Homemade pizza – it ain’t hard! December 31, 2007

It’s Pizza Time! And this is what The BF cleaned up after!

(My tomatoes moved when I slid this onto the grill – dang it!)

Seriously, this is easy, and so good! You can vary the ingredients to what you like.

This makes a slightly chewy crust, and if made to the 14” size it’s medium thick. Do it in a pan for soft crust, on a stone fro crispier. You can press this into cake pans for “pan pizza” or roll it very thin for a thin and crispy crust.

It’s AWESOME on the grill!

Crust:
2 tsp (1 package) yeast
1 C warm water
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 TBS olive oil
2 ½ C flour (plus a bit extra)

Dissolve the yeast in the water, stir in 1 C of flour, sugar, salt and oil till it forms a very wet, soft dough. Slowly stir in another 1 C of flour. Mix with your hands to add the remaining ½ C (or more) flour, and knead lightly (I do it right in the bowl) till the dough is soft and not sticky. Cover and refrigerate at least an hour, or up to over night. Punch down before you use.

Sauce:
2 cans diced tomatoes
2 TBS minced garlic
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp Garlic Herb Blend (the one I use is from the health food store – similar to Mrs. Dash)
1 tsp basil
Salt and pepper to taste (I like to add crushed red pepper as well)

Put it all in a saucepan, bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and cook until the liquid has reduced and it’s thickened a bit. It takes about 20 – 30 minutes.

This sauce could use another few minutes of simmering:

When you’re ready to make your pizza, preheat your oven to 450, or heat up a stone on your grill set at low.

Press, roll or toss your dough out to a 14” circle. If you are baking in a pan, you can press it right into the pan. If you are using a stone – dust a peel (or rimless cookie sheet) with LOTS of flour and lay the crust on it.

Drizzle the crust with olive oil then spoon on the sauce, spreading it out to almost the very edges.

Add a thin layer of cheese (I used deli sliced skim Mozzeralla, sliced super thin). Then a layer of pepperoni, then a layer of cheese, then mushrooms, then cheese.

Here’s the sauce, cheese, pepperoni, cheese layer:

Top with sliced tomatoes (squeeze slightly to remove seeds and excess moisture), minced garlic and fresh grated Parmesan cheese.

Ready for the grill!

Place pan in oven, or slide onto stone on low grill, close the lid and bake for about 20 minutes.

You can freeze the dough once you have it pressed out, and then you have crusts ready to go in your freezer. If you’re baking on a grill, let it thaw a bit before using, but in your oven, just top and bake. It may take a bit longer when frozen.

The way I made it, it came out with just the right amount of cheese for us – if you like super cheesey ‘za, add two layers of cheese between each topping layer.

A man in the kitchen! December 31, 2007

Alright, so I’m easily amused…

Or maybe it’s that I’m easily pleased…

After living with the guy for over a year, you’d think I’d be used to it by now…

But I’m not…

I spent too many years doing it all – working, handling all the cooking, cleaning, etc, etc, etc…

I still just can’t get used to a guy who does this stuff – and without being nagged, or even asked…

Now, how can I possibly resist a guy who comes into my kitchen after I’ve made dinner, puts the leftovers away, cleans up the mess, then makes lunches for both of us, and cleans up the mess from that as well? Huh? You tell me…

The Work Files – Where is my desk? December 26, 2007

Once again, I am left to wonder…

Witness – the usual state of my desk. There are the usual items of a cluttered in basket, notepad, sticky note reminders and other evidence of work in progress.

Witness my desk on a recent workday when a pile of stuff to get shipped out got dumped upon me.

I love my job!
‘Nuff said.

A lump of coal…and a warm hearth December 20, 2007

Ever had someone threaten to give you that in your stocking? Or perhaps you’ve threatened to give it instead. That’s what my grandparents used to tell us Santa would bring for naughty little boys and girls – nothing but a great, ugly lump of coal.

It had special meaning to us. To most kids, the image of a lump of coal might bring vague pictures of coalmines, maybe the cinders of a train yard (depending upon what part of the country they’re from) and the most readily available image is a charcoal briquette. But we knew differently.

You see, sitting on the hearth, year in and year out, was a large chunk of anthracite coal. I don’t mean a kernel, or even a pebble. I mean a chunk about the size of your head – sitting there with sharp tool marks still evident.

Why my grandmother kept it, I have no idea. Certainly, she had no soft spot for the West Virginian coalmining towns of her youth. Or maybe she did. Maybe it was a reminder of how far she’d come, or from what humble beginnings. Or maybe there was a shred of nostalgia for simpler, more innocent times. I’ll never know, and I don’t suspect she ever really told anyone why that chunk sat on the hearth, year in and year out.

That very same chunk of coal now sits on my hearth, and there it shall stay.

Why do I keep it? I don’t really know.

Perhaps it’s a reminder of childhood pleasures – propping my feet on the hearth. Maybe it’s a link to a family I know very little about beyond the last few generations, though I know it includes those who genuinely define the term “hillbillies.”

That chunk of coal sits on my hearth, just as it sat on my grandparent’s. But there is something different. These days, that chunk has a couple of companions. Sitting on top of it are two brass crickets, they were my mother’s. And if you look closely, you can just see those crickets behind The Boy’s head.

Mom had them for years, they usually sat on our hearth, and when we didn’t have a fireplace, they sat in amongst some of her plants.

For her, crickets in the home were symbols of good luck. I often wondered if she had ever read Dickens’ “The Cricket On The Hearth”, but figured she probably hadn’t. No, they were just one of those things Mom liked, and in her quirky way, they were part of her.

Sometimes, the crickets sat by themselves. Other times, they were hovered over by a pair of brass cranes looking for all the world as if they were about to swoop down and gobble up the crickets. Another example of Mom’s rather odd sense of humor. I arranged them that way at first, only to discover that arrangement somewhat disturbed my kids – I guess they aren’t quite as twisted as their grandma was. So, in our home, the crickets found a new resting place – atop the chunk of coal.

The cricket on the hearth December 20, 2007