Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Pizza & The Lakers (2010 Edition)

I wanted something simple for dinner last night so that I could watch the Angels and Lakers games. Pizza is always pretty easy to make and usually delicious, so that's what I decided on. (Plus, last year I made pizza several times during the Lakers playoff run, which ended with a championship.) I had some fresh mozzarella in the fridge and my original idea was to make my favorite pizza: roasted garlic and basil. But - and I cannot believe I am admitting to this - I did not have any garlic in the house. I don't know what to say. But I did have prosciutto and mini sweet peppers, so I was able to make do.

My mom told me yesterday that she liked my post on KFC but wishes I would "stop eating so much fried crap." I tried to explain that my fast food posts are always popular and that is the rock upon which I am building my empire. (I also considered
expressing my affection for this guy, but in the end decided not to.) At any rate, although pizza is not exactly health food, eating half of a homemade pizza is a lot healthier than most things you can get from KFC.

Fresh mozzarella makes any pizza much better, however it can turn into a runny mess while waiting for the dough to cook in the oven. So I stretched out the crust on the pizza pan and baked it by itself for just under ten minutes in the oven. Then I topped it with a spicy tomato and garlic sauce (that sounds exotic, I suppose, but really the only reason I got it is that it was on sale for $1 at Raphs), the cheese, half a dozen slices of prosciutto, and several slivers of the mini pepper.

After 7 minutes in the oven (at 500 degrees) it was exactly as I wanted it. I removed it, sprinkled a generous amount of chopped basil over it, and served it up. It was delicious. The prosciutto was from Trader Joe's and was a little too salty, but that's a minor complaint. The total cost for this pizza was probably less than $5.

Apparently cooking pizzas during the Lakers game isn't good luck like it was last year, but I may try again this weekend.

6 comments:

SuperLarge said...

Your pizzas are works of art.

JustinM said...

Technically my middle name is Art...

SuperLarge said...

I totally thought it was Danger.

o0angie0o said...

Those sweet bell peppers are the best! Langostino and bacon with some cheese and veggies in a frittata works out very well.

My bf and I were having this discussion the other day because I'm actually from NYC and we decided that pizza was one of our favorite foods...you can do so much with it, it's simple yet so yummy!

Does your lady feel that there is really no great pizza outside of NYC? I haven't tried to much pizza out here but when I lived in North and South Dakota a few months ago it really really really sucked out there.

JustinM said...

No, she definitely thinks there are great pizza places here; just that they're not very common.I've been to NYC about ten times, and I certainly agree with that. The corner pizza joint in NYC, no matter what corner I've been on, has usually been better than 95% of the pizza places around here.

o0angie0o said...

I seriously think it's something in the water