While the hubby is away, the girls will...

...apparentlly make pizza.

I originally had to work on all Fridays. But we're a bit short-handed and there's only three of us on my shift. And then one of my coworkers had to take famlily leave suddenly because his wife gave birth to their daughter a few weeks early. So, the two of us left had to juggle days to make sure that all the days were covered. So, I found myself with a Friday night off.

It just so happened that Scottie left for Japan that morning for his mission trip in Sapporo. So, my roommie, Tricia, and I decided to have a last-minute girl's night dinner. I picked the theme.

Mystic Pizza Party

We made our own little mini-pizzas and then watched Julia Roberts in "Mystic Pizza." The only thing our dinner guests had to bring was a pizza topping of their choice. Tricia did all the prep work. She researched possible toppings combination by scouring popular menus like California Pizza Kitchen. She laid out a spread of baked chicken, pears, cheeses, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, fresh spinach, sliced red onions, and she even toasted pine nuts. She had a variety of sauces to go on the pizza crusts; your regular but favored pizza sauce, a pesto, an alfredo, and this yummy BBQ sauce. We're still not done. She even has a little basil plant that we could pick from for our pizza masterpieces.

I don't really trust my cooking skills so I was prepared to buy pre-made pizza crusts from the store but that had the roommate aghast. Instead, she made dough from scratch following this recipe for Whole Wheat and Honey Pizza Crust and we rolled out our own crusts. This is an awesome idea for a get-together. it's fun and hands-on like an Arts-n-Crafts project, but then you get to eat it. Followed by a desert of thick brownies covered with rasberries, whip cream and chocolate sauce and we were ready to rest our full tummies while watching "Mystic Pizza." Ah, 80's movies...always a sure thing for a good laugh.

(Just some of the ingredient layout, place cards made by the roomie)

(my favorite, shredded baked chicken)

(I think girls were just snacking on the pears. I don't think they actually made it to any pizza)


(some of our pizza masterpieces pre-baking)