My Recent Adventures With Food

Grabbing the wrong ingredient could go horribly wrong, but the time I’m going to tell you about, I lucked out. 

Potato Salad

I come from French Canadian stock, which means I grew up on meat, potatoes and a vegetable…fresh or canned depending on the season and simple desserts. One of my aunts was a super cook…she knew how to make a salad and fantastic desserts. Needless to say, my culinary experiences were with substantial food, but not very imaginative. That pretty much describes my potato salad. Diced cooked potatoes, diced onions, maybe celery salt if I have some, and mayo. I like to sprinkle a little paprika over the top for color.

Last month I reached for the paprika and grabbed curry instead. I noticed my mistake too late. For sure I wasn’t going to throw out a whole dish of salad, so I dug in. Well, well! What do you know? It was really good. The curry gave the potato salad a sort of smoky flavor.

Just to be sure, I repeated the error a couple of weeks later. Same result. I now have a new ingredient in the recipe…curry.

Crusty Bread Pizza

Now this is no mistake…I did it on purpose! Have you seen those ads on TV by Pizza Hut for crusty, Italian bread pizza? When I saw that, I said to myself, “self…you can do that, it won’t cost you what they’re charging and you'll have what you want on it!” So this is what I did…

I got a loaf of crusty bread…not sure if it was Italian, but it was long and fat, as opposed to long and skinny. I don’t think it makes any difference.

I cut the loaf in half crosswise. I took one half and sliced it in half the long way. I put both pieces side by side on a cookie sheet and started the process.

*Pre heat oven to 350° or 400°

*Brush the top of the bread with garlic butter (make your own)

*Spoon on spaghetti sauce…any kind will do as long as you like it

*Top with whatever you want. I used crumbled cooked ground beef, crumbled cooked sweet Italian sausage meat, canned mushrooms (fresh if you want), and finally - shredded mozzarella cheese.

*Put in oven for about 10 – 15 min, until the pizza is hot and cheese is melted.

*Remove from oven and enjoy!

Improvements on the above the second time I made it with the other half of the loaf…

*Cut the bread crosswise to make circles

*Line the cookie sheet with parchment paper for easier clean-up

*Place the bread slices close together to make it easier to place the toppings.

I think I’ll be making my own pizza from now on…unless I get lazy, which is quite possible.