Cooking Frenzy

The cooking bug bit me again; though, in my peripheral vision, I vaguely saw the househelp's forlorn face
when she learned that I was gonna cook. I can just imagine what went through her head ("Ay, naku, si Ate, magluluto na naman! Tambak na naman ang linisin kong gamit mamaya! Sana naman ay makakain"). Having bought some strawberries last night, I decided to make chocolate-dipped strawberries. I dried the berries with paper towels and melted half a cup of Tollhouse semisweet chocolate chip and few tablespoons of butter. When the chocolate and butter melted, I dipped the berries, but the results were not so good. As you can see on the picture on the left, the chocolate was a bit grainy. So I refrigerated the strawberries and added more butter to the remaining chocolate. When the first chocolate layer was already frozen, I redipped the strawberries on the second batch of melted chocolate, which has a higher butter content, and the result was great---the chocolate covering is smooth and shiny. Pretty and yummy! Yay! Success!

Off to the next mission! Pizza!
Pizzas are very easy to make and are sure crowd-pleasers. I have made lots of this in the past and can do it blindfolded with one arm tied at the back. Looking for a challenge, I decided to make the dough myself. I remember Inquirer publishing a recipe last year. Thing is, I can't find any yeast---I actually found one, but it's a half-kilogram pack, and I only need a tablespoon. TheHusband and I even asked several bakeries if they can sell us a tablespoon, but they wouldn't allow any of it. I even grossly joked to TheHusband to find some girls with yeast infection---I know! Bad joke! And yucky! And I'm so, so sorry! Anyway, failing to find some yeast, I decided to hit the Internet for some ideas, and there are a few (e.g., baking soda with crushed ascorbic acid, which we don't have at home). Then TheHusband found a site suggesting the use of beer. And I thought, why not? Yeast is used for the fermentation of beer. Ah, I love the Internet, and the post about the beer-as-yeast-substitute is not so bad either--- it's quite funny, actually. Oh, I digress. After making the dough, I "dressed" it up with tomato sauce, olive oil, mozzarella, salt, pepperoni, white onion rings, green bell pepper, tomato slices, and ground beef sautéed in [almost whispering] McCormick pizza flavoring *blushes* (sorry, no fresh herbs available!) and baked it. The smell was heavenly, the dough was chewy, and the taste? Not bad, not bad at all! Had Sharkteeth been here, the weekend would have been perfect. Pizza, cola, Scrubs marathon...ang sarap ng buhay!