It is winter, if I’m going to reheat pizza (big “if”), I put it on a piece of non-stick foil and put in on top of the woodstove. It’s called “stove” for a reason, dammit, and I’m going to use it thusly.
If a pizza doesn’t taste good cold, it will never be purchased again. This is the true measure of its worth.
It’s the whole extra family-sized pizza you bought when you went to get just one family-sized pizza for your own gluttonous self, and the dude ringing up your order says “would you like an additional family-sized pizza for only $5 more?”. Yeah, that one. No, you’re not 18 years old anymore so don’t think for a moment you’re going to pack TWO family-sized pizzas down your pie-hole. Realizing the sauce will quickly ensogulate the crust if you merely store it in the fridge, you cleverly choose to freeze it. Yeah, while it’s still warm. That’s a good glutton.
Then, when your belly demands, you thaw some of this pizza in the microwave, and, this is the crucial bit - once thawed, you crisp it up in the toaster oven. None of this goofy pan-fried crapola. No, you put that toaster oven on “Toast”, at the highest temperature it can muster. In fact, you already had the toaster oven warming while you defrosted your slices in the micky. Now, you’ve got that top element broiling the surface ingredients and the bottom element drying and crisping the bottom crust, which you foresightfully prevented from getting too soggy by freezing. You let that 'za bask in the toasty infrared womb of re-birth until the cheese starts getting a little brown and you can hear the toppings sizzle. You pull that reborn pizza out of the toaster oven and, voilà, it is good as new. Maybe even a little better.
We have to make sure that our toaster oven is not on at the same time as our microwave or dryer, but that does not stop us from having a toaster oven. We cannot run our microwave and our dryer at the same time, but that does not mean we feel the need to get rid of one of them. Are you saying a toaster oven and a refrigerator running on the same circuit at the same time is enough to flip the circuit breaker?
I’ve always wondered what kind of insanity makes people want to eat pizza with a crispy crust. It’s just horrible.
If you have an entire cold pizza left over perhaps you should try ordering one less?
But then there would be no spare pizza?
If you turn on the toaster oven while the refrigerator motor is in the on-cycle (as opposed to resting), then yes. It happened enough times to make the proof inescapable.
Toaster ovens use a lot more juice, especially when starting and stopping, than most people realize.
The skillet method has been my wife’s favorite ever since she saw it on Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, about 10 years ago.
My choice method is 90 seconds in the microwave, then a few minutes in the preheated toaster oven at 350º-400º.
why are all the good women taken?
There are “grown up, married” toaster ovens. The Breville 1800XL is BIG, does convection, toasting, baking and broiling. I love my 36" fancy oven, but not when it’s just me and the husband. It’s a scaled down, high-end oven. That 4 slice toaster sucked.
Even better use for cast iron skillets? One word: naan. Since a tandoori oven is not in my future, the cast iron will do.
Don’t forget cornbread, frittata, Dutch Baby pancakes, and roasted nuts and vegetables.
We’ve got a pizza stone that we never use for pizza, but is fantastic for naan.
Yup.
And call me a heathen, but while it’s a heresy on hot pizza, a little bit of ketchup can be good when it’s cold.
Nah. You want salad cream for cold pizza.
Garlic dressing, or even leftover sourcream dip (that you made for the crisps yesterday) also works.
People like all kinds of different pizza. For example, I’ve never understood the benefit of putting sauce on top of the toppings, Chicago-style (though I do love me a good deep dish pizza). When it comes to reheating my pizza, I far prefer crispy, oven/skillet-style crust to soggy, microwave-style crust.
Wait, do pizza places not offer dipping sauces for crust where you folks live? It’s been a pretty common thing here (in Ontario) for years and years and years.
Oh, they do - but it tends to be really unappetizing the next day, mostly because I forget to put it in the fridge.
It’s a completely different meal. At its best, you get a perfectly chewy yet crispy leaf of dough, just on the tasty side of burned - not entirely unlike what you want in a good pita bread. Drowning that in fistfuls of toppings would defeat the point, so it gets a dash of tomato sauce, usually (but not always) some cheese, and perhaps some nice ham or spicy sausage and some fresh greens (put on after removing it from the oven when that makes more sense).
Quite good, and different from american style pizza, which has a separate set of charms - such as supporting much more in the way of toppings. It’s also much more forgiving - in my experience, the entire “when it’s bad it’s still pretty good” only really applies to this style.
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