Friday Night Date...

It's been a great week, so Handsome and I decided on our favorite meal for our Friday Night Date...homemade pizza.

We have a regular system for creating these wonderful meals together. We've had over 25 years of practice, after all!

Handsome is always in charge of the dough. Bread machines have sure made that process easier, but it's always important to measure out the right amount of ingredients, and then he adds Italian seasonings and just a touch of crushed red pepper flakes for a perfect little kick.

After the dough is made, I take over. First, I make sure the oven is turned on, and the pizza stone is heating up along with the oven, to a toasty 475º. I'm not a dough tosser - after all, I do know my limitations - choosing instead of roll it I then place it on a cookie sheet which sports a layer of corn meal. When the pizza has been assembled, I need that corn meal to help me slide the whole thing off the cookie sheet and onto a waiting pizza stone in the oven.

After the dough is on the cookie sheet, it still needs to rest for about 15 minutes before we can put all the toppings on it and place it in the oven. While we count down those interminable 15 minutes, we stand at our kitchen island, cutting toppings and sharing stories. Tonight, our toppings are onions, green peppers, mushrooms, black olives, and Italian sausage. This time, we'll use feta, goat cheese and just a little mozzarella. We'll top it all of with a sprinkling of shredded asiago.

By the time we've prepped all the "fixings", the timer goes off and we get right into topping the dough. We order our favorite sauce from Wisconsin by the case, as we haven't been able to find it here in Florida. Let me sing the praises of Pastorelli Pizza Sauce. If you've never tried it, you really should. Not sweet and not too tangy. The best sauce for our pizzas, bar none! I check one last time to make sure the pizza still slides on the corn meal and then head for the oven. With a customary, "Pizza in the hole!", I slide the pie into the oven and set the timer for another 17 minutes...not 16; not 18...it's got to be a perfect 17 minutes.

Off to clean up the kitchen while we await our dinner. By the time we're finished cleaning up the butcher block top on our island, the bread machine bowl, and all the other utensils and dishes used to cut and hold the toppings, you guessed it...as if on cue, the timer sounds off and it's time to sit down to dinner.

Pizza started as a family tradition when I was a kid. My dad used to purchase ready made dough from a local pizzeria in our hometown. When he brought it home, he separated it into single pizza servings, wrapped and then took it to the freezer for later retrieval. We knew it would be a special Friday night, if Dad had us run downstairs on Friday mornings to fetch two frozen dough balls to thaw out during the day!

There were five of us...Dad, Mum, my sister, Lyn, my little brother, Delly, and me. (The other three kids didn't come along until later.) Even so, we all loved those Friday night pizzas. Even though I'm now a grown-up, mature woman, a part of me still remembers those childhood treats when Handsome and I have Friday Night Pizza Dates.