Friday Fotos: 2/26

So that's what happened...

courtesy of... lolpix.com




Must be a bank...

courtesy of... failblog.org




This is SO true...

courtesy of... icanhascheezburger.com

A Muse Takes a Holiday

Well, I've been trying like crazy to come up with something to write about, but I just can't think of anything. I thought about writing an article about my weight loss, but I've already written so many articles on that topic, it would just be beating a very dead horse (just don't hold me to this, because I may just end up pulling a Doctor Frankenstein on that poor horse). I also thought about posting some cute pictures of our cats playing and sleeping together, but I think I may leave that for the next time I can't think of anything to say (which, by all calculations, should be fairly soon). I would just like to find out what is causing this writing-drought?

Could it be that since I am rewriting my novel, that I'm using all my creative prowess on that? Could it be that this all-elusive creative prowess is just a figment of my imagination? Could it be that my muse has left on an extended holiday and just forgot to let me know? Whatever it is that may be causing this drought, I must say that it's not fun to have to stare at a white screen and see a stupid cursor blinking back at me.

When I look around the room for any hint of inspiration, the first thing that catches my eye is kitchen counter top. It seems as if the gnomes have been very busy, because everything seems to be stacked on it, except food. I look over and notice that the cats are sleeping...well, there's a shocker. So, I can only think of one thing I can do: coffee! Yup, I think that's the ticket.

My First Pizza

Several weeks ago I made a new sourdough starter that I want to use for pizza dough. Well, last week, I decided to give it a test run and see how it tasted. Even though we didn't have the ingredients available for the type of pizza I wanted to make; even though we don't have a pizza stone; even though we don't have a pizza peel (fancy name for a spatula on steroids), my impatience won the battle and I went ahead and made one anyway.

As you can see from the picture, I won't have to worry about Domino's begging me to come work for them any time soon, but even though it looks like an extra from the 1950's classic The Blob, I'm told it still tasted good. Now, since this was the first time I used this starter, there was not going to be a lot of extra dough to play with, so I went ahead and made two smaller ones. The one on the right was for my daughters and the one on the left was for my wife.

My daughters' pizza was just a simple cheese pizza. I took their crust and brushed it with olive oil and then layered-on the cheese. For my wife's pizza, I went to the freezer and defrosted some of the tomato sauce I made last year and spooned that on the crust. I then took some vegetarian sausage that she got (we had a free coupon for it) and put that on the pizza. Then a slice of American cheese torn-up and placed around the top. Any exposed crust was then brushed with olive oil.

These little beauties were then covered and stored in the refrigerator until about one hour before cooking time. At cooking time, I set the oven to 450° and cooked them about 15 minutes. I then served the pizza and went into the next room and did our taxes (fun times, huh?). Anyway, when I came out an hour later, I expected to find leftover crusts, because my daughters NEVER eat the crust; they always pawn them off on my wife, but this time they ate them...go figure.

Taking another quick look at the picture, you can see that I need to do a lot of work on my dough rolling and shaping, but I guess that will come with practice...and I intend to practice a lot.