Friday Night Pizza

One fateful October night back in 2007!

I guess you could say we've come a long way in pizza.  I'm not sure this was our first... but it was definitely from early on in my homemade pizza journey. 

For along time we made pizza at home.  It wasn't the same as going out or ordering in of course.  And it certainly never filled that craving for pizza.  But it was something on the menu.  And it worked.

We worked through several different recipes.  Finally we found one that wasn't too bad.  When I informed my husband one night that I was trying a new recipe, he wasn't thrilled.  "Why mess with a good thing?"  I think he just wanted to know that dinner was going to taste good, and a new pizza recipe can never guarantee that. 

Turns out though, that it wasn't too bad.  And it became the one I made.  I really liked it because it made 3 pizza crusts instead of just the one... a very impressive point for me!  I no longer had to whip up our pizza twice each time I made it and I could put one in the oven.

Finally we discovered the real secret to enjoying homemade pizza.  No matter what recipe we used, the crust was always too tough.  And we suspected that it was because our oven doesn't get all that hot.  We're lucky if we can pass 425 degrees.  So one night we decided to try it on the grill.  We have one of those four burner grills, and if we only turn on the outside two, and we put my pizza stone on the grill to heat up before the pizza is on it (this is important as it wasn't getting cooked in the middle otherwise), we can have our pizza in approximately 6 minutes (give or take... so watch closely).  And it was sooo good.

But, of course it still wasn't restaurant pizza, so after a while I got fed up with the whole thing and we went a long time without making pizza.  After all, it's a lot of work to have it be disappointing.

Then one night at random, I decided to try it again.  My mom was here, and I was feeling well enough to help with dinner.  I made the dough.  But when I pinched off the first section, it was a little on the small side.  Oh well, I thought.  The other ones will just be thicker.

But when it came time to eat that pizza, it was sooo good!  My Beloved even asked about it.  Between the yummy, restaurant style crust and the ranch dressing in place of pizza sauce with "gourmet" toppings, it could have been Pizza Grille!  (Or any other supper yummy specialty topping pizza place you may have in your area.)

Great friends came to enjoy it with us... and they made wings! :)  Yum!

Suffice it to say, pizza was "back on the menu boys!" Er... girls.  Sorry.  (Lord of the Rings moment.)  And we've been eating it weekly (pretty much) ever since... often with company to help us enjoy it.  But instead of breaking it into thirds, I make four pizzas.  The thin crust is what makes it!  Oh, and I don't do red sauce on pizza anymore.  I usually use ranch dressing or blue cheese dressing (for buffalo chicken pizzas)... my favorite pizzas from the restaurants don't use red sauce anyway... why should I?

All this to say... you've got to try it.  High heat (more than 500 degrees) for a short time and this recipe split into 4!  (I should say, I never make the pizzas 15 inches like she says because my stone is only 13 inches.  If you make it a 15 inch pizza, you may want to try making only three.)  But three pizzas at 12+ inches was too thick.)

Topping ideas:

Chicken Bacon Ranch
Ranch dressing as the sauce... as much as you like
mozzerella and cheddar cheese to taste
left over chicken cut or torn into small pieces
red onion sliced thin
bacon crumbled

Buffalo Chicken Pizza
Blue cheese dressing as the sauce... as much as you like
mozzarella cheese to taste
chicken prepared with Frank's Red Hot sauce (I put left over cooked chicken in a pan and pore in sauce and cook till wetness is mostly gone)
additional Frank's sauce (optional... I don't do this because it's hot enough for us without)
additional dressing for dipping!  (we do this... yummy!)

Sauteed Mushroom and Onion (a new one for us... and my favorite!)
Ranch dressing for sauce... as much as you like
mozzarella cheese to taste
mushrooms and yellow onions sliced and sauteed in olive oil to taste

Feta and Sun Dried Tomato
Ranch dressing as the sauce... as much as you like
mozzarella and feta cheeses (I use about 2 oz feta plus whatever else of the mozzarella)
sun dried tomatoes, diced
Kalamata Olives, diced  (though other olives would probably work too)
Red onions thinly sliced


We also do some "normal" toppings from time to time.  Sometimes we'll do pepperoni for special because the kids like it.  But I still use Rance dressing instead of red sauce! 

Use your imaginations and enjoy!

Labels: Hospitality, In the Kitchen

posted by ~Babychaser~ @ 4:31 PM 1 Comments

Purple Punch for your next Purple Themed Party

Back before I disappeared again, I told you I'd give some more specifics about this "purple punch" I made for the purple themed baby shower! So... amazing enough, here I am delivering on a blog promise!

I decided early on that there were certain details that just had to come together... one of them was having purple punch. I just kept running into problems with it though. For starters, of the two main "purple punch" recipes I found online, I wasn't completely happy with either of them. In fact, I was afraid of both of them! One called for grape soda and pineapple sherbet, while another called for grape juice concentrate and sprite. Problem number 1: I really wanted to use raspberry sherbet since it's more of a purple, but didn't know how the two flavors would blend. Problem number 2: I usually find grape juice to be too strong and was afraid it would be for the guests. Problem number 3: My Beloved don't really drink this sort of thing, so a test run was going to be a huge waste, whether it tasted good or not.

When it was finally time do to the food shopping for the shower, I took one more look at the recipes I did find online and headed off to the store. Once we were there, I improvised. I started with Walmart's brand of Sprite-like soda the week before while we were there, but now it was time for the flavors. I put my foot down and decided to go with the raspberry sherbet... regardless of whether it would work. I made a decision that day that carried me through the rest of my party plans... form before function! I had to laugh, but I figured as long as it looked good, the rest could just be fudged over. It's not my usual motto for life, but it worked for me this time! We then headed over to the frozen section for some juice concentrate. I figured white grape juice was a safe no-brainer and was then excited to find a "wild berry flavored punch" as well. Since the packaging included shades of purple, I came to the conclusion that it must be a purplish drink. We'll truely never know... at least not until I open it someday.

Huh?? Well, if you read my first post on this shower, you learned that I left ALL the frozen ingredients at home and sent My Beloved out to the store to pick them up again. Going to a different store than we had originally been at, he did his best with what they had and returned with different, not so purple, ingredients. I now had to work with a white grape juice (this was the same as before), and two cans of fruit punch (really more of a red), and raspberry sherbet (pink, not purplish). None of this was blamed on My Beloved... he took both of our children to run this errand and pick up several things and really came back with the best he could find.

So what did we do? This was not going to be a purple punch in any stretch of the imagination. So far we were working with a great punch for Valentine's Day, but not a purple themed party! I was so thankful when God provided our purple "splash" of color in no time at all. It just so happened that the new mommy (guest of honor who lives in an apartment below the home we were hosting the shower in) had a can of, none other than, grape juice concentrate in her pantry. The end result was very yum!! And you really couldn't tell the sherbet was pink once it was in the punch!

Purple Punch Recipe
discovered by Babychaser with a lot of help from above

1 can white grape juice concentrate
1 can purple grape juice concentrate
1 can fruit punch concentrate
2 bottles (2 liters each) Sprite-like soda (store brand is fine)
Raspberry sherbet (we didn't even use a whole quart)


Everyone said they really enjoyed it. My Beloved and I completely agreed! Enjoy at your next purple themed party or activity!


Note: Keep in mind that this punch will probably stain if spilled onto light (or any) colored carpet or clothing! Thankfully, I didn't think of this before we got there and made it up, so it was too late for second thoughts. Also thankfully, the homeowner where the party took place went with it. And thankfully again, no one spilled and I am not feeling bad about her beige carpet in their new home being permanently destroyed! Praise the Lord!

Labels: Hospitality, With These Hands

posted by ~Babychaser~ @ 8:08 AM 8 Comments

A Teddy Bear Baby Shower

This weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity to host a baby shower for a friend of ours expecting her first little one! She and her husband moved to the area in September, and upon meeting them in the middle of October, we started spending regular time with them. Knowing only his parents and having no friends yet, it was easy to get close quickly. The men discuss movie making and special effects and us women discuss pregnancy, child birth, preparing to be a mommy and all sorts of other things related. I was amazed to find that she didn't know anyone willing to talk with her about such things... so I volunteered! I'm looking forward to many more discussions about infancy, breast feeding, and other new mommy topics I've gotten to tackle twice before. Not to mention holding the tiny one when she gets here. What fun it is to step into a mentoring relationship! It's been a great opportunity to begin in my "older woman" rolls.

But somehow I'm off topic already! The baby shower. Yes. They are living in a small one bedroom apartment and have made room in their bedroom for the "baby area". It's a nice purple wall, so I decided to go with purple and teddy bears for the shower theme. It's nice to have a place to start. After seeing Monica's "Car" birthday party theme a month or so ago, I emailed her to learn whether she'd ever done anything with teddy bears. Though she hadn't, she pointed me in a couple directions. I don't think I used any of the ideas I found there, but they started me in the right direction and gave all sorts of inspiration.

First, I borrowed teddy bears from a little girl at church. I think I used 5 or 6 of them, added little purple ribbon accents and stashed them here and there. This one is on the "welcome" table with a pile of envelopes (to be filled in with each guest's name and address, thus making thank you notes easier and giving me a "door prize" drawing at the end, and the name tags. Another was in the bathroom, another on the window sill, and yet another by the TV. More bears later.

I cut out 20 bears and put names of the guests on them. I had hoped for diaper pins to attach at the top, but I settled for safety pins. Sadly, I discovered the morning of the event that I only had 5 in a decent size, so after My Beloved dropped me at the party location to set up, he and the kids headed to the nearby Walmart for those... and, eh hem, the rest of what I forgot.

Another bear... and isn't she the cutest?!? This chair was the perfect welcoming post. It usually sits in the corner, just inside the house (the new grandparent's home), but we moved it to the front porch to hold this little collection of bears. I printed each of the letters of the new baby's name and glued them to more teddy bear cut outs. (I did lots of cutting last week!)

Then there was the food. Though I did all the planning, decorating and dreaming up of the day, I am thankful I had some help in the food department. This lovely looking vegi tray, for instance, was put together by the new mommy's mother in law (whose house we were in).


She also made these lovely little cakes. The best part? They are made with baby food! They were supposed to be carrot cake, but she couldn't find it and went with sweet potatoes... they were yummy and so moist! She also made yummy apple pastry bites. (My Beloved has decided I need to learn how to make those.)

Then there was the cheese tray. I did that... er, My Beloved did it anyway. I was running out of time Saturday morning, so he cut up all the little cheese pieces for me. We then threw them in a bag and put them out on this pretty plate when we arrived. I brought the grapes to accent the cheese plate, but I totally would have just put a bunch on top. The daddy-to-be's sister very artfully placed them on the plate for me.

She did these grapes too. Saturday morning, with the company of Tornado (who put tons of stickers on a paper across the table from me before everyone else was awake), I put these babies together. It wasn't going as I expected (I think I expected them to make bigger circles, but I don't know what I was thinking), but they turned out like cute little mini wraps! I loved it. They looked a little plain on the plate though, so I asked "sister dear" if she would put some grapes on that too... I never would have come up with putting grapes around the edge like that. I love it!

I made dilly bread served with spinach dip (store bought... I ran out of time and was missing an ingredient to make it fresh). Somehow I missed taking a pictures of it, but it was yummy!


And then there's my favorite part! Leave it to me to get all attached to the drink station! I decided early on (after reading a blog post from I have no idea who now... sorry!) to use half pint canning jars instead of paper or plastic cups. They were SO much cuter than purple cups would have been.

And I tied ribbon around the top of each one (20 of them... it took a while). Some combos were lavender and white, some were brown and lavender and others were purple and white.

They were laid out all nice on a lavender gingham cloth with purple and silver Hershey's kisses sprinkled about (you may have noticed those on the food table too). Then there is the punch. I searched high and low online for a purple punch, but wasn't happy with anything. It all focused on grape... either grape soda or grape juice. I was concerned that the grape juice may be too strong for some. I was also concerned about whether or not raspberry sherbet would go with it (and I wanted to float that in the punch because it's purple too.)

Funny thing, not only didn't I get a picture of the punch (not close up anyway), but the raspberry sherbet we ended up with was more pink anyway.

So what did we do about the purple punch? I found some wild berry juice concentrate and planned to mix that with white grape juice concentrate and sprite. Then I left all the frozen punch ingredients at home and had to ask My Beloved to pick up new ones on his Walmart run. And, because it was a different store and they didn't have what we originally bought, he came back with unexpected flavors. I'll share the final recipe later this week!

Overall, I'd say the shower went beautifully. Everyone had a lot of fun. The games were a hit, lots of people came, and the mommy to be seemed genuinely pleased by it all! I so wanted this to be a blessing to her... especially since most of the guests were new to her. What a great chance this was for the ladies in our church to reach out to a new, young mommy!

Labels: As it happens..., Hospitality, With These Hands

posted by ~Babychaser~ @ 3:50 PM 3 Comments