make-your-own-pizza anniversary special

Remember when my boyfriend texted me a pic of pizza dough and how excited I was for a make-your-own-pizza date night??

Well, it finally happened this week! For our twenty-something-odd month anniversary, he wanted us to make something together so he suggested pizza. You bet I was excited when he mentioned that! :)

Check out our fun anniversary date night below…

the usual list of pizza ingredients :)

we used rosemary focaccia dough from Fresh And Easy

For our make-your-own-pizza, there were only 2 requirements….he had to have meat, and I had to have some sort of veggie.

gentleman's choice: pepperoni and Calabrese-style salami

lady's choice: broccoli, white button mushrooms, grape tomatoes (I apologize for the word "ass" on the can. that is my boyfriend's can of whoop ass...when I beat him at sudoku, I make him open my cans because every time we go shopping we always forget to buy a can opener haha)

Making your own pizzas is great because you can use up ingredients that have been hogging up precious fridge space…

cheese: havarti, muenster, parmesan (who knew there were so many different types of cheese just lying in the fridge?) PS. In no way am I a cheese connoisseur, so this may be a strange combo for some, but melted cheese mixed in with yummy tomato sauce all taste the same to me :)

Since I made whole wheat spaghetti caprese and Marcella Hazan’s Tomato and Butter Sauce with Onions in the past  and discovered how amazingly simple and easy making your own sauce was, I vowed to never buy any kind of red sauce from the grocery store again! I guess that vow included pizza sauce too (non-recipe recipe below…sorry, I never measure! But I have guesstimates :)

Kat's pizza sauce in the making! just canned tomatoes, garlic, oregano, fresh basil, red pepper flakes, s+p

While the sauce simmered, I chopped up all of the ingredients (even the onion! :) and tried my best at plating like my idol (I love how freakishly neat she is).

I must admit, I munched on a few slices of pepperoni and salami (very yummy!)

The pizza was assembled in this fashion… slices of muenster/havarti cheese, top with sauce, sprinkled parmesan cheese, place toppings. To bake the pizza, we used our Williams-Sonoma cake pan which turned out pretty good.

pre-bake

post-bake

i love square-shaped pizzas (maybe for Valentine's, I'll make mini-heart shaped pizzas)

happy anniversary nom nom nom :)

Although it turned out great and was yummy, I wasn’t extremely satisfied with the crust… Any tips for me when it comes to baking pizza crust in the oven?? I like my crust crunchy! Would it be okay to pre-bake my crust for a few minutes before I add all the toppings? If so, how long? Sigh… I need help!! :(

What do you guys like to do for anniversaries? Do you prefer to stay in? Or get all gussied up and head out? If so, do you go back to where you had your first date? I would love to go to Gordon Ramsey’s Boxwood Cafe at The London West Hollywood for a fancy daytime brunch (we both love Ramsey!). And one place that always brings back happy/funny/awkward memories is Viva Madrid, it’s where we had our first date :)

Till the next monthly anniversary!

xoxo, kat

Thank you for your tremendous amount of support, love, and encouragement. Only 77 years + 6 months to go, thanks for figuring out the math :)

Kat’s Pizza Sauce

serving size: 1 medium pizza

• 16 oz. can organic tomato sauce
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 5-7 fresh basil leaves, chiffonade
• 2 tbsp dried organic 0regano (more or less depending on taste)
• sea salt (to taste)
• fresh ground pepper (lots of it)