Sometimes I Amaze...

...Even Myself

Somehow, I managed to relax today and in the afternoon decided to cook. It has been a while since I last had pizza, so that is what I began to crave. I have made my own bread for the last, I guess eight years now, so a pizza crust is nothing, but the topping can be a little tricky. I searched the kitchen and decided I wanted a spinich pizza which worked because I had frozen spinich in the freezer and all the fresh basil and oregano and rosemary growing in the garden. I have enough of the herbs growing at this point that I could have had a purely herb pizza if I wanted. Basil grows like crazy in the right soil and environment as does the oregano. The rosemary is practically a native plant around here - it is fantastic for the xeroscaping in the dry central Texas rocky soil. Also as people in the suburbs know very well - deer don't eat rosemary.

After chopping and mixing for a little while - with some added fresh onion and garlic and then the parmesan cheese grated and mixed in, the aromas began to take over the kitchen and I was not certain I would make it to the actual baking of the pizza.

By the time the topping was complete, the dough was ready to be worked into pizza shape. I had preheated the stone, so the dough would start rising as soon as I put it down and I could form a nice bowl to hold the sauce and melting cheeses. It worked beautifully and soon the nice round crust was piled with fragrant herbs, cheeses, and spinich.

After rising another thirty minutes it was ready to bake and that just made the anticipation worse as I could smell every bit of it's goodness fill the house. About the time it was done, I turned on the broiler and set the pizza under it for the last few minutes