This evening I wanted junk food but didn't want to order out.  (Yech!)  Instead, I baked cookies--chocolate chip with toasted coconut--and made myself a pizza.

Cooking is relaxing.  I like it.  I put a DVD into the portable player in the kitchen or cue up something from Netflix on my iPad and go to it.  I'm good at it, and I get to eat the results.  It's a nice way to spend an evening (if I'm not tired, anyway).

The pizza was a misfire, though.  I let the bread maker knead the dough too much, and it came out stiff and unresponsive, completely refusing to flatten onto the pizza stone.  I balled it up, set it aside, and quickly put another batch into the maker.  This time I watched more carefully and pulled it out when it was elastic and just right.  Baked it on the stone to start the crust while I chopped ham and pineapple and onions and peppers and shredded up some mozzarella.

In the end, it came out perfectly--a huge round pizza that would have fed me and the boys.  But I wanted leftovers, so that was okay.  It was delicious, and I ate it and the cookies while watching more TV: the metrosexual version of the guy's evening in.

I hated to waste the dead pizza dough, so I dropped it into a loaf pan and set it on the warm stove to see what would happen.  It rose just fine, and when it was puffy, I put it into the still-hot oven.  It baked up right nicely.  We'll see how it tastes.

So in one evening we had cookies, pizza, and accidental bread.  What a Saturday night!