Kale and BBQ

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Andrea

I had a Super Bowl snacks post all ready to be published and then the server hosting my blog crashed.

It apparently crashed hard because it was down for a couple of days. My website and my email was out of commission. If you emailed me and it bounced, I apologize. Please resend it!

Clearly my blog is back up at this point and by now I don’t want to talk Super Bowl snacks because pizza is more important.

Scott fixed my oven this week and replaced the heating coil. Looking at the old coil, the coating just didn’t burn off, the coil burnt right in half.

Yikes! Check it out.

It seemed fitting that since this coil gave up the ghost as I was reheating pizza, that the new coil got broken in heating up pizza.

I have to say that this new coil is amazing. It heated up my oven with the pizza stone to 425 in about 15 minutes. Possibly shorter time frame as I was working on our half bath at the time. It’s super hot and works so well!

Burnt Out

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Andrea

Last Friday, as I was heating up some leftover pizza, I noticed some sizzling and then a bright spot in my oven.

Um.

I opened the door to find smoke and a small fire taking place in the left front corner. Crap! I gave it a sec to see if it would burn out (In case it was food related) but it kept getting worse so I shut the oven off and pulled out the pizza (Save the food!).

After the heating coil cooled for a bit I realized what had happened and not only was I flummoxed but also annoyed. It seems that the coating on the heating coil decided to just melt off leaving a section of the coil exposed. The exposed coil reacted with the remaining coating causing it to spark and then catch fire.

Ugh.

So my oven is out of commission. Thankfully I have a double oven, the bottom half being a smaller oven drawer. It’s not large enough to roast a chicken or anything, but I can roast veggies in it just fine. Or, you know, heat up pizza.

Beer ‘N Eggs

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Andrea

This week has seen a lot of progress! Most importantly we have completed one of two of the wallpaper rooms. Hooray! Our laundry room is now finished and my washer and dryer no longer reside in my entryway.

For someone who likes organization, that’s the one part of home renos that drive me bonkers. The disarray!

The half bath will get completed this weekend, oh yes, yes it will. Because I am over wallpaper.

I decided to experiment a little with pizza this week. Remember last week when I used a bit of beer in the dough? This week I used all beer in the dough and I’m pretty pleased with the results.

Unfortunately the beer I used was cold and I had to warm it up so that I could add yeast to it. I think this most definitely effected the rise action and stunted it a little bit. The dough still rose and acted beautifully, it just didn’t rise as much as I would have liked.

Let It Rip

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Andrea

This week has been a busy one here at the HQ, more cleanup projects! Mostly still dealing with wallpaper removal. Yesterday I got started on the half-bath and that removal went s.l.o.w. Oh man! I think because the laundry room probably got warm from doing years of laundry, that helped loosen up the paper a bit. The half-bath, not so much.

I had to start with just removing the top layer first and will then have to remove the glue at another time. I worked on that bathroom for just over five hours. After his work day ended, Scott helped me and we were able to knock out three of four walls.

To give you an idea of how tight this paper was on, we had to use razors to help loosen it. OY!

This weekend you know it will be all about more removal and painting!

So by the end of the day, this lady was ready for some pizza. And beer.

Tucking Away

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Andrea

It was nice to see pizza on the menu again this week as it’s been a while since I’ve made some. The week before Christmas we had pizza out and then the week between Christmas and New Years we did not have pizza because we were munching on other stuff.

I was looking forward to pizza all week! Our pizzas aren’t ever anything super special but they’re tasty to us. Plus it provides comfort. It’s a nice thing to have to look forward to during a week.

Especially a week back to work coming off a two week vacation.

Another thing I’m looking forward to this week is putting away the Christmas decorations. They’ll be tucked away for another year.

Normally I keep them up for a while because I love having twinkle lights up all over my house. Turning them on in the evening makes the house feel cozy and inviting. This year I’m ready for everything to be put away and for things to be cleaned up.

Flecks of Green

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Andrea

Yesterday was a doozy of a day that left me drained and sacked out on the couch by 4pm. All related to the fact my sleep schedule got gorked.

For multiple reasons I was up at 4:30am yesterday morning. That’s early and way too early for my body to comfortably handle. Regardless I had to plow on with my day.

One stop was out to the salon for a trim. The best part about going to a salon is that it is completely acceptable to go walking in looking like a hobo. I appreciate this more than you can imagine. A place where I can wear fuzzy socks and elastic-waist pants?

I am all over it.

But by 4pm that early morning rise was catching up to me and my brain was so fogged that thinking and creating sentences that actually made sense was challenging. The couch and Law and Order was needed. I snugged with the boxer while the pizza stone heated up and got super hot.

Minimalist

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Andrea

Pizza Thursday is still going strong over here at the HQ. It’s become a nice little weekly tradtion for us. It signals that we’re getting close to the end of the week and that the weekend is within viewing range.

For pizza this week, I wanted to keep things simple. I think this is the least amount of ingredients I’ve put on a pizza. Usually I like to load it up with all kinds of stuff but this week it was all about minimal ingredients but great flavor.

I kind of feel like that’s how I’m approaching the holidays this year. Simple and minimalist with the focus being more on the celebration and the moment instead of all the “stuff”.

Yes I still decorated and got out all my trees but I didn’t put out all of my decorations. In fact a good many of them got packed back up and stored away until after Christmas. When Scott was returning everything to the basement he kept asking me, “And this too? And these over here?” ”Yes, all of that stuff can go back.”

Go Green

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Andrea

Lately I cannot get enough of greens. To be more specific, I don’t mean salads though I’ve been eating those as well. By greens, I mean kale, collards, and whatever else you decide to throw at me.

Okay maybe not dandelion.

Leafy greens and I have been best friends this fall and I see a long future for us this winter.

Earlier in the week Scott and I went out to dinner for restaurant week, and the place we picked happened to serve collard greens. Guess who got a huge side of it as part of her meal?

I brought home the leftovers and when I was thinking about pizza for this week, I knew that I wanted to utilize the greens on my pizza. I’ve used spinach on pizza plenty of times and I’ve also used kale, so why not collards?

I also wanted a very crispy thin crust as well. Not my norm at all! Greens and thin crust it was!

Hockey and Pizza

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Andrea

After most of the week focusing on leftovers and quick meals, it was nice to spend some time in the kitchen and create something new.

Again I turned to the familiar and comforting for this week’s pizza. I don’t know about you but when I am hyper focused on something and then it’s over, I need down time.

I can’t move from one project to the next, my brain and attention needs a break.

Yesterday was my break and it was a fantastic break day. It was cold, rainy, and gloomy all day long. Perfect for staying inside and catching up on things around the house.

One of the things that I could focus on for long stretches yesterday was that we were going to have pizza. Well, let me be more specific. I was looking forward to sitting on the couch, eating pizza, and watching hockey. Following that up with a glass of wine.

I kept things simple for yesterday’s pie.

Cornmeal Deep Dish Pizza

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Andrea

Last week for Pizza Thursday I went all out and created something completely new.

New crust, new sauce, and new cooking method.

Experimenting time!

The results were interesting and a little surprising.

I had some greens that needed used up and everything just snowballed from there.

I decided I was going to create deep dish style pizzas using a cornmeal crust.

One pizza was going to have a butternut squash puree as the “sauce” and the other was going to have a BBQ and tomato base.

The cheese and toppings would all be the same with the addition of local bacon to the BBQ one.

I got out my cast iron skillets (Note to ~~self~~ Scott: We need more cast iron.) and greased those with a bit of butter.

I used my basic pizza dough recipe as a guide to create the cornmeal crust. The changes were:

1 1/2C Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2C Cornmeal

Everything else, yeast amount and water was the same. I did notice that this crust needed a little more AP flour, about 1/4C more to make it easier to handle.

Read more on Cornmeal Deep Dish Pizza…