Putting my money where my mouth is is where it’s at, right?  So after the last post, I figured it was time.  I was happy, I was energized, I had PLANS.  I remembered that my hugenormous, most beloved cast iron skillet was actually purchased while I was in college SPECIFICALLY for making Chicago style deep dish pizza.  Mo would remember, if she had internet at her house.  (Hello out there Mo!!!  I can’t wait for your dish to be reinstalled!  When is that porch going to be done, anyhow?  Oh shoot, she doesn’t read this…..dang it, nevermind.)  It has been a long time, and with a wealth of motivation I decided that Sunday was the day to tackle it.

Of course first I wanted to re-season my pan, because it had been a while.  Don’t get me wrong, I take good care of this pan, and it gets constant, almost daily use.  But if I’m going to the trouble of making a homemade pizza, I wanted things to work perfectly.  So first thing Sunday morning, I seasoned the pans.  It was decided that I would actually be making two pizzas, because the little ones wanted to participate and they are a bit pickier about what goes in their pie.  So I had two skillets to season.  It takes a bit of time, so I’m glad that I tackled it first thing.  Mission accomplished.

On a high of accomplishment, and not needing to start cooking for pizza night quite yet, I decided that I wanted to make another pumpkin bread recipe for comparison purposes against the gluten free version I had made last weekend.  This time I took a recipe from a squash cookbook I had gotten at a used book store and used the all purpose gluten free flour I purchased with xanthan gum rather than regular unbleached flour or the variety of different gluten free flours I had used last time.  My hopes were much, much too high.  I completely sucked it.  I skimmed the recipe (apparently), and misread the temp for baking.  I caught it about 1/3 of the way through the baking time, but the damage had been done.  When I took out the bread it looked great, and within 10 minutes it had flattened itself to about 2″ thick.  I had to eat a piece just to prove to myself that it was a complete loss before I threw the entire loaf in the trash.  Fail.

In an attempt to remain unconcerned, I turned my attention to the business of pizza.  First I made the sauce so that it had the day to simmer.  I cooked the italian sausage and cut the veggies.  I laid out the ingredients so everything was at my fingertips.  I started to make the dough.  I don’t know exactly what I did wrong, but when I finished mixing it up and turned it from the bowl to rest, it was a crumbly, dry mess.  It looked like a giant ball of play-doh that had been left out of it’s can, minus the cool colors.  Fail, Fail!!!

Did I mention my good intentions?  My plans??  What the hell?  

I can pull my shit together pretty good sometimes, and failure is not an option when you’ve already promised homemade pizza to the rats and they plan to put it together on their own.  I had to regroup, and luckily I had plenty of what I needed to make more dough.  The second batch came out of the bowl perfectly smooth and elastic and beautiful, and in the end no one was the wiser about that first try.  Well, except that between the pumpkin brick and the solid lump of pizza dough, the garbage weighed in at like 100 lbs when my husband had to empty the can.  

Note to self, skim reading is not an option in cooking.  Do I really need to learn a life lesson every time I do anything fun around here?