Saturday night and I'm tired so this will be short but we had a dinner party for 6 tonight and did it for ~$20. An easy way to have a fun party for a few peeps is a pizza party!
Get a few things together; a few familiar things and some not so much and make a big batch of dough. I doubled my normal batch and it turned out great. 6 each 10" pies and everyone could choose what they wanted and make their own. I rolled out the discs of dough and turned it over to the eater on the peel and tossed it in the oven for each.
Some of the ingredients tonight were sopressata, proscuitto, hot coppa, hot Italian sausage, chorizo, mozzarella, Point Reyes blue cheese, feta, walnuts, scallions, red bell peppers, prawns, bosc pears, fresh fennel, marinara, olive oil and so on and so forth.
Top this off with a 2006 Scherrer Old & Mature Vines Zinfandel and a 2005 Witness Tree Chainsaw Pinot Noir and Crater Lake orange cream soda and Hansen's natural root beer for the kids and it made for a pretty memorable evening.
BUT WAIT! That's not all...
Henry made what I truly believe is the best chocolate cake I've ever eaten. He worked on this thing for almost 5 hours and made it completely from scratch, filling and all. The cake was toothsome but still tender and was filled and iced with homemade from scratch chocolate pudding. This was a recipe from the good folks at America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Country and is called the Chocolate Blackout Cake. 3 layers of cake and pudding all with a topping of crumbled cake. MMMMMMMMMM!
To finish the evening we tried our hand at recording a podcast of everyone's reactions to the food and the company and we'll get that posted soon on friend Scott's blog so look here for a link in the next few days.
Anyway, it was a tremendous evening of great friends, great food, great wine and now I'm spent...
Hasta
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It truly was a great party! The pizza was fantastic and it was fun to pick our toppings, although a little difficult to make a decision as to what to put on with all the options. I decided to try a variety by putting different toppings in sections on the pie. Marinara sauce, shrimp, chantrelle mushrooms, pepperoni, red bell pepper, pulled pork, Mama Lils peppers, ?? a few other things I can't recall right now.. Lot's of flavor and the crust was perfect. Both wines were great.. yes I had to try both :-) And the cake that Henry made!! As Jim said, it was the best I've ever eaten!
ReplyDeleteAs for the podcast, you won't hear me on it:-) I chose to sit back on the couch, relax and listen. After the great food and wine, combined with it being past "my bedtime" I was done, but truly satisfied. Great time!
Edie S.