Flash in the Pan

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

• Step Away From the Cookies A consulting firm suggested that supermarkets should use intelligent carrieages that could warn if shoppers were buying too much junk food. The 2.0 version will also nag you about your taste in clothing and ask when you're going to have kids. (Reuters)


• Dad, Can I Borrow the Keys and Stay Up Past Seven? A 6 year old in Colorodo was hunger, so took the keys to his grandmother's car, brought his booster seat along, and prepared to drive to Applebee's - until he crashed the car (no one was hurt) and took out electric and phone service to dozens of residences. (AP)


• Pizza Maker Counterfits Dough A pizzeria owner is accused of printing his own fake bills. It's one way to make sure you always have change. (AP)


• Your Pizza or Your Life A Wisconsin burglar broke into a house to steal food, leaving the valuables. Hey, might as well eat the evidence. (AP)

Labels: Applebee's, news, odd, pizza, weird

A PR person for DiGiorno pizzas - which is a brand of Kraft - send a press release about the new Ultimate line of pizzas, comparing it as superior to chocolate and hugs. I won't get into the hugs debate, but better than chocolate? I wanted to try it, so they sent a DiGiorno Ultimate Supreme (pizza with sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, red onion, and green and red pepper). The advance instructions said put it into the freezer when it arrived - and when it did, it had defrosted. By the time it eventually came out of the freezer, it had a hard curve in it.

But out it came for a family dinner, and I picked up a DiGiorno Ultimate Four Cheese (mozzarella, fontina, Reggiano Parmesan, and mild brick, whatever the latter is), as one pie didn't seem like it was going to be enough for five people.

After tasting both, I can safely say that chocolate - and hugs - are safe. The pizzas were adequate, but neither reached the level of pizzeria pie, let alone what you can do with homemade. At the market I went to, the cheese pizza was something like $7. I don't have the box, but am pretty sure that the pizza was maybe 12 inches across. Even though I wrote the Complete Idiot's Guide to Pizza and Panini, I don't consider myself a pizza snob and have often eaten frozen pies. But if you've got access to a good pizzeria, or don't mind rolling your sleeves up at home, I'd say give the DiGiorno Ultimate a pass unless you want to keep an emergency pie in the freezer.

Labels: DiGiorno, frozen, Kraft, pizza, ultimate

One of the unfortunate things about my upcoming Complete Idiot's Guide to Pizza and Panini is that I ran out of room and so I had to cut a number of recipes. Here's one for rye bread - an easy way to add some excitement to a sandwich.

Yield: 2 loaves
Prep time: 3 hours
Cook time: 25 minutes
Serving size: 2 slices

Ingredients

2[1/4] cups water, 105ºF to 110ºF water
2 cups rye flour
2[1/4] tsp. dried instant yeast (1 packet)
4 to 5 cups bread flour
2 tsp. ground caraway seed (optional)
2 TB. whole caraway seeds (optional)
1 TB. salt
1 tsp. vegetable oil

Directions

1. In a small bowl, add 1 cup water to rye flour. Let soak for 20 minutes.


2. In a small bowl, add yeast to remaining water, and stir until dissolved.


3. In a large bowl, combine 4 cups bread flour, rye flour, ground caraway seed (if using), 1 tablespoon whole caraway seed (if using), and salt, and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Add water and yeast mixture and rye flour and water mixture to the bowl, and mix. Add additional bread flour, 2 tablespoons at a time as necessary, until dough comes away from the sides of the bowl.


4. Sprinkle flour on work surface, place dough on surface, and knead dough for 10 minutes until dough is satiny.


5. Add vegetable oil to the empty bowl, and swirl the bowl to coat the inside. Don't worry if there's a little oil left in the bottom of the bowl. Return dough to the bowl, and turn dough to coat with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let dough double in volume.


6. When dough has doubled in volume, turn out onto a floured work surface and fold to deflate. Divide dough into 2 parts. Shape each portion of dough into a loaf, and place in 2 greased 8[1/2]-inch loaf pans. Lightly oil two pieces of plastic wrap, each large enough to cover one pan, and loosely cover each pan, oil side in. Allow top of bread to reach top of pan.


7. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Remove the plastic from the pans, and brush each loaf with water. Sprinkle tops with remaining 1 tablespoon caraway seeds (if using). Bake 25 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the bottom, when removed from the pan, sounds hollow when tapped.

Labels: bread, complete idiot's guide, panini, pizza, recipe, rye

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

• Chocolate in Moderation A recent study suggests that daily dark chocolate reduces blood pressure. Unfortunately, the necessary ingestion is around 6 grams, with the restriction undoubtedly leading to depression. (AP)


• Penguins and Garlic Shanghai zoo keepers are feeding garlic to the penguins to ward off respiratory problems, sutffing a few cloves in each fish the birds eat. For some odd reason, there has also been a sharp drop in the number of people wanting to see the birds. (AP)


• Paris Hilton Goes to Dogs Someone supposedly poked through Paris Hilton's garbage, found a can from some organic dog food, and sold it on eBay for $305. Hopefully they will recycle it. (AP)


• Porn Pizza A western Canadian pizza joint has been putting a pornographic picture in the bottom of each box, under the pizza. The restaurant sold hundreds of pizzas in one week. Do delivery personnel ask if it was as good for the customer as it was for them? (AFP)


• Movie Munching There's a new documentary on speed eating. Get to the theater early - the snack stand lines will be fierce. (AP)


• Really Fresh Fish A chef in Taiwan got into trouble for serving a fish that wasn't quite dead. Boy, and ususally people complain because the fish isn't fresh enough. (AP)

Labels: blood pressure, chocolate, dog food, fish, fresh, garlic, Paris Hilton, penguins, pizza, porn, speed eating, Taiwan, weird