New Year's Day is normally a low key affair. Like most people, I do my celebrating on New Year’s Eve. So New Year’s Day becomes sit-on-the-couch-and-do-nothing day. This year, though, Nev (the boyfriend) and I decided to invite the family over because besides my sister, none of my family has seen our new place. I guess you could say it was more like a belated house warming party! Deciding what to make was a no brainer-it HAD to be pizza. Why? Well, my family loves my pizza and they request it any chance they get. (No seriously. Every time I visit my mom’s house, I hear “When are you making pizza?” or “Shakira, you need to make some of that pizza”). So yeah, pizza it is! Because my pizza is such a big hit, I make 15 inch ones. I used is my Homemade Pizza Dough recipe to make the dough. For the sauce, I used my favorite jarred marinara sauce-Victoria White Linen Collection (I buy it at my local Costco). I love this brand because it’s made with ingredients I can actually pronounce, not mention it tastes homemade. The toppings I chose were sun dried tomatoes, spinach (my favorite!), black olives, ground beef, pepperoni and mushrooms. Usually, I keep the mushrooms raw but I noticed the pizza gets watery on the top as it bakes. Ew. This time, I sautéed them first and guess what? Problem solved. No more wet pizza! I topped the pizzas with a different combination of ingredients for a little variety. A sprinkling of fresh basil went on each one before going in to a 500 degree oven for 10 minutes. I have to say, these were my best pizzas yet! Out of 4 pizzas, only 4 slices were left-just enough for our lunch the next day. Oh! And let's not forget about dessert! I made a Coconut Custard Pie. My mom requested it for Christmas but since I never got around to making it, I figured it would be the perfect dessert for the party. I had a few issues when I made it though. First, my pie dough wasn’t big enough. Not only was it too thin, but I didn’t have enough overhang to make a nice border. As I was about to par bake the crust, I realized I didn’t have any dried beans, or rice to use to keep it from rising. I ended up just covering the dough with parchment paper and hoping for the best. Then, I burnt the coconut flakes the first time I toasted them. Lastly, there wasn’t enough filling so I was left with a lot of empty space in my pie. I concluded my pie plate was simply too large for the recipe. Despite all of this, the pie still turned out delicious. My family thought so too! 7 people, 4 pizzas and 1 pie later, we were stuffed! I had such a blast having my family over. I really want to make more of an effort to spend time with my family this year. They (my immediate family) don’t live that far away but I get so caught up in my own day-to-day life that I don't visit as often as I should. The pizza party was a great way to start working on this goal. And, I think I may have started a new tradition…
1 Comment
10/11/2017 05:49:03 am
Every New Year's Eve we always order pizza. We order four different kinds of pizza from different stores. Last year we bought pizzas from Papa John's, Yellow Cab, Sbarro, and Pizza Hut. It was a New Year's Eve celebrated in the greatest way possible. Well, every occasion we celebrate we always buy pizza because it wouldn't be a celebration without pizza. There was a time when I bought a large box of pizza and I ate it all and it was totally worth it.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
May 2017
|