Sorry about that folks!!! That my blog had been inactive for over a month now was a thought which would strike me every time my mind had time and space to think – which wasn’t too often. Thinking isn’t very easy to come by when you have a baby (your baby) demanding your full attention. If she isn’t demanding your full attention, then she is sleeping..and if she is sleeping, then you better be sleeping too. That's the only time you will get to sleep.
So this past three day weekend was something I looked forward to. After all, a baby can not possibly take all those 72 hours for herself, can she? There were quite a few things to be done too – washing my clothes, my bike (which I hadn’t personally done after having bought it) and, most ambitiously, bake our very own pizza – pizza base and all.
For someone for whom lighting the gas stove is a constant adventure, a pizza would seem a foolhardy task. But then, I wasn’t alone this time – that’s the plus of a marriage and moreover, it wasn’t to be on a stove. It was going to be courtesy our brand new, full-options, swanky, (not to mention bloody expensive) microwave.
Now, neither of us had more familiarity with the pizza other than the familiarity you have when you eat it. So we had to start from scratch. We did our bit of online hunting for the recipe. Information overkill ensured that we weren’t anywhere near figuring where to start. Then I decided to fall back on that most reliable of gourmets – Mac. I remembered reading something about a pizza somewhere in his blog, and so I mailed him for the recipe. He forwarded me a recipe from a friend of his. The first milestone was conquered.
Step two was to get hold of the ingredients. The toppings weren’t a problem, neither was the olive oil. Though I did think it was a tad expensive at 250 bucks. What confused me was some of the names. I went hunting for mozzarella cheese, but I couldn’t find any- was cheddar cheese the same? Could it be very different? Cheddar cheese would have to do, I thought..and I bought it. But then I went hunting again the same evening and this time, I found mozzarella cheese himself. As for the pizza sauce, I had a tough time finding that one too. Sure enough, the shelves were stacked with different types of sauce – BBQ sauce, pasta sauce, then some obscure names from China sauce, but I couldn’t find anything called pizza sauce. I then espied a bottle titled Pizza Paste. I wasn’t too sure but then the label said that it served the same purpose as what the recipe told me pizza sauce did. So that was the end of that.
Sunday was the day we chose to experiment. Fortunately, that afternoon was one of those rare days when Daya was content conversing with the bright yellow curtains in our drawing room. Sausages, shredded chicken, corn, cheese and of course, the indispensable onions and tomatoes were cast as toppings. Once we got the base ready (or thought we’d gotten the base ready), we spread the toppings and into the microwave it went. We placed the base on one of our dining plates. The recipe said 400 F for 20 odd minutes. We did just that. Twenty minutes or so later, after the microwave gave off its beep, we took it out. The base didn’t seem cooked. We figured that maybe we should have kept it for a while longer. So back it went. Another 15 odd minutes. In between we could hear odd crackling sounds from inside. I wondered if it was the corn. When we took it out after fifteen minutes, this is what we had:
For someone for whom lighting the gas stove is a constant adventure, a pizza would seem a foolhardy task. But then, I wasn’t alone this time – that’s the plus of a marriage and moreover, it wasn’t to be on a stove. It was going to be courtesy our brand new, full-options, swanky, (not to mention bloody expensive) microwave.
Now, neither of us had more familiarity with the pizza other than the familiarity you have when you eat it. So we had to start from scratch. We did our bit of online hunting for the recipe. Information overkill ensured that we weren’t anywhere near figuring where to start. Then I decided to fall back on that most reliable of gourmets – Mac. I remembered reading something about a pizza somewhere in his blog, and so I mailed him for the recipe. He forwarded me a recipe from a friend of his. The first milestone was conquered.
Step two was to get hold of the ingredients. The toppings weren’t a problem, neither was the olive oil. Though I did think it was a tad expensive at 250 bucks. What confused me was some of the names. I went hunting for mozzarella cheese, but I couldn’t find any- was cheddar cheese the same? Could it be very different? Cheddar cheese would have to do, I thought..and I bought it. But then I went hunting again the same evening and this time, I found mozzarella cheese himself. As for the pizza sauce, I had a tough time finding that one too. Sure enough, the shelves were stacked with different types of sauce – BBQ sauce, pasta sauce, then some obscure names from China sauce, but I couldn’t find anything called pizza sauce. I then espied a bottle titled Pizza Paste. I wasn’t too sure but then the label said that it served the same purpose as what the recipe told me pizza sauce did. So that was the end of that.
Sunday was the day we chose to experiment. Fortunately, that afternoon was one of those rare days when Daya was content conversing with the bright yellow curtains in our drawing room. Sausages, shredded chicken, corn, cheese and of course, the indispensable onions and tomatoes were cast as toppings. Once we got the base ready (or thought we’d gotten the base ready), we spread the toppings and into the microwave it went. We placed the base on one of our dining plates. The recipe said 400 F for 20 odd minutes. We did just that. Twenty minutes or so later, after the microwave gave off its beep, we took it out. The base didn’t seem cooked. We figured that maybe we should have kept it for a while longer. So back it went. Another 15 odd minutes. In between we could hear odd crackling sounds from inside. I wondered if it was the corn. When we took it out after fifteen minutes, this is what we had:
We spent the next 5 minutes scraping off the toppings from the pizza – eating the toppings alone is tasty business. We haven’t quite figured out what was wrong yet. It perhaps could be the plate. It probably didn’t conduct heat too well. As for the crackling sound we’d heard, it was the plastic coating on the plate coming off.
I am not giving up on the pizza though. I have enough olive oil, pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese to last me plenty more experiments. Where else would I use them? Plus, man was never meant to succeed at first try – was he now?
4 comments:
u clicked the snap half way tro eating it, or was this how it was? :P
next time, like i said, pre cook the base a little bit... and use a metal bottom
nice try bro , better luck next time, over here im jus tryin to find which tastes better pizza hut, pizza inn, dominos,pizza company, Round table pizza and the list goes on - shawn
Don't tell me you shoved a simple plastic plate into the microwave! Or did you?
You are supposed to use microwave-safe cookware for that.
Btw, could you learn making steaks in your microwave by the time I drop by next? Am not a big pizza fan :(
@Mac- This was how it was when I checked to see if the base was ok :-)
My wife figured out the problem yesterday though..what we thought was Maida...turned out to be rice flour :-D
@Bro- yea yea..enjoy urself..wait till I perfect this art of pizza making..that shd just take a few years more
@Jimbo - It wasn't plastic bud :-)But yea..somewhere close to that..the first time's always a dud!
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