The oven has landed

Last month, about a week before Thanksgiving, I was tired and sick. The only thing that sounded good for dinner was a nice, fat baked potato.  Using my last reserves of energy, I drag myself through the grocery store to pick up some baker potatoes--a treat in and of itself because normally we just bake up a whole bunch of those tiny little potatoes that come in the 10 lb. for $2 sale bags.

Anticipating the long bake time, the first thing I do when I get home is preheat the oven.  And then--pop!  bang!  zap! flash!  fizzzzz!  All hell breaks loose.  There is fire in my oven.  Fire!  And people, we do not have a gas oven with an exposed flame.

After things had calmed down, we discovered that our element had given up the ghost.  And those things?  They aren't cheap!  We looked into buying a new one, but the pain-in-the-buttedness of removing the old element, finding the correct replacement and installing said replacement combined with my strong dislike of our current range pushed us in the direction of buying a new range.  We were really on the fence about this until Grandma & Grandpa gave us our early Christmas gift and we decided to just do it.  As long as we were embracing the "just do it" attitude, we decided to get a microhood (over-the-stove microwave), because counter space is at such a premium in our tiny little kitchen.

I'm going to go ahead and skip the drama and stress and anger that was involved in buying this range/microhood set.  May I just recommend never, EVER buying appliances from Sears.  Even if it's a good deal.  The devil probably makes some pretty good deals too.

Anyhow, our range finally arrived today.  It is beautiful and amazing:

Note the lack of microhood.  Damn you, scabby-assed Sears.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, I decided to bake pear gorgonzola walnut pizza.  I kind of winged it based on my own experience with these flavors and several different recipes, but I really enjoyed this blog--and I strongly believe that everything can be made better with prosciutto.

I'm still not really great with pizza dough.  I've found that the only way I can get consistent dough is by using Jiffy mix--but you know what?  That stuff is cheap, fast and pretty good.  Beyond just making the dough, getting an even round shape and transferring it on the the pizza stone just doesn't really happen for me.  Here's my pizza creation in the oven:

One possible downside of this oven is that Logo can actually SEE the food in the oven.  She spent a lot of time staring through the window intently.  Speaking of Logo, she smelled cheese and fruit, two of her favorite things, and felt the need to"help" cook.  Ryan had to show her the door more than once.

After much anticipation and a sprinkling of toasted walnuts, the final product was ready...

See, I TOLD you I'm not good at making round pizza shapes!