"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived."
-Jean Luc Picard

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

B-I-N-G-O!

Those talented snarksters over at Food Network Humor have brought us Food Network Bingo! This deserves a whoot, so everybody stand up, hipcheck your oven door, and yell Whoot! while trying not to spill your drink.



Feel free to click the picture to enlarge it if necessary.

Pizza and breadsticks, part II

My regular readers know that I recently made some pizza with minced garlic in the crust to see if the garlic would retard the rising of the yeast. Here's part II of this fascinating series. Take a chug of vodka and yell Whoot!

Oh, sorry... wrong series there! Earlier this week, I did see that episode of SHCWSL where Sandra looks deep INto the camera and says "Baking is my absolute specialty"which had me giggling like a five year old at the absurdity of that woman. If baking is her specialty then I'm a ninja!

*Composes self and attempts to look very serious*

Okay, well I decided to try making pizza again and not delete the pictures with my itchy trigger finger. I'm using Rosie Hawthorne's pizza crust recipe for this experiment in case anybody wants to try this at home.

I'm using my bread machine to make the dough here. INto your bread pan, place the following in whatever order your machine specifies:
1 egg
1 packet yeast ( or 2 1/4 tsps if you buy yours in bulk)
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup water
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 cup bread flour
****1/2 Tablespoon garlic powder **** Hairball's addition

Set your bread machine to the dough setting, turn it on, and watch it knead for a few minutes.Then add in more bread flour a Tablespoon at a time till a nice dough forms that the three bears would love. (Not too wet, not too dry, just right.) Let your machine go through the dough cycle.


This is during the rise, about ten minutes before the cycle is over.




Once the dough cycle has finished, remove the dough and pour a little olive oil on your pan and plunk your dough on your pan. Do you like a thin crust or a thicker one? If you like thin then cut your dough in half and follow Rosie's directions for thin crust pizza with bread sticks and if you like thicker crust then omit the bread sticks while following her directions.



I browned some fresh Mexican chorizo. Okay, some of you are saying you've never seen chorizo that looks like the above picture. Homesick Texan has a great post about making your own fresh Mexican chorizo if you are interested. Dr.Bacon also sells it frozen and we got some of his to try once we eat up what I still have in the freezer from the grocery store.





I baked the pizza just until it got a little color, (especially on that left side! LOL) and then pulled it out to do my toppings. I made my pizza sauce from a can of tomato paste and mixed in some olive oil, salt, and pepper. Next, I nuked some pepperoni for 40 seconds like Rosie recommends.( It really does help reduce the grease on your pizza! )I used a semi-ho bag of grated mozzarella and some Parmesan that I buzzed up in the food processor earlier. Then I put the pepperoni and browned chorizo on top and slid the pizza into the oven as per Rosie's instructions. Watch it more carefully than I did though as mine got a bit toasty on the edges! It looks like the chorizo burned on the top but that was actually okay it just looks funny in this picture.



For the bread sticks, I followed Rosie's instructions except that my dough already had olive oil on it so I didn't use any butter on them before sprinkling on some of the Parmesan. Next time I'll do the butter. If you like your bread sticks on the salty side, you may want to put a little salt on top before baking them.

Once again, the garlic didn't seem to retard the yeast. Just how much garlic does it take?!?

Happy Birthday D !!! Whoot!!!


Celebration - Kool and the Gang










Last scene starts at 6:00.








I hope you don't receive any Sandra Lee creations for your birthday!! LOL