This time of year is nutso for me. A Tae Kwon Do tournament for all the guys in the household last weekend. One son's baseball season is in full swing. The other son's rock band has a big gig tomorrow (his band is the youngest band competing in the Battle of the Bands at the Water Street Music Hall). CRB has a big gig next week. I'm working part-time at Wickham Farms, and gearing up to be PTA president next year. You get the picture...These are the weeks when I barely have time to put dinner on the table. This is the perfect time to throw together a quick meal, like Creamy Chicken Marsala Pizza, a finalist from the recent Pillsbury Bake-off contest. I made it recently and can report that it comes together quickly and has yummy classic flavors. It's one of those "I wish I had thought of that" recipes. The base: a tube of refrigerated Pillsbury pizza dough.
There are people look down their noses at such products, such as this blogger, who devoted a blog post to putting down the participants of the Pillsbury Bake-off contest.
"Kudos to all the participants," she sniffs. "Hey, at least they’re spending time in the kitchen rather than idling in the takeout lane at McDonald’s."
Nice.
Just to set the record straight, I can and do make my own pizza crust. Do a search of this blog and you'll find plenty of examples of "from scratch" pizza crusts, yeast breads, quick breads, cookies, and so on. But there are days where I'd rather spend that time helping my son with his pitching. Or watching both sons compete in Tae Kwon Do (my younger son won his division in board breaking, by the way). Or practicing for my band's gig.
A couple of years ago I spent a much greater part of my life devoted to food -- cooking, blogging, and developing recipes for cooking contests. It was my most successful year in the world of cooking contests, but it didn't work for me. As much as I love food, I didn't find it healthy or interesting to put that much of a focus on it. If that's the kind of life that blogger wants, good for her. She can have it. My life is often hectic and it's not perfect, but it works for me.