Check out my garden!

I started a garden about a month ago, and it's doing great, for the most part. The big winner so far is my Roma tomato plant, which seems to be taking up more than its fair share of space.

I originally started it out based on the Square Foot Gardening technique, but I was not terribly precise when I did the actual planting, so it looks more "organic" now. Yeah, it's not "messy", it's "organic".

The fence is to keep out the bunnies. We have a whole bunch of them that live under the deck. Since they can't eat my plants, they eat the strawberries in my neighbor's garden. :)

Look at all these tomatoes!

I don't even like tomatoes.

I plan to use these for pizza sauce when they get ripe. I figure that's the next step in pizza making, now that I have the dough and cooking process going fairly well.

I'm growing strawberries too, but I only have 2 growing so far.

that tiny white thing in the center = potential yum.

Next year will be even bigger and better, now that I know I can grow stuff without killing it, and what works and doesn't.

I have an automatic watering system going on, using a drip hose on a timer. Laziness is awesome.

Better, but not perfect!

Not that there is a "perfect" when it comes to my pizza, but I'm getting better.

It's definitely better on the grill than in the oven. I can get the stone a lot hotter, which makes for a better crust underneath. I might have to get another stone above the pizza to keep the air temperature as hot as I'd like. This is the beginning of craziness though.

Yes, my stone is cracked. No, I don't give a crap.

Pizza nerds call this the "upskirt" shot. 

I'm pretty happy with the amount that the bottom is getting cooked. I just need to get the temp above the pizza hotter to match.

The crust is nice and moist and fluffy. Not bad.

Plus Running, Minus Running.

This evening I went for a long run (well, long for me). Kara would consider it a warmup, but 5 miles is pretty good for me. I didn't even stop to walk, so that's new!

But then I pretty much cancelled out any health benefit the running may have gained me with my dinner.

I started with some yummy soft potato rolls, slider-sized. Browned to a gorgeous golden brown, in butter of course.

Oh yes, soon you will be mine. Mine, I say!

Then I stuffed those yummy yellow buns with some ground beef (seasoned simply with salt and pepper, not the 80's hip-hop duo), some applewood smoked bacon, and a fried egg.

An extra piece for good luck.

I stay healthy by not eating dessert after meals like this.

So yummy and juicy.

A better grilled pizza!

This time when I made the pizza on the grill, I didn't screw it up! Not too badly, at least.

The slight charring on the bottom means that I actually got the pizza stone hot enough - something I have been unable to do in my oven. The top of the crust was less cooked than I'd like, but it tasted great! It was still moist inside and crispy on the outside, just about perfect!

The grill temperature was around 600 when I put the pizza in. I left the grill open longer than I wanted though, so a lot of the hot air escaped. This is a problem with grilled pizza that I will have to work on. I do not yet have an IR thermometer, so I'm not sure exactly how hot the stone itself was, but since it's right over the propane burners that were all set to HIGH, I'd guess it was pretty hot.

I think I'm a little obsessed.

Memorial Day Meals

Ok, so there's no pictures from the actual Memorial Day meals, because they were fairly unexciting basic grilled burgers from frozen patties. Sunday though, was pretty great. The weather was amazing, so we ate a very nice casual meal out on the deck.

complete with lovely beverages and citronella candle

Angie made some delicious guacamole to go with the tortilla chips, along with some salsa and fake sour cream (It's some sort of yogurt, so it's healthy!).

Then we chowed down. It was good.

I have a hard time making a normal face to the camera. Check out my cleavage.

After relaxing a bit and enjoying the views, I made some burgers. Healthy burgers, made with ground turkey, and stuffed with blue cheese. I seasoned the meat with some black pepper and salt. Yum!

Yummy oozy cheese, on amazingly soft buttery potato rolls.

Actually, I lied about not having any Memorial Day photos, because this one was the breakfast I made this morning. Sausage patty, and a runny egg, also on those awesome potato rolls.

I toasted the roll in butter, because, well, why the hell not?

How was your Memorial Day weekend?

Saturday Breakfast

Banana Pancakes. Yes indeed. 

Pizza FAIL

No, I'm not perfect, as some of my loyal readers might believe. Sometimes it takes me a couple tries to get things the way I want them. (ok, sometimes more than a couple.)

Tonight was one of those nights. I needed to prepare for the summer, for when it's too warm to run the oven at full blast in the house. But I obviously couldn't go the entire summer without making pizza, so it was time to practice pizza on the grill. This can get a little tricky, because I am just not a pizza master yet. A regular oven has its advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, it's highly controllable and convenient. On the negative side, it can only get up to about 500 degrees maximum, and then the kitchen gets really hot. The grill has its own pluses and minuses. It is able to get much hotter, which is a plus, but it's not very well insulated, so once you open the lid, all the heat escapes pretty quickly.

Tonight I decided to build my pizza on this new aluminum screen, which I figured would allow me to get the pizza deployed much quicker. I turned on the grill on full blast with my baking stone in the center, and let it get as hot as possible. (my main issue with the oven is that I can't get the stone as hot as I'd like, so the bottom of the pizza doesn't get fully cooked.)

I took the pizza outside, ready to be cooked.

This pizza has thinly sliced roma tomatoes, ground sausage, mushrooms, shallots, and ricotta cheese.

When I put it on the grill, I made sure to only open the lid a little bit, so the heat wouldn't escape. I was pretty successful in this, but I soon saw a problem. There was tons of smoke that started coming out from the grill. I didn't get any photos, because I was freaking out a little trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Turns out that I forgot to clean the drip tray under the burners, and the crap that was in there ignited from the high heat. 

It started covering my beautiful pizza with black smoke (not the good kind of smokiness that bbq-ers covet). I took the pizza out as soon as I could, and turned off the grill.

I was hungry though, so I didn't want to start over, so I turned on the oven and figured What the hell, I'll try to salvage it. It came out ok, it was nice and crispy, but the color left something to be desired. Grey pizza crust is not an attractive trait.

The grill experiment did confirm one thing that I was wondering about though. It was able to retain a high enough air temperature to produce decent spring in the dough. (This is caused by the rapid heating of the dough, which causes the small bubbles from the yeast to expand, leaving bubbles in the fluffy risen crust.)

I was also pretty happy with the crispiness of the crust, but that doesn't have anything to do with the grill or the oven. I think it just dried out too much because of the fact that I cooked it twice. Oh well. Next time will be better. At least it tasted ok! (I'll probably die sooner though, because of the carcinogens in the smoke)

What meals have you fucked up? Were the results edible?