Day 7 of 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil
OMG. Chile has just knocked defending champs, Spain, out of the tournament with a fiery performance that netted 2 goals past Spanish goalkey, Iker Casillas.
A new champion will be crowned this year; it could be the amazing Dutch boys who humiliated the champs with a 5-1 victory or Germany, who out-classed another tournament fave Portugal 4-0 in their opening match. It is anybody's game really, when you look at the number of upsets and surprises this year.
Just for the record: I am all for Holland too this year *winks* Like I had explained it in my text to my darling hubby "I love Dutch Bros coffee. I love the Dutch team on the greens. Hehehe"
O yeah. I have a soft spot for
Dutch Bros' Double Choc Mocha!
Balls aside, we had pizza last night! No, not the one from Pizza Hut or Papa John's. This one's home-made, baby! *thumbs up*
Food is always a part of any big games, be it the American football, or the round black-and-white one. And then you have a specific type of food associated with the big holidays too - like turkey & Thanksgiving, yule log & Christmas, eggs & Easter.
In my books, pizza & football. O yum.
And here's another thing: it's not that NOT difficult making your own pizza dough. And you don't need those fancy machines either. As long as you can punch and fold a soft material, you are fine. Here's what I did for my Dough last night:
For starters, take 1/4 cup of warm water (I got mine from the tap, easy peasy). To that, I added 2 1/4 teaspoons of active dry yeast and 1 teaspoon of sugar. I give it a quick stir and let it stand for about 10 minutes. The mixture should double in volume (this means the yeast is active).
While waiting for the yeast to work its magic, I put fresh rosemary leaves (about 4 stalks), 2 teaspoons of kosher salt and half a cup of flour into my Magic Bullet. A quick blitz to make sure the rosemary leaves are all chopped up into tiny pieces. Pour this fragrant mixture into a big bowl.
To that, I added 3 more cups of AP flour, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 teaspoon of honey (or sugar), 1 1/4 cups of warm water and the proofed yeast mixture.
Using my hands, I mixed the flour and wet stuff to get them incorporated. Like I said earlier, you don't really need fancy tools to work on this pizza dough. All you have to do is scrape the sides of the bowl with an open hand and bring it all into the middle of the bowl. Repeat this several times until you work the mixture into a ball.
Then the fun part :D This is what I liked most about making my own dough - kneading it. What I did was punch the dough and push the mixture forward. Then I folded the mixture into half and punched it again. After a couple of punches, I turned the dough over so you're like punching both "sides" equally.
I kneaded the dough till it became shiny and smooth - this is the part where you let the dough rest. I squirted some olive oil into a clean, big bowl. Grease the bowl nicely and put the dough in the middle. Turn the dough over so it is nicely oiled. I placed this bowl into my unheated oven so the dough can rest and rise for about an hour.
This was what the dough looked like after an hour:
Now my dough is ready to be rolled out. So I tipped the nice fluffy dough carefully onto a floured surface. Punch the air out - you'll feel that its very, very soft!! - and roll it carefully to fit your pizza pans (I squirted some olive oil and greased the pan so the dough won't stick to it. Plus, it makes it easier later when you're trying to get your slices off the pan). I used the rectangular cookie sheets so with this recipe, I had 2 rectangular pans of dough and a small 8-inch round for my lil boys' cheese pizza.
Dough's ready for them toppings now!
This time round, I added rosemary to my dough.
You can see bits of it here. The rosemary leaves
added a beautiful fragrant to your pizza - extra yum!!
You can leave it plain too if you wish - your choice.
And you top this dough with any toppings you like! I baked my pizzas in a heated 420deg F oven for about 20 minutes, or till the cheese has melted away nicely and the bottom crust is nicely browned.
As I had said in a previous post, my current rule in the kitchen is "Waste Not, Want Not". I diligently write on my calendar what I make/cook every day so that I can keep track of the leftovers in my fridge and freezer.
The ones in pink are the family meals we have for dinner.
My darling hubby thinks I'm silly for doing so but it worked for me :D
I also like to turn my leftovers into a fresh meal the next day so you don't get bored eating the same meal 2 days in a row. For instance, you can turn last night's fried chicken into a beautiful filling for today's lunch! This rule spurred me to be innovative and experimental with my meals - watching all those episodes of Food Network's Chopped defo paid off hehehe.
Anyhoo … since I had leftover meatballs in my fridge, it's not that hard to guess what the toppings were for our pizzas last night! :D
Our toppings this time round were:
Meatballs, sliced Mushrooms, Mozzarella cheese
on simple home-made Tomato Sauce.
My heavenly slices of Meatball Pizza! :D
The meatballs were juicy and the crust …
adding those rosemary leaves simply elevated an otherwise
simple crust to gobsmacking greatness!! Trust me ;-)
Turning leftovers into pizzas is my fave trick currently. You can go pretty wild with your toppings. The following are what we have tried out before and they are absolutely wicked!!
On the left is my darling hubby's creation: his home-made BBQ sauce,
pulled beef, tomatoes, green peppers, onions & mozza cheese.
On the right is mine: bottled pasta sauce (tomato),
BBQ chicken, pineapple chunks, tomatoes, green peppers,
onions & mozza cheese.
The pulled beef was the leftover.
My chicken topping was oven-baked in leftover
BBQ sauce. Delish!!
This pizza was topped with leftover roast chicken chunks, onions, green peppers,
mushrooms on bottled pasta sauce (tomato, mushroom & olives).
So there you go :D How's that for topping ideas, eh? Until my next post … :D:D:D
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