(Long) Weekend Review

I love a long weekend. I especially love a long weekend a couple weeks after returning to work after Christmas Winter Break. I adore how that expectant Monday off helps ease the transition back from a long vacation to full time work.

I only wish it was a four day weekend instead of three. Because I'm an ingrate that way and am never satisfied. Also, I'm spoiled.

So what did I do with this gloriously long (but not long enough) three day weekend? Well, Friday night during Grimm (which was kinda gross) I got my tree nekkid. I didn't even hafta get her drunk first, either. My tree is a total floosy. But the act of strippin' her down wore me out so I stopped and watched a depressing episode of Dateline before bed. (Bleh. Dateline is ALWAYS depressing.)

Saturday morning I did my usual early morning run to town for groceries. Which, remind me later and I have  a story about my early morning runs during Christmas vay-cay. Not a funny story, just one of those, "huh." stories.

But anyway, THIS Saturday I did my early morning grocery run and bought all the fixin's for homemade pizza because all the food blogs I read have been making pizzas lately and I had the sudden neeeeeed to make a pizza crust from scratch. Because my life will never be complete without having ever made a pizza dough from scratch with stuff like yeast.

So. Once home I neglected my nekkid (and headless) tree

in favor of making a pizza. Never mind the 10am time.

Well, this was all AFTER I'd eaten a Sonic Jr. Breakfast burrito, guzzled a large Sonic coffee and drooled over the cowboys on the newest episode of The Pioneer Woman on Food Network.

Anyway, I used Jen's Last Minute Pizza Crust recipe because it sounded easy and Jen said it was good. And it didn't require a lot of rise time. Less rise time=mo betta.

Anyway, I didn't get any pics of the dough as I mixed it or rolled it because I'm a bad blogger who didn't think to start chronicling this pizza adventure until it was already rolled out and sauced.

So here it is rolled out and sauced on my Pampered Chef pizza stone. (I own a pizza stone. Fancy.)

See that can of tomato paste? That's what I used for my sauce. It's Italian herbs and spices tomato paste which I tried on a whim because a) I don't like jarred pizza sauce and 2) I saw a chick on Cooking Chanel use tomato paste as a pizza sauce once and thought, "That looks good!" Jarred pizza sauce or marinara sauce makes too wet a pizza for my taste. I wanted something thick and rich and so tomato paste it was. Had I not lucked up on the already Italian herbed and spice variety, I'd have simply sprinkled some Italian blend seasoning on that puppy and called it a day.

Next, I scrambled up a little breakfast sausage (because they were out of Italian Turkey sausage and regular Italian sausage is WAY too expensive for me) and threw in some sliced red onion and green bell pepper just to get a little softening action on them.

Note: I could have used a TON more sausage but I was trying to lower the fat ratio. But I  SHOULD have used some more onion and peppers.

While that was cooking, I skimpily tossed some Mozzarella cheese on top of the sauce:

Then once the sausage was drained, I layered it on and followed it up with some sliced mushrooms, pepperoni and more cheese--this time a mix of moz and cheddar.

I read later that you should actually heat your pizza stone before plopping your pizza on it. But ya'll? I don't think that makes much difference because look at what that thing yielded:

Oh my.

Sweet heavenly gracious pizza.



The crust was nice and crunchy on the bottom, soft and chewy on the inside and made an excellent lunch, supper, supper and supper. (I ate on that pizza for four meals,  yes I did. With one slice as a snack, too.) The only thing I might change next time is perhaps splitting it to make a thinner crust on the bottom. While I like the thick crust that you grab to hold the pizza, I like the bottom a bit thinner and less bread-y. (that's totally a word.)

Also, next time I may try the other crust Jen recommended. The one that the refrigerator has to babysit overnight. And I may use butter instead of oil because I'm naughty like that and love a buttery crust. Also, will hafta remember the black olives! What was I thinking with not getting black olives??

Once gorged on pizza, I got busy and got the tree taken down, boxed up and stored away until next year. Also dragged the rest of the Christmas boxes back to the storage room (how much do I love having a storage room?? A TON!) and finished the laundry and passed out on the couch with the DP to watch Gilmore Girls on SoapNet.

Note the "orb" in the above photo. Somebody call TAPS! My house! It is haunted! Or really pitifully dusty. Either way, I wouldn't say no to a visit from Grant and that other guy. ;-)

Sunday was the usual church/lunch with folks/church thing. And also, if you're not watching Once Upon a Time on Sunday nights...Why the heck not? I'm seriously loving that show. Desperate Housewives? Meh. Probably good that it's the last season.

So  yesterday, being the long in my weekend, I took the DP to the vet for a mani/pedi because she totally ripped up my face with her gnarly shark Edward Scissorhand claws and then we spent the rest of the day with the kiddlets. You know which ones.

I don't have any photos of our playdate, though because I was too busy playing paperdolls, candy land, go fish and being berated for saying "boobs."

"We don't talk about that, Aunt Jana."

Also put together three puzzles and a train track, chased a boy for our go fish cards and ate "ice keem".

Libby was thoroughly and properly terrorized as was my back from sitting in the floor all day but it was a good time. Best way to spend a Monday off, for sure. Well, other than maybe sleeping.

Then last night was the season premier of Being Human so someone ask me how stoked I am for my favorite wolfy eyecandy. *swoon* The answer of course is: Extremely.  I've been looking forward to this with agonized anticipation since last season's finale. (Note: I'm pathetic and have no life.)

And that, my friends, was my long weekend.

Also, nobody ask me where that pizza up there fits in with my renewed resolve to work on losing weight. The answer would be even sadder than my infatuation with dreamy eyed fictionalized werewolves.