Not Quite Summer Food

During a stint of weather not feeling quite so summery a few weeks ago, I decided I wanted to make deep dish pizza. I haven’t made much pizza with so many calzones lately but I was feelin’ it.
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Ingredients

1 ball pizza dough
¾ cup tomato sauce
thick cut bacon
1 Valida onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
¼ cup pesto
2 cups shredded cheese

Directions

Cook bacon until crisp then chop. (Have you had thick cut bacon? It is like deli bacon and once you try it you won’t go back. Thanks for the intro Mrs. S!)
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Saute onions and peppers until softened but still somewhat crisp
Spread pizza dough into round cake pan and spread pesto over it
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layer onion & pepper mixture with cheese and then layer the bacon on top
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add more cheese and cover with tomato sauce then sprinkle with oregano or basil if you like
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bake at 400-degrees for 30-40 minutes
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I liked this one as a slight deviation from the norm. Once I weaseled some feedback out of Mr. J I agreed with him that the onion and bacon can’t stay as crisp as when they top a pizza. True story. I still really liked it. The bacon was substantial and smokey. The peppers made it a touch sweeter and maintained their slight crunch instead of being too soggy.

We often get bacon on pizza because who doesn’t love bacon, and also because I can’t eat red meat so pork or chicken it is!

Once I thought of pizza and bacon I probably should have gone with a regular pizza on my stone. Maybe next time. I really want to do a bacon & egg pizza so that’ll have to be next. Check out some of these awesome looking ones, like this, or this, or this.

Picnic (Sans Ants)

Sis and I LOVE a good theme party. We were trying to think of something special for Mother’s Day this year. We thought for a half second about a picnic in the Arnold Aboretum for Lilac Sunday. This is apparently the only time a year you can picnic there. Sitting on the ground to eat there just because we can’t normally didn’t quite fit. Also, with the rain on Saturday, we weren’t convinced Mother Nature would play nice.

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That seems like a baby-stroller activity and nobody in our fam is quite there yet. It also kind of seems like something to take a mom to do if her children aren’t around.

We had a picnic at our parents’ house! The picnic theme was super fun and delicious.

We took inspiration from Bobby Flay since in his throwdowns he always tries to make the everyday a bit better or more special.

We served:
BLTs with pesto mayo and thick cut bacon
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Roast Beef Sandwiches with horseraddish dijon spread
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Tabouli since Mum doesn’t love macaroni salad as much as the average person.
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And pickles, fruit, and Cape Cod chips. I got some delectable treats from Lyndell’s Bakery since I didn’t acquire all the baking skill my mum has (and since I worked about 9 hours on Saturday).

I made a drink too:
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Ingredients:

4 cups lemonade (I used crystal light yellow)
4 cups zero calorie lime seltzer
1 lime sliced

Directions:

Prepare the lemonade as instructed. (I planned to use raspberry lemonade but was short on pitcher space since yellow was already made)
Mix chilled soda
Serve with lime slices (freezing lime bits into the ice would be very cute too)

Just add some cheap-o red baskets & napkins and you’ve got yourself an indoor picnic!

Wish me luck! By the time you see this I’ll be UBER close to the end of the production week and the start of my event. Watch out world, I become a whole new person after I rejoin society!