Improvisation at its finest

I am a fan of cooking on the stove. By this I mean that I enjoy putting things in a pan and throwing ingredients to cook and seasoning to taste. This isn't the case when you bake. I try to avoid baking because A) we don't have the best oven at home and B) once it's in the oven, it's pretty much finalized. You can't add ingredients or spices to your edible eats when you bake, so if you mess up, you're pretty much screwed. (Right Ate P? I know how baking cookies made you a bit neurotic those few instances...jk...hehe)

Ok, so here's me taking a stab at baking. It was just pizza, but I had my moments.

Box of Jiffy Pizza Crust Mix:

Next to that fabulous looking pizza slice on the box, it says, "Just Add Water"

With the water added, I mixed it all together. It then required me to cover and store in a warm area of about 85 degrees. Well, it has been pretty "cold" here lately, so I improvised. I placed the covered bowl in front of my space heater and turned it on low. Don't laugh! It required that temperature for about 5mins.

Afterwards, I was supposed to knead it on top of a flour-covered surface. Um well...I didn't have flour, so again, pure magic happened. I busted out with the left over tempura mix we have at home and placed that on my work surface. I figure it's a "powdery" consistency so it could work.

It should not look like this:

I decided to use all of the tempura mix and thank goodness it looked like this:














Now time to shape it onto a 14x10 inch pan...oh wait, don't have that either...Improvise! I busted out with this baking sheet like thing we bake chicken on and removed the top grill part. Voilà, my attempt at shaping my crust into a square:

I then placed it in the oven for 3-5mins to harden...may have placed a little too long:














Then drenched it with sauce:














I had older looking basil that still smelled fresh, but was starting to brown, so I put them on to be covered by the other toppings:

Finished all of my shredded mozzarella and sliced salami:














Confession, I took it out of the oven again and put fresh basil and slices of grape tomatoes on top. I didn't want my basil to burn so I added it during the last 5mins of the baking process:














Oh yeah, I baked this bad boy at 425 degrees for about 18mins, not counting the 3mins to harden the crust. Pure deliciousness! Oh and btw, square plates are on my to-do list. I promise!















Plus, I had a glass (or two) of this sucker...














I bought this bottle at Trader Joe's a few weeks ago cuz it was cheap, $4.95 or so and check out the cool flying pig image. Sold! Not the best, but it did its job. I was definitely satisfied. =D