Pizza Night
Let's just pretend this is me, shall we?
Some days I spend hours looking up recipes and slaving in the kitchen only to find that when dinner is served I get a whole lot of "ick"s, "eeeews", and "I'm just going to have some cold cereal"s. It's basically the most depressing part of my day.
Other days, I wait til the last minute to decide what's on the menu, briefly panic, and then somehow pull together a meal using whatever I can find in the fridge. Miraculously, these are usually the nights where dinner somehow turns into a modest success.
All five of my kids love pizza, but as we are developing an uncomfortably close relationship with the Domino's pizza guy (I actually think that their delivery number is ahead of 911 for who the kids would call in case of an emergency), I've been trying to cut down on takeout as much as possible.
Although I have several recipes for pizza crust, many of them require a day's worth of raising. This recipe from one of my favorite websites is especially good and most importantly - quick. You can mix and use almost instantly, but I like to let the dough sit for 20-30 minutes at the very least if I can. Shawni demos this recipe as a flatbread (which we have tried too - yummy!), but I tend to rely on it primarily for pizza. I double the recipe, use my stand mixer and end up with enough for two large pies.
While the kids are always satisfied with a basic cheese pizza, I fancied one up for myself and anyone else who was feeling a bit adventurous. I sauteed some leftover asparagus in olive oil, salt & pepper and sliced up some fresh cherry tomatoes. Instead of tomato sauce I used Trader Joe's "Pesto alla Genovese", which is delicious!
After I put the kids' pizza in the oven, I had just enough mozzarella for mine, until I went to use it and found that Riss had all but eaten it up while I was cooking the asparagus! It turned out okay though, because I think a heavier dose of cheese would've been too much for this pizza. I filled in the gaps with a handful of "good" parmesan (not that gross Kraft stuff in the green can, for heaven's sake!) and viola! I have to give myself props (because no one else will!!) and say that this was by far one of the best pizzas I've made in a long time.
If you can believe it, two of the kids actually asked to try my version and deemed it "good" (which is as good as a Michelin 5-star).
Tonight? Dinnertime hero. Tomorrow? Probably back to zero.
The kitchen is no place for wimps.