Saturday, January 19, 2008

Everyday Life 30 :: 13 Our Pizzeria is Open!

Technically this post is more accurately a reflection of things that do not happen Everyday. We do not make pizza or coffee Everyday. And I certainly do not meticulously rip-out quilting that is too wonky... more on this in a moment.


With dough from Trader Joe's, a great deal of enthusiasm, and some naivete, we launched our home pizzeria enterprise. Don't expect a public debut for a time. We still have some kinks to work out. Ah, but we had fun. Lots and lots of fun.

First, I created a playlist on iTunes, so we could set a Euro-Italian-Slow Food-Mood. Think... "O Mio Babbino Caro," "Buono Sera," Tino Rossi, Louis Prima, Vivaldi. With our pizza tunes playing we rolled up our sleeves, washed our hands, and began slicing and dicing. Everyone made their own creation. Well, Geoff came too late to make his own and Maria was still too drowsy from her late nap.


Alex's pizza was a deep dish pie with cheese, sauce, pepperoni and pineapples all layered between the divided dough. He added a face to the top. It was deeply delicious.


William's pizza was more traditional. I must commend his patience with the stretch and retract dough, which is hard to work with. I did call Anna Banana at this point... they know pizza at her house, and I got some helpful suggestions and some new ideas and news about UU events in Florida... ooops! Back to the kitchen! LOL... So, William's pizza had basil and sauce, extra garlic, spicy Italian chicken sausage, cheese and pepperoni. It came out scrumptious! Trader Joe's crust might take some time for us to learn to work with, but the flavor and texture are worth it.


Max wanted an altogether unique pizza experience and he achieved this with his pepperoni surprise, stuffed crust pizza. He kept laying stuff on, then rolling and pounding the edges to hide all the saucy-cheesy-pepperoni goodness. It came out round and perfect, just like he worked for, and it tasted just to his liking. Another good cook.


My pizza came out of the oven first, and it sustained and inspired us. We kept sampling it as we cooked the rest. Mmmm it was good. It was a plain crust smothered in chopped garlic, tomatoes, zucchini, basil, onions, crushed peppers, and a little cheese... really just a small handful... oh, I really should write this one down. Oh, the wine was tasty too.


Slowly rousing from her evening nap, Maria took her veggie pizza in her tent, her castle, her personal space. Sweet are the luxuries of youth.


Behold: I make the worst coffee ever. I threw out the first pot and tried again, and the second was only half as bad as the first batch, but certainly not worth drinking. Blech. I do not make coffee everyday, or even once a month. At this rate I may never make it again.


I have not gone into any details about this... I have not disclosed the absolutely awesome nature of my Christmas present, but you may be able to guess what I am trying to learn how to master from this picture.

7 comments:

Anna Banana said...

Ciao bella! Did you get your pizza pallette? If so, where? We need a new stone, ours broke! I want 2 stones like you have. Stone envy! Have a great every day day.

nikkipolani said...

So what is the secret to taming the Trader Joe pizza dough? Because now I'm needing some home baked pizza!

Natalie said...

My friend says they ignore the directions that suggest sitting the dough on the counter for 20 minutes.
It was too late for that, so we just tried to be patient and coax the dough into submission... what
they lacked in symmetry, was made up in flavor!
Let me know how it goes... we definitely want to do this again!

I finally found the pallette-peel at William Sonoma. Our stones are old and I don't remember where they came from.

Randi said...

Mmmmmmm, homemade pizza! Looks wonderful!

Shay said...

Your efforts look so yummy. What is it about pizza that inspires such cravings? Is it the cheese?

I wanted/needed to make a one-person pizza Thursday night and found that one lone chicken tender, two tablespoonsful of salsa, a slice of leftover monterey jack, and a pita makes a surprisingly good pizza-like...um...thing. It was dlish and certainly beats my usual emergency rations of a poached egg or crackers and peanut butter.

Another reason, as if I needed it, to keep pita bread on hand.

Mama Spark said...

These look great. Try chicken alfredo pizza sometime. It is one of my favorites!

nikkipolani said...

I got my dough. I got my sauce. Soon as I get some time to cook dinner, I'll let you know how it goes! :-)