Saturday

Nate and I have an amazing circle of friends here in Edmonton and once a month they all get together for a dinner party, each couple takes a turn hosting.  Saturday was our turn to host.  Because we don't have a place of our own, the wonderful Ible family offered us to use their place for the party.  I have a love for hosting {I get that from my mom, she's pretty amazing at cooking for a crowd}.  I had so many ideas for the meal, but I settled on one that I knew would be easy to execute in someone else's kitchen {and would for sure be a crowd pleaser}.  I took another trick of the trade from my mom and cooked up some homemade pizzas.  One of her many food talents is her gourmet pizzas, so thank you mom for apparently passing that on to me.  I was pretty nervous for the dough, I had never attempted making my own before.  I was browsing the Food Network and found Giada's recipe for dough and thought I would give it a try.  I made the dough the day before the party and I spent most of that day in the kitchen making enough for 9 pizzas {yeah I know, that's a lot of pizza}.  I have only witnessed the process of double-rising the dough, and after the second rise, Giada assured me it would be okay to wrap the dough balls individually and put them in the fridge overnight.  Well, these pesky pizza balls apparently weren't done rising as they burst out of the Saran wrap...hmmm.  So I unwrap each of them, punch them down, re-wrap, only to find them again a few hours later, exploding at the seams.  Frustrated, I repeat the process {wondering what I did wrong}, this time however, I out-smarted them...wrapped them twice in Saran wrap, but I wasn't stopping there...tapped them shut with packing tape. You laugh, but it worked!

Saturday comes and I have little hope for the dough, I was sure I had messed it up somehow.   Nate and I made a test pizza to see what we were dealing with and much to our surprise, it was delicious!!  Whew!  The pizzas were a huge hit, and I was hugely relieved.  I followed dinner with a build-your-own-sundae bar, I mean come on, what adult doesn't love ice cream?  The night was a success on many levels, I always have a great time hanging out with that crowd {even stayed up til 3am, haven't done that since college, yeah I know, I'm an old lady}.  No pics for you though, brought the camera, then realized the battery was dead...oops.  I'll leave you with a few oldie pics of Nate and I with Craig and Kathy {the wonderful Ible couple}, thanks again guys for letting us use your place!!

The Neilson wedding Summer 2006

Good times at the Wray wedding 2007

Kathy and I

A classic Nate and Craig photo