Another Try at Food Blogging

Secretly, I harbor a desire to be a popular food blogger like Pioneer Woman or Smitten Kitchen..  I'm not sure why, because while I enjoy baking and cooking, I much prefer reading or other pursuits to making bread or pizza.  I also found when I tried food blogging back in August while we discussed Father Leo's book,  I don't have the patience to make everything look lovely and upload all the photos (it seems to take me a long time when I do this).

This past week I made several pizzas from Thursday Night Pizza.   My sous chef (or rather I was hers) was my 12-year-old daughter, who, as it turns out, is an ace at kneading dough and crafting the pizzas.   We're planning to do a get-together with her classmates soon to make a group of the pizzas, so this was a great test cook for that.

The pizzas looked awesome, in addition to tasting great.  My husband and I really enjoyed the Rotola Pizza, but the kids did not much--not sure why.  When we make more pizzas from the book, we plan to make the Spicy Thai Chicken Peanut Pizza and the Apple Pie Pizza, along with a few more traditional ones.

My daughter is also an ace at taking the photos, a skill she inherited from her talented photographer father (he's not a professional photographer, but he could be!).  So even if I'm not Pioneer Woman, I've got a daughter in the running, merely on her excellent photography skills.

Here is the process:

Here is the yeast proofing in the bowl.

Next, flour is mixed in to make a wet dough.

While the dough rises, we made the 8-minute pizza sauce. It starts with crushed tomatoes.

Now, spices and garlic is added, along with a few other ingredients, and the sauce cooks stovetop.

One the dough is ready, it is stretched out on a floured board.

Then it's carefully moved over to the preheated pizza stone, and sauce and cheese are added.

Here's the Rotola Pizza ready to go into the oven (it was the second one in).  It's covered with Rotola, which is a roll of fresh mozarella and prosciutto.  It was actually easier than a regular pizza but looks fancier.  Now here are some of the finished pizzas.  First is a plain four-cheese pizza:

Doesn't that look beautiful?  It was very tasty.

Here's a closer view.  I told you my 12-year-old daughter takes good photos.

Here's a photo of the Rotola Pizza after it baked.  This photo shows my preferred method of cutting pizzas--with a scissors.  Some think I'm strange, but I find it much easier than either a pizza cutter or a knife.

Thanks for sharing my second adventure in food blogging.  I won't be making the other pizzas this month, but if I do make them in the next week or so I will try to post some photos of the unusual pizzas.  Have you tried any unusual or good recipes this month?  Share away in the comments.