chicago deep dish pizza
We like pizza at our house. We especially like Chicago-style pizza, what with one of us being from Chicagoland and all. In fact, the last time we visited the Windy City, we indulged in a late-night snack at Pizano’s despite relatively sated appetites. “Let’s go get a pizza,” I’d suggested when we found our time unexpectedly unspoken for. Chris hesitated. Hesitated! “I’m not really hungry,” he offered. “Neither am I,” I agreed, “but how often do we get to eat Chicago pizza?” So out we went. That’s how much we like pizza.
You know who else likes pizza? Our new president, a Chicagoan himself. So it made sense to commemorate his inauguration with homemade Chicago-style deep dish. Well, that an abundance of crisp, local champagne — an otherwise odd pairing that perfectly encapsulated the celebratory and egalitarian spirit of the day.
But back to the pizza: I’ve always assumed the deep dishes of gooey cheese and thick, crisp crust that arrive bubbling at your table were a complicated enterprise impossible to re-create at home. Not so; you can make deep dish pizza in your own kitchen.
Yes you can.
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summer tomato sauce, two ways
In the past ten days I’ve purchased nearly twenty pounds of tomatoes, and I have every intention of continuing the insanity right up until the farmers run out of tomatoes to sell me. You see, we had a long, cold winter, and I’m not just saying that because any winter would have seemed long and cold to a girl who’d recently moved from southeastern Virginia to northern Michigan — I’m saying that because it was still snowing in May.
So it seemed like those luscious orbs of sweet, juicy, vine-ripened summer freshness would never arrive to replace the barely-worth-it hydroponic greenhouse tomatoes that had characterized June and July. And then suddenly, there they were — real tomatoes, spilling out of baskets onto tables throughout the farmers market.
I’m not taking them for granted.
I’m making sauce. Lots and lots and lots of sauce. Which is time consuming, but not at all difficult.
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When Harry Met Salad 