Lisa's Culinary Atrocities

     I’ve wanted to bake a pan pizza in a cast iron skillet for some time and decided it was high time I did so.  Seeing as I am the only one who was going to eat this massive amount of dough, I decided to also waffle a calzone and compare the two.  Bypass a potential waffling?  Nooooo.

I got some pre-made dough from Whole Foods (sorry Trader Joe’s, but this one is better) and brought it to room temperature.  I split the dough in half and formed two pizza circle thingys.  Half went into a very cute corn meal and garlic olive oiled cast iron skillet and was topped with more garlic olive oil, roasted garlic (yeah..I like garlic), Thai-basil, tomatoes, pine nuts and an asiago/fontina cheese blend.  Baked at 375 degrees F for about 25 minutes, it was near perfect—near perfect only because I should have made the dough a bit more thin, however, the bottom was sensationally crunchy and the corn meal really added a nice somethin’-somethin’ to it.  Will do this again.

The Calzaffle also worked out.  I formed my future tummy companion, sprinkled it with corn meal and and oh so lovingly placed it in the waffle iron. I pressed the lid down rather firmly, but not so much so as to spew it’s guts about.  Approximately 10 minutes later, it was ready.  It was crunchy on the outside and oh-so-melty on the inside.  I especially enjoyed the waffle divots as they were perfect oil or sauce receptacles. Even better was that the next day I sprinkled cheese on top and reheated it in the oven—wow…that was good…divots of cheeeese.

Conclusion:  I do not prefer one over the other; perhaps it’s simply mood dependent.  I was able to put more goodies on the pizza as opposed to in the calzone, but the divot aspect is very alluring.  They are individuals and I accept them as such; I love you pizzas.

On a side note, today I drive to Port Townsend to see one of my two best friends from Jr. High. We were in a rather gruesome motorcycle accident together when we were 14 (entirely my fault) and sadly lost touch after that.  I am SO SO SO excited. Will miss our third, Kelly, however; one day we will all get together again…hey, maybe we should all meet in Hawaii!  Yay travel, and Yay I get to drive a MINI, towards the ocean, through a forest, in nice cool air, in about an hour….Love.