New Stuff I Made

For Father's Day Val got me a 14.5" deep dish pizza pan. I tried it out the other day for the first time. My goal was to make a chicago style pizza. It you don't know what that is, it's like an actual pie without a top crust. In other words, the crust goes along the bottom like normal, but then goes up the sides of a deep dish - making a deep dish pan shape out of crust. Then you fill it to the top with the topping - but upside down. The cheese is on the bottom, followed by veggies and pepperoni, then topped with a very chunky sauce. I throw a couple of pepperonis on top of the sauce so I can tell when it's done cooking (The pepperonis get crispy).


The above is not my pizza. It's from a place called Zachary's in Berkeley which is delicious! It's my inspiration. Here is my result. It's enormous!




Although it tasted alright, it was too big. One apple thick! That's a third of a Smurf! The problem was that I used my usual dough recipe which tends to rise quite a bit. Confining it to a deep dish pan forces it to rise straight up. Now I am on a quest to find a deep dish crust recipe which will remain thinner (but not cracker-like)while being delicious! I'll keep you posted as I progress toward my goal.

The next thing I made was for my kids. My kids have been wanting their own light sabers. I've see a few nerf-like swords online for $15 or more each. A friend gave us a couple, but the inner stick broke pretty quickly. As I was trying to fix them, It occured to me that I could make way better ones on my own.

So I did.

It cost me $3 to make 4 swords.

I bought a couple of water weenie/noodles from the dollar store. Next I bought a length of 1/2" pvc pipe. (I even cut it down to size right there at the store). Next I slid the pipe down the hole of the noodle. Finished! I taped the handles just to make them look nicer.






I had a couple of feet left over, so I left only a short bit of pipe showing, and plan on connectling them with string (or chain) for nerf Nunchucks.

I made one other thing, but it's not done yet. It should be done by Sunday. I'll let Val show that one.