Power Outage Pizza

Last Thursday we had a major storm in our area. I was expecting the thunder and lightning, but not everything that came with it! Hail, 70 (or greater) mile-per-hour winds... even some tornado spottings... Wow, The destruction was pretty major here by our apartment complex. Downed trees, downed power lines, downed telephone poles... One tree fell right onto the swing-set, completely crushing the sliding board. In all of this, our power got knocked out. Unfortunately, no electricity makes it rather hard to cook or bake...

The storm hit just as I was trying to get Little Girl to take a nap, so I couldn't look out of the window to see what all was going on. While I gave her some time to settle down, I decided to try a new recipe for whole wheat pizza crust. Just as the mixer was finishing up the kneading process, that was when the power died. Ok, I figured, I can just knead by hand for a few minutes, and then when the power comes back on in a couple of hours I will still be able to make dinner as planned. With the flash of my camera, I was able to see that I had a well risen dough, which was exciting to me.

But the power didn't come back. Around 5:15 pm Little Girl and I ventured out of our apartment and were amazed. There were trees and branches everywhere. We even saw a helicopter flying above us. When Hubby got home it was via a circuitous route, as the police had blocked off the road and he couldn't get into the parking lot... So my whole wheat crust was not going to get baked that night... I did a very quick opening of the fridge to put the bowl inside, hoping that the residual cool would help keep the dough ok, and hoping that the electricity would be back the next day...

It didn't come back on Friday. By midday it was clear that power wouldn't be back any time soon, so we packed up and went to my in-laws' house. I have to tell you, we are SO lucky to have such an amazing family! Unfortunately, though, when Hubby packed up the food from the fridge to bring, he forgot the bowl of dough. On the counter. Oops. (Totally understandable how it happened, I was surprised he even thought to bring it!) We got home on Sunday to a bowl of dough that looked like this:I think I could have played Frisbee with the top part. And when I lifted the "lid" I was greeted with quite a smell. I thought it smelled like beer. Kind of over fermented beer... So I have no clue how this dough would have come out...

Hopefully I get the chance to try this recipe again really soon. And hopefully, when I do, the weather will cooperate and I will get to eat it!

As a side note, we did have pizza for dinner last Thursday night... But not home-made... Thankfully the pizza place up the street still had power.