It’s Getting Deep In Here: Sausage Mushroom Provolone-Mozzarella Pizza

Pz9

We red-white-and-blue blooded Americans eat 3 billion pizzas a year, which breaks down to 350 slices a second or an average of 46 slices per person every 12 months. And 93% of us eat pizza a minimum of once a week which is the category that I fall into. Since my teenage years, on several occasions I’ve gone without booze or sex for weeks at a time but I seriously can’t remember not eating pizza at least once during a seven-day period. I just can’t do it! I’m jonesin’ now and I had pizza last night!

My pizza consumption has been a source of embarrassment for me since my high school days. I started out like my friends, just eating it on a recreational basis. Y’know, just a slice or two after a game. But before I knew it my dependence shot through the roof and I was ordering and consuming an entire large pizza by myself multiple times a week! I kept losing delivery jobs because customers would call and complain that their pizzas were showing up a slice short.

I’m much better now but whenever I eat pizza I still order an entire large pie for myself and down it all in one sitting. And of course I have a million pizza recipes. But this one produces the pie that I can only eat one slice of.

Now you can go all Sandra Lee and buy a pre-made crust and a can of spaghetti sauce if you just can’t make it though this entire process. Believe me, I’ve been there. But sauce is simple to make and it’ll give you something to do while you wait for the dough to proof, so tough it out if you can. Substitute and add where you see fit, and get the ice cubes ready; we both know that you’re gonna burn the roof of your mouth on the first piece so you might as well plan ahead. A couple of shots taken before the pie comes out will lessen the pain as well as help mask any culinary mistakes which you may have encountered. (I’m always watchin’ out for ya!)

Katt’s Deep Dish Pizza

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Lodge Cast Iron Goes to the Printing Press

I can attest to the durability and sturdiness of cast iron. It was with a huge cast iron pan that I injured my shoulder last year, while tossing fingerling potatoes, sizzling hot from the 500-degree oven, during a particularly busy Lenten fish fry dinner service.  Still, from enameled cast iron to that nice, seasoned, Lodge pan, anything cast iron gets my vote.

And Lodge is the cast iron standard. If you don’t have a Lodge cast iron in your pan collection, go buy a Lodge.

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How to Sop Up Guinness: Cast Iron Irish Soda Bread

Believe it or not, the Irish are serious about their soda bread. I absolutely love the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread’s website. You really shouldn’t mess around with Irish soda bread wanna-be’s. It’s the real deal or nothing. Go traditional or go home. As an Irish girl and a lover of beer, shamrock tattoos, Irish music, and leprechauns, I can appreciate that. Don’t call something soda bread if it’s not soda bread!

So I think I have done my Irish roots justice in this recipe. Ok, aside from the yogurt, which was not available in Ireland in the 19th century. But, there are no raisins in this bread, nor orange zest, nuts, eggs, baking powder or yeast.

Let me explain. Irish soda bread doesn’t contain yeast. The whole point of the bicarbonate soda was that it was used in place of the yeast as a leavening agent. I even used cast iron like they did back in the day. Plus, I love any excuse to bust out my cute little cast iron skillets.

They are cute. Don’t laugh.

This is a basic, delicious, easy, pretty damn traditional Irish soda bread to sop up the beer that you will drink on St. Paddy’s Day.

Slainte!

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