homemade pizza - technically not from scratch

Every Sunday I wake my lazy ass up to go watch my boyfriend play flag football. He's in this league thing where they challenge other teams and play football with flags apparently (can you tell I know nothing about sports?). After the game, I went back to my house while he cleaned up and calmed down his testosterone. I wanted to bake a batch of cookie dough, but surprisingly I had no brown sugar left! This unusual travesty caused me to go to my favorite supermarket, where I stumbled upon a bag of pizza dough on sale. Sure, why not?


I took my sack of dough to my boyfriend's house, along with a can of tomato puree and a cube of mozzarella. I thought we'd figure out the rest of the details once I got there.


After spreading out the dough on a baking sheet, my boyfriend spooned on some of the tomato puree. Being the anti-tomato-person he was, he only put a few measly spoonfulls on the dough. On the other hand, me being the cheese-fiend, I forced him to use the entire brick of mozzarella. To make the tomato sauce not so bland, we sprinkled some oregano and seasonings on top.


As for the toppings, we basically had to stick to whatever we had on hand. He wanted a meaty topping (I should have known), so he chopped a ton of meatballs in half and threw them on. Me, on the other hand, (other than being cheesy) I wanted the pizza to be veggie-full. I brought a can of olives (which we only used about 5 olives because my boyfriend hates them) and there was a leftover half of red bell pepper in the fridge.


Mmm, once the kitchen filled with the smell of hot pizza, we knew it was ready to take out. Although it doesn't look fancy or pretty, the rustic look was homey and organic.


I cut a big slice for myself and (after taking a ton of pics) I took a bite. Tasted like regular pizza surprisingly- but a very meaty pizza. My boyfriend had to cut the huge chunks of meatballs every square inch of the pizza.


Although this pizza has nothing on the New York pizzerias, it surpassed my expectations. I guess these little storebought packs of pizza dough really do work. Next time, because yes there will be a next time, I plan to cut back on the meat and add more cheese!

english cream scones - don't let the raisins fool you for chocolate chips

Nothing sops up the pains from the previous night more than English scones! ...Or at least that was the excuse I used to convince my cousin to help me bake these. My very close cousin arrived the night before, just in time to partake in our gallivanting activities into the wee hours of the morning. The following morning I had to drag her out of bed and force her to participate in my ritual weekend bakings (I'm such a horrible host, right). I suppose scones really could cure the discomfort caused by a long night of secretive activities, but I was honestly more concerned with baking than the comfort of my cousin.


I was so excited we got to use my prized possession- my food processor!


Although you may be attention deprived, my lovely food processor, you are indeed greatly appreciated.


We formed the big sticky wad of dough into one large circle, and then divided it into fourths.


We couldn't come to a conclusive agreement as to what type of scones these should be. So by dividing into fourths (and knowing that the recipe makes 8 scones) we could have four different varieties of scones, with two of each type.


We decided upon raisin scones, chocolate chip scones, cheddar scones, and blueberry scones. All added variations were eyeballed and packed into the dough disorderly (Obviously not a typical "me" idea, but my cousin just so happened to be the girl version of my boyfriend, so I had to let it slide).



Enter specimen 1: raisin scones. After the allotted time in the oven, we took one out to test. We split it in half and noticed the insides were still raw and doughy. I didn't understand... I divided the dough into the correct portions and baked them for the appropriate time.



Enter #2: chocolate chip scones. After eating my fair share of raw scone dough, I made an executive decision to put them back in the oven. After about 5 minutes more or so, I deemed it the appropriate time to take them out. They were much better, although the outside was much harder and crustier than the gooey insides.



#3: blueberry scones- my cousin's idea. I'm not doubting her idea for the blueberries, just perhaps the application of them. The only available blueberries I had in my house were frozen, so I allowed her to do the appropriate thawing, microwaving, and drying of the berries. Let's just say that not only were these colored brightly purple in some parts, but also a little too wet. And by wet, I mean gooey and probably undercooked.



And finally, #4, the cheddar cheese scones. These were my second favorite (chocolate chip being number one- duh). My favorite story out of this whole incident was when I rushed my cousin out of the house to get to school on time (because I still had classes to attend, being the productive student and all) so she had to quickly grab a snack (because she needed to be fed every hour on the hour). Once she got to school, she took a bite of her assumed chocolate chip scone, only to realize it was a raisin scone. What a disappointment.

---RECIPE---
Taken from Cook's Illustrated

ingredients:
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon table salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter , chilled and cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1/2 cup currants (replaced by our handfulls of random ingredients)
1 cup heavy cream

directions:
1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Place flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in large bowl or workbowl of food processor fitted with steel blade. Whisk together or pulse six times.
3. If making by hand, use two knives, a pastry blender, or your fingertips and quickly cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal, with a few slightly larger butter lumps. Stir in currants. If using food processor, remove cover and distribute butter evenly over dry ingredients. Cover and pulse 12 times, each pulse lasting 1 second. Add currants and pulse one more time. Transfer dough to large bowl.
4. Stir in heavy cream with rubber spatula or fork until dough begins to form, about 30 seconds.
5. Transfer dough and all dry, floury bits to countertop and knead dough by hand just until it comes together into a rough, slightly sticky ball, 5 to 10 seconds. Following illustrations below, cut scones into 8 wedges. Place wedges on ungreased baking sheet. (Baking sheet can be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated for up to 2 hours.)
6. Bake until scone tops are light brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack for at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

amount:
Makes 8 scones. (Next time I'd definitely make a little more, so each scone will be smaller and bake more thoroughly)

english scones - screw america, england is where it's at

I just want to go on record and say that I have grown up to detest scones. All the scones (and yes, I have had many in my life for some reason) I've tasted were rock hard and tasteless. But during my recent trip to Canada (Victoria, British Columbia) with my mother, I had a life-altering experience. Apparently all the scones I've had were American scones opposed to English scones, and being that we were in British Columbia, there were many english scones at the local bakeries. My mom, who has grown up eating and loving english scones, first told me of this difference, and suggested I reconsider my stance on scones. Oh-em-gee, these scones were so delicious and moist and everything opposite of what I was used to. Needless to say, the first thing I did when I got back home was search for this mysterious scone recipe.


I deemed this the perfect time to try out the food processor again. Apparently, when I last tried it to make my pasta dough, I didn't click it in properly which is why it didn't work. After I saw how easy it was for me to cut butter into flour (opposed to the half hour it took me to physically cut butter for the pie crust), I officially decided that I am going to invest in a food processor when I go back to my own house.


The recipe called for heavy cream, but I substitued it with milk because I thought it would be fine anyway.


All I had to do was press pulse a few times and the dough came together perfectly. I cannot even believe how easy it is to make this type of dough.


I floured my mom's fancy marble pastry board (which she has never used in her life) and dumped out my crumbly dough. An interesting thing about these english scones is that they could be either sweet or savory, and more often then not they are actually savory. The types of scones that we tried in Canada were in a multitude of varieties, such as the typical dried fruit ones (sweet), but my favorites were definitely the cheese and herb ones (savory).


So I split the dough into two balls so that way I could make two distinct flavors. The recipe called for currants, but I chose raisins because thats all that I could find.


For my savory scones, I decided cheese flavored (of course). I wasn't in the mood for grating cheddar cheese (which is the typical cheese used for scones), so I grabbed a handful of already-grated Parmesan and hoped for the best. There was no measuring in this part (which I absolutely hate) but I figured that I needed to be more leniant and less Nazi-like while baking.


I plopped my cute little scones on a baking dish and prepared them for the oven.


I actually halved the recipe, because I didn't know if they would come out correctly. And being that I halved the recipe, I used half of an egg (because I am so precise), which actually came in handy for egg-washing the scones.


Hot from the oven, I ripped a scone in half to take my first bite. I'm not even lying, but these scones were damn good.


The food processor really did help me with the cutting of the butter, which can be seen in the flaky strands peaking out from the baked scone.


If I had to describe these english scones, I'd say they were almost like biscuits. They're light and flaky like biscuits, but they're more moist and delicate. The outside still retains a familiar firm texture, but is never rock-solid like American scones. Overall, it just tastes awesome. All we needed was some Devonshire cream or Lemon curd! (lol, don't I sound British?)


The Parmesan cheese scones unfortunatley weren't cheesey enough (go figure). First of all, the color of the cheese is the same as the dough so no one could barely even notice it was flavored. And second of all, the cheese flavor was slightly muted, and could only be noticed if I told someone it had cheese in it beforehand. Next time I'd definitely load on the cheese, and probably use cheddar instead.

---RECIPE---
Adapted from Joy of Baking.

ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup whipping cream or milk (I used milk)

directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and place the rack in the middle of the oven. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. (I used the food processor for this part) In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut the butter into small pieces and blend into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives. The mixture should look like coarse crumbs. In a small measuring cup combine the whipping cream, beaten egg and vanilla. Add this mixture to the flour mixture. Stir just until combined. Do not over mix.
3. Knead dough gently on a lightly floured surface. Roll or pat the dough into a circle that is about 7 inches round. Then, using a 2 1/2 inch round cookie cutter, cut the dough into rounds (I separated the dough in half, adding raisins to one and Parmesan cheese to the other, and divided each half into separate balls of dough). Place the rounds on the prepared cookie sheet, spacing a few inches apart. Brush the tops of the scones with a little cream. This helps to brown the tops of the scones during baking.
4. Bake for about 15 - 18 minutes or until nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into the center of a scone comes out clean. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

amount:
Makes about 10 - 2.5 inch round scones.