Pizza Night

Pizza night at School Woods, Wednesday night - what fun! There were 11 people in all. There was a group of women friends celebrating one member's birthday - a school librarian, from the elementary school that my kids attended (years ago, they're 20 almost 21, and 22 1/2 now) who started introducing herself as "Deb's kids' librarian". There was a family group, who did a local eating blog last year; another family, with baby Charley, a cute, bald, Buddha-like little girl with ears that stick out; and one of my friends that I've known for over 20 years.

I made a bunch of different kinds of pie:

• Margharita - with regular and fresh mozzarella, tomatoes from Tipi, and basil from the back deck - it was a little wet from the fresh
• Sausage & pepperoni, with Willow Creek Sausage
• My fave, roasted broccoli, bleu cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, & purple onion on whole wheat
• Caramelized onion, roasted red pepper & goat cheese
• I made some plain cheese, too -

At the end of the dinner, one of the women from the big group came to tell me that it was the best pizza she'd ever had, because of how good my crust was, and she also said she was an east coast pizza snob, from New Haven - so high praise coming from her.

It was kind of interesting making a dinner the night before leaving town. It worked out surprisingly well - my upstairs renter came home in time to take a bag of leftover salad; I left the pizza for our cat minder, Mark's son; and I froze some stuff - a dab of cooked sausage and onions, pizza sauce, and I tried freezing the fresh mozzarella that was left - I expect the freezing to make it crumbly and dried out. I plan to use all the dabs in a lasagna when I get home.

I only took pictures of the dessert pizzas, on a biscuit crust - using up all the perishable fruit in the house - plums & pears and a bit of apple (even though the apple will keep).