Buffalo Chicken Pizza

So, we have all read about the failbread. But, I have yet to tell you about it's gill buddy and more successful cousin, buffalo chicken pizza. This had become a favorite dish at a restaurant, so we decided to try it at home, and spend less money. It started out with that same dough, whole wheat, I forgot to mention in the previous post, and that's why it's brown. We cooked it for about 20 minutes on the grill with nothing on it. I think next time I'd reduce this time by about 5 minutes, as the bottom was a little more done than I wanted. So, dough cooked, I started to top. First, buffalo sauce. We used Steak and Lube's medium, because it looked like a good, insane, color. Because we're crazy, next time we'll use hot. I also put on some chopped red onion and some chopped celery.


We had some grilled chicken that I chopped up, then dumped in a bag with some more of the buffalo sauce and shook. Last, but certainly not least, I put on some garlic and cheese.


We put it back on the grill and cooked it until the cheese was melted.

Then served.


We ate it with salads, and it was delicious.

Failbread

Last night, we made pizza on the grill. We had bought a new pizza stone for the grill, and also an iron skillet to make deep dish pizza in. I made dough, following about 3 different recipes online and we put some on the stone and some on the skillet. We placed them in the grill. This is what happened.


I didn't oil the stone. I didn't think to. The dough had lots of oil in it, and I didn't remember oiling my ones from pampered chef. Oops. The dough stuck to the stone like there was no tomorrow. It stuck like my finger in the organ bench (gotta be overly informed about my childhood to get that one, ask me if you're really interested) So we had one pizza instead. I'll tell you all about it in just a minute.

Labor Day!

Ahh, the joys of a long weekend, the confusion that follows you into the week. And I'm not talking drinking. Every time I have a long weekend, I spend the next week trying to remember what day it is. Yeah. So really, it's Tuesday right now. Yeah. We did the usual labor day rib fest marathon, but less this year than in years past. We saw Shooter Jennings, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Johnny Lang, and Ted Nugent. My favorite was Johnny Lang. I think he could ave played for another 3 hours and I would have enjoyed it.

I also shopped more than I should have. I got a new purse, new perfume, and new shoes. Jason also got shoes, and a new reel for his fishing pole. It has red holes in it. Yep. I don't really know what they are for, but they sure look cool! Jason also got a new phone, albeit unintentionally. The screen on his 5 month old phone quit working. They didn't have any of his model (other than in pink) to replace it with, so they gave him a new phone! Barring any bill surprises, it's the best customer service we've gotten from Sprint. That says a lot.

We went to see Hancock and the dollar movies, and boy, was it crowded. One of the best things, however, was a sunset as we were waiting for skyconcert to begin. For those of you not from Indy, skyconcert is an annual fireworks show that is set to music. It is fun every year! I can honestly say that I don't enjoy just fireworks as much as I used to before I started going to skyconcert.

There was a great sunset on the White River just before the show. Take a look:

HA HA Wednesday!

Hello, it's Wednesday, and I'm posting! I just finished a really great book. It's called Fact of Life #31 and is by Denise Vega. It's a teen angst story, about a girl whose mother is a midwife. She is an outcast in High School, but has the predictable crush on one of the popular guys. What was unpredictable about this this book was, it was great! It took that same story told a million times (you know the one, my parents don't understand me, school is painful, unrequited love) and really made me feel it. Katima, the protagonist was great at expressing how we have all felt at one point in our lives. I loved it, and I want to recommend it, buy her new books for the library, and tell all 3 of you reading to check this one out.

Mondays?

Do I only post on Mondays? I tried to keep the one about the grilling until later in the week, but when I posted it, it said Monday! Well, this weekend was pretty slow because Jason was sick! Poor guy, slept most of it through. Today, we are trying to start a diet. I'm not sure it's going to go very well, because I have absolutely zero willpower. I also don't want to give up the foods I like. Okay, love. I really love pizza, and not some no cheese, no bread facsimile of it. That, I hate. I adore french fries, not something cleverly packaged to look like them. Right now I'm really hungry, because we started off with a juice fast to let our stomachs shrink. So, I don't know. I really think we should excercise more. There's the key. I just don't like doing it, and I really hate getting up early. But, I know I'm overweight. I know I should do something. But, also, I'm all for acceptance. Isn't it my choice what I eat, and what I look like? Don't I deserve to be treated the same as thin people? UGH! Why does fried food have to be so good!!!

Grill adventures!

I finally did it! I made things. Things from scratch! These things being a rib rub and barbeque sauce. Before I get too cocky, both need work. The sauce just lacks, something. It's a tomato paste base with brown sugar, dry mustard, vinegar worcestershire, cayennne, and salt, and liquid smoke, and maybe something else I don't remember. Oh yeah, chili powder, and garlic, and onion. I don't know what I'm missing. My plan is to experiment. Yep! If anyone out there thinks of anything, let me know. Anyway, here it is:

We made ribs. I mixed up a rub, it needs something too, but I think I'm on track for that one. It needs more brown sugar. Then we'll see. The problem I have with that is that I have to make ribs every time I want to try it. I know Jason is out there thinking "what's the problem" Hee. These ribs, our first came out BEAUTIFUL. Take a look. Jason is grillmaster. We tried three different rubs, the one on the far right is a simple one I made, the center the complex one and the far left is "control" from a jar.


Here they are cooked. Check out Jason's pink smoke ring.


Too bad we completely lost track of which rub was which sometime during the cooking. There wasn't one that stood out as best...

We also had the staples (you know if you've grilled with us) of baked potatoes, corn and jalapeños. They were good, but I totally burned my lip on a pepper, and not because it was cooked to a high temperature. Whoa!

So, if you've got an idea let me know! I'm open for suggestion, maybe more garlic? If you want to come over and taste it, let me know!

Fair!

This weekend, Jason and I ate our way around the Indiana State Fair. Mmmmm. There's really nothing like fair food is there? If it was around all year, Richard Simmons would have to cut me out of my house, and go weigh me on a truck scale. We ate:

A corn dog (I shared the breading with Jason, because he doesn't like the dog part, mmmm dog)

Ribbon Fries with red hot, and yum

Fiesta Potatoes (potatoes with salsa, cheese and sour cream I give them 5 out of ten fair burps)

Honey Sticks (I think the fair might be a flop without those)

Fried Cheese

Corn

and my two old and new favorites. My old favorite, and probably eternal love, is fried vegetables. That is just good stuff no matter how you come at it. The funniest part was that they were provided to us by a stand called "Dr Vegetable". On the stand were pictures of each veggie, in white coats. I laughed so hard, but not too hard to eat my fried goodness. My new favorite is the pineapple whip. It was delicious, and if a temporary sign in a giant pineapple is to be believed, had only 20 calories. It was like soft serve, but pineapple. yum!!!!

Now that I've talked about the most important parts of the fair, on to the "other stuff". We saw a lot of animals, Jason and I both really like that part. There were some interesting goats, and Indian antelopes that we fed carrot slices to. Did you know that for some reason, angora goats (or at least 2 of the species) don't like carrot slices? Hmmmmm. We saw many bunnies, very soft and cool chickens. The cows were HUGE and some of the pigs were bigger. The biggest, and my favorite animal we saw there were the Belgians. If you've never seen a Belgian horse in person, you don't know how to feel tiny. I love seeing them every year, and last week there were more than I've ever seen before.

Even bigger than the Belgians, were these:





Steam tractors. I'd never seen farm equipment this big, and I work in the sticks. A lot of it was running too. I saw one going really fast, and because I had no idea what it was supposed to do, I dubbed it a hand remover. Because, yeah, it would do that in a jif. We also saw breaksk8. They are cool, but the crap rap we had to put up with as an opener was awful. No just because I don't like rap, but because these guys were really bad. And they really had a bad crowd, not in general, but for them. We were all trying not to laugh, and feeling sorry for them.

There's the fair! Weather was great, and fun was had. yay.

Another Rant

Where are all of the married/no kids bloggers out there? I know this rant is a tangent from the last rant, but still! I enjoy reading about your kids, bloggers of the world, but I also want to read about other people in the same place as I am. Getting used to being a wife! I love it! It is fun every day, really, honestly. Just me and Jason, that's perfect company! We have a great time doing things, and I think it would be fun to read about other newly-or not- married couples doing fun things too! To me it's like one of my favorite books/authors of late. "Good In Bed" by Jennifer Weiner, was just what I needed when I read it. It is the story of a single girl, heartbroken by her first love. She makes it! She gets her act together. Weiner's next book, "In Her Shoes", also great. But then, I think she got married. Good for her, bad for me. See, then, I was still in the painful, single, no 3rd dates stage (for some reason I always had 2nd dates, but it would fall apart then). Her next book, "Little Earthquakes" was about a new mother. I couldn't get into it. It wasn't where I was. I guess I'm selfish, but I want to read about other people where I am. So, where are you happily married, but no kids yet blogs? Lay it on me!

Mystery State Part Deux

On our second day in Kentukhio , we had a lot planned. We were meeting up with Jason’s sister and her husband to go, well, pretty much everywhere. Turns out Cincinnati has all kinds of places we want to go. I was not helpful. I got us lost. We were supposed to get on to 75, at the split, but instead we stayed on 71. After we got off on “our” exit and there was nothing there, we stopped at a rest area and got a map. I planned us a secondary route through a small town called Lebanon. Boy am I glad we got lost. We saw the neatest little town! The thing that made us stop was this.

The Texaco had great vintage cars out front. When we found a parking space, we saw the rest of these, the Golden Lamb, the oldest hotel in Ohio, and a great public library.

It was the cutest place!! We think we might go back sometime to stay at that hotel.

Eventually, we made it to our first destination, IKEA! I love IKEA, but there isn’t one in Indy. We went up to the café and grabbed some lunch. It was good, but nothing life altering. Then, it begins. There’s a path to follow through the store and I thought it was pretty intuitive. They have all kinds of cool stuff, most of which was furniture. Jason and I really liked a lot of it, especially the neat cabinet/drawers in one kitchen, but we don’t have space for any more furniture now. We saw a tiny whole house, and we felt like we were drowning in space. There was a lot to see, but Jason had a mission. A stainless steel toilet seat cover. Accomplished! We got that, and a giant drying rack to replace the one the cats broke during the earthquake, a vegetable peeler, an herb chopping board with curvy knife and an octopus. Plus a giant blue bag that I hope comes in as handy as I think it will. When we left, we headed straight to Bass Pro Shops.

Also known as “The Store for Jason”, Bass Pro had lots of stuff that was interesting. I think the giant fish tank is really neat, and the giant stuffed fish that now inhabit our bed are cool too. I like to look at the camping stuff there. There’s so much CRAP you can buy for camping! I will never need a holder for that many eggs, or a camp slow cooker. But I like to look at them. Jason found lots of fishing stuff, and is actually, right now, out there using it. One of the strangest things we saw was a package of disposable “instant towels”. Just add water. What? Then you have a wet towel? But I want a dry towel if I’m at a lake. Hmmmm. We were all hungry.

On our first little honeymoon, we went to a restaurant in Cincinnati that I had been to in Ft. Worth. It’s called Pappadeaux. There are many delicious things there, not least of all the lobster bisque soup. This is where we chose to eat this weekend too. We ate and ate and then we were too full for desert, which was too bad because it looked so good. So, we went grocery shopping.

Okay, not really, we want to go see Jungle Jim’s. We had heard about this place from friends and it was held up to be the Mecca of food. It is huge. We were expecting some kind of hoity toity fancy grocery store, but that’s not what we got. What it may have lacked in snotty finish (something no-one needs) it made up for in sheer volume. There was a regular grocery section, but then a bazillion each of the following:

Cheeses

Wines

Baked goods

Candies

Hot Sauces

Vegetables

Etc.

There were fish so fresh that they were swimming around in tanks. Plus, there was an ethnic foods section so large, I don’t think there was any country left out. Then cookware, flowers, and giant singing cereal mascots. We are definitely going back.

Tired and with a full car, we headed for home. Who knew there was so much to do in Ohtucky?

Kentucky, Or Ohio, Or Whatever.

Okay, I’m back. I’ve got a lot to catch you up on, so I’ll just go.

Last weekend we went to Kentukhio. Or Ohtucky. Point is, we were between the two states so much that there’s no good word. The first purpose for you trip was to attend the Kentucky Indycar race. The second was to do all kinds of fun stuff packed all into one day. We left home Saturday Morning and an uneventful drive led us to a holiday inn. There, the computers were down, but the staff handled check ins ably. We went to our room which was no more and no less the standard fare, rested for exactly 27.3 minutes and we were off to the track. The weather was perfect, but the shirt I was wearing wasn’t. I’d had to repair it, and the stitches were itching me. Probably because I used this fishing line thread. I used that for two reasons, one, it was in the drawer when I went looking, and two, the repair is in the middle of a pattern, so I can’t use any one color and have it match. SO, I wanted to go to target to get a new shirt (I hadn’t packed enough to change and still have clothes for the next day) and socks. Mine were wet. Eeew. I left target with a shirt, jacket, socks, skirt, and umbrella. Oh yeah, and conditioner which I’d expected the hotel to have but they didn’t. So, freshly clothed we headed for the track.

Jason had heard that traffic there was a nightmare, and I could see why. There were miles of roads all inside the track. Wow. We parked and headed off to try to find anything. We were looking for Will Call, and the Downforce tent. We found Will call, and after a brush with fear in realizing that the tickets were under my maiden name, we showed them my old insurance card, and were off to find downforce. No-one knew where it was! We must have asked 4 people before we got to guest services and we just got blank looks. When we got there, the best they could do was to hand us a map and say, I dunno, but you need to go to credentials to redeem those. We knew we did. We had pre-race passes. We got them FROM DOWNFORCE. Time was short, so we boarded a school bus that took us to credentials. It was a long ride. We redeemed for some turquoise passes and took the bus to the infield. We had given up on finding downforce.

We wandered the garages and saw everyone getting ready, and Milka running like a madwoman for the bathroom. Jason got some great pictures as the cars were being pushed out. My guy Vitor had qualified 2^nd, so I was really excited. Also, my girl Sarah was racing, so it was double. More on her awesome performance a little further down. We decided to try to go down for pre-race ceremonies without anyone else. We tried to take on the attitude of people who were supposed to be there. We made it! Now, of course that’s not because we faked our way in, but we did, after all, have the right credentials. There were two guys jumping ATVs in the air, and then driver introductions. There were quite a few women running in the Indy Lights Race, and that was cool. We made our way to our seats, and the race was about to begin!

It was a good, and surprisingly (at least to me) clean race. Very few wrecks. Yay. I like it that way. Vitor held on to the top 3 for most of the race, and at least in the first segment, you could tell that he was just playing with them. He had the speed, and was just waiting to show it. In the end, unfortunately, his pit position, is what I think, lost him a win. BUT, he did great. I cheered a lot. Sarah, however had an amazing day. Her car was superquick and she really handled it well. She passed Ryan Hunter Ray and held him off. She passed Helio more than once. But, the scariest and most exciting part of the day, was when she passed Danica. It was for position (I think, correct me if I’m wrong here) and Sarah pulled up beside her and they ran neck and neck for a second. Then they touched wheels. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. We all know how fond of the drama our dear Danica is. Jason switched to her channel. The following is a rough transcription of what we heard:

Danica: What just happened?!?

Crew Guy: Well, you hit her.

Danica: I hit her?????!?!?!?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha . Sarah got around and everything was fine. If she hadn’t had a wheel bearing break at the end, I think she might have had a top 10 finish.

The Indy lights race was good too, but not as clean. More yellows, and a little crying. You know if I’d wrecked, I’d be crying too. I’m not as familiar with the drivers in that series, so you don’t get as in-depth a review.

The real nightmare began when we tied to leave. We figured we’d waited a lot of people out by staying for the second race. Nope. I think it took us 2 hours to make the half hour trip back to the hotel. Ugh. Next: EVERYTHINGPOSSIBLEINONEDAYANDNOWIMTIRED.