Pizza Creations!

So many of you know that I LOVE to cook for my friends and family. I try to figure how I got here and it basically comes down to I am not a tough person. I don't like to do manual labor and sweet. Lets be honest here I am an "indoor girl". Growing up when my family worked on projects, Brett would usually help, but I was in charge of lunch.... haha I guess that is where it started.

Anyway back to the pizza. My new goal is to be able to make anything at home as good or better than going out. Mostly b/c restaurants are super disappointing to me and it aggravates the stew out of me to spend a couple hundred dollars on a "nice" dinner and get cold food, over priced wine, and a crowded restaurant, So that is where my goal came from. I think some food as much as I try will never be as good at home as out.... Curry Chicken (can't get it right) Chinese rice (I am close on a ckn and broccoli recipe), but the rice... I think unless I invest in a steamer will never be as good.

I do think I have nailed the pizza. We have done a couple Pizza Nights and invited friends over and they all turn out fantastic. We have done a Supreme, BBQ (w/ ckn or pork), Spinach alfredo, pesto, etc. Saturday night I busted out the food processor to start making the pizza dough, and made a yummy pizza with sausauge, pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, green peppers, sliced tomoatos, and I think that may be all. Then I put the other half of my dough in the freezer and started to think about Sunday's lunch. Tripp mentioned he would like a pesto pizza, so I started to look in the fridge. I usually make my own pesto, but if my basil bush is low and the fresh basil at the store doesn't look good, I will buy a jar of pesto and I had 1/2 a jar in my fridge. I also had some chopped ckn leftover from quesadillas that I made earlier this week and then I pulled out a can of fire roasted tomatoes. Now I LOVE fire roasted tomatoes, I use them ALL the time. Probably 4 times a week in the fall and winter when I make soups and more hearty dishes, and I drained them really well. Then spread the pesto, tomatoes, ckn and cheese over the dough. It turned out soooo good and was so easy with leftovers and staples in the house

Whenever I make pizza dough it always makes me feel like I am on vacation. I think it is the yeast in the dough, but it smells like a winery, and I love it. It just makes me think of Napa and the great times we have had there. That is where Tripp and I went for our honeymoon, then we went back with my parents 8 months later. It is by far our favorite vacation spot and we talk often about when we will be able to get back there. That is one of the things I look forward to when I cook. Recipes and menus come from experiences for me, so I get to go back to those moments when I recreate the food.