Me & My Big Ideas: A Dinner Dilemma

I live in Phoenix, Arizona.  Sounds nice right?  Sun, cactus, cowboys, palm trees and the Kokopelli... um and 115 degree temps in the shade! This can make dinner a dilemma especially if it's pizza or anything else the requires an oven or stove.  'Round these parts we keep the curtains shut and the lights off, let alone even thinking 'bout turning on the oven. What to make, what to make?  So as I was driving home I got the bright idea to pull out my pizza stone, walk down the grill, turn it on, wait a bit and grill some pizza.  Great idea.  And it worked... well, sort of.

I would normally make my own crust, however, with as hot as it is I don't even want to turn on my KitchenAid.  I made a trip to Fresh & Easy and picked up a whole wheat crust.

Hint: Do you see the charred cornmeal on the pizza stone? This should have been my first clue that something was wrong.

Next, make some pesto or do what I did and pick up a jar.  Unless pine nuts are on sale I will almost always pick some up rather than make it fresh.  Don't get me wrong I love fresh pesto and it is easy to make, I just don't want to shell out the cash for the nuts!

Throw on some nitrate free peperoni, sliced mushrooms, cheese, bell pepper and tomato and close the grill.  and...

You will have perfect, black bottom pizza.  Yup you heard right, black bottom pizza.  This pie looks amazing from this photo.  It just has one major issue.  I burnt the crust on the bottom.  I think I may have resolved this issue, at least in theory.  Two things, one assemble the pizza then place it on the stone.  I did it on the hot stone... bad idea? not sure. This leads me to the second part of my theory, don't make the grill so flippin' hot! Turn the damn thing down. Oh and remember, even if you turn it down, them pizza stone things stay HOT for a long, long, long, long time! 

Even with the black bottom, I ate this pizza and it was good.  I just could not serve it to anyone.

If you have any tips for grilling pizza on a stone feel free to comment!  I am student foodie!!

Cupcakes Gone Wild

Fail. 
That's really all I can say about my little cupcake adventure... The day started off normal enough, baking plans, trip to the market, then off to World Market to buy lavender to make Honey Lavender Cupcakes.  While I was there I found some silicone baking cups at an amazing price, $2.50 for 6. If you have ever looked at them they run about $9.99.  So if you want some World Market is the place to go. 


 Okay now back to this cupcake disaster. When I arived at my friends house her husband was not even willing to let the lavender cupcake idea into his house at all.  This was due to a fear of soap flavored cupcakes.  500 Cupcakes seemed like a good idea for a cookbook.  The Cherry Cheesecakes came out wonderful.  The problem with this cookbook is it calls for self rising flour. I refused to buy another flour.  I have so many different kinds of flour I could open a bakery.  I looked up a recipe to make my own self rising flour and set out on an adventure of making Cookies and Cream cupcakes.  Made the flour, then the recipe called for even more baking powder.  I think this is where it all went wrong.  That and from the moment the batter was finished it seemed off.  It had a texture more like cookie dough than cake batter.  Popped the cupcakes into the oven and waited.  What can I say, they erupted like a volcano all over the pan.  What a mess.  I have had things turn out ugly before but they still taste good. Yeah, NOT with this one.  They were not suitable for human, or animal consumption.  Gross is not a strong enough word for them. 


My Theory is it all had too much baking powder.  I will try them again and forgo the self rising flour all together and just use all purpose flour.  It could just be that this is a bad formula for cakes, I will give it another try and let you know how how it goes,


If you are a baker feel free to comment on what you think went wrong  This one had 2 tablespoons of baking powder for the self rising flour recipe, then an additional teaspoon of baking powder for the cake recipe. 


What did these wild cupcakes look like you ask?  Well here is a photo of what quite possibly  be the ugliest, grossest  cupcakes ever!  They put the "F" in fail!