A Nice Lunch at Home
We may not be able to dine out, but today I decided to shake the stay-home routine up a bit and create a lunch that at least felt like we were dining out. I had leftover pizza from trying out King Arthur Flour’s Chicago-Style Deep-Dish Pizza recipe. I had salad fixings. That would do, without a needless trip to the grocery store, because we are definitely not doing that on a whim. I slid the leftover pizza into the Small Cast Iron Skillet and lit a Sterno can in the Picnic Warming Stove. I made a simple green salad drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper. And I set the table with placemats, cloth napkins, the Picnic Cutlery, fresh flowers, and some vintage, silver serving pieces. In about 30 minutes the pizza was steaming hot, and we could almost imagine we were dining out. It feels good these days to make an effort to make the everyday special, when all our everydays are so similar. It felt refreshing and creative and delicious, and I think my heart just needed that today.
I had never tried the Picnic Warming Stove with anything as ambitious to heat through as a deep dish pizza, but it worked great! It folds flat, so you can easily pack it in a picnic basket. It’s sides and hinged door protect the flame in the Sterno can from going out in a breeze (and it was breezy today). And it will heat most food up in about 10 minutes. The pizza took a little longer, but it was very dense. And it makes a great outdoor chafing dish. I appreciated being able to eat one slice of pizza while it was hot and also knowing that the rest of the pizza in the pan was staying hot on the Picnic Warming Stove, just waiting for me to have seconds.
The Picnic Warming Stove is in the shop here.
The Small Cast Iron Skillet is here.
And the Picnic Cutlery is here.
The King Arthur Flour Chicago-Style Deep-Dish Pizza recipe is fabulous, and can be found here. I used the amount of ingredients called for, but divided the dough among two, 8-inch cast iron skillets, and it worked beautifully.
I definitely need to plan more of these “dining out at home” meals. They made the everyday special, and I love that.
