Saturday Night Pizza

Tonight is pizza night and oh are we looking forward to it! Last night's date night chat lead David and I to figuring out, "Just how long have we been having pizza night?" After counting back the years we figured that we have been noshing on this same pizza for about 7 years... and counting, that's how much we love it! We have tried different toppings and different dough recipes but we always come back to our old standby.

I like it with pesto and David likes it with roasted tomatoes as the base. We have often dreamed that if we were ever to open a restaurant that served pizza, we would offer guests the option of having their pizza David style, with tomato, or Allison style, with pesto... we always talk of opening a restaurant, something I don't think either of us really wants to do, too long of hours, not enough home time, but restaurant talk sure is an entertaining conversation to have over dinner!

As of now I have the dough, pesto and sausages thawing on the counter, ready to be made into our little pizza later this evening. We will enjoy our pizza with a very simple side salad of mixed seasonal greens topped with Mimi's Dressing.

Saturday Night Pizza

1 recipe pizza dough (from the book Bread Machine Baking, it makes enough for two pizzas, with just the two of us I always freeze half the dough for our next pizza night)

1/2 c. homemade pesto or roasted tomatoes

2 italian sausage links

3 shallots (or 1 leek or onion)

3- 4 cloves of garlic... we like lots of garlic! (if I have extra time I roast a whole head of garlic... a special treat)

1/2 lb mushrooms (whatever is local and available at the farmers market)

goat cheese

pine nuts

Pre-Heat your oven to 400-425.

Remove sausage from casings and brown in a skillet, breaking into bit size pieces. Remove from pan with a slotted spoon just before it is all the way cooked through (it will finish cooking in the oven). Using pan drippings, saute sliced shallot until limp. Add minced garlic and saute one minute more (if using roasted garlic, do not saute, simply place roasted garlic atop pizza before baking). Set onion and garlic mixture aside and saute sliced mushrooms, adding additional oil to pan if needed.

Roll out dough and place onto pizza pan or board if using a stone. Build pizza by layering all ingredients starting with a base of either pesto or roasted tomatoes. Crumble goat cheese and top with a sprinkling of pine nuts.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, until crisp on bottom and bubbly-browned on top.

Once the pizza has been removed from the oven I like to top it with a sprinkling of Fluer de Sel and let it rest for about 5 minutes while I mix up a simple salad.

Slice and enjoy with a side salad and local brew... or home brew, which is what we love to do!

*I salt (and pepper, if applicable) between each step in all my recipes. It adds a depth of flavor that cannot be replicated when simply salting at the end of a recipe.

Added after dinner...

To accompany our pizza I just knew we needed a little something sweet so I mixed up a batch of these....

They were delightful. I am not into anything overly sweet and these little hand pies were just the ticket. Over the summer I had stashed away a few pounds of rhubarb from the market. I guess I was saving it for a raining day because we love rhubarb around here and I was surprised that it had staying tucked away in the freezer for so long! The pink color was perfect for an early Valentine treat!

And, well David must have been experiencing a little sweet tooth himself because he came home with this slice of tiramisu from Elephants. Tiramisu will always hold a special little spot in our hearts... it was our wedding cake!

Apparently we were both feeling like we needed a little winter

pick -me-up. You would think that we chose just one treat to have for our after dinner nosh, but no! We shared the tiramisu and a hand pie.

David said that he even stopped by our local Good Will in search of special record for me on his way home from work, but all he could find was Neil Diamond! We laughed because everywhere I look seems to be over flowing with Neil Diamond albums... what's a girl got to do to find some Van the Man at a Good Will price?