Pizza, Gemengde, and Rock Palace

I found this recipe for Sweet Paul’s Grilled Pizza last week, and I could NOT stop thinking about it. My stumbling block was the grill part. We have a grill, but I’ve not tried using it here because of our close neighbours and their open windows. Besides, every time I tried to use the grill in England, it rained. As a matter of fact, when I made this pizza on Friday, it poured!

Anyway, while obsessing over this pizza, I was trying to figure out how to make the crust without the pit. How else could I get a smoky/slightly charred flavor into the crust?  My thought: Cast Iron Skillet (hey, no cracks about burning things)! I tried it and it was fantastic. So fantastic, that the pieces you see in the photo above are all that was left after we inhaled our fill of three pizzas.

Some kitchen notes:

• I used a 12″ cast iron skillet and pre-heated it on high until it was very hot (almost smoking).
• I made three pizzas with this recipe, but I think I would stretch that to four next time because we like thin crust pizzas.
• When pressing out the dough, I used flour instead of olive oil on the parchment paper, but I most definitely used olive oil in the pan.
• Next time, I would make an extra grilled zucchini (which I also made in the cast iron pan before making the pizza) because it was really good.
• I did cook the crust on one side for a few minutes as Sweet Paul recommends. After turning the stove down to medium-high, I took the pan off the heat, flipped the dough over, added my toppings straight onto the dough in the pan (work fast), and then put the pan back onto the heat.
• Since I was experimenting, I tried finishing the last pizza in a 450-degree oven–pan and all–for about five minutes. It was great! Cooking the pizza crust in the hot pan first and then finishing in the oven makes the crust REALLY crispy. I’m going to experiment with this some more. Beyond Ramen has a delicious looking grilled eggplant pizza recipe that I am excited to try soon.

By the way, those extra four pieces? They made delicious leftovers.

In other food news, Carmie left me a comment on my Pannenkoken post asking me if  I’ve tried Drop or Centendrop. Well, no I hadn’t! However, since I was at the store getting the ingredients for the pizza, I decided to grab a bag of these “gently sweet salted” licorice drops. Carmie, I tried these and I am sorry to say that I didn’t care for them. I think that’s mostly because I’m not a fan of black licorice, though. I did like the salty/sweet thing :-) Interestingly, while Mr. DJ, Roxi and I were trying these, we all agreed that it had a slight ammonia taste. According to Wikipedia, Dutch and Nordic licorice contain ammonium chloride.

Here’s what else we did this weekend: finished setting up our music studio. The mixer is in place and the studio monitors and all the instruments are plugged in. Roxi and I did a few practice sessions–I can play two songs on my bass: “Perfect” by Simple Plan and “Disenchanted” by My Chemical Romance. By the way, I found a great site for learning Bass online: Study Bass. It’s run by Andrew Pouska, who is from Houston, coincidentally. Anyway, he has a lot of good information on his site. Check it out!

I really want to put in a good word for one of our new favourite stores: Rock Palace in Den Haag. We ordered all of our new music gear from here (online for delivery) after visiting the store and picking out what we wanted. They have an excellent selection of stuff–electronic pianos, keyboards, guitars, mixers, microphones, amps etc. So, if you’re in The Hague and looking for a music store, we can highly recommend these guys. Hey, I wonder if I can go in and buy a bass teacher? LOL.

A bonus pic for you–this is across the street from Rock Palace.

And finally, my friend Pigtown Design sent me this link to Hema, a Target-like store here in The Netherlands. Check it out! (Give it a few seconds to start).

PS I had a dream last night that I was riding my bicycle around town–and not for recreation either! Is that the equivalent of dreaming in a foreign language? Meaning, does that mean riding a bike for normal transportation is second nature to me now? Hmmm.