Pizza. Every. Week.

My husband shared a link to a free Pizza on the Grill Cookbook deal in June which amazing seems to still be available.  He’s obsessed with slickdeals which tends to work in my favor.  You pay $5 shipping and handling, but still it's a pretty good deal for the cookbook and two packs of the yeast.  Basically, Fleishmann's is pushing their new pizza crust yeast and the free cookbook is supposed to get you to want to purchase it.  Worked pretty well since I've bought two three packs of their yeast since.

I waited not so desperately for it to arrive since the form claimed it would take six to eight weeks to arrive.  It showed up in the mailbox several weeks sooner. I tried it out that night.

Of course, I read all the instructions or at least the whole introduction and basic instructions.  I’m a stickler for instructions.

Basically, you make the crust, stretch it out, and throw it on grill with the charcoal all shoved to the opposite side (i.e. the coals aren't right under your pizza.  It WILL burn if they are). You put the lid on and wait 3 minutes, then turn the crust 180 degrees (so the opposite side is towards the coals), put the lid back on and cook for another 3 minutes. Pull it off the grill and top with whatever you want. Then put it back on the grill, close the grill and wait 6-8 minutes or longer depending on how done you like your pizza and how hot your coals are. I like to position the vents in the top so I can see the pizza without opening the lid.

Stretching the crust out by hand and throwing it on the grill gives the pizza a nice rustic appearance that I love. 

If you want easy awesome thin crust you need to roll the crust out well beyond the thinness that seems reasonable.  Like, 1/8 of a inch or so. Trust me.  Little air pockets will puff up inside and it will be fabulous. It burns quick though, so keep an eye on it.

You can do the same thing in the oven. Crank it up as high as it will go and cook the crust right on the rack. I've been doing that more lately since it's been raining on the days I feel like pizza.

Note the conspicuous lack of color on one quarter of each pizza. Austin only likes meat and cheese on his, so his part isn't ever as pretty as the rest.

My new skill combined with a large supply of homemade pizza sauce have meant I've made pizza at least once a week ever since.

24:58

I ran a 5K race this weekend in my home town. I originally agreed because a couple of my friends who shall remain nameless convinced me it would be fun if we all ran it together. When I realized it was the same weekend I was supposed to run a 5K test for the novice half marathon training program I've been on I felt like I pretty much had to. I sent in my 15 dollars and committed.

Weeks later I find out the neither of them is planning on running. They both have legitimate excuses, but that is not the point. Neither one of them told me before I registered. Like they forgot or something. Ooops.

The only friend who actually ran it is WAY faster than me and therefore we both ran in the race, but I only saw him at the starting/finish line. Doesn't count as running with. In the end, I ran the 5K all by myself. Which is fine. Whatever.

My goal was to be able to jog the entire thing in under 28 minutes. I said 30 at the starting line, but that was a lie. I timed myself before I started training for the half and made 3 miles in 28 minutes. That's 9:20 a mile. I wanted to run at least that fast despite the vague illness I'd had all week.

I was tired and cold and didn't warm up. Not exactly optimal, but I finished in 24:58. That's an average of 8:20 a mile. According to the time keeper at the one mile line, my first was more like 8:32. The second was more like 8:15, and the third in 8:11. I know, you're thinking, "but Amber, a 5K is 3.1 miles." It is, but I mapped it. The course was actually 2.97. You'll note that I got faster with each mile. That's what happens when you don't warm up.

Turns out I won my age category (females 18-39). I only won because the community college's cross country team couldn't officially register, but I did finish before one of their members. It kind of made me wonder how fast I could run it if I got serious and warmed up and ran a race pace.

In response, I ran four miles fast enough to make myself throw up yesterday. Today I didn't run and I'm eating peach bourbon ice cream. You have to have priorities.

Inhumane working conditions.

I spent Sunday morning helping my in-laws replace some of the boards on their deck. If's kind of fun and I'm happy to help, but they were smoking at the same time on the same deck. It's a very large deck and the smoker was well away from where we were working, but the smell wafted over.

Have you ever tried to do physical labor while smelling ribs and jerky smoke? It's practically impossible. It was like I was in some hostage situation. I could smell the meat, but I couldn't eat it. For hours. And I had to work while I was waiting.

Then my mother-in-law had the audacity to give me a piece of jerky. A piece. One. Single. Piece. A piece of jerky fresh out of the smoker is about the most delicious and wholly unsatisfying thing I have ever eaten. All it does is make you want more, but you can't have any more. It's not ready and everybody else only got one piece so you're this horrible person if you have more than you're fair share.

So I slaved away for like two and a half hours before being served a huge pile of amazing ribs. Woe is me.