As I know I’ve mentioned ten million times before, and will keep on mentioning until it is no longer reality, we move a lot. It could be pretty easy to give in to the stress and frustration of that, but we prefer to take it as an adventure. This requires a fair bit of effort, but what’s the point of living if you’re not living, you know?
Anyway, one of our secrets to happiness is to always look for a way to include fun adventures in our life. Having to move to yet another new city? Time to buy a guidebook and set out exploring (that’s my way), or just go for a long afternoon wander (that’s David’s way). Spending too much time working on separate projects? Share some articles or books with each other and then have a coffee date to discuss them. Forced to spend months apart? Share dinner dates over Skype. These are all things we’ve done in the past and they help. A lot.
David requested that I blog about one thing we did recently. We’re short on funds and can’t easily get a babysitter, so our lives revolve around reinventing the night-in. In the midst of Thesis Madness, David suggested that we watch Seinfeld from start to finish, all nine seasons. He purposefully never watched the finale when it aired years ago, because he wanted to save it as a treat for one vague future day. So I upped the suggestion by saying we make an actual Seinfeld Finale party night, since we weren’t together for the finale when it aired.
We both love pizza so the obvious solution was to have a pizza party. We spent a few weeks (ok, months), discussing topping options. This is the poor-man’s foodie art form, along with the burger, right?
We eventually settled on Spanish and seafood inspired pizzas. I made the sauce from scratch, because we wanted something that packed a spicy punch. Then it was time to load ‘em up. Our Spanish one sported chorizo, black olives, peppers, tomatoes, goat cheese, red onions & ‘mild’ cheese (similar to North American cheapo mozza). The seafood one had mussels, shrimp, spinach, mushrooms (on my half), mozza (the good kind), and more of the cheapo cheese. Verdict: delicious. Washed ‘em down with a bottle of red wine.
 |
| Homemade spicy sauce! |
 |
| David used his mad chopping skillz |
 |
| awkward selfie of the cooks (Walter was a taste-sampler) |
 |
| Oven-ready, aside from the final dose of cheese |
 |
| Seafood Pizza |
 |
| Spanish Pizza |
It’s the little things like this that keep our sanity.
We love to make homemade pizza too... so cheap!.. and so much more delish then panago. I love mushrooms on my half too! Haven't tried making a spicy sauce but it sounds yummy. Our family favourite is "taco pizza." Use salsa instead of pizza sauce, ground beef flavoured with taco seasoning, bake it and then add the shredded cheddar after it comes out. Then once it has cooled slightly and the cheese has melted a bit add shredded lettuce and tomato chunks. If you like sour cream (like me) drizzle some on top. YUM!
ReplyDeleteWhen we had a bread machine we used to make a beer pizza dough which was so good and made the cost even lower. I like the taco pizza idea -- Walter loves tomatoes so it would be great to try with him.
DeleteI love this post. More than the food, I love how you made this beautiful effort to do something fun together, and how you created a truly special meal and celebrated your love by planning this wonderful date night. Your posts are a great testament to the fact that we don't need anything high-falutin' for happiness and joy, we just need to make the most of what we already have. Also, what comes to mind is Mother Teresa's quote about "Do ordinary things with extraordinary love."
ReplyDelete