cooking with gp: pizza night

last weekend, i decided to try out gwyneth's wood oven pizza recipe. it had been a very long week for me, and when kristin started texting us all the things that had gone wrong with her day, i felt it was all the more reason to have a get together and invite everyone over for food.

and wine.

somehow, between sarina, kristin and myself, we ended up with five bottles. oops.

the only problem with this recipe was, i don't have a wood oven. however, my mom's electric one did just fine.

i made the homemade pizza dough, with yeast and all. i used whole wheat flour, and honestly, you can't really tell a difference. i mean, you can if you think about it, but it doesn't make the pizza taste bad by any means.

but for this occasion, since i was pressed for time (and starving), i opted for pizza sauce in a jar, rather than making her recipe this time, and next time i'll make the real recipe. but i decided to go for some really great toppings.

pizza one: sauce + sliced roma tomatoes + fresh mozzarella cheese + basil

pizza two: sauce + ham + shredded mozzarella + fresh parmesan + sundried tomatoes

pizza three: olive oil + roasted peppers + caramelized onions + garlic + goat cheese

pizza four: sauce + shredded mozzarella + fresh parmesan

needless to say, we ate a lot of pizza. and it was all freaking delicious. kyle's, kristin's and my favorite was the ham and sundried tomato one. chris liked the cheese and tomato one the best. i'm not sure about everyone else -- we were all pretty busy stuffing our faces, drinking too much wine and talking too loudly. what started out as me just inviting people over to hang out, turned into an all-out "my-parents-aren't-home-so-let's-act-like-we're-18" party. dancing. laughing. taking videos that were embarrassing the next morning. it was a blast. chris also brought some canned bud light and i may or may not have drank one while i did the dishes after everyone left. sue me.

people who attended/helped make this pizza night possible:

me

kyle

kristin

sarina

casey

taylor

mark

chris

mom

in the end, kristin wasn't so worried about her iphone screen getting cracked, i wasn't so stressed about my weird numb fingers and kyle could let go of his job worries for a few hours. and i'm sure whatever everyone else was stressed about that week was lifted for a while. i'm thankful for such great friends, and i'm glad i could make some pretty awesome food to share with them. here's to you, gwyneth, for giving me a reason to party like it's 2005 with my friends.

cheers.

love&food.

krq.