Accidental Pizza Tossing 101.

I have no intention of ever tossing pizza dough, because I am far too uncoordinated to do so successfully.  Recently, however, I did accidentally toss a pizza.  An entire pizza, not just the dough. Admittedly, things had gone wrong previous to what I will hereafter refer to as the Incident, but that was when the pizza literally hit the fan (the oven fan).  I decided to check and see if I had enough cornmeal under the pizza and shimmy it around before sliding it onto the pizza stone.  It got stuck in one corner, and I shook a little (OK, a lot) harder than intended.  It went off and upward before falling in a heap on the stone.  I took the stone out of the oven to try to salvage the pizza, but...

Tha' was deliberate.  

I put it in the oven like that anyway, because it was late, and I just couldn't be bothered.  The taste was good, although (for obvious reasons) it didn't bake that evenly.

Now, I could still have avoided the Incident with a few changes to the pizza preparation.

What I did wrong:

1) Patted the dough out too thin.

2) Added too much sauce and too much cheese before the pizza went into the oven, resulting in a pizza too heavy to slide around easily.

3) Decided to first check if the pizza would slide while holding it in the oven.  (<-- This is always a bad idea.  Always.)

So on to the successful pizza.  I made a few modifications to the sauce recipe found here, and I used the crust recipe found here.  For the cheese, I just used mozzarella and Parmesan.

The only change I made to the dough recipe was adding ~1 tbsp each of fresh sage and rosemary (you can also used dried; in general 1 tsp dried herbs = 1 tbsp fresh). You can choose whatever herbs or spices you like, though, or use none at all. 

 Remember that you don't have to use all the flour,
and that room temperature and humidity will affect how much you need.

After pressing/rolling dough, it should stretch but not tear.

For the sauce, I'm not that fond of the texture of tomatoes (I know, I know; homemade pizza without fresh tomatoes? Ridiculous!  But there ya go.), and some reviews said the sauce was too thin, so instead of using a 28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes in juice, I used:

14.5 oz can petite diced tomatoes, in juice

6 oz can tomato paste
8 oz can tomato sauce

I ended up with enough sauce for two pizzas, so I'm freezing the rest of it until needed.  

(The coffee isn't an ingredient. 

It's for my sanity.)

The sauce will thicken while simmering, too.

I stretched the dough slightly and put it on a baking sheet dusted with flour and cornmeal (improvised pizza peel), then assembled the pizza on that while the pizza stone was in the oven preheating.  (A preheated pizza stone will ensure more even baking and a crispier crust, but you can bake on a regular pan as well.  If you're using a pan and not preheating it, you can ignore the next bit!)

After putting the dough on the peel, give it a (not too enthusiastic!) jiggle every so often to make sure the pizza slides around.  If it doesn't, lift gently and toss a bit of extra flour or cornmeal underneath.  To get the pizza off the peel and onto the stone, place the edge of the peel at the back of the stone, wiggling--again, don't do this too roughly, so that you can avert any Incidents--until the edge of the pizza is on the stone.  Then gently pull the peel toward yourself.  

I know this is blurry, but I had to take a picture after doing it successfully,

in case of any other imminent disasters.

I added extra cheese and summer sausage in the middle of baking just because the sausage was already cooked, but you can add your toppings beforehand.  Just remember that loading down a crust before putting it in the oven can make getting it into the oven more difficult.

Because I accidentally preheated the oven to a lower temperature than the dough recipe called for and had to raise it just after putting the pizza in the oven, the dough took a bit longer than the cheese.  But overall, pizza was finally a success:

The finished product!

DEEMS THIS RECIPE:

Easier than pie 

...if you're careful.

Basic(ally) Garlic Cream Sauce.

Truly "traditional" Alfredo sauce is just butter and Parmesan cheese, but I'm partial to the cream-based kind.  So you can imagine my dismay when the first time I wanted to try making Alfredo sauce, my refrigerator had neglected to magically produce heavy cream.  As any perfectly reasonable person living less than ten minutes away from a grocery store would do, I skipped the extra trip and went in search of alternatives in my Great Guide to All Things Food-Related (ahem, the Internet). While it was agreed that using a roux and milk (aka Béchamel) does not a "real" Alfredo sauce make, most reviews of sauces made this way were positive. So I melted butter, added flour, and whisked in milk and cheese. When I was through, it tasted... well, not terrible.  

This.  It tasted like this, OK?

What I did wrong: 

1) Didn't add enough flour or thicken the roux enough.

2) Added too much milk too fast.

3) Left out extra flavor (good butter and cheese is great on its own, but in a sauce, I think something extra is needed?  Like garlic, or you know, even just salt and pepper...)

After a couple tries, though, I got down a basic "cream" sauce that is easy, quick, and can be adapted to various dishes.  

First, let's talk Parmesan.  If you just have prepackaged grated or shredded cheese on hand, you can use it, and it won't have a bad flavor.  But I've found that most prepackaged cheeses lend a gluey, almost chewy texture to the sauce.  A block of good Parmesan cheese is a nice staple to have around, and grating enough for this recipe shouldn't take much time.

Now, on to the other ingredients.  To make enough sauce for 1/2 pound of pasta (feeds ~6 people depending on how hungry everyone is), I use:

1 clove garlic, minced (1/8 tsp garlic powder if you prefer)

3-4 tbsp salted butter*

4-5 heaping tbsp flour

~3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 1/2-2 cups whole milk*

Salt & pepper to taste (roughly 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper for me, but I like pepper)

"How precise!"  You're probably thinking.  As long as you have roughly these amounts, it all comes down to how you add them together.  Depending on how hot your stove top gets, none of these steps should take more than a couple minutes.

1)  Melt the butter in a sauce pan or sauté pan over low/medium-low heat.  I add the garlic just after the butter has melted, but you can add it with the flour, too.

2)  Add about a tablespoon of flour at a time, using a spoon or whisk to stir, until the mixture is thick and clumpy, continuing to stir so the butter doesn't brown. I've found that it takes roughly a tablespoon more flour than butter to get it to this stage. It should all look like the clumps around the whisk in the picture below (I couldn't get a picture of it at the final stage because whisking and picture-taking was more of a challenge than anticipated).

3)  Whisk in milk slooooowwwwly.  I add a splash first, then add about 1/4 cup at a time until the mixture is thick but creamy.  You'll probably have some milk leftover.

4)  Whisk in the cheese.  After whisking in cheese, you can add a bit more milk if the sauce seems too thick or heavy for your liking.  

5) Add salt and pepper to taste, and you're done!  

I like to add a handful of fresh spinach to the sauce at the end and let it wilt slightly, then serve it with pasta, but you can serve it over chicken or use it in any other recipe that calls for cream sauce. 

Or you could just add meat to the pasta and have the best of both worlds.

Italian sausage works very well.

DEEMS THIS RECIPE:
Definitely easier than pie.

*You can use reduced-fat or non-fat ingredients if you prefer it or for whatever reasons cannot eat the full-fat versions.  I do think a higher percentage of milk fat and real butter gives a better texture and richer flavor to the sauce, but others might disagree.  My personal philosophy: a smaller quantity of really good full-fat food > a larger portion of OK lighter food.  It's like chocolate. One square of high-quality chocolate is better than any candy bar.  Except when you just want a Twix. Or multiple squares of really good chocolate.  No judgment here.

An Introduction, or I Will Conquer Fried Chicken.

Growing up in the southern United States, I've eaten my fair share of fried chicken. I've had it at fast food chains, in small local eateries, at large chain restaurants, and at various holes-in-the-wall.  I've had good fried chicken, bad fried chicken, and possibly mediocre, forgettable fried chicken (if so, I've forgotten it already).  I've listened to the "to egg wash or not to egg wash" debates.  I've witnessed people arguing over what constitutes "fried"-- deep fryer?  Cast iron skillet?  Is "oven-fried" heresy?--and what constitutes "Southern fried" in particular-- just flour, salt, and pepper?  Buttermilk?--and not long ago, I decided to experiment.  I decided to make fried chicken.  How hard could it be?

People who make good fried chicken will say it's as easy as pie... if you buy the right chicken, coat it with just the right amount of flour mixture, let the chicken stand for just the right amount of time, and are extremely careful about keeping your oil at a constant temperature.  So, yes, I would agree; it is as easy as pie.

Pie ain't easy.

I'm not saying that making a pie turn out well is necessarily difficult for everyone, but when someone says the word easy, you generally don't think of a process that can take hours, or days if you include chilling dough, to complete (or do you?  I don't.). And it can take multiple tries before you perfect a pie recipe.  If you're like me, the failures make you push harder. I can now make an apple pie I'm not ashamed to let other people eat.  

But I've failed at fried chicken, oh, three, four times?  Each time, I can tell you what went wrong.  And I will, in future posts.  I will also tell you where other recipes went wrong and where they succeeded. Hopefully I can help other unsuspecting cooks not make the same mistakes.  But this is also to help reassure people that mistakes are OK. Expected, even.  Cooking is an adventure full of surprising (and often ridiculous) predicaments.  I started this blog because I'd like to have some company on my adventure.

And because I'm determined that fried chicken will not defeat me.