I can only hope that my son (and any future children we may have) will have as fond memories of me in the kitchen as I do with my Mom. My mom is the best cook I know. Her baking is nothing more then amazing too. Growing up I often came home from school to the sound of the mixer going or the smell of something amazing baking in the oven. If my Mom could make it from scratch, she would. TV dinners were like a bad word in my house. Love and care went into every meal my Mom made. Left overs were wished for because everything was so amazing - we wanted more!
When I was 6 or 7 I remember asking for an easy bake oven for Christmas. My Mom said "You can just bake with me." And that we did.
Now as an adult I love making some of those wonderful meals my Mom would make. The thing that most makes me thinking of all those wonderful memories is when I make bread. Really of any kind of bread. I dare anyone to try to top my Mom's banana bread (that's for another time though).
Today I'm making pizza! My parents are so awesome with it - they've seriously perfected the bbq pizza! My Mom makes the pizza crust (from scratch of course) and gets the toppings ready. My Dad gets the grill (now the Trager) ready. When the dough is ready my Mom flattens it out and my Dad puts it on the grill. When the bottom is ready they flip it and dress it up. Then it's back to the grill until the cheese is melted! Oh my I can't even tell you how good it is. I'm starting to drool a little! When they make it now my husband and I just about eat ourselves sick!
So tonight we wanted pizza! But after watching Giada make pizza the other day a simple frozen pizza wasn't going to be enough! A few fixings bought at the store like pepperoni, fresh mozzarella (the best), and some peppers were really all I needed. Of course my hubby came up with the best topping to add - bacon!
I went off this recipe for the dough: http://www.chef-in-training.com/2014/04/perfect-pizza-dough-recipe/#comment-61282
I'm really not sure why yeast used to scare me. As long as you take your time and let the kitchen aid do the work it's really not that bad. Slow is the way to go. The second half of dough needs to go slowly in and let the dough combined in before adding more. It needs to be as smooth as a baby's butt and then it's ready to rise!
After about 20 minutes of rising I had this beauty! That's yummy olive oil around the side. It was my non stick choice this round. I pushed it down a bit and we began getting toppings ready while it sat for a little longer in the microwave. That's a trick I learned from my Mom. She would warm up a glass of water and then put the dough in to rise. It was moist and dark - perfect for a dough to rise just make sure no one opens the door or that you turn the microwave on.
My husband fried up the bacon for me and I went to grate the cheese and then changed my mind. Fresh mozzarella is hard to shred this way and I remembered seeing Giada just hand shred it. Yup - that was happening!
So cut the peppers - red and orange so it's pretty. I got the sauce ready - a simple tomato paste I mixed some herbs into - we literally have a pizza seasoning someone got us!
Topped the pizza - sauce, cheddar cheese (hubby likes more then 1 cheese), pepperoni, peppers, bacon, and finally mozzarella. I really like cheese (if you couldn't tell by the picture) so I think I loaded it up. I also love the crust so I left it open around the side and a little thicker too. Not sure why it ended up an egg shape, but I just wanted pizza so I gave up trying to get a perfect circle - I rarely get it that way. Into the oven - because we haven't tried to get close to the bbq pizza my parents make - and now we wait.
Waiting is the hardest part. The smell of pizza filling our house just makes me that much more hungry.
22 minutes later (needed a few extra minutes) we had pizza!! Yummy yummy pizza!
I actually was able to divide the dough into 2 so I let this one rest on a cutting board while I spread out and topped the other half and then we ate!
It was good!
