Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Great Pizza Bake

Last week, we had a team of students from Colorado here doing service projects and a soccer camp for kids. They helped several people with yard work and maintenance projects, did the demolition at our church for the future youth coffee shop, and got to know a lot of kids around town by providing activities and games for them.

On Thursday, they wanted to have a movie night and get pizza. Since our pizza places here are mediocre at best and way too expensive, we decided to make it ourselves. I made six batches of dough late that morning and set them out to rise.


We gathered eleven cookie sheets and pans to cover in dough and toppings.


Trip and I met up with the team at Safeway and gathered the ingredients we would need. The six girls came home with us and we all got to work. I was extremely thankful that Trip took a nap, even with all the commotion. That sure made the afternoon easier for me!

After cooking the ground beef and chicken and cutting up the olives, mushrooms, pineapple, and Canadian bacon, the girls crowded around the table and got to work spreading out the dough. They added sauce and toppings, and a short time later, we had eleven pizzas ready to bake. I wish I had gotten a picture of all of them at work! I was too busy to even think about it.


We made pepperoni, Hawaiian, meat lover's, chicken alfredo, cheese, and a pizza with soy cheese for a team member who couldn't have dairy.

This was a time when we were very thankful for our second oven that's in the shop. We don't need it often, but there are times when it comes in very handy! We were able to have pizzas baking in our two ovens and send some over to bake in the church's oven. I was going back and forth between the house and the shop trying to make sure each pizza was cooked properly while Kirk shuttled people and pizzas to the church. It was a furry of excitement for a little while, but everything came out perfectly. The 35 or so people who were at the movie night loved the pizza and there were only two pans leftover for the next day's lunch.

It was a great experience and made me thankful for all the cooking skills I learned from my mom. She became an expert at cooking for large groups of people when we lived in Belgium and always wowed everyone with the great meals she made. I'm glad to get to carry on the tradition every once in a while!

1 comment:

Rachel said...

What a big job! They all look amazing, and I'm happy that it all went so well! We have really been loving your dough recipe. Love you all!