Blog Archives
Pizza Lab #15: Mac ‘n’ Cheese Pizza
Pizza Lab is a fun theoretical column in which Meg A. and Erik S. explore their innermost passion for baking and eating pizzas. It exists purely for the sake of experimenting in the kitchen. It may not necessarily be cost-effective everytime, so don’t try this at home kids.
“In epistemology, the prefix meta- is used to mean about (its own category).”
Meta is a bit of a buzzword lately, due to it being a fun prefix, and uber-intellectual way to describe things. For example a movie about making movies is meta. Playing a video game inside of a video game is meta. A dream in a dream in a dream movie about dreams is wayyy meta. Well, Meg and I made a meta pizza. That’s right, Pizza Lab is all about uniquity and experimenting with the combination of pizza with other foods. This time around, we combined pizza with another, more venerable food combination, macaroni and cheese. So it was a food combination of food combinations.
…META!!!
Erik S. Ya know, for some reason I can’t stop craving mac ‘n’ cheese lately. I guess this pizza is partially to blame…
Meg A. We did have a very mac’n’cheese filled week, between mac and cheese bites over the weekend, and then this pizza during the week.
Erik S. Hopefully it’ll pass over soon. That being said, this pizza was preeetty fantastic.
Meg A. It was really yummy. And it was our first Pizza Lab/We Can Do It Better crossover.
Erik S. That is technically true. The findings of this experiment will lead to our next WCDIB focusing on macaroni and cheese.
Meg A. As soon as we tasted the mac and cheese we had a good feeling about this pizza. Luckily it reached our expectations, unlike some other pizzas *cough*discofriesandchinesefood*cough*
Erik S. Yeah, I feel as though the pizza benefited a lot from the fact that this mac ‘n’ cheese recipe was incredible on its own.
Meg A. I’m glad we decided to make our own from scratch instead of just using a box mix (yes, yes, we do use box mixes on occasion, hold back your shock).
Erik S. Yeah, we used a recipe courtesy of our food scientist role model, Alton Brown.
Meg A. We should really hang a picture of him in our kitchen or something.
We Can Do it Better: Brownie Brittle
Okay guys, admit it, you knew this was coming, right? As soon as I said in my review of Brownie Brittle that it’s good, but expensive, you knew we’d be figuring out how to make our own. In reality we’ve been planning this even before I wrote the review article. What really pushed us over the edge into finally making it was when got our hands on the salted caramel flavor Brownie Brittle and were incredibly underwhelmed. We knew we could do it better, and now you can too!
The basic idea was just to make a brownie batter and instead of baking it in a pan, spreading it really thin on a baking sheet. In order to do this you need to have a baking sheet that has a rim, like this:
The rim will make sure your batter doesn’t go all over the place and burn in the bottom of your oven.
Pizza Lab #13: Pesto Green Pizza
Pizza Lab is a fun theoretical column in which Meg A. and Erik S. explore their innermost passion for baking and eating pizzas. It exists purely for the sake of experimenting in the kitchen. It may not necessarily be cost-effective everytime, so don’t try this at home kids.
With the holidays finally over, everyone is finally back in gear, with it being the third week of January. Here at Poor Couple’s Food Guide, we’re back at work in our secret laboratory churning out awesome recipes for everyone to enjoy. That’s not to say we took an entire break over Christmas! It wouldn’t be a month without Pizza Lab, and as such we made one for both experimentation of using green-colored cheese, as well as to give us something edible in the Italian-American seafood onslaught known as Christmas Eve. Winter can be tough, and January is a relatively crummy month since it’s host to blizzards, long periods of days below freezing, and post-Christmas bouts of depression. If you fall into the latter category, then we have a month-late surprise to cheer you up!
Disclaimer: I swear to God this isn’t lettuce, it’s cheese.
Easy Recipe: Homemade Battered French Fries
There’s a lot of reasons to like french fries. They’re cheap, they’re easy to make, they’re simple, and more importantly they’re delicious. A good french fry is a philosophical quandary of the culinary arts in that it can operate as both a side to any meal on the planet, but can also be it’s own meal. Sure, when some people bring up french fries, they think of the inconsistent pieces of yellow cardboard served by the likes of McDonalds and Burger King which can range from limp and greasy to starchy and dried out. Yet there is a whole world of fries out there to be had, and all one must do is dine at a few restaurants to notice. Certain types go for the golden and juicy variety, some are crusty with a bit of a zing, and some are just down-homey and simple. Everyone’s got their own way of making them, and most are delicious. Plain and simple, french fries are bangin’, as they say.
See how bangin’ they are?
Cheat Codes: Homemade Fry Batter (For french fries, mac ‘n’ cheese bites, onion rings, and others!)
It seems to be a fact of life that everybody loves fried foods. Obviously, they’re not the healthiest choice of dining out there, but in fairness fried food at home isn’t the same beast as fried fast foods. Making your own treats at home in heated oil is generally okay since you’re using fresh vegetable or canola oil, it hasn’t been lying around all day, and is free of impurities. You can drain your foods more easily, making them less greasy and retaining less fat. In short, if you enjoy fried, salty snacks then you’re much better off making your own since your body will thank you for it later. Also not to mention, it just tastes better than the stale, greasy rubbish you’re more than likely to receive from dumpster stores like McDonalds which tend to include hilarious numbers of ingredients and ends up laced with artificial colors, flavors and borderline poison like phosphates. Seriously, their fries can last unscathed for literally years. Open a new tab, Google “McDonalds Fries are indestructible” (preferably with an empty stomach) and enjoy the show, lads.
They probably enjoyed the free publicity, symbolism aside. (French Fry Skull by Christopher Chiappa)
The Poor Couple's Food Guide 
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