Pizza Potpie

I saw this one on the food network. Some restaurant around here does this. It looked fun to make. It is a pizza that is cooked upside down in a bowl.

Pizza dough
slices of mozzarella cheese
pasta sauce (I choose one that has sausage in it)
mushrooms
pepperoni
Basil leafs



First I prepare the bowl by spraying some cooking spray on the inside.

Then I stack the cheese on the bottom of the bowl. On the cheese I added a layer of pepperoni, then 4 or 5 whole mushrooms, more pepperoni then I pour on the sauce. I sprinkled some Parmesan cheese.



This next part, I have no idea what I am doing. I have to make a pizza crust with this pre-made pizza dough. I rip a small chunk of dough and started making a ball. Then I flatten it and try to stretch out the dough as evenly as I can. I used some flour to make it more workable. The crusts I made was very ugly, but it's ok. I am only using them as lids to the bowls.



Bake the bowl at 435 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Pull the bowls out and let it cool for about 10 minutes.



Serve it by putting the bowl upside down on a plate and dump the pizza on the plate.
Easier said then done. I either didn't use enough flour or I didn't grease the edge of the bowls. One of the two crust got stuck. I had to cut it out of the bowl and it didn't look any good. Luckily the other bowl came off easy.



The pizza tasted like a pizza, nothing impressive. I didn't cook this for taste but just thought it would be fun to make pizza this way. In Chicago here I can order a pizza a hundred times better for less than I spend on making this.

There is one big problem with this, the sauce inside got watery and it was more like a tomato soup on a thin crust than anything. So it got messy.

I have to make the sauce thicker. Since it is cooked covered, the sauce didn't have a chance to dry. I would have to use tomato paste instead maybe? Maybe add corn starch? This just didn't turn out that good. Not worth the effort. Maybe I should go to this restaurant to try it.

-a

Ox Tail Soup

This one is from the OG. I added some mushrooms to make it mine.

3 lbs of ox tail
A bunch of black Chinese mushrooms (been soaking overnight)
lots of green onions
a few cloves of garlic
salt
parsley



First trim the excess fat off of the ox tail. Ox tails are fat. Trim them a bit.
Then chop up the green onions and throw them and the garlic in a dutch oven. Then put in the ox tails. Add as much water as the dutch oven will allow. Add some salt. Bring to a boil.



Boil it at medium heat (not simmer) for 3 hours. Skim off the fat that floats to the top, there will be a lot.

I made the mistake at hour 2 when I tasted the soup and it tasted bland, so I added more salt. Stupid me.

After three hours, I added the mushrooms too. Let that boil for about 45 minutes.



I made rice to eat the soup with. Made a minced ginger in soy sauce for a dipping sauce for the meat. Topped the soup with fresh parsley and some raw green onion.



I over salted the soup. It distracted the beef broth taste. It was disappointing. The beef broth would've been really good. Damn it. The rice really came in handy here. The oxtail was delicious though. The ginger soy sauce is great for meat.
I really want a do over with this one, this could've been so good.

-a