Gourmet Pizzas!

I don't remember the last time I ate such delicious homemade food ... my friend Nicole has always told me about the incredible pizzas her husband Chris makes. I've been telling Chris that he needs to make me a pizza for a while now. So about a week ago, as Nicole and I were discussing our Labor Day weekend plans, we decided we'd get together and cook gourmet pizzas!


The Heid family had us over for a BBQ in July, so it was our turn to have them over, even though Chris and Nicole would be doing most of the food preparation. All week long, we discussed the various types of specialty pizzas we could make and which ingredients we'd need. Since we couldn't decide on only a couple, we decided to make 6 different kinds! Here were the ingredients for each pizza:

1. Standard: tomato, basil, mozzarella, parmesan, ricotta, garlic, sausage


2. Asian: hoison sauce, bacon, pear, caramelized onion, panko breaded chicken breast, mozzarella


3. California: fig, prosciutto, goat cheese, scallions


4. BLT: gorgonzola, arugula, bacon, tomato, balsamic drizzle


5. Herb/Mushroom: mozzarella, parmesan, romano, asiago, fresh herbs, mushrooms


6. Tricolor: red/orange/yellow bell peppers, tomato sauce, mozzarella, onion, parmesan

Nicole made a detailed list of what items needed to be purchased, what we already had, and what needed to be prepared in advance. I did the shopping the day before and Chris did a lot of prep work earlier on in the day (prepared the caramelized onions, cooked the sausage, etc.).

They were all AMAZING, but I think my favorite was #3, the California (Nicole is taking a bite of it in the above picture) ... for anyone who likes specialty pizzas, I highly recommend this flavor combination. The prosciutto was sliced extremely thin, so it got really crispy in the oven ~ the fig gave it the perfect amount of sweetness, and the goat cheese, well, let's just say I couldn't possibly like any cheese more than goat cheese. Yum! Is your mouth watering yet?? It should be!Here is Chris slicing up some pizza ... I can't believe I didn't take more pictures of the pizzas; they were truly works of art!

Here's Nicole preparing the standard pizza, #1

Avery sat in her high chair munching on various foods while we adults cooked and ate ... okay, Nicole and Chris cooked, while John and I ate! Reagan, Mia and Bennett ran around playing, only causing trouble sporadically.

At one point, Reagan managed to swipe the canister of Gerber "Little Crunchies" that I had been letting Avery snack on (flavored corn puffs). She took them into the toy room and spilled half of the container (of course). When I came in to retrieve it, Reagan and Mia went nuts, picking up all the spilled puffs, shoving them into their mouths as fast as they could.


I love watching Bennett and Avery together. Bennett says her name in the sweetest little voice. Avery is obsessed with hair, no matter its length or to whom it belongs. She grabbed hold of Bennett's hair, and then tried to eat it. All babies put everything in their mouths, but Avery takes this to a whole new level ... she tries to eat people's cheeks, noses, ears, eyebrows, and basically anything she can get her mouth on. She cracks me up! Good thing Bennett was a good sport.

The specialty chefs

When it was time to feed the kids dinner, Mia was anxious to try our exotic pizzas ~ she's such a great little eater!
Even Bennett was a good sport, eating the bacon and panko-crusted chicken breasts from the pizza.

Then there's our picky little Reagan. If you could only understand how annoying and frustrating it was to prepare her chicken tenders from the freezer when we had an entire kitchen full of the most delicious food!!! Twenty years from now, I'll show her this post and tell her she passed up a California pizza for a chicken nugget and she'll be so ashamed of herself ... right? She better be!

After dinner, the girls went into the toy room to watch TV in their pajamas. I came inside with my camera and got these funny cheesy grins.

Nicole and I sat down on Reagan's Dora bed while Chris took this picture. It was nice to have our husbands hanging out with us, to help with the kids since Nicole and I often get together and feel very outnumbered (4 kids under the age of 2 with only 2 adults)!

It was such a fun night ... I commented that we'll have to do this once a month from now on. My only complaint was that I didn't really notice every step of the pizza making process, so I don't feel very confident that I could replicate these pizzas on my own. Oh well, it's now another reason to do this again next month!