Avoid the Noid

I admit it. I am a terrible blogger. And going back to work hasn't helped, especially since my job involves lots of writing and staring at a computer screen, so that's kind of the last thing I want to do when I'm not at work. But I'll do my best.

Pizza is my favorite savory food. (I say savory because I think ice cream and cupcakes might have it beat in a favorite food contest.) I could seriously eat it every day. But it has to be GOOD pizza. The frozen, grocery store varieties can sometimes suffice, and I have definitely made pizzas using bagels or English muffins for crusts, but homemade pizza crust it my favorite. Unfortunately, I haven't had much luck with the ones I've tried to make.

A few weeks ago, I made yet another attempt. I have tried no fewer than 10 different recipes and variations on them to try and find pizza dough that was good. When I lived in the US, I used to just buy pizza dough from the grocery store, but they don't have that here in London. Apparently most pizza places will sell you raw dough if you ask, but I've never tried that. I had a couple of recipes I used in the US with my breadmaker, but those weren't that great - the crust always ended up too tough, didn't rise enough, didn't roll/stretch out well, was too yeasty, or just somehow wasn't right. And then I stumbled upon my new favorite cooking blog (seriously, it is my go-to cookbook now), and it had a recipe for pizza dough, as well as a pizza 101 posting that gave me the brilliant tip about warming up the oven and turning it off to reduce the time it takes for the dough to rise.

So I made Smitten's pizza dough (doubled the recipe and used half wholemeal flour) and had pizza dough for two thin crust pizzas. Each was enough to feed 2 hungry people. This is fast food and make-ahead because you can make the dough ahead of time and store it in the fridge. I thought maybe overnight would be all you'd want, since the yeast keeps on working and the dough rises more, but after a look around the internet, I see that apparently you can store it for longer - different sites say anywhere from 3-6 days. Just put the dough in a resealable plastic bag sprayed with cooking spray. You can also freeze it; from what I've read it seems like the best thing to do to preserve the texture is to roll out the dough and par-bake it before freezing.


We chose to top our pizza with an American classic, and my favorite pizza topping combination: pepperoni, mushrooms and mozzarella. Slice the mushrooms very thinly, and with pizza topping, less is more definitely, otherwise you end up with a watery, gooy mess.


I also made my own pizza sauce, but you certainly don't have to. To do this, I sauteed some onions and garlic in olive oil and added jarred pureed tomatoes - what they call passata in the UK (I guess in the US you could use tomato sauce or canned pureed tomatoes, depending on how chunky you want your sauce to be). I let it cook for a while, seasoned as needed, and added chopped fresh basil in at the end. I've also done this with peeled fresh tomatoes, which I think is better, but is more time consuming and requires good tomatoes.


Once your pizza crust is rolled out and topped, pop it in a pre-heated oven (my pizza stone lives with my brother in the US now, so I just put it on parchment paper, sprinkled with cornmeal, on a baking sheet) at HIGH heat and cook for about 10 minutes (but check it often starting at 5 minutes because ovens vary a lot and you don't want it to burn).


Mmmmmm....I want to make this again NOW...

Retro yumminess

No procrastination on those homemade Oreos (a la Smitten Kitchen) that I mentioned in my last post. I could not get these things out of my head, so I decided to make a batch! I even remembered to take pictures for your viewing pleasure this time (although Smitten's are much better than mine...) I even learned something about cocoa powder in the process, and so there will even be a science-y tip for you.
Are Oreos really retro? I certainly think of them that way because I used to gobble them down when I was a kid but haven't really eaten them in years (except for when they are in cookies and cream ice cream). Do kids still eat Oreos? Judging from the paranoia over giving kids processed foods, I wouldn't be surprised if Oreos up and became extinct (unless Nabisco can find a way to make them organic with added wholegrain and no trans-fats), but then again I wouldn't be that surprised if I saw a 7-year-old eating sushi either.

On to the goodies. I followed the recipe more or less exactly as written, so I won't plagiarize it here. My notes/tips are below. Oh, and to answer the burning question, yes, they really do taste like Oreos (but better)!

(1) The recipe calls for 'Dutch Process' cocoa powder. In the US I would likely have just grabbed my can of Hershey's cocoa powder and not thought about it again. However, here in the UK I'm always triple-checking ingredients because, well, things are often just different here in ways you never would have expected. I had a can of Green and Black's cocoa powder but it was almost empty, so I headed to the store and found only the generic brand. When I compared the two cans at home, I discovered that Green and Black's is 100% cocoa powder, while the store-brand is 93% cocoa powder and an acidity regulator (calcium carbonate). Based on my reading of the Joy of Baking's page on this, the store-brand was a neutralized (or at least less acidic) cocoa, and therefore most like Dutch Process. If you read the comments on the Smitten Kitchen post, you'll see that several people noted their cookies were too puffy. I suspect it has to do with the use of non-Dutch Process cocoa, which, along with the baking powder, would also be able to react with the baking soda and create additional rising. In any case, I didn't realize there were important differences in cocoa powders until today.
(2) With just the butter added to the dry ingredients it seemed like the batter would never come together (see note 3 below), but add the egg and Bob's your uncle. (I LOVE this phrase. You should have seen the look on my face when someone said this in my office during my first week in London. I had not a clue what he meant, and everyone thought it was hilarious.)
(3) I think a food processor would have been the smart choice rather than a hand mixer over an open bowl. Our kitchen is coated in a fine layer of cocoa/flour/sugar. Good thing we've got someone coming to clean on Monday!
(4) I went with Smitten's suggestion to cut the sugar to 1 c rather than 1.5 c in the cookie dough and am glad I did. With the filling as cloyingly sweet as it is, I think it would have been way too much if the cookies were any sweeter (and I like cloyingly sweet).
(5) The filling smooshes out of the cookies, making them a bit messy (but delicious) to eat. Also, if you aren't planning to eat all of the cookies within about 24 hours, I would suggest filling them as you eat them (store the filling in the fridge and then warm to room temp), otherwise the cookies get a bit soggy (but they're still good that way too).

Shouldn't you be doing something else?

Procrastination. What's not to like about it? (Except for the feeling that you got nothing done despite the fact that you pulled an all-nighter.)

How did I ever procrastinate before the ubiquitous internet?? Come to think of it, how did I procrastinate before blogs and social networks? Let's see... In college I used to procrastinate by checking email using Pine in the computer lab (only 1 of the 6 roommates had a computer with an ethernet connection in our room), or by watching The X Files and The Simpsons recorded on a worn VHS tape. Dare I think back to my pre-email days? I really don't have a clue how I procrastinated then. I suppose it was just watching whatever was on TV and talking to friends on the phone (a landline phone with a cord plugged into the wall of course). Ah, the good old days.

My new procrastination tool is the subject of this post. Food blogs! The one in particular that I'm in love with now is Smitten Kitchen. Her writing is funny and interesting, the pictures are beautiful, and the recipes look fabulous. My mouth was watering and my stomach growling for these in particular. Another recipe on the 'must try ASAP' list. Her latest is that she made a wedding cake for some friends' wedding this weekend. I am waiting with bated breath for the final installment! I found the site somewhat randomly last week. Daily Candy sent me to this food blog for a white sangria recipe (also on the 'must try ASAP' list), and Smitten was on his blog roll.

Enjoy blog hopping around my links on the right. And don't blame me if you spend 3 hours reading them when you're supposed to be working...