Best pizza poetry | BookPage

Best pizza poetry | BookPage

Pizza poetry~

A Pizza the Size of the Sun

I'm making a pizza the size of the sun,
a pizza that's sure to weigh more than a ton,
a pizza too massive to pick up and toss,
a pizza resplendent with oceans of sauce.

I'm topping my pizza with mountains of cheese,
with acres of peppers, pimentos, and peas,
with mushrooms, tomatoes, and sausage galore,
with every last olive they had at the store.

My pizza is sure to be one of a kind,
my pizza will leave other pizzas behind,
my pizza will be a delectable treat
that all who love pizza are welcome to eat.

The oven is hot, I believe it will take
a year and a half for my pizza to bake.
I hardly can wait till my pizza is done,
my wonderful pizza the size of the sun.

--Jack Prelutsky

Pesto Pizza close-up

Pesto Pizza close-up, originally uploaded by salmonbear7.

Pesto Pizza, baked in deep dish clay pie pan

Pesto Pizza, baked in deep dish clay pie pan, originally uploaded by salmonbear7.

Appetizer Pizza:

Appetizer Pizza:, originally uploaded by salmonbear7.

Duncan's Pizza in the assembly stage

Duncan's Pizza in the assembly stage, originally uploaded by salmonbear7.

Duncan's pizza: tomato sauce, olives, green peppers,

Duncan's pizza: tomato sauce, olives, green peppers,, originally uploaded by salmonbear7.

Last Night was Pizza Night

So, I am a Downton Abbey fan, and last night was was the airing of the final episode of season 2.  And, as it was Sunday, I needed to do something a little more special for dinner.  My wild hare notion was to make pizza, and because this is a lengthy process, especially if left up to one person to do, I knew I needed to allow at least 2.3-3 hours before my show started.

I always make 4 pizzas, because we eat more than 2, and the 1.5 or so left over makes a good lunch, or breakfast, depending on who you talk to.

Two pizzas were assembled on cookie sheets (then after 10 minutes of baking, transferred to the stone that lives permanently in my oven, for the last 5 minutes).  I have only two of said sheets, and little time for baking.  Note: my show was starting in 30 minutes.

So, I recruited my son to assemble the other two.  Two of the four pizzas were baked in clay pie plates, which makes for a more deep dish pizza.  This seems to work just fine, even though the dough recipe I use is for thin crust.

6:40: two pizzas out, two going in.

6:59: pizzas out, Downton Abbey starting in one minute.  Phew!

Photos up next~

Simple Peanut Chicken

In the same grain - using some left-overs to spark a new dish - I made a simple Peanut Chicken to go with the Fried Wild Rice & Quinoa.

I started with chicken breast, which I chopped into large chunks and heated in a pan.  I used no oil, just made sure the pan was hot first, and left the small amounts of fat on the chicken to create the grease I needed to brown the chicken. Next, I scouted around in my pantry for some curry sauce, which I didn't.  However, I found peanut sauce, and as I poured a little of it over my chicken, I remembered I had a tub of unsalted chunky peanut butter in the back of the fridge.  So, I got that out, put a couple of generous spoonfuls into the pan, added water, and let the peanut butter soften and coat the chicken pieces. 

After about 30-45 minutes the chicken was soft and infused with the make-shift peanut sauce.  And, it was quite good with the Fried Wild Rice and Quinoa I was making at the same time. 

Again, not the greatest photo, but I'm left wishing I had some more!

Fried Rice - Wild, and with Quinoa

Sometimes, we love going to Costco. 

Well, let me rephrase that:  sometimes we got to Costco because we are out of a great many things, and sometimes, while perusing the many aisles, we find some treasures.  One of my recent faves is quinoa. My husband, on a recent hunter/gathering trip, found a wild rice/quinoa blend that I was looking forward to trying out. 

For Christmas my mom got me a rice cooker, and I've used it a lot, both for rice, and for quinoa.  (Right now I'm steaming some broccoli over Japanese rice while typing.) So, I thought I'd fire up the rice cooker with the wild rice/quinoa blend with the plan to make a batch of fried rice.  I had a little left-over ground beef that was cooked with onions, carrots and celery, and I thought I'd add that to the rice mix.  I cut up another onion, a few small cloves of garlic, three more carrots, and two stalks of celery, and quickly sauteed that in canola oil, and then added the rice, some sesame oil, ginger, pepper and soy, and cooked it a little longer.  The result was a tasty and healthful dish. 

My photo lacks, as I took it after the rice had sat awhile, but maybe it'll still look tasty.