Sometimes the kitchen works

So, I had two forays into the land of serious culinary dedication this weekend.  Don't get me wrong, I cook plenty and get very few complaints from friends and family, but sometimes I feel as if I manage to achieve particular culinary excellence that stands out from the norm. 

The first endeavour was homemade pizza.  Now I know that pizza is not the classiest dish, but I have very rarely had good homemade pizza and it hasn't ever been mine.  We've been trying to figure out how to possibly trim up the budget a little bit, especially in the area of prepared food.  Every Friday night is pizza night, however, and there would likely be a mutiny if I suggested to my children that we do anything different.  So my wife and I figured we'd give homemade a shot.  The first attempt was two Fridays ago, and it involved a crust that was rolled out of a Pilsbury can, Prego spaghetti sauce, regular shredded mozzarella, and pepperoni on top (of course!).  It was not very good at all, and I felt like I failed my children and nearly took them out for ice cream in apology.

So this week I knew that I needed to either step up my game or concede that the 15 year olds at Papa Murphy's were my superiors.  So obviously the pizza crust needed to be made from scratch, so I started scouring the internet looking for the "secret."  Found it on this lovely blog http://www.laurenslatest.com/fail-proof-pizza-dough-and-cheesy-garlic-bread-sticks-just-like-in-restaurants/ It turns out the secret is in two parts: 1) use bread flour (high gluten content), and 2) work it so much that Dough Protective Services show up at your door.  I was skeptical when reading the instructions that said to put the stand mixer on HIGH for SIX minutes and then walk away, but I can attest that this method worked out very well.  The other thing that I decided to do to really make this pizza stand out was to make the cheese from scratch as well.  We already had the cheese making supplies, and we had picked up a gallon of fresh milk at the farmers market with the intention of turning it into cheese as a fun project for the kids (cheese supplies from our local homebrew supply www.austinhomebrew.com).  So kid project cheese became a subset of the larger agenda to make kid worthy pizza.  I was quite well pleased with the outcome of the final product, and we had fun along the way (though the kitchen looked as if it had been used for the set of The Road Warrior and Waterworld). 

The second dinner that turned out quite well this weekend was planned for Sunday to be eaten during our weekly fellowship with my sister and her family.  My wife had picked out a recipe for apple barbecue bacon-wrapped chicken that had appeared on Pinterest.  As she had an early-ish meeting to attend at church Sunday morning, she asked me to prepare it since it needed to cook in the crockpot for several hours.  Apparently I was overly enthusiastic in my application of bacon; I saw two pounds of bacon in the fridge and assumed that all of it was intended for this yummy dish (it was not).  So I got a scolding from my wife, but the bacon to chicken ratio turned out to be very acceptable in my opinion.  The dish was heavenly (or alternatively sinful) and everyone expressed that it was exceedingly nom-worthy.  I also received accolades from the entire universe and I'm fielding offers from Food Network to host a show, while being simultaneously solicited by Paula Dean to give her remedial training in bacon.  Not really.  But that's how I feel when something I made goes over well with my extended family.

So all in all, the weekend was quite high on the delicious food index.  No meals were procured from vendors.  The Longhorns pulled it out against Oklahoma State.  Not bad.