Pizza & Macaroons

We had our first houseguest the weekend before last! Yes, it's a hectic time to be entertaining. But it was one of my roommates from college, and you have to understand - I love these ladies. We were "randoms," and I was very, very fortunate to live with them! We don't get to see each other too often, so this was too good a chance to pass up!

I made pizza for dinner on Saturday night, which turned out to be perfect timing. My husband is quite particular about his pizza. Meaning it's not burned. It's supposed to look like that. Underneath all that cheesy goodness are artichoke hearts, spinach, and tomatoes. Have you tried making pizza crusts with the recipe I use? Did you know it's supposed to make two? And if you did, why didn't you tell me??


With a full day to play around, we attempted to make macaroons. Emphasis on the attempted. I fail as a cooking teacher. I could blame it on the change in humidity, as our old inland apartment is very dry, but let's face it - these were just a fail. My friend had brought us real macaroons and they were so soft and light and fluffy - definitely not the way mine turn out. So I thought putting less dry ingredients would make them soft and light and fluffy. It made them runny.

So we had lunch, visited the Huntington Library, attempted lobsterfest (never run out of lobsters my foot), had tapas for dinner in Hermosa Beach, and tried for round two. And failed again. Foil is not a good approximation for parchment paper. Wax paper is, but the last time I used it, the wax was hard to get off the baking sheets.


I made almond flavored buttercream for filling, but I think I put too much extract in, because they seemed to reek of alcohol. At least the second round survivors were tasty!

Pizza III

I'm really getting the hang of this pizza-making business.


If this wasn't leftover, it would probably look tastier. The toppings here were turkey pepperoni and plain old spaghetti sauce. I figured if they make turkey dogs and turkey burgers, they must make turkey pepperoni. And indeed they do! Although it's what I like to call "food product." Meaning something that tastes like food, looks like a fair impostor of food, and yet has been so processed it barely qualifies as anything more than a mix of chemicals and flavors. But it's astoundingly low calorie.

Yes, I'm aware that pizza sauce ≠ spaghetti sauce. But I'd used up my canned tomatoes and tomato paste, and mixing up a pizza sauce suddenly seemed overwhelming on a hot night when I really wanted takeout pizza in the first place. Yet, I didn't want to make the emergency frozen pizza we always seem to have on hand. Perhaps we won't even need these any more!