Homemade Pizza Saves the Day

 

I used to make pizza for 5 every Saturday night because that’s what everyone wanted.  Then half the family got old enough to drive and preferred to hang out with friends.  So I stopped making it since just 2 of us were eating it.

Flash forward a few years.

Crisis: My Oven Won’t Heat Up

It was a quiet Sunday night, and I was doing what I often do at the end of the week—heating up a store-bought croissant in my oven.  If I can get it hot enough, I’ve found that an American croissant tastes remotely like a croissant straight from a Paris bakery.

Best Use of Your Time in the Kitchen

Mississippi Mud Pie

Some days I feel like spending hours cooking. It allows me to not think about other things.  Other days I can barely force myself to get a meal on the table.  So I have developed some tricks to keep us from going hungry.

1) Examine what’s in the freezer. Is there a main dish in there, hiding behind the ice cubes?  Sometimes there actually is.  It could be a leftover or an actual main dish, deliberately prepared and frozen when I was in the mood to cook.

Question for Mom

Onion Quiche

A lot of recipes say to preheat the oven before putting food in to cook.  Are there any dishes you can bake without preheating?  --Amy V.

When you’re baking cakes, pies, cookies, quiches, bagels or anything made with yeast, pre-heating the oven is very important.  Just a few days ago I put my pizza stone in the oven but forgot to turn on the heat.  When I was about to slide my homemade pizza onto the stone, I suddenly realized my mistake. 

So the uncooked pizza sat on the counter on the pizza paddle until

Cornmeal: What Is It and How Do I Use It?

If you’ve ever eaten cornbread, you’ve eaten cornmeal.  Cornmeal is simply ground corn, available in three sizes: fine, medium and coarse.  It’s normally not ground as fine as flour and thus is not a substitute for flour.  It’s more like an addition.

A New Use for Mozzarella String Cheese

Looking back I think my first mouthful of mozzarella cheese came from pizza.  Then I was introduced to lasagna and other Italian dishes that featured this somewhat bland cheese. 

Mozzarella string cheese recently entered my life when a nutritionist recommended it as a snack.

Just How Popular Is Pizza?

Blaze Build-It-Yourself Pizza

I have been a pizza fan since I had my first bite in high school.  That was so long ago that frozen pizza and pizza rolls had yet to be invented. 

My small town had only one pizzeria, and it served pizza in rectangular shapes, not the triangles we usually eat today.

When I moved to New York, I discovered what was then called Sicilian Pizza, aka deep-dish pizza or Chicago-style pizza.  I loved every serving.  And then I moved to London, where pizza tasted like cardboard and was often topped with watercress.  

Do You Love Garlic?

There was a time when the only kind of garlic available to cooks was a head of fresh garlic.  Garlic presses flourished.

Mom Cooking Tip 142

Pizza Dough with Oregano and Minced Dried Onions Added

Want to impress your friends and family with your cooking prowess?  Here’s an easy trick.  If you’re making a pie crust or pizza dough, add chopped fresh or dried basil, oregano, dill, celery seeds, chopped garlic, zatar or minced dried onions to the dough as you are mixing it.  Add 1/2 teaspoon per pizza or pie crust for extra flavor.

                                                           See all my Cooking Tips!

Use at Least 1 Exotic Ingredient in Every Recipe

Thai Chicken Pizza

Here’s an idea to make dinnertime a little jazzier.  Add at least one exotic ingredient to whatever you’re cooking.  It could be a new spice you want to try or an unusual vegetable.  Maybe substitute peanut oil for canola oil. That will definitely change the favor of the dish.

If you don’t like the end result, add another exotic ingredient to counteract the first one.  Or add water or broth and turn the dish into a soup.  Throw in a handful of noodles or possibly a drained can of corn or beans.

Mom’s Basic Bootcamp: Pizza Dough

I have been making pizza for so many years that I could probably create the dough in my sleep.  In fact, I’ve written about pizza before because I love it so much.

Making pizza dough is a simple procedure, although there are many ways for something to go wrong.  I’ve stumbled through all of them.

The worst was forgetting to add salt.  You wouldn’t think a little bit of salt would make a difference, but you could really taste its absence.  My second worst mistake was adding too much salt, which made the crust nearly inedible.

Can I Leave This Ingredient Out?

Mushroom, Onion and Pepperoni Pizza

Occasionally an hour before dinnertime I get cooking question calls from family members and friends.  Often it involves a missing ingredient, and the question goes something like this: “I’m in the middle of making pizza dough and just realized the recipe calls for 1/2 cup cornmeal.  Do I need to stop what I’m doing and rush to the store to get some?”

We Need a New Food Group

“If I have to eat another piece of broiled fish, I’ll scream.”  So announced my life-long friend, whose dinner plans now revolve around her husband’s diet. 

I know the feeling.  My husband wants the same thing for lunch every day—a tortilla filled with black beans, melted cheese, hummus, salsa and hot sauce.  On the bright side that’s one less meal I have to think about, but I don’t want to eat that day after day.

I’m hoping someone will discover a new food group, something totally different from the usual options.

Mom Money-Saving Tip 15

Do you frequently make your own pizza? Instead of paying for bottled pizza sauce, spend much less on an 8-ounce can of tomato sauce. Mix in a few tablespoons water, 1 teaspoon chopped garlic (or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder), 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, 1/2 teaspoon onion powder and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Stir and use.  Penzeys makes its own Pizza Seasoning(ingredients undisclosed).

See all my Money-Saving Tips!