08.02.11_Pizza

On Monday while I was at work I found myself on Ticketmasters' website. I realized that Taylor Swift was going to be in DC the next for her sold out show that Phillip and I had not managed to get tickets to. I went on Craigslist and lucked into half-priced tickets for Tuesday. It's Day 2 of our vegetarian adventure, and I have one hour to make dinner, eat, and get out to the door! I decided today was not the day to be experimenting with some new recipe and chose to fall back to one of my easy defaults: pizza.

When I was in college at U.Va the grocery store I always went to was Kroger. I randomly discovered that they carried one of those pizza dough packages for less than $1. All you have to do is add water and you have "homemade" pizza dough. I fell in love with them because they were so quick, extremely easy, and you could do so many different things with them. One of my favorites to make was a BBQ chicken pizza (obviously not an option this month). Since graduating and moving to DC, I have not found a single grocery store who carries a product remotely close to this, and trust me, I checked ALL the stores in the area. Every time I'm anywhere near a Kroger, I go in and stock up on a ton of dough packages to take home with me. They always come in handy for nights like this.
So like I said, the pizza dough is incredibly easy because all you have to do is add 1/2 cup of warm water and let it sit before stretching it out on a pizza pan, put on the sauce and toppings, then sticking it in a 450 degree oven for 10 minutes or so. Because it is a packaged mix, I always doctor up the crust by adding in Parmesan cheese, fresh cracked black pepper, a little olive oil, and depending on the pizza some type of herb. In this case I was just making a half cheese (for Phillip) half tomato and feta (for me) so I put in some oregano. Since Phillip doesn't eat feta or tomatoes (unless they are in something) I had leftovers of the cucumber, tomato and feta salad I made the night before. I picked out the little bit of cucumber that was left and reused the salad for the toppings on my half of the pizza, saving time and food from going to waste.

The pizza before it went into the oven.

I'm super weird about food and don't like every bite of my meal to taste the same (Meanwhile, Phillip adores the efficiency of mixing everything together, as seen in his love for the Bob Evans Biscuit Bowls). I always liked to have a protein, a vegetable, and a starch so I could break up the monotony of the meal. This has been more difficult being vegetarian but I made myself a super simple salad on the side to add a little variation into the meal. My favorite quick salad is just lettuce (I prefer a spring mix) with goat cheese and raspberry walnut vinaigrette dressing. Basically anything with goat cheese I am obsessed with.

As always, the pizza was quick and delicious, and we made it in time to see the concert with no problem! Hopefully I won't fall back to making pizza's too often as the initial excitement of the task at hand wears off.