Pizza and Ziti!

Dear Husband (DH) and I were in a cooking mood the other weekend.
First things first: homemade pizza!

Neither of us had ever made pizza dough from scratch. DH had found this pizza dough recipe online. It called for "bread flour" which includes some extra gluten-something-or-other. We just used regular flour, but ended up adding nearly another cup to make it the right consistency.

We stretched it out pretty thin, because we wanted a thin-crust pizza. This gave us some extra dough left over, so DH had the great idea to make them into breadsticks.

We each added our preferred toppings to our side of the pizza. He put on pepperoni, olives, mozzarella, and a touch of feta. I had some pepperoni, olives, feta, mozzarella,and artichoke hearts (diced up from a can I had in the pantry). Nom nom nom.

It actually turned out fantastic! I would take it any day over frozen pizza and even some of the cheaper delivery pizzas. The only tough part is that the dough has to sit and rise for at least an hour and a half, so you need to plan in advance.
(P.S. that wine is also AWESOME! It was on super sale when we bought it, but it was a "limited release" so when I went back to buy bunches more, they only had one bottle left.)


The other thing we made was baked ziti. (But we use rigatoni noodles... shhh!)
Here is my go-to recipe... Just make sure to bake it covered.
The other thing? It makes a boatload! It's great if you are hosing a dinner or event because you can prep it early.
But with just DH and I, that is a-lot of food, so we split it into thirds. One for that day, and the other two to freeze! (Also a great dish to freeze and gift.)

Here is DH spreading the layers of sauce. It's not a complicated recipe, just a little time-intensive with all the layering.
Oh, we once made it with gluten-free noodles for a friend. She said it tasted great, but didn't re-heat very well.

Hope this gives you some good ideas for dinners!