Some Deep Dish Thoughts: Use #121 for Mac n Cheese

I decided it was time to write in the blog again. I came to the conclusion when a dear friend of mine approached me the other day and informed me that I had not logged on and said anything funny lately. I decided to write a blog entry on deep dish pizza. Why? That's what we had for supper last night, so it's fresh on my mind.

After I had decided what I wanted to write about, I had a brief moment of self doubt. Does anyone even pay attention to what I am writing? Not that it really matters. The thought that nobody is paying attention to me has not stopped me from speaking my mind in the past...except for when it is my wife ignoring me. Now that really chaps me. After all! Didn't the wedding vows say something about you will listen to your husband for better or worse, til death do you part? (I wonder how many times she has considered speeding up that death parting us part?) I think I should be listened to by my wife ALL the time. Not that I really deserve it. It should happen simply because I am the husband. Why shouldn't that philosophy work? It works for the kids! They certainly feel that you should be hanging on every word that comes out of their mouths. Just think back to the last time your eyes glazed over as your daughter told you about that lying, scheming, little shrew named Mary Alice; or that time when Bubba completely ignored Sandra Dee when getting off of the bus; or that time...

Yeah, that's right! You know exactly what I'm talking about. Your body goes into natural self preservation mode, and your eyes glaze over. Then...it happens! "Daddy! You're not listening to me! This is my senior year and should be the happiest time of my life. Instead it is the worst year since I've been born...AND YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!! You hate me!"
"No I don't, Dear."
"Well! You practically said you hated me."
"What? I said no such thing."
"You're not listening to me, so you might as well have! I'm just going to go live with Memaw!" At which point Daddy lets out a thunderous laugh, taking an already explosive situation to the point of nuclear devastation. Do you listen to your daughter's endless chatter, or do you ignore her and listen to the screaming about how bad a parent you are. Do you get your fingernails ripped out, or your toenails? Either way, it's as painful as @#$#^$!

Not that talking to my son is any better. It is just a different kind of pain. "How was your day, son?"
"Fine."
"What did you do today?"
"Work."
"What kind of work?"
"Math."
"What did you do in math?"
"Dunno. Numbers."
"Thank you for stimulating my brain, son. I'm going to go over there and have a real conversation with that rock."

I digress.

The whole point of this, is if I have to live with this torture from my kids, shouldn't my wife have to live with my senseless banter? Therefore, if my wife should have to suffer through my senseless banter, shouldn't you as well?

I wonder though, how many of you are really reading my blog, and suffering like a good person should? Officially, I have three followers. However, I think they just did that out of the kindness of their hearts. I know one of them (my daughter) has to practically be forced to read this blog. So, since she is a follower by coercion, I will say I have two followers. Even then, nobody leaves me any comments? So...do those other two really follow me? Why don't any of you leave comments? I know the people officially following me ALWAYS have opinions. (I am not above goading you into commenting.) Perhaps, it is because you cower in the presence of such literary genius. You feel there is nothing you can say which compares to what I have already written...Or, perhaps it is like my daughter says. You just hate me! You're ignoring me, so you might as well be saying you hate me! (I might be forty two, but I can still throw a teen tantrum with the best of them.)

The whole point of this nonsense is simple. Leave me a comment on this blog or Facebook. I would love to know someone, other than the prisoner who is my daughter, is reading my blog...and hopefully, enjoying it.

Once again, I digress.

So, yesterday I was lying on the couch doing what I do best. Nothing. I happened to turn to my favorite educational channel (Food Network), and saw a guy pulling a deep dish pizza out of the oven. A light bulb suddenly flashed in my head. I've never made deep dish pizza before. Let's have that for supper. I pulled out my handy iPhone and looked up a recipe for deep dish pizza, and decided, yeah. I can screw that up real easily. So, Christina and I go to the store. As we are going up and down aisles, getting a few things, she asks me, "Are we gonna have mac n cheese?"
"No, Dear. We're having deep dish pizzas."
"I know. I'm talking about a mac n cheese pizza."
"I'm not going to cook a deep dish mac n cheese pizza. We might as well just sit down with a huge pot of the stuff."
"But, Daddy! We haven't had Mac n Cheese pizza in a long time. You know how much Joseph loves it."
"No."

Anyway, below is the recipe for the Mac n Cheese deep dish pizza we had last night.

Mac n Cheese Deep Dish Pizza

Ingredients:

2 boxes of your favorite mac n cheese dinner mix

1 Stick butter

1/2-2/3 cups milk

1 small jar alfredo sauce

1 canned pizza dough

pepperoni

2-3 cups cheddar cheese

Large spring form pan, deep dish pizza pan, or deep foil pan

Use the mac n cheese dinners, butter, and milk to create mac n cheese. (Do I really need to tell you how to do it?) Roll out the pizza dough so you will have enough to cover the bottom of the pan, come up the sides, and overlap a little. Spray your pan and place the dough in it. Layer 1/3 of the cheese in the crust. Follow that with half of the mac n cheese. Then one layer of pepperoni, followed by half the alfredo sauce. Repeat with an additional layer each of cheese, mac n cheese, and alfredo. Finally, layer on the last 1/3 of the cheese. Fold the overlapping crust over on top of the pizza. Don't worry about covering the entire top. I just think the folded crust gives a nice rustic look. You might want to lightly brush the crust with olive oil to keep it from burning too much. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes. Drop the temperature to 350 and bake an additonal 30 to 45 minutes. The crust should be golden brown. The picture below shows what mine looked like. I used a cheap foil pan. I have a spring form, but I made two pizza's and wanted them both the same.

The final step is to serve this sucker. It can easily make 6-8 servings...or it can make four scrumptious monstrous heart attack inducing servings! Guess which route we took!

As I mentioned above, I made two pizza's. The second was more traditional, and equally delicious. I took a bag of three pepper and onion blend, and sauteed it with a pound of mild Italian sausage. I then made the pizza by layering in the following order: Mozzarella, sausage pepper blend, pepperoni, pizza sauce. I repeated those layers again, and finished with another layer of cheese. Just for kicks, I places a few leaves of fresh basil on top of the cheese. Below is the scrumptious results.

I would say that even if my deep dish experiment did not result in truly authentic Chicago style deep dish pizzas, it was still a resounding success! Give one of these pizzas a try and tell me what you think. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeze! Tell me!