Pizza Night

One of my favorite memories from childhood is my dad making pizza dough on Friday nights.  The tradition started with English Muffin pizzas and evolved into my dad making dough from scratch.  Bless his heart, my dad pick my brother and I up after work, we'd make a run to the grocery store and then head to his place where he'd make the dough for the pizza crusts.  After all the hubbub with the rising and the punching of the dough, it would be split into equal portions so we could all make our own favorite.  Pepperoni, sausage, peppers, olives, ham, cheese, thin crust, thick crust, calzone, pizza bites... Whatever you're heart desired. 

This past Friday, the tradition lived on.  The introduction of a bread maker with a dough setting has has simplified everything.  I've had my bread maker for probably 6 years, and admittedly, it may be on it's last leg.  It has been banished to the garage when running because it makes some pretty horrific screeching noises. 

We've had some flubs the pizzas in the past, but with a little research and the proper tools our pizzas have been turning out pretty amazing.  We've found that a super hot oven + pizza stone + pizza peel + corn meal = crispy crust and bubbly brown cheese.  A little olive oil around the crust before topping doesn't hurt much either.

Friday was actually no exception to the flubs.  Apparently, after all these years, I still can't read the darn dough recipe and I added 1 Tablespoon of yeast rather than the 1 Teaspoon that it called for.  Sigh.  Once I realized what I had done I fished out as much as I could and left what looked like the correct amount and went on my merry way.   I meant to take photos of the process but I got side tracked. We did manage to get a few shots of the finished product...

His - pepperoni and mushroom

Hers - pepperoni and green olive

 

 

To me, heaven is a greasy, cheesy, golden brown pizza.  Mmmm... gooey pizza.  I salivate.

What is your favorite pizza combination?

Pretty Picnic

Last night I went to Cary's Koko Booth Amphitheater with some girlfriends to see Pretty in Pink.  Our plan was to pack our own picnic dinners and enjoy a little girl time in the ridiculously hot but beautiful weather.  Now, when I think picnic I think wine, cheeses, crusty breads and fruit.  I don't know why.  That's not what picnics were when I was growing up, but now that I'm an adult I think I've romanticized the idea of a picnic.  So, this was the spread last night

None too shabby, if I must say so myself. See that sammich by the polka-dot water bottle?  Yep, that's a mundane turkey sammich.  Let's hope things like that don't appear on this blog often.

Dinner tonight is homemade pizza.  What's on your menu?

Strawberry Rhubarb Shortcake

There are times when Eron and I kill in the kitchen and Sunday night was no exception. We started the night off right with Filet Mignon with a blue cheese, sage, butter sauce and baked potatoes. I won't lie, it was amazing, but dessert was what brought it over the top.

I have these moments when I really want to be Suzie Homemaker, it's usually when I'm fighting the urge to be Suzie Homemaker. My thought process goes something like this - Oh. I'm home alone and there are a million chores to do? Laundry, vacuuming, dishes... I don't want to do those! I'll bake something instead!! ...This is how I ended up making chocolate chip cookies one weekend and bacon cheddar biscuits the next. Yes. I said bacon cheddar biscuits. You should make them. Use salted butter. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Sunday, as the laundry was sitting in a heap and dishes were piled in the sink, I got it into my head that I wanted to make an amazing dessert. It honestly started with an inkling of an idea that I needed to run to the store to pick up a pound cake or something, because we had strawberries that I didn't want to go bad. But then I thought, what the heck, I'll just make something. Strawberry and Rhubarb Shortcake with homemade whipped cream, anyone? That's what I thought.  So instead of picking up just pound cake, I pick up rhubarb, whipping cream, half and half and a handful of other necessities.

I went with this for the strawberries and rhubarb:
Strawberry rhubarb shortcake
This for the shortcakes:
Individual Strawberry Shortcakes
and this for the whipped cream:
Whipped Cream

I've never worked with rhubarb before and I was under the assumption that I could cut it up, toss it with some sugar, let it sit and call it a night. Wrong. Turns out that it needs to be cooked.  While the process scared the crap outta me, it was pretty simple.  Rhubarb, sugar, lemon and cinnamon.  Done.  I did opt not to cook the strawberries, cooked strawberries don't appeal to me.  And I was hoping for a nice contrast of texture between the now, jam like rhubarb and the fresh strawberries.  Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I think it turned out pretty darn well.