Indulgence

[ainjel]

Well, we haven't cooked much lately. It's been a weekend of indulgence. Saturday was a cookout at my uncle's. It was actually the weigh-in for my family's weight loss contest. My boyfriend won! So everyone had to give him $20. That's the reason for our indulgence. We ordered pizza Saturday night. I always forget what a mistake that is! It never tastes as good as my boyfriend's homemade pizza. Sunday we went to the grocery store after being out all afternoon and just grabbed a bunch of things that are quick to fix - pizza bites, pudding, ice cream, etc. And today, we've already had Tasty Tacos (and awesome local taco place) for lunch and we're going to PF Chang's for dinner tonight. It's long overdue though. We haven't treated ourselves for quite a while. We should maybe do it more often so we don't go so overboard. ; P

[oldbay]

Sounds like you had a nice weekend. It rained here all weekend, and is still raining. It's absolutely so wet outside that it's hard to describe. People that live in Florida probably know how wet things can be. But we get snow here so it ain't Florida. But after 5 days of steady downpours, everything is soaked through, even the birds!

So does your boyfriend make his own pizza dough, or buy it ready to go? It seems to me that the dough is one of the major parts of the taste of a pizza. Much like the bread makes the sandwich.

[ainjel]

Oh I wish we would get some rain. The weather has been a cruel joke lately. Our little town keeps getting missed and everywhere around here gets rain.

Yes, my boyfriend makes his own dough and lets it rise and everything. We have a nice pizza stone and use cornmeal on it to keep it from sticky much like pizza parlors. Next time we make it, which I think will actually be tomorrow, I'm going to try making homemade pizza sauce. Lately we had been using the PizzaQuick stuff. IT tastes good, but I'm all for homemade. So hopefully I can do a modified version of my spaghetti sauce and have it work.

[GregGraves]

I'd say you can make your own pizza sauce that's way better then anything you buy in a store. All of the store sauces need to be loaded with preservatives (salt) in order have a reasonable shelf life. You can make your own sauce, leave out the salt, and add oregano, basil, and marjoram as herbs to season the sauce. I like to add a little sugar too. If you're making two cups of sauce, add 1/4 tsp of oregano, marjoram, and basil. Simmer for 10 minutes.

[ainjel]

Well, my spaghetti recipe has 1/4 cup of oregano and it tastes great. What I'm going to do is make the spaghetti sauce but leave out the meat. For spices I always use basil, minced onion and red pepper flakes. I usually add in some minced garlic, too.

I guess I've never even used or bought marjoram. What kind of flavor does that add to food?

[GregGraves]

Marjoram is an herb that's closely related to oregano and tastes very close but they're different herbs. I remember reading years ago that most people use marjarom to season foods, and think it's oregano.

[Mama Mangia]

I use a lot of marjarom in cooking - not as much oregano - but I do like to use the Greek oregano - it has a nice flavor. (even though I am Italian)

I think what turned me off to oregano was many years ago when the pizzerias used to load oregano on their pizza trying to make them "Italian" style. Many Italian pizzas don't even have oregano on them! Depends on the region you are from.