California Food - Part the First

Particularly when I'm traveling, I like to document my food. You can have very good food and very bad food while on a vacation. The November trip to California and BlizzCon/Disneyland was a case in point.

My gastronomical journey began on November 3rd at O'Hare. I had to get up early to get to the airport in plenty of time to check in so breakfast wasn't going to be an option. Plus, I didn't like the idea of leaving dirty dishes in the sink for 6 days.

Breakfast was two muffins, a banana and hot tea from Great American Bagel, which was right across from my gate.

My first airplane flight was in April of 1982. Back then, you still got free food with your seat purchase. As you know, that's no longer the case. I didn't eat the blueberry muffin before boarding so free tea and the muffin were food about 2/3rds of the way through the flight west.

Upon arriving in California, there was little time to eat. I grabbed my luggage and found the Super Shuttle to my hotel. The trip to the hotel took an hour. Once checked in, I surveyed my surroundings. Liz wasn't to get in until 6:45. We had talked of meeting up with Sparrow and her hubby for a later dinner. It was now 2 and I hadn't eaten anything since about 10:45.

As the shuttle drove down Katela, I noticed a little-seen restaurant in Chicagoland, IHOP. They have, for the most part, shuttered IHOPs in my area. It's sad but I know the one in Wheaton just could not keep servers. It's one of my favorite places to go and I miss it. So seeing one 4 blocks from the hotel was wonderful. I needed food. IHOP it was.

Pumpkin french toast with caramel sauce, sliced bananas and whipped cream. I was in heaven. There were other fall flavors which I thought about coming back to try, but the sheer number of places to eat in the area made a repeat visit impossible. I didn't realize how hungry I was. This is a half order. I had them bring out the rest of the order, it was so good.

Liz's plane was delayed so adding that extra plate of french toast wound up being a godsend. The next day, Thursday, November 4th, we wandered up to Disneyland. Our first stop there was a Starbucks; one of the largest I'd ever seen; for a quick breakfast. We had reservations for lunch, at 1, and the parks didn't open until 10, so there was some time to kill.

I had standard fare of 2 blueberry scones (Delivered in separate bags. Talk about waste.) and hot tea. Liz and I walked around California Adventure the rest of the morning and headed over to Disneyland in the afternoon. We had reservations at Cafe Orleans. There are food carts everywhere including many which sold these.

Leave it to Disney to turn spun sugar into something reasonably attractive.

We went to Cafe Orleans for three things. #1 was the parmesan fries, in the basket at back.

#2 is that Monte Cristo sandwich in the foreground. Liz and I split one sandwich. It was huge! It's served with the most amazing berry sauce. I don't remember the sauce the fries came with but I wound up just eating the fries "naked", they were so good.

The main reason to stop was beignets.

Incredible powdered sugar dusted puffs of air-inflated buttered dough. That's custard sauce at top and the mixed berry jam at the bottom. Oh my heaven. So...so wonderful. Even having a 6 block walk back to the hotel didn't leave us unfull.

Too bad Cafe Orleans is inside the park. I'd consider eating there just because. I had not had a Monte Cristo in a very long time. In case you are unfamiliar with this sandwich, it is cheese, usually swiss, with ham or turkey, sometimes both, dipped in egg batter and fried. Some places will grill the sandwich but the best ones are encased in a thick tempura-type batter. A guild member told me to go get one while I was out there, to which Liz replied, "I made reservations. She WILL have one." The whole meal was stellar.

Ashley arrived in the late afternoon and we went to get our convention badges. That evening, we met up with a guild member and her husband. I was still feeling full from lunch. We debated where to go for dinner and wound up back at Downtown Disney, the location of the Starbucks, for dinner at Rainforest Cafe. Now, I can take or leave Rainforest. There's one north of me, but we just couldn't think of a place in the area to go to with a wide menu and which wouldn't be crawling with BlizzCon people. We wanted to talk. We'd never met Amy and her husband so this was to be a special event. Fortunately, they have a decent a la carte menu.

A bowl of creamy tomato soup, topped with gruyere, and served with spiced cornbread. With hot tea, it was all I needed.

Friday started BlizzCon. In order to be alert and on the ready, we went to Goofy's Kitchen for breakfast. Oh come now. If given a choice, wouldn't you trade a free hotel breakfast for this?

That's their special peanut butter and jelly pizza. (I have the recipe.) The Mickey Mouse mini-waffle at the upper left was not very good; hard and flavorless. Liz said, in all the years she's been coming to this buffet, this was the first thing that was a disappointment. Fruit was in abundance. I'll always go for the fresh fruit.

Fluffy, fluffy scrambled eggs and crispy bacon. Tea and orange juice in abundance.  When we walked in and had our photos taken with Goofy, we were asked if we were celebrating anything. We said, "First visit" and then pointed at Ashley. "Her birthday is Saturday," we said. Liz and Ashley looked at me. "Well, your birthday is close." "Not really. It's Thanksgiving Day. That's not close." The employee shrugged. "Two birthdays! That works!"

Mid-way through breakfast, this arrived, along with wait staff to sing to us.

They set fire to my dessert and sang about it.

I got a "First Visit" and "Birthday" button. I put my World of Warcraft name on the button. On Sunday, when we came back to the parks, I did not wear my birthday button. It was the day after Ashley's birthday and I wanted her to have all the good wishes. Maybe some day I'll go back.

Beverage:  Hot cocoa

Deb

Local Food

If you are a planning a trip, one of the things which can be worrisome is what to eat. This is particularly true if you are going to a different area of the country. Your local hamburger joint, who knows exactly how to make your burger, will be nowhere in sight and "medium" to you might be "medium rare" to them.

This gave rise to the national chain. You know, when you walk into a TGI Fridays, exactly what the food will be like. If you order your burger "medium", it will be the same "medium" in Fort Lauderdale as it is in Naperville or Denver or San Diego. There is comfort in that, but there is also less of a willingness to get out and try things, to walk into a diner where they don't know you. Foodies and travel gurus recommend going out of your comfort zone and going into the local restaurant scene. You never know what gem you will find.

It helps to have someone who is familiar with the area to guide you. I have to admit that going to visit Carole and Larry means a trip to Carousel.

That's black cherry and chocolate fudge soft serve.

So, we had to drag Larry around to some of the local restaurants which are staples of life here. We had lunch, the first day, at Alfie's. Alfie's has been around for over 40 years. They started as strictly a burgers, fries and ribs joint but have expanded their menu to provide soups and salads and other sandwiches. But, burgers reign supreme and they are scrumptious.

After lunch, we drove Larry around to see Wheaton and stopped at the grocery. I waited to buy groceries for the kids until they were along so we could get breakfast things, beverages and other items they wanted. We came away with offerings from the bakery.

That's turtle cheesecake and red velvet cheesecake. Both were good but a bit stale. Cheesecake is best within 24 hours of making it. Most recipes I have tell you to chill 6 hours or overnight. Since these have to sit for some time before being completely consumed, they can dry out. I make a much better turtle cheesecake. I think the red velvet one would be better without the cake layer.

Saturday evening, after going to see Christmas lights, we went to a Chicagoland institution, Portillo's. At this point, I had the bright idea to document Larry visiting these places.

Good old Portillo's. Of course I had an Italian sausage, mustard only, and a piece of chocolate cake.

On Sunday, the kids went into the city to see the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium. Once back at the house, they decided we needed to go to Baker's Square.

There used to be one near Wheaton North High School, but it closed many years ago, I think at the beginning of the recession. It was the 'go to' place after band practice or football games. I think the band almost single-handedly kept that Baker's Square afloat. Technically, like Portillo's, they are a chain, but they have contracted and there aren't nearly as many around as there used to be. The menu is not all that distinctive from any other restaurant and they seem to be chronically short servers. Still, we could get good food and pie and a place offering pie is usually not a terrible place to eat.

When Monday arrived, the kids decided they were too tired to go into the city for another swing through museums so we had brunch at our favorite breakfast place in Wheaton, Egg'lectic Cafe. It's been a Wheaton destination for over 15 years and, on warm weekends, the wait can be 90 minutes to get in.

The wait is worth it because the food is fantastic with a huge variety. They can make things almost to order, with some exceptions. They also serve lunch and the restaurant can be crowded at lunch, too.

Larry was thrilled because they had biscuits and gravy and grits on the menu. Phil got pancakes and when asked if he wanted whipped cream, he declined. I piped up, "I'll take his whipped cream."

Banana split pancakes with whipped cream. I had to take half of these home for breakfast on Friday.

Tuesday, we headed to Iowa for Christmas. Another place we wanted to take Larry because they have not worked their way completely east is Culver's.

I've written about them before. Clean with cheerful people, they are a decidedly upper Midwestern chain sort of fast food restaurant. Larry's not real fond of ice cream but he had some of Carole's salted caramel "Concrete Mixer", Culver's answer to a Dairy Queen Blizzard. He said it was really good. I had an egg nog shake made with their frozen custard. Now, I really like the Steak 'n Shake egg nog shakes but Culver's was, hands down, better.

He also experienced Chicago-style pizza at Giordano's on Friday with Carole's friends. We had pizza on Monday night from a Wheaton staple, Nancy's. It was one of the few places which would deliver to Niles' so was the place from which to get pizza on Dungeons and Dragons nights at Niles'. We had Chinese food on Christmas Day from a little place, China Star, a couple miles west of me. I know the store front. It's not much to look at but man the food was good.

While a visit someplace new is all about the experience of seeing, food can often make or break the trip. There are good places to eat in Warrenton and its proximity to Washington DC means there are a lot of speciality and ethnic restaurants in that area of the country. We exposed Larry to the basic fare we know and love and, in Carole's case, miss. These were the stars of the trip. We've already started a short list of places to eat at the next time they come.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

This Vexes Me #20

In keeping with the post below, I bought Pillsbury pizza dough over the weekend to try a new recipe for breakfast pizzas. Pillsbury is a sponsor of Box Tops for Education, the long-running program that gets schools a huge variety of items by having kids turn in box tops found on hundreds of items. I usually know someone who has a child collecting them so I save them when I find one on a product I've purchased, like pizza dough.

This is vexing, though. I don't know if you've noticed, but Pillsbury canned dough products don't open as cleanly as they used to. It used to be you'd pull the "Open here" tab and most of the label came off as a unit. You could lie the label flat on the counter while you read about making sure your sweet roll edges touch each other or the oven temperature needed to make crescent rolls or, in this case, make a pizza using their dough. I don't know when they changed this but now, when I buy a tube and pull the open here tab, a mere strip comes off around the tube. The redesign probably has something to do with keeping instructions on the container instead of having them accidentally tear into pieces. Seems to me, though, you could print the label to ameliorate that problem.

And then, I can't get the label off the container to get at the box top. After several minutes of picking, including a knife which I decided wasn't a good idea, I simply cut around the box top. Frankly, that doesn't seem very sanitary. I'm including the whole tube with this item. Once I got the box top cut away, I tried again and still couldn't get just the label to peel off.

So, this is vexing. There has to be a reason they have gone this route, although I don't know what it is. This will be the last year to send my box tops to a certain boy who sent me Flat Stanley last year. Come fall, I'll need to find someone else to benefit from my saving streak. I won't not buy Pillsbury canned baked goods but I won't be cutting bits off the tubes to mail. That's just gross.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

It Merits a Second Try

Not sure where I was cruising on the Internet highway when I stumbled upon a recipe for breakfast pizzas created by The Minimalist Baker. (Amazing food in this blog. You'll spend hours there. Trust me.) These are Apple Streuel Breakfast Pizzas and the recipe is dairy free. I wasn't going to buy the vegan butter and milk called for in the recipe so I just substituted regular butter and the 2% milk I have on hand. While the recipe is good, it's time intensive and I would make some changes to it for my tastes. Let's dive in.

First you need to peel, core and dice two apples. Then, you put the apples, cinnamon, brown sugar and butter on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake to cook the apples.

What a wonderful fragrance this provides. Plus, you are only using the amount of butter called for in the recipe, not "well, I don't know if that's enough" that might happen if you sauteed the apples in a skillet.

Next comes the pizza dough. I used the smallest size of Pillsbury I could find and I chose whole wheat instead of white.

When I unrolled the dough, I had this rather large rectangle on my hands. The recipe calls for rolling it thin which would have increased the size. I merely patted it into a greased jelly roll pan. Their pizza dough recipe must make a smaller amount than the store bought. I'm on the fence about making the dough, but it's something I probably should try.

Once in the pan, you put your apple mixture on the dough. Here's where I'm going to have to make changes if I want to use store bought dough.

Nowhere nearly enough apples. This gets covered with a sugar, flour and butter streusel mixture.

Covered was a bit of a misnomer. It was more like smothered, given the amount of streusel mixture I made. I'm inclined to think that even with their dough recipe, there are still too few apples for the dough and streusel mixture. I want ingredients in my pizza, which is why I usually get double cheese. For me, I think doubling the apples will yield better coverage of the dough and less piles of streusel.

Another thing I will add the next time I make this, chopped walnuts. To me, streusel is not streusel unless it has nuts in it. But if you're allergic to nuts or serving this to people who are allergic to nuts, this is a great recipe.

Into the oven it goes for 12-15 minutes. I think making it on this dark cookie sheet overcooked the pizza a bit as the oven has been on for the last 30 minutes while I finished preparing the pizza for baking. It didn't need to heat up.

The end result. It tastes great and reheats very nicely. The recipe calls for a powdered sugar glaze to be drizzled over the pizza. I could have sworn I had powdered sugar, but, when I needed it, I couldn't find it. I'm not sure the pizza needs that, to be honest.

I think, with these tweaks, this will be something I can make when I have company. The labor intensive phase is peeling, coring and dicing the apples. The topping could be made ahead and kept in the fridge for assembly the next day. I loved the smell in the kitchen as this was baking. I cut it into 8 pieces. I'm not sure how it would freeze. What? Don't look at me like that. It's a great snack for evenings.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

So You Don't Have To

I've been doing some taste tests in the past couple of weeks. They haven't been as successful as I, initially, thought they would be. Let's dive in and see what I've eaten lately.

First of all, Oreos. These are not your run of the mill Oreos or even the dipped ones. These are two new, limited edition, flavors. As I've come to see with M&M's, limited edition usually means, "Hey, let's try something". I remember reading a news short about these flavors and set out to find, and consume, them in an effort to see just how they compared to the real Oreos.

And

I couldn't find these at Mariano's. I had to go to Target.

The premise seems reasonable enough. Oreos has a solid seller with chocolate and vanilla cookies. You know you can buy "blonde" Oreos as well as the regular ones. You can even buy Oreos with a chocolate and a vanilla cookie. I remember seeing vanilla cookies with chocoalte middles. They are simply varying the inside creme flavor.

Those are little flecks of crispy rice. The assembly process removes the "crispy" so the mouth feel is akin to creme with chunky bits.

I thought I would be excited by the cookie dough version. Oberweis Cookie Dough ice cream is a favorite of mine. I should have suspected something when the front of the package reads, "Made with chocolatey chips" (emphasis mine), not chocolate chips, mind you, but chocolate-y chips. You might as well say "It's not real chocolate but someone in the factory had a chocolate bar so we're using the neighborhood rule to call these chocolate".

Neither one was very good. The cookie part itself was just what I expect from Oreos, crisp and sturdy, with the vanilla tasting like vanilla and the chocolate tasting like chocolate. The marshmallow was too sweet, way too sweet. I realize they were going for something approximating a Rice Krispy bar but I don't think of those as sweet as these cookies are. I didn't eat the whole package.

The cookie dough cookie bore no resemblance to cookie dough ice cream. I've had Edy's and Dean's cookie dough ice cream and although I prefer Oberweis', those are good quality ice creams. The cookie dough tastes like cookie dough. This was a meager attempt at cashing in on this idea and, as far as I'm concerned, failed. Thankfully, these are limited editions and won't replace the Oreos we know and love. Save your pennies.

On that same Target shopping trip, I was craving pizza so I picked up a frozen one. It was on sale.

This brand tends, in my opinion, to be consistently good in the category of "hand tossed" crusts. I'm usually leery of "new" appended to a long-time favored brand. What was it about the way you'd made your product for decades that you felt you had to "improve"? I sort of shuddered, but I liked DiGiorno and I wanted a sausage pizza.

Oh dear. It was bad. They have added or increased the sugar content of their sauce. Maybe I'm more sensitive to sugar, I don't know, but, to me, pizza sauce should be about tomatoes and herbs, maybe a bit of oil as a binding agent, but not sugar. That's what I tasted, sweet.

So, I look at the ingredient list.

Third line, right after the "tomato paste", there it is, sugar. Because you have to list ingredients in the order of greatest to least, wheat flour is first since a pizza is mostly crust. Then comes the cheese and the sausage and then the sauce. Look on the 4th line. Sugar shows up a second time. No wonder I tasted sweet. I ate 3 pieces and couldn't eat anymore. That also went outside on the deck for the wildlife, a couple days after the Oreos.

I'm still craving pizza but I'm seriously considering ordering Dominos. I haven't had delivery in months. I could order it at the office and then pick it up after work. Then I wouldn't worry about the delivery guy getting stuck in the drive.

In the same trip, I wandered by the T.G.I. Friday's frozen appetizers. Everything was on sale so I bought a package of cheese "sticks". These should be really good. No, they aren't.

These are what I wanted.

These are from Arby's. When I think cheese sticks, this is what I think of. It's a chunk of mozzarella, rolled in a breading and deep fried. Now, I don't do deep frying anymore. As with any kind of food, moderation is the key but I just didn't want to store used oil for long periods of time. It will go rancid and, if you've ever smelled that, you know it's not pleasant. So, I baked the sticks, which were more like blocks than sticks. I don't have a photo of them, but they turned out to be almost like cheese-flavored sticks. The ooey gooey strings of cheese that one associates with sticks like Arby's wasn't there. I had a nearly empty shell of breading instead of cheese. Even on sale, they were a huge disappointment and I won't be getting them again. I'll stick to satisfying the deep fried cheese cravings with Arby's.

So, there you have it. These things aren't, in my opinion, worth your dollars to purchase. I'm not all that disappointed in the Oreos. Having tried and survived the pumpkin in everything craze at Halloween, I guess my expectations for a "new" and "limited time" flavor are low. But the pizza is a disappointment to me. I could write Nestle's a letter expressing my sadness at the change, but I fear they will send me a coupon for a free pizza and I won't touch DiGiorno's again.

Save your pennies. Once every 3 months, head over to Arby's and get yourself real cheese sticks. Order delivery pizza and bake yourself some cookies. The latter covers two items. There's a lot to be said for home made cookie dough.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

And It's Frozen

I may never eat Dominos again.

Doesn't look like much. It's a frozen pizza. It was on sale at Target for $7.99. It's usually $10.99 owing to the amount of meat on it.

I like Home Run Inn pizzas. I like wafer crusts and the kind I usually bought, sausage that comes in a green box, is really good. Recently, I tried their uncured pepperoni and sausage pizza, which comes in a purple box. Pepperoni usually gives me rampant heartburn. I've quit eating it, it gets so bad. So why try a pizza with pepperoni on it? The "uncured" part was attractive. Would having the pepperoni "uncured" make a difference? Monumentally, it seems. I had no heartburn after eating that pizza. Now, I don't eat it all in one sitting. I have 3 pieces and put the rest away for another meal. (Cold pizza on a weekend morning with a glass of orange juice is very good.)

I feel like a good way to satisfy my pizza craving and watch my budget is to buy these. The sausage ones can be on sale 2 for $10.00. When I saw this at Target, I knew I had to try it. Home Run Inn claims their pizzas are all "natural" and I believe I can find them at my Whole Foods. I don't know what "all natural" means in terms of pizza. Is it all organic, including free range pigs? However that's termed, this is really good pizza. They have a bunch of varieties, including vegetable flavors. I'm not fond of veggies on my pizza and absolutely no fungus, so finding a meat lover's with sausage, bacon and pepperoni was wonderful.

So, I give this frozen pizza two enthusiastic thumbs up. It's inexpensive, which makes it good for those on a budget. You kind of have to like the wafer crust although I think some of their pizzas with more ingredients on them have thicker crusts. I love the taste and with an ice cold Dr Pepper, this is a great supper.

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb

Quiet Sunday

With my taxes done, I can sit back now, secure in knowing I don't have that hanging over my head. It's funny how sitting at my chair typing in all the numbers which allow me to see that things haven't improved over last year could be so satisfying and bring such a sense of accomplishment.

I was going to order  pizza. I haven't had a delivery pizza in several months. I felt that was a good reward for getting my taxes done. But, there was a nagging feeling that the $15-25 spent on delivery pizza could be better applied elsewhere, regardless of how good delivery pizza tastes. Enter the co-worker with the "oops".

He accidentally locked himself out of the building on Sunday. He worked Saturday and was dropping things off on Sunday and doing his time sheet. He forgot to unlock the back door to the office so, when he went to get something out of his car, the door closed behind him and, yep, that will lock you out. I live closest to the office so I got the call. I got dressed and decided, while I was letting him into the building, I would get a few things from the grocery. It's right there.

Pizza money went to buy cat food. That's way more important than pizza. I put everything away, started a load of dishes and looked around. Peace. It was peaceful. I have a million things clamoring for my attention but I felt peace. I collected the materials for the next project, sat down in the recliner and proceeded, in between batches of dishes and the need for ear scratching, to stitch as much as you see here. It doesn't look like much at the present time, but it will in the next few stitching days, take form. This is a Christmas present.

It was so nice yesterday to get lost in stitching with the occasional getting up to wash another load of dishes and the scratching of ears. As I work on practicing gratitude in daily life, I am grateful for a day when I could easily shove aside all those "I need tos" and just be. It tells me I can be grateful for things and not concentrate on the laundry needing to be done, the windows needing to be washed, the stack of stuff in the office needing to be sorted. All those voices can drown out the one biggest need, to be grateful that I have what I have. That's what I got out of yesterday. Peace, quiet and the realization that I am happy doing the things I like to do.

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb

Sometimes I'm Brilliant

The power outages made me assess what is and isn't necessary to have in the fridge and freezer. Things that seem, at the time, good deals, aren't good deals if I never use them or only use part of them before tossing.

It's been kind of a rough month, financially. It makes me second guess buying that ticket back in June for the upcoming Wheaton Ale Fest. Some things just didn't get paid, particularly if the bill was due at the end of the month. I've managed to squeeze some cash out of the budget so I could get kitty litter. That's been really important of late. And I've had to be more creative with lunch and supper and stretch the food I have. While cleaning out the freezer to take food to Pam's, I found, buried under the package of chicken breasts, one small Boboli pizza crust. I let it thaw. Now, what do I have to turn it into pizza.

I have cheese and I have hamburger.

It came out rather well. I need to use up the rest of the can of tomato sauce but this was the perfect meal for one person. I thought about making it stretch for lunch the next day, but it was too good. I'll bet I could make the meat sauce and freeze it in appropriately sized containers. Then, it would simply be a matter of grating cheese. The only part about this I really disliked was having to get down on my knees to look for the cheese grater in the bottom cupboard. That. Hurt. A. Lot.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

As Long As There Are No Onions or Olives or Anchovies or...

So I'm eating my leftover enchilada and Internet surfing and I stumble across a post. "Pizza Toppings for Your Zodiac Sign". Okay, I'll bite.

Perhaps you are aware of the hullabaloo earlier in the year when the Minnesota Planetarium Society said the earth's rotation had skewed the zodiac signs from the time the zodiac was created to now. Because of that, and the ancient Babylonians wanting some symmetry the original zodiac didn't provide, a new sign was added and other signs augmented by a month. So, the sign you thought you were under is not the sign you really are under. But what does this mean for my pizza toppings?

Well, I have operated these many years thinking I was a Sagittarius. Sagittarians like the following on their pizzas:

Sagittarians have the largest appetite of the zodiac and like pizza piled with toppings -- the more the better. Large, chunky topping pieces and well-done meats will please the Archer, though their eyes may be bigger than their stomachs! Try New Orleans andouille sausage, hot pepper sauce or red pepper flakes to add the spice this Fire sign loves. Pair the Sagittarian's pizza with plenty of good company, laughter and beer.

Okay, I can sort of agree with this. Lots of meat and cheese and sauce is really good. I love thin crust and if the crust groans with meat and cheese, I'm happy. Add beer, laughter and friends and it is an exceptional pizza.

But, if my sign has changed to Scorpio, well, that brings up this:

A true Sicilian pizza hides the toppings on the inside, perfect for secretive Scorpio. Stuffed or pocket pizza of any kind can work -- the Scorpion doesn't want others to know what they're eating anyway. Meat, garlic, mushrooms, olives and seafood are favorites of the Scorpion. Try ordering octopus and pesto pizza for a truly gourmet Scorpio treat.  

No. No. And absolutely not.

Stuffed crust and deep dish pizza have their place but they aren't my preferred pizza. Meat and garlic are okay, but, as my friend, Daniel, knows, do not come anywhere near my pizza with fungus. Same goes for olives and seafood is best broiled with a hint of lemon and butter. It does not belong on pizza. Octopus? What are you smoking? Pesto? Well, maaayyybe I could give it a try.

I saw octopus pieces once, in an Italian deli. You are not coming anywhere near my pizza with that. I think I'll stay Sagittarius, thank you very much. Now where did I put that container of shaved Parmesan? There's not enough cheese on this.

Beverage:  Root Beer

Deb

Deep-dish

I've been thinking about pizza, mainly because you couldn't get to the house to deliver it. Secondly, I don't have the spare cash until my tax refund comes, to have delivery pizza.

I had the idea that I would try to make a deep-dish pizza. A lot of the recipes call for making a yeast dough, letting it rise and then rolling it out. Maybe some day I'll try that but I really didn't want to go through all those steps. So, I improvised.

I got 2 tubes of Pillsbury pizza dough. I buttered the sides and bottom of a springform pan and then laid the dough in the bottom of the pan. Because the dough is a large rectangle, I had to cut the excess off the sides. I put the other large rectangle perpendicular to the first one and used the cuttings of the overhanging dough to fill in small gaps in the bottom. Then, I turned down the edges as you see. The crust went into a 400º oven for 15 minutes.

Once it came out, I filled it with my choice of ingredients. I bought Canadian bacon, which I cut into triangles, crumbled hickory smoked bacon, shredded cheddar and shredded Italian blend cheese. The pizza looked like this when I put it in the oven.

I baked it for 20 minutes. That seemed to be enough time to cook the dough thoroughly. It smelled so good. It looked wonderful when I removed it from the oven.

I removed the sides of the pan and the dough was cooked all the way around. I let it sit for a couple minutes before cutting. The resulting pieces were sturdy so you could pick up the piece and not have to eat it with a fork. I need to work on this as there was a lot of dough. I'd like to get half the amount of dough along the sides so there would be more room for ingredients but this was excellent for my first attempt. It was also very good as left overs for lunch today. 

Beverage:  Scottish Blend tea

Deb

More change in the pocket

We were finally given our bonus and merit pay raise information today.

So, after the gov'mint at state and federal level take their share, my bonus should be enough to get pizza for supper at the end of the month when I'll get the bonus.

The merit pay increase was much more than I was expecting. But then, I don't really leave the office hardly at all now. I run the office sending everyone else out into the street. (Just ask Jon.) As we are reimbursed for the use of our cars, everyone else can get a nice expense check every week while I sit in my SW corner office and wonder if it's really as nice out as it looks. I suspect this is a way of compensating me for not being sent thither and yon.

No complaints here. I can look at paying cash for Christmas presents now.

Beverage: Blackberry tea

Deb