Pizza at Home - Roasted Garlic Pizza - Theresa chooses pizza night

Happy Sunday! It's pizza day again! Today Theresa is picking the pizzas we're making today, so if you've been following along at all, you'll know that that means No Tomato Sauce! Theresa likes her pizza to just have toppings with fresh bread. Since she gets to pick the pizzas, she's choosing a roasted garlic pizza and the signature pizzetta from Napa Rose. 

Today is such a beautiful day that we're going to go on a hike! It's a 4+ mile round-trip to the beach, but these kids have built up some great endurance! We have a goal of walking over 500 miles this year and we're making great progress! Within the next day or two, we'll be over 100 walking miles, and we're already at 108 biking miles! 

You never know what you might see when you're walking the neighborhoods. Like a little fairy garden that's worth taking a break to inspect. 

This newspaper headline made me do a double-take. Thank you Superman! 

Our first order of business was to find some good shells. 

There were the regular tiny shells that are always around, but Theresa found 1 huge one!

Ian - Daddy, will you come build sandcastles with us? 

Love that he asks me to do stuff with him like that. 

On the left he built a little volcano with shells to decorate the top. I built a massive mountain and dug deep enough to reach the water level so my moat naturally filled up. 

Coming at low-tide is awesome! You can walk way far out and it's flat. 

The kids had fun splashing around. 

Jumping the waves. 

And running away. 

It was fun to have a destination for our long walk. The kids got soaked, so it was great that we remembered a towel and change of clothes. On our walk back, we stopped by a nearby park. Ian still loves to spin fast. Playing back the video, when he was at the bottom, he was going 2 rotations in 1 second. That's 120 RPM (Rotations per Minute)! That's fast! 

Alli is always looking out for roses to smell. She saw this one on the walk out, but we'd already walked a ways past it before she'd mentioned it. I told her to remember it for the way back, and she did. She smelled it and said it was very fragrant. 

Everyone took a turn smelling it, and she was right! Great stop Alli! 

For months now, Chi has been watching me prepare the pizza dough. I have my recipe written out for Joe's No Knead Pizza Dough, and I asked if she wanted to try making it tonight. She weighed and measured all the ingredients (totally against her nature) and we set our dough aside to rise and double in size. 

This is the first time you're seeing roasted garlic here. This is actually my second time making it, but that story hasn't posted yet. 

Anyway, roast garlic smells amazing when you're making it. Just cut the tops off the garlic bulbs, season with olive oil, salt, and pepper, wrap them in foil, then bake in the toaster oven at 400F for 60 minutes. 

You're left with bulbs where the garlic cloves have cooked and turned into a paste. 

Theresa sent me a recipe for Roasted Garlic White Chicken Pizza from dinnersdishesanddesserts.com. 

The roasted garlic cooked in butter for 1 minute, then you add 2 Tbs of flour and cook for another minute. 

Finally milk, half and half, plus pepper goes in and cooks for another 3 minutes. 

Take it off the heat and add 1/4 cup of parmesan, plus salt to taste. It's smelling really good! 

Meanwhile our dough is ready! Chi floured the parchment. 

Poured out the dough. 

And then worked on pressing it out into a pizza shape. 

Theresa's first pizza. The roasted garlic white sauce is topped with shredded chicken, red onions, and mozzarella. One other trick I've learned that Theresa and her mom like, is to let the pizza sit for 10 minutes after pressing it out and adding toppings. It's another chance for the crust to rise and get fluffy. It goes from looking like this... 

To this! That'll bake up really nice. 

For Theresa's other pizza, it's just my regular crust brushed with olive oil, then topped with prosciutto, caramelized onions, cambozola cheese, and red grapes. 

Our pizzas look great!

The garlic pizza got topped with Fresh Thyme and Parsley from Chi's garden, plus dried oregano. 

That's a few more toppings than you might normally get from Disney's Napa Rose restaurant, but it's sure to be delicious!

Salad to go along with it. 

My plate tonight. Yum!

Theresa was happy! This was a delicious night of pizza! And with the crust (free breadstick) T dipped it in honey. Alli quickly followed suit. 

I think everyone liked the pizza. There were no leftovers of anything. Either that or everyone was hungry from the big hike today!