Practical #2, continued

The pizza I made for my practical last night was a "North meets South" Italian pizza. I used a garlic cream sauce, caramelized onions, and mozzarella cheese, all representing the north. I topped the pizza with fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, and chiffonade of basil (as garnish) to represent the south. I wish I would've taken time to snap a few more pictures of the pizza to show you the underside of the crust and how I plated it to serve to the chef. The bottom of the crust was perfect but you'll notice the outer rim of the crust on top didn't really brown at all. I was a little worried about this but it felt and tasted right so I went ahead and served it as-was to the chef. If I had tried to cook it longer to get that part darker then I would've burnt the bottom anyway. He said it was perfect, though. He really liked it. Instead of just taking one or two bites and then critiqueing it, he wolfed the whole thing down and used his fingers to scoop up the left over garnish and little bits of crust on the plate. The only criticism he had for me was that my sauce was under salted, and he was right. I'm always afraid of over salting things and then all you taste is salt, so I hold back more than I should. I also wish I would have had some spinach to put on the pizza for a little more color and more freshness to balance out the richness of the onions and cream sauce. I was pretty proud of it, though and I should find out my grade on Tuesday of next week.

But now, I gotta get back to work. I've got a HUGE stack of loans to work on (zzzzz) and my mind is already on 5:30. I just need to get through today so I can go home and relax from this busy week. And it's my b-day! So maybe I'll take a nap and then convince the wife to take me somewhere nice for dinner. I haven't had much time to even think about it so I don't have anything planned; I'm really just looking forward to some r-and-r.