Kitchen Exploits - Pizza & Soda Bread

When it comes to whipping up meals, it is too easy for me to only consider the food options for Bubbles, and in due time, Bun. After all, any interested new mother would focus quite a bit of energy on churning out wholesome food for her kids. However, it has been through conscious effort to also consider Roboman's preferences, as it is my way of working for the betterment of our relationship.

Thankfully, while he has grown up being fed with excellent food, coming from a Peranakan family of amazing cooks and bakers, there are a few things he really likes that are not too difficult to make.

Like in any learning journey, there are failures as well as successes. I was cheered on when my basic chocolate and vanilla cakes were given the thumbs up from him. It is important to me when he gives a passing vote, as I personally didn't grow up eating many of the things I am now learning to make, and don't have a reliable enough taste reference point to know for sure if something is good. (Although I hope that in due time, my taste-buds will become more discerning).

One recent success is the making of pizza from scratch. He certainly adores pizza. I don't care much for it myself, but have learned to make it with toppings that I too, enjoy. This recipe came recommended to me, and I found it pretty alright, although I do plan to try other recipes in the future, just to compare. If you do try this, let me know how yours turned out!

Pizza Dough and Pizza Sauce recipes from the Kitchen Boss

I made several of these with a variety of toppings. This one was with juicy prawns and arugula.

Now that I have shared a happy success, would you care to see a failure? This one though, was a nice-looking failure. It looked so pretty out of the oven, that I couldn't help but take photos of it. I have been on a quest to try different types of bread, and this one is a simple soda bread without yeast. I wanted to try it because yeast-less breads take a shorter time to do, as proofing is not required. However, I don't think I will be doing this again, as I really did not like the strong baking soda taste it has. I am not sure if I did something wrong, but I think for now, yeast is the way to go for breads!

Irish Soda Bread adapted from Joy of Baking

Having said that, it could simply be a personal preference of mine. My visiting sister-in-law, a true-blue bread lover, didn't mind the taste of this loaf, and finished most of it over two days. I'm thankful that we didn't need to bin it!