Omar's Pizza

We've cut WAY back on the amount we eat out lately, but yesterday was payday and decided that pizza would be the perfect way to end a really long day.

We hit up Omar's in St. Ann.

Omar's is a tiny little restaurant in a building that use to be a car stereo store (streetview on Google still shows the old place!)  It's definitely one of our favorites in our immediate area.  Omar's serves Italian and Mediterranean food.  It's a really great place to take people if you aren't really sure what they like because you can get your standard pasta dishes, but also some really great Greek and Middle Eastern food too.

We decided to do a takeout pizza, and got the Greek Lamb pizza, with beef shawarma instead of lamb.  Shawarma is a lot like gyro meat, except thin shavings are put on the spit instead of pressed meat.  It's then roasted for several hours.  It's amazing.

Crazy Pizza!

You can go ahead and throw away the pizza delivery guy's number now.  Go ahead, go to your takeout pile, find the your regular pizza place's menu and just throw it away.  Tonight's dinner is better than and faster.  

This pizza uses refrigerated rolls (like Pillsbury) instead of regular crust and everything else is pretty much the same.  The dough and the sauce and the cheese melt into each other to make something amazing.  If you live in St. Louis, you might be thinking, "Oh, like Imo's!"  No my friend, this is nothing like Imo's. This is the opposite.  

This is amazingly gooey and puffy and cheesy and wonderful.  It's really easy to overdo it on this pizza because the biscuits make it so light and fluffy. 

The  toppings are the icing on top. The onions were so good, I was chasing the last few around the plate trying to get them!  

From start to finish, this is going to take you, tops 30 minutes- which is way faster than most decent pizza places and it's so much better.  You'll never call the pizza guy again.  

Twinkie Tiramisu- Way Better Than Regular Tiramisu

Sometimes, Lee takes ingredients I really love and does weird stuff with them.  You walk away feeling like the thing you love has been violated by another thing you love and you feel really awkward about your alliances with both. 

I was really ready for that feeling when he told me he was making Twinkie Tiramisu. 

Now I love Twinkies and coffee and vanilla wafers (I could write a whole post on how much I love these), and cream and sugar and cream cheese.  But when you tell me they’re all going to hop in the oven together, I’m going to be worried. 

Lee’s been wanting to make this for a few weeks, but Twinkies were on sale this week, so I couldn't evade this issue any longer. 

So we gathered the ingredients, and he went to work. 

The original recipe called for mascarpone cheese, but let’s be serious. That stuff is pretty expensive to be putting in a dish that highlights Twinkies.  So we subbed in cream cheese.  If you do this, whip the heck out of the cream cheese or you’ll end up with cream cheese hunks in your tiramisu, not awesome. This is a Food Network recipe originally, but Lee's adapted recipe is below.  

Overall, this was pretty good. Tiramisu is a tough sell for me, but this was definitely easier than regular tiramisu and WAY better than most of the tiramisus I’ve had. The creaminess from the cream mixture PLUS the Twinkie cream makes it extra delicious.  

By the way, you can chill it for just a few hours before serving, but this is definitely one of those recipes that gets better the longer the flavors meld together, if you can keep it overnight, do it. 

Twinkie Tiramisu

8 Twinkies

1 cup strong coffee

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1/3 cup sugar

16 oz (2 packs) cream cheese, at room temperature

Yellow food coloring

10 vanilla wafers

1. Slice the Twinkies down the middle long ways and squish half of them cream side up in a 7 by 11-inch pan, covering the bottom.
2. Add a layer of about half the coffee
3. Whip the cream to soft peaks then add sugar.
4. Whip the heck out of the cream cheese and fold in the whipped cream.
5. Pour half of the mixture over the Twinkies and spread.
6. Make another layer of Twinkies and add the rest of the coffee.
7. Combine 10 drops of food coloring to the rest of the cream, you want it to be Twinkie colored.
8. Spread the rest of the cream over the top of the Twinkies.
9. Crumble the vanilla wafers and add them to the top. 
10. Cover and refrigerate overnight before serving.

Calories 482   Calories from Fat 301

Total Fat 33.4g

Saturated Fat 20.4g

Trans Fat 0.0g

Cholesterol 116mg

Sodium 419mg

Total Carbohydrates 41.5g

Sugars 28.6g

Protein 6.1g