Last Night I Made My Dog a Pizza

Last night as I snapped this photo I thought "Success!" There were oohs and aahs from my family as they eagerly awaited their slices of fresh from the oven pizza. As I served it up I was having a nice little internal dialogue, "WOW Self you are so amazing! Why don't we make all our pizza from scratch Self? We can just toss those stupid pizza coupons away and take that phone number right out of speed dial." And then the universe corrected itself and things went back to normal. You know how you see guys toss pizza dough? How it flies up and flips back on itself. Well, I did that. Only I did it w/my perfectly baked pizza. I don't know how, one minute I was slicing the next I was dodging flying pizza. Not only did it land upside down, it came down on top of my flip-flop clad foot! I put the "suc" in Success.  It wasn't a total loss, Wally seemed to enjoy it.

Finally used my individual Soufle dishes!

These mini pot pies were works of art.
Unfortunately, I was also trying to watch Project Runway and text message while I put them together. So, I skipped a step. The seasoning!
But they were lovely.

Fancy Schmancy Eggs

 Potato, zuchini & carrot pancake "nests"

How did I live before?

I’m a maniac w/my new garlic press. I love this thing!

I felt like a cooking loser

Martha Stewart has a mandated kitchen essentials list my fellow Martha acolyte and I reviewed when I first cracked open Martha Stewart’s Cooking School.It's a list of things I have never used, heard of or left behind w/What's His Face when I came to my senses. He may have gotten my juicer and crepe pans but I got This instead. I definitely win.

My friend has just moved and come across a few things on my list that she has extras of. How lucky is that? A friend w/an extra garlic press, ground ginger and a wok just lying around? It’s kismet. Or enabling. Either way it’s seems the stars are lining up in my cooking favor.

I'll probably wok something w/crushed garlic and ground ginger!

Maybe I’m French

I think I’m adopted. I seem to be obsessed w/cheese.I  must have bought 5 different kinds. Dad kept mocking me , "Gorgonzola, get the Gorgonzola!". He's not really on board with the pretentious cheese yet. When I got home I could not find the recipes for this week’s menu. They are MIA. I’ll probably find them in my tool box or the freezer. WHO KNOWS?!
So, there I was w/ingredients for God knows what. I just started cooking, throwing things in a skillet. I made a nice ragout w/ground turkey and tossed in some veggies and pasta. Basically, I made Hamburger Helper from scratch. Great.

This week:Minestrone!

Made a few substitutions, used Peruvian beans which no one has ever heard of but we make all the time in our crock pot. My Dad is so cute, he sifts through the beans by hand looking for rocks and uses a little wash cloth to clean the “dirty ones” before he washes them and throws them in the crock pot. This recipe calls for every veggie you can think of and a bunch I’ve never used. Things like Tuscan kale, savoy cabbage and leeks. What do they do to their Kale in Tuscany, poor chianti on it? I’m a potato and carrots girl. I’ve only recently discovered the shallot. We went to farmer’s market and my Dad kept saying “are you going to cook all this? We still have zucchini”.

I made the vegetable stock first, following the recipe exactly. That has NEVER happened before! Next I made the sofrito, which sounds fancy but is pretty much just all the stuff in the stock w/out the water. It smelled amazing. I impressed my niece w/ my newly honed leek cleaning abilities and by pretending I’d heard of Tuscan Kale. There was a LOT of chopping, dicing and simmering. This soup took a long time to put together but was completely worth it served up w/cheese and garlic bread. I’m a total Martha.