Kitchen Cheater

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

Cheating. The sad story is that many of us do it. I even do it from time to time… in the kitchen that is. I got to thinking again about when it is alright and when it is just plain wrong after watching, yes, food TV. If you want to witness kitchen crimes there is perhaps no better place. On this particular episode, a certain television home cook (note my deliberate omission of the word “chef”) was instructing the audience on the value of frozen garlic bread. She was demonstrating her expertise in opening a package, placing the prepared bread on a cookie sheet, and baking it according to package instructions.

Such incidents normally send me into a self-righteous fury strengthening my determination to teach the world that garlic bread is really quite simple to make from scratch (Three ingredients: bread, garlic, butter. Really. But you know, you totally need to keep a freezer of the prepared stuff on hand just in case that three ingredient recipe should seem too daunting on a given night. Kidding.).

But no sooner have I stepped down from my organic milk crate than I catch my reflection in my stainless steel All-Clad sauté pan and realize that the person staring back is also, yes, an occasional kitchen cheater. For at that precise moment I was cooking up a pizza, dough courtesy of Trader Joe’s.

First, I would like to say in my defense that I used to make all my pizza dough from scratch. But I was young, idealistic, and didn’t have a formally paying job occupying my Friday afternoon. For indeed, the whole dough mixing, raising, kneading, second raise process is certain to consume the majority of an afternoon. Second, even though the dough was pre-made, I was still cooking the dough for the pizza and had prepared all of the toppings myself. This process, even with the pre-made dough, is still tastier, faster, and healthier than calling a delivery guy.

I really want to make an argument for this type of cheating, but only in the case of pizza. Trader Joe’s makes some pretty inexpensive and fairly close-to-homemade pizza dough. Your local pizzeria will probably even sell you their dough (assuming you proposition an independent institution) to bake off yourself. Mine does.

Although making your own pizza dough is not necessarily difficult, it is time consuming, and can be subject, like any yeast dough, to the whims of local temperature, humidity, and the freshness of the yeast. Skip the dough process and you can concentrate on pizza creativity, knowing that total cooking and prep time has now been cut from hours to minutes.

In fact, even the Italians, kings of pizza, are cheating these days. When you have creative freedom, toppings range from bresoala and arugula to nutella. The sauce-less pizza is always great: drizzle a little olive oil, sprinkle some parmesan cheese, and then go to town with caramelized onions, proscuitto, or artichokes. The true benefit of cheating a little is that you have more time to work on the toppings that really get your mouth watering.

So it may not be garlic bread from the freezer, but even I cheat on occasion. If it gives me more time to invest in the creative, then this one little slip I hope is ultimately worth forgiving.

Serves/Makes: 6

• non-stick cooking spray
• 1 pre-made plain pizza dough
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/3 cup Nutella
• powdered sugar