I just thought I'd write about these because they have something in common - neither have lived up to expectations so far in similar ways.
I've used Jus-rol stuff before - usually the puff pastry, occasionally the filo and, on one previous occasion the vol-au-vent cases (fancied a blast of 70's past). Note that I've never used the shortcrust because that's quite easy and quick to make. Generally this stuff does what it says on the packet and if there have been any usage issues they have been down to my making. You really do need to keep an eye on puff pastry and I have let it burn in the past...
I had 2 problems with this product - the amount of dough in the packet and it's usability. The weight on the packet is 600g which, in my mind should be enough dough to make 3 pizzas. However, some of that weight is a jar of tomato sauce. The weight of dough, therefore, is probably no more than 300g (I didn't weigh it) which effectively meant that I had to go straight back out and buy yet more pizza dough if I wanted to make 3 reasonable sized pizzas.
So. Usability. One thing I should say about this pizza dough is that I didn't use it as instructed. The dough is wrapped inside a tin just like a swiss roll so you are supposed to open the tin, unroll the thing and place it on a rectangular baking tray. That wasn't what I wanted to do. What I wanted to do was make 3 pizzas and, for me, pizzas are almost invariably round. So I wanted to reshape the stuff. Now it may be that there are instructions on the pack telling the baker to under no circumstances try and roll out the dough into a different shape. But I don't read instructions so...
I separated the dough into three lots, one lot being a combination of 2 lumps. Then I tried to make 3 discs of dough using a rolling pin. This was not a good move. The dough turned out to be anything but pliable and each disc took a few minutes of rolling and huffing and puffing to achieve a desired size. The kids are lucky that they didn't end up with drips of sweat on their dough but they certainly got a base combined with mumbled swear words...
Toppings were applied, the things were cooked and (looking pretty Ok I have to say) served up. They didn't go down well though. In fact one, KT's, didn't all go down. So, on the face of it, that was the first and last time that the Jus-rol dough will be tried in our house. The only other stimulus to use it again would be if I was similarly time-constrained (busy working mum and all that) and was happy to serve square-shaped pizza. And another thing - the tomato sauce wasn't that brilliant either but I've got a spare jar of it now that's good until 2013 if anyone wants to put a bid in.
The question you may now be asking after all that blah is how ersatz Italian pizza dough links to a bike race in Spain. Read patiently and all will be revealed. ITV4 have been covering the Tour De France for a few years now and they do a pretty good job of it. They have a travelling studio set up and several people presenting and commenting through the whole series and it's a very good package. It's no surprise, therefore, that interest is increasing in the race and in cycling in general and the production team (as well as ITV4) can take a lot of credit for this. They do what they say on the packet as it were.
With all this in mind I was quite interested in watching the Spanish tour, aka Vuelta a Espana. Unfortunately the coverage of the race has not lived up to the hype in my head. Firstly, there are no people for ITV out in Spain so everything comes out of a studio. That, in itself, isn't an issue but the knock on effect is that there's no scope to do "on the plot" extra material that embellishes the programmes, gives more insight into what's going on, and generally brings the tour to life.
The other issue is the commentary coverage. They've clearly bought in a service from another station so we've got an Australian guy telling us what's going on. To be fair, he seems quite knowledgeable and isn't bad but he doesn't give us the same experience as Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin. It's great that the race is being covered and it's live every day as well (suggesting that the rights to screen it must have been cheap) so I suppose we should be grateful for that but it's not a quality job and it's a bit of a shame. The issue I see is that it won't drag enough punters in as an audience and we may never see it back.
To give an idea of how uncompelling the coverage is, CJ isn't even watching the highlights. He has the option to watch it live in the afternoons (having probably just surfaced by about 2) but he's not doing so. If ITV4 can't catch him then they're not really trying. Fair play to Ned and his Gollum-like mate in the studio. They're doing an OK job but not enough to really bring it up to a compelling show.
Jus-Rol, ITV4, spot the difference.
