Hello Mt Rainier!

View from my desk :)

Finally a pizza picture!

Mmmmmmm good!

Sunday pizza: 9.26.2010

Turned out to be a great weekend! Saturday we took a bike ride to a park with Z. Today we went to the zoo with Z, Grannie, Grandpa, Aunt, Uncle, Grandma-in-law (why isn't there a name for hat kind if thing), and my niece the birthday girl! Z really recognizes the animals now which is way cool.

We came home and C made a couple pizzas with homemade sausage, turkey pep, green pepper, garlic,and mushrooms. Yummy!

Hold the onions

The only thing to report is that this Sunday we made our pizza without onions.  weee how exciting?  Lame.  We decided it still tasted yummy.  I owe some pictures in a big hurry to get you salivating.

My dad was in town last weekend from Thursday through Sunday morning.  He didn't get to partake in our piping hot Za.  In fact, it was just the three of us so we had an entire extra pizza for leftovers (now nearly gone).

This weekend is my niece's birthday and we are meeting everyone at Tutta Bella, a local favorite.  It is Napolitano style pizza and definitely delicious.  That said, I usually leave hungry cuz it isn't super filling.  You can take the girl out of the midwest but you can't take the midwest out of the girl!

Verdict.

Pizza with usual mozzerella (Precious brand) our sauce, our dough, our sausage. Verdict?  Delicious!  I did a side-by-side taste test and sure enough the Tillamook cheese is stronger.  C made two batches of dough to make four pizzas.  My sister and her hubby and daughter came over and we had a great time.

Uh oh my son Z is up so gotta run!  btw - GO BEARS!! Can't believe they almost lost to the Lions. Scary.  Off to watch horse races for a friend's birthday.

One last thing, I made this corn tomato saute and it was wonderful!

Saturday Pizza

Three blogs in and still no pizza on Sunday.  What's the point in naming something anyway?

Well, this weekend looks to be an exciting one.  My sister, brother-in-law, and niece are coming over for pizza Saturday night.  Should be fun!  She's nearly four years old and can top her own pizza which is always so much fun.  Can't wait until the little man can top his own pizza.  Maybe we'll try it Saturday just for fun.  

hmm Something Ain't Right...

Ok so Friday we made homemade sausage and froze it.  Saturday morning C made pizza sauce and... froze it.  Monday C made dough in the afternoon and let it rise.  Monday night we made two pizzas and gotta say something was not quite right about the first one.  We just packed up the second one for leftovers.

First off, normally we slice the pizza into square pieces.  This time C cut it into wedges which I actually prefer.  My first piece was ok but I realized it didn't taste quite right.  No way can it be the way we've cut the pieces.  Strange huh?

Then my second piece was totally thick crust instead of thin crust.  What up?  Somehow our dough pulled out uneven.  Lame.  Thick crust overpowers all the toppings.  So I had to try a third to make sure I wasn't crazy.  :) Turned out the third piece wasn't as thick but still not quite right.  Naturally, it had to be the sausage.  It is the only change we made.  The thing is we make vegetarian pizzas all the time and they taste just as yummy.  So we reasoned the sausage wasn't strong enough in flavor to take on our sauce but the pizza should taste closer to our veggie pizza.  No, something was amiss.

Finally, today C and I were emailing back and forth about it cuz we both had a some of the second pizza for lunch.  This time, cut into squares - irrelevant but still.  Crust was thin like is should be and it definitely tasted better.  Then C mentioned something about the mushroom or cheese or something.  (btw - we topped both pizzas with green peppers, onions, mushrooms, turkey pepperoni, and sweet sausage.  Go big or go home!)  That's it!  We changed the cheese to Tillamook Mozzarella from the cheese we normally use.  We switched because it is local.  Not sure what to do.  It is much saltier which really made a difference.  Not sure what was up with the crust.  Oh well, first tough batch of pizza in a LONG time.  live and learn.  

Making Sausage

Ok our first blog and it is Friday.  The blog is Sunday Pizza?  What up?  Well, five years ago we chose to move to Seattle from Chicago.  Why?  It is beautiful and there is so much to do here.  Alas, we discovered quickly we traded pizza for scenery.  It was then that the quest for the perfect Chicago style pizza began.

Since then we have honed our sauce, kneaded our dough, and are well on our way to making phenomenal Chicago style pizza... if we do say so ourselves.  Disclaimer:  this is NOT deep dish or stuffed pizza.  You know the kind that take at least an hour to be served!  No, not that kind.  This is hand tossed with an amazing not too sweet, not too spicy sauce pure Chicago.  Our inspirations, Chicago Dough Company, Papa Passero's, Oven Grinders, Barone's, Roundheads, and Palermos.  We are definitely leaving some out but there are too many to list from a lifetime of amazing Chicago pizza.  We miss having at least one pizza joint per day per week within a stone's throw.  In honor of the pizza we love and the family we miss we make pizza.

So, fast-forward to April 2010 we decided we wanted to make pizza regularly to allow more time to perfect and tweak our recipes.  Many batches of sauce and dough later we have kept to our Sunday Pizza experience.  Which leads us to today, making sausage.  The key topping to Chicago pizza is killer sweet sausage.  Sorry, this isn't a vegetarian site, although we definitely dig veggie pizza!  Last week we decided it was time to venture into sausage making.  We found a Sweet Italian Sausage recipe and bought a meat grinder attachment for our kitchen-aid and tonight away we went.

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_make_homemade_sausage/

The changes we made to it were adding oregano and using apple cider vinegar instead of Sherry wine vinegar (cuz we couldn't find it).  Verdict:  Great sausage.  Can't wait to try it on our actual pizza Sunday.  Ok truth... this weekend is a long weekend so we will make pizza Monday cuz it will feel like Sunday.

Stay tuned.