Day Sixty-seven--PIzza night

Yes, I know. I'm two days late. I have two posts to do. Sorry. I couldn't get any time on the computer yesterday. Between my being busy all day and Connor hogging the computer, it just didn't happen. I am going to do two posts right now instead of being lazy and lumping two dinners into one post. That's good, right?

So Friday...that is our pizza night. What a pizza I had. Oh my. I was afraid I had missed my opportunity of asparagus pizza this year. I thought asparagus was done for this season. Imagine my surprise when one of the farms at the market had beautiful bunches of asparagus. I snapped up two bunches. I would have my pizza after all.

Asparagus Bacon Pizza

This pizza, I think, is my new favorite pizza. I was scared to try it because well, it's asparagus on a pizza. Fear not. Try it, when it's in season again. I tweaked my recipe a bit to add the bacon but I had a little bit of uncured bacon left in my fridge and I didn't want it to go bad. I fried up the bacon and then discarded most of the grease. In what little grease that was left I fried up some sliced onions. While I was doing that, Tim was kind enough to roll out the dough for the pizzas. I made the kids pizza and threw it in the oven and then got to shredding my asparagus. This was not an easy task. I think it was because the stalks were thin tender little guys. I did my best until I had a big bowl of shredded asparagus. I tossed it with the tiniest bit of olive oil and salt and pepper. My pizza crust was waiting for me and I got to building my pie.

First thing that went on the crust was some of my sauteed onions. I didn't use any pizza sauce, just put the onions right down. Then I had cubed up a little ball of mozzarella cheese and scattered that over the onions. Then I dropped all the shredded asparagus on top of the cheese. I finished by crumbling a couple of strips of bacon over the top. That's all that I put on it.

Oh. My. God. This pizza was so good. The crust came out perfectly too. I don't know if it was because I had my oven hotter than usual or if it was because there was no pizza sauce on it, but my crust was perfect. I love making my own pizza dough. It always does so well.

So there you have it. Friday night pizza night. The kids and Tim made different pizzas and we munched on the leftovers yesterday. Everyone was happy with this meal. We always are.

Day Forty-nine--Pizza Night

Wow, I'm posting this really late today. Sorry. I got caught up in weeding and going in a search for heirloom tomatoes. That led me to the farm and I got into a conversation with this fascinating and amazing woman, Anne. She was such a wealth of knowledge about everything I'm trying to learn and do. I came home with my head buzzing and sadly, I forgot a few crucial things that I wanted to. One good thing though is that I can go back and help her at any time in the greenhouse and pick her brain. So, that is why my post for last night's dinner is late.



As we all know, last night was Friday, and Friday night means pizza night. Aidan helped me make the dough this time. He set the time for an hour and then came out and punched it down and put the cover over the top of it again. Then he set the timer for another hour. When it rang, I got busy. I rolled out three different crusts and got all everything chopped up and ready to go. I had the brilliant idea to use the leftover meat sauce from lasagna night as our pizza sauce. It was delicious...and it means that it didn't grow a layer of mold in my fridge. =) Tim and the boys played a card game while I made the pizzas. It was one of those nights where everything worked together perfectly. I was able to clean the kitchen up while the pizza was baking. When the pizzas were done, we all settled down and watched a movie. Another perfect Friday night in our home.

The only problem that I have right now is that it is almost 2:30 in the afternoon and I have no idea what we are having for dinner tonight and I don't have the menu done for next week yet. I better get on that now. Until later, happy cooking!

Friday Night...Lack of post

I wasn't sure how to go about posting for Friday night. The original plan for Friday night was calzones but I took the boys to see the new Shrek movie instead. I had made the decision to not cook dinner before we went to the movie because I knew we would be full of popcorn and I also knew that we would be walking around the art festival. We had a backup plan of eating at Circles. Tim eats at Circles a lot during the week, usually when we don't have leftovers from a previous night's dinner. It's a local little deli in our local public square that has been around for over 20 years. I was looking forward to having one of their sandwiches that Tim always raves about. Long story short, by the time Tim was done with work and we got down there they had stopped serving sammies. Boo.

We walked back over to the festival and the boys had visions of fair food dancing in their heads. We wandered by all of the little tents set up. We smelled all the smells. Two major smells jumped out at me. One was of the amazing cinnamon smell that comes out of the nut vendor and then the other smell (out of the rest of the vendors) was grease and oil. Not very appetizing to me. The boys chose Italian. I'm not surprised because it WAS Friday night and we usually have pizza or calzones. Aidan had a slice of cheese pizza and Connor had a calzone. Tim couldn't figure out what he wanted so we walked around looking at the amazing art. After about 3o minutes of wandering around, I settled into a little booth. I spent some money (a lot) and Tim decided instead of seeing how much I spent that he was going to find something to eat. He came back with a bbq sammie and some fried oreos. I finished up my purchase and met up with him. The boys were thrilled with the oreos and against my will they made me take a bite. I took a small bite and wasn't too impressed. Again, with the oil. Eewww.

I ended up not eating anything at the festival and we came home. I couldn't figure out what I wanted so settled on a shot of tequila and called it a night. It all worked out. The boys got a treat of eating pizza/calzone out, Tim got a sammie and I honestly wasn't hungry after the movie. Saturday we will be back on track. We have some friends coming over to share dinner with us. We are going to wow them with some of our grass fed beef. I just hope that: A. it doesn't rain and B. Tim doesn't overcook the steaks. If all else fails, we have a couple of large bottles of red wine.

Until later, happy cooking.

Day Thirty-one--Greek pizza

Hello all. A quick post to put in last night's dinner. We are in the middle of some serious spring cleaning here today so I don't have much time to get chatty. Last night was Friday so it was pizza night. Connor begged for calzones again but I talked him into pizza. We had Greek pizzas.



Greek pizza

What makes it Greek? Well, it was covered with red onion, red pepper, kalamata olives, and a sprinkling of feta cheese. Oregano was sprinkled on top. It was so very tasty and enjoyed by all. For movie night we watched The Fantastic Mr. Fox (again). I love that movie. It was a nice relaxing, low key night at home. Oh, I did have one snafu though. I forgot to pick up a can of pizza sauce while I was out running errands. I remembered to get the mozzarella and onions but forgot the sauce. I debated as to whether or not I wanted to go back out, but ended up taking a can of diced tomatoes out of the cupboard and adding them to some sautéed onions and garlic. I ran my immersion blender through it so that Aidan wouldn't notice the onions (he noticed). It ended up be a really good pizza sauce. A little wetter than normal but when we bake the pizzas on the stones it doesn't matter. I only recently got baking stones and I love them. I don't know how I went without them for so long.

So that wraps up last night. I'm getting ready to go start my first batch of Artisan bread in 5 minutes. I'm skeptical on bread that doesn't need to be kneaded but I'll give it a shot. I still don't have menus done and as of right now (2 pm) I don't know what we are having for dinner yet. Wish me luck...

Day Nineteen--Pizza

We spent the day at the zoo today. We drove 2 hours and 40 minutes to get there, spent 4 hours there and then drove 2 hours and 40 minutes home. We got home at 6. I actually made pizza dough. I waited one hour for the dough to rise and then Connor punched it down. We waited 35 more minutes for the second rise and then made pizzas.

Margherita pizza

We are eating pizza a little after 8 but it's delicious. I was only able to eat two pieces because I'm tired and frankly, I'm full of water. It was hot out again today and being in the sun for four hours wiped me out. I have been drinking water non-stop since we've been home. The good thing about that is that I have a TON of pizza left over for lunches for the next couple of days.

The dough is the normal one that I make. The sauce I used is the left over tomato sauce from the Martha meal earlier in the week. I bought balls of mozzarella and just threw chunks of that on the pizza. I will not buy the pre-shredded crap anymore. I had a bunch of organic tomatoes that I needed to use up before they went bad so instead of my usual topping fest, I went simple. Cheese, tomatoes and basil. My poor basil plants have been picked clean.

I wish I had more to say right now, but all I want to do is crawl into bed and read my new book. I got Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I tried to read it last night in bed and didn't make it through the first page before I was asleep. I'm going to shoot for two pages tonight. I still want to complain about my shopping trip yesterday, but not now. Let's just say that I can't wait until our farmer's market is up and running again. Until tomorrow, happy cooking!

Day Eleven--Pizza Night!!

Sorry I'm posting this a day late. I have to post last night and tonight's dinners. It's been busy. Last night we head out to pick up our 50 lbs of grass fed organic beef from our good friends that live about 30 minutes from us. It was a perfect spring day and what was supposed to be a quick drop off the check/pick up the beef turned into two hours of hanging out in the back yard enjoying the amazing view and enjoying clean, fresh air. We didn't get home until quarter to eight. Oops.

Thankfully, I had started the pizza dough before we left and it was all risen and ready to go when we got home. Tim rolled out the three pizza crusts and I chopped all the veggies and got them all ready. We have Friday night pizzas down to a science now. I make the dough from scratch which is 100 percent easier now that I have my pretty amazing mixer...thanks dad and Laurie! It mixes all up in the bowl and rises and then Aidan usually punches it down the first time. Then it rises again and then it's ready to go. It really is quite a tasty pizza crust that is just flour, salt, water, yeast, a tiny bit of sugar and olive oil. The one recipe makes three separate pizzas that we usually have for a couple of days.

One of the pizzas with pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, green olives and oregano. I made this one with the left over sauce from earlier in the week that was sooooo tasty.

We rarely buy pizza out anymore. It just doesn't taste as good as when we make it at home and I honestly never thought I would say. I used to love buying pizza at the chain pizzas places and then they kind of got gross and predictable. Then we moved to eating local pizza places and found that our pizzas tasted just as good and were cheaper. Plus they are fun to make. The kids will sometimes get in the kitchen and build theirs and then Tim and I go nuts on ours with the toppings.

I guess you guys better get used to seeing pizzas on Friday night. It's kind of turned into a habit of ours. Pizza and movie night with the boys on Friday night. Last night we passed on the movie because we got home later than we had planned. I'm hoping in the next month we can experiment with making our own mozzarella cheese. I usually buy the pre-shredded mozzarella at the store but really love the taste of "real" mozzarella. I just need to score some citric acid and we will be good to go with that experiment.

Well, that sums up Friday night's dinner. Now I'm going to go post for today (Saturday).