them to make all sorts of recipes.

Here's my first one--a focaccia bread that was terrific as an appetizer when dinner was delayed due to SPRING! Weather and the need to get out and dig. I'd pair this with my Finnish Summer Soup with Kale if I were going to make it soon, as the cool evenings are still soup weather around here.

For more recipes using herbs, please see my Recipes Using Herbs Collection. For more recipes using potatoes, please see my Potato Recipes Collection. For more recipes using roasted Hatch chiles, please see my Hatch Chile Recipes Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating seasonally from the farm share, the farmer's market, and inherited plants in the back yard.

Cheesy Roasted Potato and Egg Pizza

This grilled pizza recipe combines fresh eggs with roasted potatoes and a thick layer of creamy gouda cheese.

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In addition to the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve, potatoes are one of the longest-storing vegetables from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. During the late winter I've got a few carrots in the crisper, lots of vegetables put up in the freezer, as well as potatoes and winter squash in the basement Strategic Winter Squash Reserve. One of the ways I'm feeding my family locally-grown produce year round, even while we live in an Ohio that doesn't know if it's winter or Spring this week.


When I roast potatoes I always roast a bunch more than I think we'll eat. It's part of the whole 'cook once eat twice' routine. My daughter will eat leftover roasted potatoes for breakfast or snack (sometimes after checking to see if I planned to use them for a dish, sometimes not bothering to check). When I put leftover roasted potatoes on a pizza I want to make sure I'm cooking the pizza fast so the potatoes don't dry out. Tossing the potatoes with olive oil and covering them with cheese helps. Heck, covering many things with cheese helps. Perhaps not the dust & dog hair bunnies . . .

I chose to share this pizza now because the eggs made me think of Easter. I like seeing photos of Facebook of my friend's new chicks--they are so interesting and cute and varied looking, it's no wonder their eggs will all end up varied and interesting looking as well.


For more recipes using potatoes, please see my Potato Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating seasonally (and no, that doesn't mean just Cadbury Creme Eggs) from the farm share, the farmer's market, garden & grocery abundance. I'm sharing more pizzas on my Visual Pizza Recipe Index, and this will go in the Vegetarian Pizzas category. If you're into Pinterest, I pin interesting pizzas to 2 boards, so follow me on Pinterest. I'm sharing articles and recipes on my FB page, follow me there. And I just learned of the hashtag #dailypizza so I may try that out on Instagram, but for behind the scenes photos follow me on IG. Want to know How To Use This Blog?

Deep Dish Meatball Pizza

A pizza you can really sink your teeth into--this is filled with meatballs and vegetables sandwiched between two layers of cheese in a hearty deep dish pizza.

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Sometimes I just don't have much to say other than this:

"This pizza was good. You should try making one like it. Here's what I did."

So instead of waiting further to post until I have something worth reading, or something worth getting off my chest, I'm giving you the recipe and stepping aside. With some photos, because we eat with our eyes first and it was a really tasty pizza. Very forkable (it's kinda heavy to lift up to your face with your hand).

Deconstructed Salmon Artichoke Dip Pizza

Take a classic hot artichoke dip, add salmon, then deconstruct it onto this pizza. It is cheesy, hot, gooey, and a terrific way to enjoy a seafood pizza for pizza night.

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I've added a new category to my Visual Pizza Recipe Index--Seafood Pizza Recipes. I've added this as a service to my readers despite the fact I feel that all flesh is meat, including salmon, lobster, muskrat, alligator, capybara, and conch. But hey, you do you. If you prefer doing penance by eating lobster, rock on. If you want to eat seafood on your Friday Night Pizza Night, I'm adding a 5th recipe idea to my newly-made category to give you options--this Salmon Artichoke Dip Pizza.

Bacon, Egg, and Potato Pizza

Breakfast for dinner on a pizza? This pie combines bacon, eggs, and potatoes with 2 kinds of cheese for a sensational savory breakfast pizza served any time of day.

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If the internet is primarily a place to look at pictures of cats, then Instagram is the neighborhood with the zoning laws that allow backyard chickens. On my IG feed I watch a lot of videos of chickens--chickens strutting their stuff with brilliant plumage. Chickens taking baths in dust. A flock of chickens chasing after treats. My IG feed is delightful thanks to the chicken videos by Kris of Attainable Sustainable, Lisa of Fresh Eggs Daily, and Kathy of The Chicken Chick.

For the Basset Hound lovers out there (you know you're in this crowd, what's not to love if you're not the one washing dried drool off the walls?) I try and give back to the IG community with a video of the flying ears of Robert Barker walking on a windy day [turn off the sound].

Thanks to my local egg providers and IRL chicken-owning friend I've learned that egg production diminishes when it's cold out and days are shorter, and picks back up as we near Spring. This time of year, I bide my time, hoarding the local eggs I do have and using them when necessary. I don't go crazy throwing eggs on everything. There's a time and a place to throw eggs on everything.

Like today, and like this pizza.

Sriracha Butternut Squash & Portobello Pizza

Spicy sriracha-seasoned grilled butternut squash and portobello mushrooms make a winter vegetarian pizza with a kick. You can break out the grill for this one if you dare.

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I'm pulling out another long-storing butternut squash from the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve for today's pizza. Friday nights are pizza nights around here, and I like to change it up to keep things spicy. Sriracha-spicy, that is.

The Sriracha I use is locally produced, House Made Sriracha. Until I started eating locally grown fruits and vegetables, and then eggs and beef, I never really thought about locally made sauces. It's neat how your horizons get expanded just by the simple act of choosing where to source your salad greens.

Sauerkraut and Summer Sausage Pizza

Ball park flavors in a home made pizza. This pie takes the sausage & sauerkraut combo and tops it with smoked mozzarella for a new twist on pizza night. If you've got holiday leftovers you're nearly ready to bake.

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In addition to the chocolate oranges, My Mother's Lefse and the Swedish meatballs, another traditional holiday food is a beef stick or summer sausage. If I don't get one, I pick one up at the store. A quick snack of a few slices of sausage + cheese + crackers + fruit is a welcome treat this time of year.

The sauerkraut is a slightly different topping for pizza. I was inspired to use it watching the folks at Dewey's Pizza make a ball park pizza using mustard as sauce and topping with bratwurst and kraut. It tasted pretty darn awesome, and I wanted to make a version at home. When I learned that folks around the region eat sauerkraut during the holidays and at New Year's, I figured I had my topping combo for a pizza. Getting a marked down ball of smoked mozzarella from the fancy cheese counter was just bonus, you know?