Pizza Night

It’s great when C gets home a little early on a Saturday! It’s really great when we make it a pizza night!!! That was this Saturday for us. And even though the forecast called for showers we still were pumped! At least we were going to be together. We briefly debated if we should order pizza or make it, but we knew we had to have a pizza night! We decided to try to make pizzas utilizing what we had on hand as much as possible, somewhat of a challenge by C if you will. Soooo of course challenge accepted… I surveyed the fridge, opened up the freezer doors, and poked around the pantry.

We knew we had some Whole Foods shredded mozz from https://www.amazon.com/365-Everyday-Value-Mozzarella-Shred/dp/B074H5SS4J an earlier pizza night we never opened (thankfully the use by date is well in advance and we had never opened it) and kinda one of the reasons we settled on making as opposed to ordering the pizzas for pizza night. As has become usual, we were planning on making 3 pies because we like the variety and because, pizza! We also like to freeze leftovers for late night pizza. Pulled from what we had… shredded mozzarella, fresh corn, yellow squash, scallions, red onions, jarred artichokes, roasted garlic, Havarti cheese, spicy chicken sausage, kale, jarred tomato sauce (we always make our own but had one on hand from a gourmet basket we had received, figured good time to use it!), and a jalapeno.

I went to one of our favorite stores- Joe Leone’s https://www.joeleones.com/ and set out to buy as few things as possible. This is not an easy task as this place is seriously amazing. But, I headed in with my head down and went straight for the pizza dough. Three doughs, fresh ricotta, a small block of a type of gorgonzola cheese (tini’s with blue cheese olives were also on the menu so figured we could use it on one of the pizzas too), and a fresh tomato. Yup, that’s it! Do you know how hard that was?!?? Pizza night and I left Joe’s under $13.00.

Since we were stopping at our friends’ charity event for a little when C first got out, I knew it was a good idea to prep as much as possible ahead of time. Now, we make a lot of pizzas. Pizza night is kinda one of our “things.” But, C has ALWAYS rolled the doughs out. ALWAYS. But, I knew it would be soooo much more enjoyable (and let’s be honest, a lot less flour on the floor than when he does it) when we got in if I pre-baked them. So, I faced my fears and plopped some flour down on the board. We watched this show on Netflix a few months back where this Pizza Chef used a bottle of red wine as a rolling pin. So, I figured if it worked for him, I’d give it a whirl too. I set the oven at 500 and got to work. I swear I poked the dough with a fork, but the first one had a giant bubble. I have to say, I think I did a pretty solid job for my first time. What do you think?

Other than slicing the tomato, I had everything else prepped out and ready to go. Grilled the corn and squash, cut up the veggies, sautéed the kale, and cooked the chicken sausage. Then it was time to go to the charity event for a little. C actually surprised me there, I didn’t know he’d stop on his way home, but it was nice for him to see some friends and family even if it was just for a few minutes. When we got home, C started shaking the tini’s and I started building the pizzas.

Grilled corn and squash, mozz, fresh ricotta, sliced red onions, and then finished with scallions.

Artichoke, roasted garlic, some mozz, Havarti, fresh tomato, and finished with fresh basil leaves (unfortunately we forgot to add the basil before the pictures…just imagine some fresh green leaves on top!)

Spicy chicken sausage, kale, the jarred tomatoes, sliced jalapenos, mozz, and gorgonzola.

These combinations were pretty tasty and very different from each other, so a win win! We just cooked them inside as opposed to the usual of the charcoal grill. The smoky grill flavor was missed a little, but the oven was just a little less of a process for our purposes. Yeah, pizza night!

Cheers!