Friday Fun Food

I have a tendency to take things seriously. For me everything is a school assignment and the only acceptable grade is an “A”. So imagine my surprise this week, when I slacked off. After unpacking my produce and taking the picture at right, I promptly began to ignore it. After so much planning and excitement over the past two months, it was clear that I had hit the midsummer blahs.

I did, as I planned, make pesto with the parsley and basil on Tuesday night, but my dream of a BLT was thwarted by the substitution of cherry tomatoes for slicing tomatoes. My malaise continued on to Wednesday, when I didn’t even venture into the lower half of the refrigerator, instead eating a sandwich for dinner. Last night I was spared cooking, since I was invited to eat at a friend’s house.

So today, I decided it was time to get back on track. But instead of taking myself so seriously, I knew a little pick-me-up was in order. What better way to celebrate the beginning of the weekend than with homemade pizza? I could feel my enthusiasm rising as I reached for my Italian So Fat, Low Fat, No Fat cookbook by Betty Rohde to retrieve my favorite pizza dough recipe.

By the name, you can probably guess this book was published during the no-fat craze of the 90s. I also have the original So Fat, Low Fat, No Fat cookbook and many of the recipes have stood the test of time. In addition to the pizza crust, each version contains a number of go-to recipes as is evidenced by the split binding and stained pages.

With the scent of yeast in the air it felt good to get my hands dirty. After letting dough rise for about 45 minutes I spread it into a jellyroll pan and topped it with some pesto, a little shredded mozzarella, finely sliced zucchini (thanks to my little plastic slicer, which is holding up quite well), red onions and the rest of the cherry tomatoes.

It looked pretty good tasted even better. All in all, I’d give myself an “A” for effort, if I were the sort of person to do that.