Day 125- Making PIZZA

piz·za   [peet-suh]

noun

a flat, open-faced baked pie of Italian origin, consisting of a thin layer of bread dough topped with spiced tomato sauce and cheese, often garnished with anchovies, sausage slices, mushrooms, etc. (Wikipedia)

AKA a slice of heaven, Italy's gift to the world, a food eaten by 94% of the U.S. ....and the newest of my learned recipes:

1 kg flour

1/2 lt water, 20 g of salt, and a pinch of sugar

Add the 12 g of diluted yeast, and a spoonful of olive oil, until it looks like...

This!
Then leave your dough in a warm spot, and while you're
waiting for the dough to rise, make your toppings.

Canned peeled tomatoes for the sauce.

Then add oregano, a few spoons of olive oil and salt to taste.

Sauce, fresh mozzarella, and shaved mushrooms.

After about 3 hours your dough should look like this :)

Divide the dough into 4 balls.

Roll out your pizza to the desired thickness, adding flour when needed.

Play a little...

Put on the sauce in circles, moving from the middle towards the outside of the dough.
Then put on the rest of your toppings, all but the fresh mozzarella.
Bake the pizza in a 250 degree oven, or hotter, until  the bottom is golden brown.

When there is 2-3 minutes left of cooking time, throw on the fresh mozzarella
and put the pizza back in, until it's melted and bubbling.

Yum. Admire your work and enjoyyy.
(Recipe makes 4 pizzas)

So Pasquina's birthday was a success, but not only because of the pizza of course. It was nice to have dinner all together, and she seemed happy, which is the whole point. So yeah, I'm now officially the youngest one in the house.

Birthday champagne

Last night we watched Italy play against Germany in the Eurocup. Italy won 2-1, so that means we're going to the finals!!! The game is on Sunday so we'll see how it goes. Hopefully it will be a little cooler out, although doubtful...yesterday even with the fan pointed at us out on the balcony at 9 at night we were all pretty much melting. Ridiculous.

I had no success in falling asleep with the heat either so I watched a movie, Warrior. If you can bear with all the fighting, I highly recommend it. It was reallly really good and I was of course bawling by the end. Not at all like me...

Today is a holiday, San Pietro and Paulo are celebrated, so everyone's off from work and home. This weekend I was hoping to take some pictures of the neighborhood, and maybe finally get down to the Vatican on Sunday to see the Pope's greeting from his tiny window. AND, Maria and I have impulsively booked two nights for next weekend at a little B&B in Cortona, Tuscany (Under the Tuscan Sun location), which I know is going to be amazing. I have always wanted to go to one of the small towns in the middle of the Tuscan hillside, with the flowers, and the views, and the food. So there is definitely that to look forward to.

And just like that, June is almost over. One more month. Let's not go there.