Cookiversary = Pizza!

Hello hello!  November is a special month for us because it's the month of our very first time cooking together!  Officially, November 3, 2009 is the first time we ever ventured into the kitchen together and it became the beginning of our friendship/love for cooking together!  I had Julie and her sister-in-law Tracy over to teach them how to make my dad's pizza, sample some Melanzane and try my dad's fresh baked bread.

Yep, that's me squishing the tomatoes for the pizza.  I was in heaven!

Little history on the pizza before I get into the details of the night...  My grandpa owned a restaurant (he was also a St. Paul cop) and my dad grew up working there.  One of the pizzas they used to make in the restaurant was a little different than what you'd expect from the typical American pizza.  It started with a thicker crust topped with romano cheese, a little mozz, canned whole tomatoes that were broken up by hand and spread over the cheese and seasoned with olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and slices of garlic.  I remember eating this pizza as a kid when my grandpa made it and he used a thinner crust sometimes which I think I loved if I remember correctly!  The crazy thing about this pizza is that the cheese was between the crust and the tomatoes, not on top.  As a kid I think it took some getting used to but as the years went by I really started to enjoy it and develop a love for this pizza... my family's pizza!  I used to love helping my parents my our pizza when I was a kid.  It had the potential to be a VERY MESSY job... squeezing the juice out of the whole tomatoes took some skill and even the most seasoned squisher managed to squirt juice all over at times! 


So back to our Cookiversary night.  I had everything ready to go when they arrived, the pizza crusts had been made on a different day, it takes some time to make the dough, let it rise, roll them out and bake them.  I had about 8 cans of whole tomatoes, tons of garlic, romano and mazz grated, and all of the rest of the seasonings.  We put a strainer in a big bowl and dumped all the tomatoes into the strainer so we could squeeze the juice out of them before putting them on the pizza.  Building the pizzas goes a little something like this...

1.  Spread romano cheese all over the already baked crust

2.  Spread some mozz over the top of the crust, as much or as little as you'd like but we     typically don't go cheese crazy when we make these

3.  Empty the cans of tomatoes into a big strainer/bowl.  Grab a tomato or two and stick your thumb into it to relieve the pressure and squeeze the juice out.  As hard as you'll try to keep it all in the bowl... you're guaranteed to squirt the person across/next to you haha!

4.  Break up the tomatoes over the cheese until all of the cheese is covered with chunks of tomato.

5.  Scatter sliced garlic on top of the tomatoes and then push them down underneath so they don't burn.

6.  Sprinkle tomatoes with salt and pepper then oregano and basil, be generous.

7.  Lastly, drizzle tomatoes with olive oil and use your finger tips to work the seasonings into the tomatoes.

8.  If the pizzas seem a little dry some of the reserved tomato juice can be sprinkled onto the top.

9.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake for about 40 min... you'll just have to keep your eye on them as they go but they will take for sure 30 min.

We made 2 big pizzas and while they baked we snacked on some Melanzane and fresh baked bread!  A totally new experience for both Tracy and Julie and they loved it!  I loved sharing my food/family recipes with friends (especially since they thought it rocked)!  It was a great night and a night that we'd repeat every year for the next 3 years!

This year we were short on time (life is busy, ya know?!).  We made a last minute decision to get together and make pizza but we'd have to settle for regular pizzas on our cookiversary and find another night to make the real thing.  We grabbed some necessities from the store and swung by a local pizza joint and bought a few dough balls for 16" pizzas (awesome discovery... great dough and super cheap.  We paid $3.00 for 4 large dough balls!)  We really kept it simple and made a cheese pizza and a few pepperoni pizzas seasoned with basil, oregano, and garlic salt.  They were still delicious and it was a great year to spend our 3 year cookiversary!

Looking back on the last 3 years it's hard to believe we've managed to cook all the things we have.  We've made TONS of amazing recipes and only a few that didn't quite turn out how we hoped.  We've been pleasantly surprised, rarely defeated (we always blame it on a crappy recipe if our food doesn't turn out haha!), and extremely happy.  Cooking has been at the center of our relationship, it has given us a great opportunity to hang out and create a bond that I believe few people have these days.  Through our food we've been blessed with showing our love to our family and friends and they have benefited from the delicious treats they get to consume.  I think I can speak for both of us by saying we look forward to the many more meals we get to create together as our relationship continues to develop.  Enjoy your family and friends, find an activity that allows you to bond with the people you love.  Enjoy the relationships, the ups and the downs.  Learn to love all parts of life and go through them with those closest to you.

We hope you enjoy the food we continue to make and can make some of it with the ones you love!

Enjoy!

MELISSA