Good morning, friends!
Thank you for all the well wishes and running advice on my “I’m sick” post — I’m happy to report that I am officially back up and running now! Actually — I felt more or less fine yesterday, too, so I’m thinking it was definitely food poisoning vs. a flu. Either way, I was happy because we were able to belatedly have Matt’s brother Chris and his wife Jess over for dinner (we were supposed to have them over on Saturday) last night!
On the menu? Homemade whole wheat pizzas!
Clearly Matt is more of a pizza dough flipping pro than I am 😉
We used this awesome whole wheat pizza dough from Trader Joe’s — it’s only 99 cents and super easy — just roll it out and add toppings!
The key to homemade pizza?
- Sprinkle some flour on your baking surface (we used Chris and Jess’s pizza stone) so the dough doesn’t stick, and
- Bake the dough for 2 to 3 minutes (at 500) before adding the toppings, to make sure it doesn’t get soggy.
(Everything I know about homemade pizza is thanks to my girl Elle and her pizza nights!)
Then, the fun begins! Add your toppings 🙂
Matt was our pizza chef for the evening and he used a combination of sauce, mozzarella cheese, mushrooms, orange peppers, prosciutto, and zucchini.
Then, toss it back in the oven at 500 for 6 to 10 minutes (depending how crispy you like it) and you are ready to rock!
We made two pizzas and they were both delicious 🙂 I especially like the second one because it was super saucy!
To have on the side, Chris and Jess brought a homemade Caesar salad with them, including AWESOME homemade dressing!
Matt and Chris’s dad is an amazing cook (as you’ll remember from my epic Thanksgiving feast post) and Chris used his dad’s signature Caesar salad dressing recipe. It’s very authentic and made with anchovies (!), lots of garlic, lemon juice, dried mustard, and more. SO good!
Chris even chilled our salad forks in the freezer — so gourmet! Their dad would be proud 😉
Don’t they look alike?
They also brought dessert — cookies! Jess made the cookie dough at home and then baked them here so they would be fresh and hot. They were delicious — Chocolate Oatmeal Walnut Cookies!
Don’t worry, I got the recipe 😉
Here I am with Jess:
We may or may not have all had milk with the cookies. We were joking about how parties have changed so much for us nowadays — instead of kegs and shots, we now end our parties with cookies and milk. Win!
I’m off to class — busy day ahead! I took all of your advice and abandoned my training run this weekend — I was debating a shorter run yesterday, but decided in the end that rest would do me better. I started my day this morning with some power yoga and I’m excited to get back to running tomorrow morning with my Tuesday speed workout!
Have a wonderful day 🙂
