Day 5 | When All Else Fails

There's always pizza.

We had a busy day yesterday.  We took a long walk {I think it was 4 miles} so our little one would nap yesterday morning.  We went to Lowe's to get seeds for our Fall garden and child-proof locks for our cabinets.  The Hubster got the garden tilled with the help of the kiddo, planted spinach, mustard and collard greens, and carrots, then watered with water from our rain barrels.  It was productive, but I had no food planned and kept getting swept from project to project.

We also National Night Out-ed with our neighborhood last night.  We got to see neighbors we hadn't seen in almost a year and meet a few new ones.  There were sno-cones, and prizes, and pizza from Chicago's Pizza.

Best of all, our little drooler and his swollen gums seemed to have a blast...right up to the end.  And then he just couldn't do it anymore.  We headed home and discovered that our little one is now very aware of strolling in the dark.  I got to carry my chunk-a-monk while the Hubster pushed the Baby Jogger.  Two blocks later we switched.

As we're walking the Hubster mentions he really wants pizza {he didn't have any at the party}.  Of course he does...I don't have dough any pre-made.  I tell him I don't mind making some for him but he has to wait for the dough and that's going to take an hour and a half.

Home, bathtime, bedtime, screams, re-tuck, screams, re-tuck again, more screams....you get the picture.

Enter my new star kitchen appliance.  My Breadman.  We're quite close now.  He may be bulky, and some may say using a bread machine is cheating, but he saves my days {and sanity} over and over.

So back up a bit to bathtime.  Hubster ran interference for me on that one while I dumped everything for the pizza dough into my Breadman. Took all of 2 minutes.  Then I got to return to the nightime routine just in time for scream-fest #1.  :)

Later, when I went to pull the dough out, I decided to make my version of foccacia with the second ball of dough instead of freezing it for later.

So I rolled my first dough ball out.

Then I basted the dough with extra virgin olive oil, used a fork to poke holes randomly throughout the dough, lightly salted it with kosher salt, and topped it off with rosemary fresh from the garden.

The Hubster asked if I was going to show you a picture of the herbs he tends in our garden everyday.  He's really proud and makes me smile so here they are.  :)

On to pizza!  I rolled out the second ball, placed it on a greased baking sheet and added my marinara sauce that I always have on hand.  The minute I run out I make more.

I added shredded mozzarella, a shredded pizza blend {which consists of mozzarella, asiago, and romano}, and shredded parmesan.  Gave it a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil on the top and pizza crust edges, and popped it in a 500 degree oven with the focaccia for 12 minutes.

Then I remembered the basil for the pizza.  No worries!  I just pulled it out, added the basil, and put it back in.  12 minutes later I had this...

 

...and this...

The foccacia didn't turn out perfect.  I should have turned the pan around half way through so that it cooked evenly.  But the brown bubbles are still super tastey.

Not bad for a spur of the moment pizza party.  At 9:30 at night.  ;)

And the kiddo?  He slept reasonably well last night.  I think we only had to get up 4 times.  I will miss his precious gummy smile...but I really can't wait for teething to be done.

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