The Fuzzy, Black Dogs' Taste Test

I fairly recently had a birthday. In fact, I turned 47, thank you very much. So far so good, right? Reflecting upon that vast amount of time, I realized that, while I enjoy playing in the kitchen, I haven't always been the avid, amazing chef that I am today.

While my poor wife and son put up with a lot of my craziness, at least they don't have to suffer my cooking. I can make an excellent chicken tetrazzini. My sister-in-law particularly liked my spinach stuffed manicotti I made once. My father-in-law likes my cakes and most everyone likes my manic, mad cookie baking binges!

While I am enjoying tooting my own horn, I must admit that not everything I make is a masterpiece.

There have been some gluten free bread loaves that would make great door stops. Cardboard tastes better than some of my gluten free saltine crackers. I've made some gluten free pizza crusts that failed two out of three fuzzy, black dogs' taste test (Bob eats anything!).

And my latest cooking venture? It was simply titled Meatza Pepperoni Pizza. It's been several days since I attempted that creation -- I just can't call it a meal.

Instead of a typical bread crust, it uses ground beef in place of the crust. That's right. No bread, just meat. My recipe didn't call for anything that could be misconstrued as healthy. Instead, it called for sauce, cheese and pepperoni. Each of these ingredients simply go on top of the meat crust.

"Good gosh, Dad," my son exclaimed. "Are you trying to kill us?! What is this? Cholesterol spiking, heart attack in a cookie sheet?!"

Needless to say, I won't be going into details on the "four star" recipe we printed off the internet. I won't even bother with some of the other comments that were made, except to say that it did pass the fuzzy, black dogs' taste test.

I will say, though, that it sure looked a lot better in the picture than it did in my house!