Pizza Fail

It started innocently enough. I wanted pizza. I've seen several cooking shows making pizza before and figured I'd give it a shot. Then I got nervous about it and gave up the idea. That was a few years back. Being without takeout means being without pizza.  This was starting to get to me but making pizza at home still seemed like a daunting task. Until I was watching my Saturday cooking shows and watched a relatively easy and painless way to make pizza. It was on Delicious TV's Totally Vegetarian which is aired on PBS. The host used store bought dough. I could do that. She used a pizza stone and no other fancy dodads. I could do that too. She shaped the dough on a floured surface then took it to the pizza stone to finish shaping it and to top it. Why, that looks pretty simple! I'm not scared of pizza anymore! I just need to get a pizza stone, no biggie. Went and bought said pizza stone ($17 at Crate and Barrel Outlet, score). Also bought two different premade pizza doughs, whole wheat from Trader Joe's and regular from The Pasta Shop ( a great store in Berkeley).  I waited about a day or so and decided I was ready to make pizzas. Note the plural, I was so sure it was going to be so easy, I planned on making one for me *and* one for Brian. I'd be a pizza making fool.

Here is the pizza stone heating up in the super hot 500 degree oven. Heated it up for one hour.

All the ingredients for the pizzas

The first pizza. I can live with it not looking pizza-y, i.e. round but this....NO. I was fighting with the dough to make it stay in any shape and not snap back. I let it rest a few minutes in between tries but it just never stretched out and stayed that way. Or it would keep getting thin spots which turned into holes. On the show I watched that inspired me, the host said holes are no biggie. Just fix them. I tried pinching the dough together where the holes were, but that didn't work. So how the hell do you fix the hole? I gave up and this was the result. Tasted ok, but needed more toppings. Of course, there was not enough room on it for more toppings. 

Here we have the second try. I half heartedly shaped the dough onto a pizza pan. I had more success at making it round and getting it to stretch.  But I was convinced this second try wouldn't work so I didn't oil the pan first. So when it came out, it was pretty stuck to the pan and had to be pried off. 

Here we have the remnants of what we tried to eat. We got about 4 actual slices pried off the pan and the rest we picked off and ate the toppings. The whole wheat dough wasn't very tasty anyway.

I was very upset but after that initial shock I consulted some cookbooks and blogs to figure out how to do it better next time.

• Make my own dough
• Buy a pizza peel even though I feel goofy having one in my amateur kitchen
• Let the dough rest appropriately
• If I use a pan/baking sheet, for the love of God, oil it first so the pizza comes off
  

When this next time will be, I don't know. Any pizza tips are greatly appreciated. I'm still seriously wanting pizza. It has turned out to be the takeout thing I miss most. I will conquer pizza. And you'll be sure to know about because you might hear a joyous cry coming from the West. 

I've been cooking away...

but haven't had a chance to post anything! I will tell you all about my pizza disaster soon. 

p.s. Don't read food blogs when you are hungry at 2 am :) 

40 days without take-out

Or how I'm (trying) to spend Lent. Being Catholic, it is always a challenge to try to come up with something to give up for Lent every year. It is almost always a food thing. In the past few years I've given up donuts, pizza, ice cream, burgers and candy. All were pretty tough. This year I decided to give up take-out. Why? Well, we have take-out at least 2 times a week, sometimes up to 5 times a week. I really do like to cook, it's the clean up I hate. And sometimes the time it takes to cook. Most times when Brian gets home from work in the evening, it is easiest to go pick up something or have something delivered. Manly Mexican or pizza. In an effort to cook more often and get out of the house more often (I am somewhat of a homebody), I decided on take-out. I knew it would be no easy task. It's about 2 weeks into Lent and I am doing alright. I still haven't cooked a whole lot, though. We have gotten frozen pizza for dinner a few times and drive thru junk food. In my rules, that does not count as take-out. I have my own rules about being Catholic and bending them around Lent is no exception. But that's another post. Back to Lent. I started out with good intentions though. I made dinner on Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Here is some proof that I actually cook sometimes.

I made Baked Ravioli from the Everyday Food Great Food Fast cookbook. Recipe can be found here: 
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/baked-ravioli














It was pretty tasty. I was surprised that the sauce was so flavorful without many ingredients. I've made sauces before but I usually add a lot more things. Now I know I don't need to add so much! A few changes I would make for next time: Add one more package of ravioli or find bigger ravioli. There was just too much sauce for the amount of pasta. Also, I would check on it about 5 minutes before the end of the suggested baking time. I checked only about 2 minutes before and it was already very browned. One or two more minutes and it would have burned. And I think it would still be good with jarred pasta sauce, in case you are short on time.