We’re Makin’ PIZZA! and Mac ‘n Cheese! and Memories!!!

I managed to coerce my 27 y/o son away from his enthralling video game to head into the kitchen to make his favorite food from scratch. He was not enthused at all, but I was sure we could turn that around.  I had a recipe, a bread maker, all the ingredients, and enough gumption for the two of us.  We assembled all the ingredients on the counter and started measuring them out.  The recipe itself didn’t call for a bread maker, but I was going to shortcut that with my machine.  The first thing that didn’t seem right was when we had to add the yeast to the water.  Normally, in a bread machine, you just poke a small hole in the flour and drop in the yeast, and then put the liquid on the other side, but OK if that’s what the recipe wanted, I better follow the rules!  In no time at all, we again had the machine on the dough setting and a feeling of accomplishment rising. 

“Did you add the olive oil?” my son asked.   His eyes rolled to the ceiling when he saw my shocked expression.

Quickly, I shut the machine off, and we dumped the two tablespoons in.  I don’t recall ever adding olive oil to the bread machine in years past, but I WILL conform to the recipe.  Once the machine was back on, we each went back to our respective corners for the hour and forty-five minutes it would take for the dough to form.

When it was getting close to the time, I took a peek and was shocked to see that it looked nothing like previously created forms of dough I’ve seen. It appeared very runny, and I didn’t think another three minutes was going to change anything, but I waited the full time.  I floured the counter and poured it out like a large pancake. I dusted my hands with flour and tried to scoop it together while the ‘Mission Impossible’ theme suddenly played in my head.  I need a TON more flour and I couldn’t use my hands to get any as they were packed with wet sticky dough, so I called out for help. 

Patrick came into the kitchen, saw what I was doing, and dumped a good portion of flour over my hands and the pile they were stuck in.  He quickly abandoned ship and left me alone in the kitchen again. That flour seemed to help as I was able to rub my hands together to get all the stuff off them, and then I started working on forming a dough ball.  It took quite a bit more flour, but then hard sections forming on the counter were getting in the way of rolling the dough.  I grabbed one of those small plastic scrapers that Pamper Chef gives with their stoneware and scraped all the hard bits of dough off to the side.  I again floured the countertop and my hands and resumed working the dough.  I added to the ball all the bits and pieces that were laying around and kept mushing it together. Success was achieved so I put a small bit of flour in the bottom of a bowl, dropped the dough in, covered it with a clean kitchen towel and set it on the floor by the heating vent. 

I went into Patrick’s game room and informed him that the dough was proofing, and in 30 minutes I would know whether there was still any life left in the yeast or if it was all going in the trash.  He gave me a sideways look and went out to the garage ‘frig to get a frozen macaroni and cheese meal to microwave.  He had told me earlier that day that he was all out of his Better Health frozen meals, which is why I suggested making the pizza.  “I was saving one for an emergency, and this is an emergency.”

After he was done eating, he asked me if I wanted to learn how to make macaroni and cheese from scratch.  I was kind of invested in the pizza by now, but since I have been encouraging him to learn to cook, I had to go along.  (According to him, I’m ‘almost the world’s worse cook’ which might explain his reluctance to join me in the kitchen.)  He quickly got out the pans for boiling the elbows and making the roux and got to work.  I have never made a roux in my life but at least I knew what it was! He explained everything rather scientifically as he proceeded through the process and refused to let me help.  Eventually I was allowed to stir the noodles as they boiled, and later even gave the roux a stir when he had to step away from the stove.  When the 30 minutes on the dough proofing was up, I was ecstatic to see that the dough had actually increased in size!  I started mushing it out on the newly floured counter, and spreading it to get it to the approximate size of my pizza stone.  Patrick had previously sliced the mozzarella and we had the sauce at the ready, so he instructed me that he would assemble the pizza when I had the dough ready.  The dough was a little weird, though, as some areas felt like normal dough and other areas felt very dense and unyielding.  In fact, I couldn’t get this one section to do much at all, so I told Patrick we were just going to ignore that little part and work with the rest of it.  He came over to add the sauce and cheese and remarked that it looked like a Pac-man.

I left the pizza area to go to the stove to babysit the roux and cheese mixture, while Patrick finished the pizza. While we were talking, Patrick mentioned that the flour to water ratio was all wrong in the dough and it probably didn’t need two cups of water.  I looked at him and said, “The recipe called for one cup of water.”  Silence ensued from the person who added the water.

When we switched places again, there wasn’t anywhere near enough sauce on the pizza so I grabbed the spoon to add some only to hear loud protests from my son to step away from the pizza.  This was going to be so dry, but I put it in the 450° oven.  Patrick had me set the microwave time for 10 minutes, as he was finishing up the mac ‘n cheese.

While the mac ‘n cheese turned out edible, we experienced cooks in the kitchen determined that it would have been much improved had we shredded the cheese ourselves, so immediately shredded cheese was banned from future purchases.  Patrick’s father didn’t understand what the problem was and declared it just fine.  (Patrick often refers to John’s eating as goat-like because he will eat anything, which is a good thing since he’s married to me and my cooking.)

The pizza took another 13 minutes to cook but finally it was done.  I pulled out the stone and left it to cool on the counter.  Eventually, I checked the bottom which appeared done, so I grabbed our pizza wheel to cut it.  I realize I’m getting weaker in my old age, but it took an amazing amount of pressure to cut through the crust.  I avoided the Pac-man area just in case it was bad and pulled a slice out to eat while calling Patrick into the kitchen.

I was about two small bites into it when he took his first bite and immediately spit it out!  “That’s horrible!  That’s the worse pizza ever!!!”  I was still chewing.  The more I chewed, the more I realized that he might have a point there.  He had already left the kitchen in disgust and vowed not to eat anything I cooked again.

Now I just have to work on John.