Make Your Own

It's very possible that my organizational need to control things carries over into my food habits. In fact, I'm pretty certain it does. At stir fry restaurants, I always choose to "make my own" instead of opting for the already designated ingredients mixtures. And at delis or sandwich shops, I most definitely "build my own" sandwich just the way I like it. I make no exception with pizza.

As a lazy college student, there was always a frozen Boboli pizza crust waiting to be defrosted and covered with whatever was in the fridge. And while many may frown upon the use of prepackaged pizza crust, it certainly makes life a whole lot easier! (Well, nothing would be easier than Jim's recent discovery, but that's a whole other story.)

But when I recently found out that Trader Joe's makes a ready to bake pizza dough, I made the switch from frozen. I got the whole wheat flavor, but their herb dough looks delicious too! I really love making my own pizza because I can use fresh ingredients like sliced tomatoes and basil and whatever else I feel like. Last night it was tomatoes, sliced mushrooms, fresh basil and goat cheese. (Looks like Pam at Cave Cibum had the same idea.)



















I like my pizza thin and crispy, but I found it hard to really get the bottom well done. Next time I would probably use half the dough and roll it out thinly. I also highly recommend investing in a pizza stone if you think this is something you'd make on a regular basis. Other than the slightly chewy crust, the pizza was fantastic! The combination of mozzarella and goat cheese was gooey without being overwhelmingly cheesy and the fresh veggies were excellent.

So whether you're a control freak like myself or you just like pizza, this is an easy way to please everyone.

Goat Cheese Pizza with Mushrooms and Tomatoes

Ingredients

1 pkg. pizza dough (I recommend Trader Joe's brand)
1/2 C. tomato sauce
4 Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced
4-6 mushrooms
2-3 basil leaves, chopped
Goat cheese
Mozzarella
Parmesan

Directions

Let pizza dough come to room temperature and roll out on floured surface. You may want to only use half of the pizza dough for a very thin crust. Move dough to pizza stone.

Cover dough with tomato sauce. Then layer tomatoes, mushrooms and basil. Sprinkle a few handfuls of mozzarella and crumble goat cheese over the top. You may add grated parmesan if you want.

Bake in 425 degree oven for 8-10 minutes or until done.

Note: you can substitute any ingredients that you'd like for toppings.

No. No, it cannot be.

I quote the Book of Revelations:

And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold: a pizza vending machine.

Yes, that's right. Some mad Italian scientist saw fit to make a vending machine that sucks in dollars and spits out piping hot, 9" pizza pies. If you look at the gallery on the site you'll see two critical facts:

1) The pizzas are cooked by an open heating element, meaning they aren't just microwaved.

2) The pizzas actually look somewhat appetizing.

They spent 5 million bucks in R&D creating this thing! It spits out a fully cooked pie in about two minutes, with three varieties per machine and a crispness setting controlled by the machine's operator. Now I can finally get that crisp rising-crust flavor at the Des Moines Greyhound station!

Okay, okay, this is actually really cool, but I have a good reason to panic. When convenience reaches this level, it won't be long before we're living in a grim world where robots do all the work and slowly learn to rebel. When that day comes, all we can do is hope Will Smith is still around to save us*.

*Initial title of this post: "AW, HELL NAW"