Sunday, June 27, 2010

My favourite naughty foods

Pizza and chocolate.  Not together obviously, although I suppose you could do a nice chocolatey pizza like the one at Max Brenner's ... mmm ... where was I??

Oh. Yes.  My two favourite foods that are well and truly in the "naughty" category would have to be pizza and chocolate.  Unfortunately I don't have the metabolism of a hummingbird so I do try to be a good girl and keep them both to a minimum. 

Many, many years ago I worked evening shifts in a small but very busy country pizza restaurant.  I would work for five or six hours in the kitchen and go home absolutely reeking of tomato paste, melted cheese and ham; the smell would embed itself in my hair, clothes and skin - and I went off pizza for quite some time.  Nothing against the place as it was extremely popular and the pizza was excellent (I happily ate there before I got the job).  Something about how mechanics' cars are always overdue for a service.  Or someting like that.  Anyway, I got over my pizza aversion soon enough and have since become a coinnosseur of sorts.  Barbara, local Vintage Cookbooks shop owner, recently blogged about a new gourmet pizza restaurant that's opened up in my little town in the hills - pardon my excitement but this is HUGE news, because there was only one dinner restaurant in the town before that, and becuase I just LOVE pizza's which are a bit 'out there'.  I'll keep you posted as I'm sure I'll be eating there soon.

The best negotiation between eating the usual dripping-with-fat-pizza-shop-pizza and the weight watchers cardboard version, has got to be making your own from scratch.  You can use healthy toppings and low fat mozzarella cheese which pretty much tastes the same as regular.  Tonight I gave my new Kitchenaid mixer a workout and used the dough-hook to create a lovely pizza dough, and made pizzas for my husband and I using our favourite toppings:  white anchovy+vegetable for me, and peking duck+vegetable for him.  I've put him on a mission so that we don't suffer soggy bases in future:  a terracotta tile for the oven.



The next thing I baked today was a downright disgustingly gooey chocolate and raspberry brownie, using the recipe from a Donna Hay book ("Instant Entertaining").  Having the raspberries is an amazingly clever addition as the acidity and tartness cuts through the rich chocolate beautifully.



My excuse is that I'm booked in with a friend's church to help cater a gourmet three course meal to 14 dinner party guests - all in the name of some good old fashioned fundraising.  So at the moment I'm testing out various sweet and savoury things to ensure we get it right on the night.  And so I don't completely gorge myself on all of the finished products, I'm taking them into work to tempt the tastebuds of my colleagues instead. 

You know the drill; let me know if you would like a recipe or two... and if you like my blog, please subscribe!

Cheers, K_Bom x

3 comments:

Barbara said...

Haha yes we have very small lives in the hills when the opening of a pizza restaurant generates this much excitement amongst us all!. Lovely recipes. Herbicious Delicious in Olinda has a reasonably priced pizza stone (about $15). I'm green about the Kitchenaid!

Ellise @ Charles Whyte said...

So pleased to have discovered your blog tonight (and I will subscribe - promise).

Chocolate and pizza - excellent choices for favourite naughty foods. I LOVE how all the gourmet pizza places cropping up are now doing dessert pizzas. i carusi in Brunswick East do a triple choc calzoni, oh my, I can hardly type that without salivating. Also, if you want to venture out the west side of town, come and try l'uccellino in Yarraville. They have delicious dessert pizzas!

K_Bom said...

Thanks for the tempting suggestions Ellise, I must admit I haven't tried any sweet pizzas yet, the place in Yarraville sounds great!