Pizza at Home - Valentines Pizza

Happy Valentines Day! Sunday is normally pizza day, but we're having pizza just a day early on Saturday. We've got a tradition of eating Cheese Fondue on Valentines Day and we're not going to break that tradition.

After the success of the different pizza shapes at Christmas, I knew that for Valentines I'd be making everyone heart shaped pizzas. Let's get started!

The thin crust pizza dough holds its shape really well through baking. I still like the tworedbowls.com recipe for Cracker-style Thin Crust Pizza. I sifted the dry ingredients together and mixed the wet ingredients. 

I'm happy to have a stand mixer for these tasks that require a lot of kneading. 

After mixing, I measured out portions of dough for everyone except Chi, who will be having something else. 

To go along with our pizza, I want to make a special side. Everyone loves the garlic knots, but this is Valentines, so I want to see about experimenting and trying something special. For the most part, I can get my experiments to work out, so let's just see what happens. 

Instead of making knots out of the dough, I'm forming them into little hearts! They're looking good so far. I hope they make it through the rise and bake process without changing too much. 

Everyone gets their own special pizza tonight, so pizza toppings are whatever people want. Theresa's requested something in the style of the Napa Rose Signature Pizzetta, so that means I'm going to need caramelized onions. Onions cook down quite a bit, so I'm starting with 4 full size onions. It doesn't take much of a recipe to caramelize onions, but when I have a question, I follow this from simplyrecipes.com. 

Theresa came to the kitchen while I was making them to see what was smelling so good. They cooked down and now they taste amazing. 

My heart rolls have risen and are ready for the oven. 

And they came out beautifully! Maybe just a little more done than I would have hoped, but still they look awesome. 

I flattened out my pizza dough then took a pizza cutter to it freehand to trim a heart. After adding toppings, all five pizzas made their way through the oven. 

And here's the results! 

I made Ian's heart pizza loaded with as many pepperonis as possible. 

No surprise that Alli would want a pizza with just red sauce. Richard has quite the variety on his tonight. Olives, Red Onions, Mushrooms, Pineapple, Goat Cheese, and Ham. 

Theresa's take on the Napa Rose Signature Pizzetta. 

And my pizza with prosciutto, ham, sausage, pineapple, and goat cheese. Yum!

Some like it with the garlic butter and some don't. Either way, they look pretty adorable. 

Theresa didn't plan on eating her whole pizza so she offered to share. There's a metaphor in here somewhere about two heart coming together as one, or something. 

My plate tonight. Yummy!

Alli loves her saucy bread. 

And Ian thinks there's no better pizza than thin crust pepperoni. 

Rich loves it when he can get any toppings he wants on it. 

Alli love this pizza! This was the last bite! She finished the whole thing!

Happy Valentines Day!