Great Minds Think Alike

I've been meaning to blog about pizza night for awhile, but the Pelletiers and the Calandros beat me to it!

I used to make homemade pizza quite often. We would make one pizza for the adults and another for the kids. Then it got to where the kids couldn't agree on what toppings they wanted. I got a little frustrated and we just quit doing "pizza night" (which led to "quesadilla night" so it wasn't all bad!).

Now "pizza night" has returned! To get around the topping arguments, each kid gets their own "personal pan" pizza. Rebecca usually has just garlic and cheese, the older two boys like just tomato sauce and cheese, and Noah is a meat lover! Terry and I have tried all kinds of creative toppings.

I start with a homemade crust. Here are the ingredients:

From Pizza Night

And no, I don't use quite that much garlic and salt! That would really be over the top. Here is the recipe I use:

6 c. flour (I sometimes use a little whole wheat)
2 T. sugar
1 t. salt
2 t. minced garlic
1/2 c. oil
2 c.water
2 T. yeast

Mix. Knead a few minutes and let rise one hour before rolling out for crust.This makes enough for two very large pizzas or an assortment of sizes. I usually make 4 pie-size pizzas for the kids and two more large pizzas.

The crust is really quite easy and very good. I love the garlic!

From Pizza Night

Here's a finished pineapple and peppered-bacon pizza. It got a little overdone. The stones work best for pizza, but I haven't found them in the "personal pan" size, so the kids just stick with pie pans.

Terry and I have some favorites:

Thai Chicken pizza (peanut sauce or just a little peanut butter spread on the crust as a base, Thai BBQ chicken, bacon, green pepper, onion, and extra red pepper flakes)
Chicken & Spinach Alfredo (alfredo sauce, leftover grilled chicken, spinach, onion and mushroom)
Sausage & Spinach Alfredo (same as above but with sausage)
Pineapple and Ham or Bacon

When I have to make a little alfredo sauce for a pizza, I make what I call 3-2-1-1 sauce:

3 T. butter, melted
2 T. flour
1 c. milk
1 c. parmesan cheese

Incidentally, this is the same sauce I use for mac&cheese - I just use Velveeta in place of the parmesan.

Our pizza night isn't always on the same night of the week - but the kids always love to hear "pizza night!" because they know it means good food and usually a movie or cool sporting event watched in HD.

Happy Anniversary!

Terry and I were married nineteen years ago today!

I decided to celebrate by finally get our VHS wedding video transferred to DVD! I've got our old Panasonic (wouldn't you know?) VHS player hooked up to our computer with a "Dazzle" attachment. It's working great, and I'm looking forward to transferring all our old movies now. I can even bring them in to Pinnacle and edit them if I wish.

Carol - just to let you know: When going through our home movies, I found that I have footage from your wedding made with my camera. So hopefully all is not lost!
The only problem would be if I taped over it for some reason.

We are celebrating tonight by having steak on the grill with the kids and then subjecting our kids to watching our wedding video!

Thursday night Terry is taking me out to dinner and the Barter Theatre.

Blurb Books

We've been having lots of fun doing books on blurb. We have eight so far. Three are just family books, five are books we've done as part of our new business - Funfolios! Rebecca is meeting tonight with a local theatre company to discuss doing a book for the cast of their latest production - "The Phantom Tollbooth."

The Jonesborou...

The Lion The Witch...

By Dramatized by Jose...

Book Preview

This book featured above is one Rebecca put together for the production of "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" that she and Nathan were in last spring. It contains lots of collages of characters and scenes, program information, a short bio of C.S. Lewis, information about the local theatre and even a recipe for Turkish Delight!

All the kids tried out for "Alice in Wonderland" at Theatre Bristol this week. None of them were cast - which may be a good thing as the boys had to read for the parts of the rose and the daisies in the Queen of Heart's garden. I don't think they would have been too thrilled with those parts.

I am considering letting Noah try out to be a flying monkey or lollipop guild member at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon. They need kids between 4'2" and 4'7". If not, the next production they're hoping for parts in is "Cheaper by the Dozen."