Clements Kitchen Chronicles: Pizza Night
When I hear pizza night I think of Friday nights growing up, possibly a movie night which meant a trip to Blockbusters. Sometimes we made Boboli pizzas, sometimes it was delivered from our local pizza joint. No matter the details, it meant time spent with family, maybe even a friend over for a sleepover. Pizza night speaks familiar, community and comfort. Looking back, it makes sense I busted this recipe out in August of 2020. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was looking to create some new comfort “core” memories. (Weren’t we all.)
To begin, this is technically a flatbread recipe but we pretend it’s pizza in the Clements household. At some point I hope to graduate to an Ooni oven complete with a legitimate dough recipe, but for now this recipe is perfect. Minus a stubborn yeast, the recipe is stable and can yield two beautiful flatbreads smothered in any/all toppings one prefers. This is one reason I love pizza night now, it is my kitchen sink night. Old tomatoes on the vine? Pizza topper. Sad mushrooms I forgot in the veggie drawer? Pizza topper. Variety of parmesan cheeses with tapered expiration dates because I kept buying parmesan thinking we were out? Three parm cheese pizza! This pizza speaks frugality and grace. I love it.
According to my desktop, I saved this recipe in the middle of August. It was one of my “Covid recipes” meaning the dim reality of the world’s circumstances were finally sinking in and I was in the kitchen coping.
I had made the banana bread. I had made the sourdough starter. I had made the sourdough banana bread. I was really tired of sourdough. And I was tired of sweet breads and pastries and was ready for savory-anything. Flatbread felt like a safe place to land, and oh was it.
It is important to note my oldest son Hudson was not quite a year old in August of 2020. Most know, some don’t, he was born with a cleft lip and palate which meant we were down one surgery with one more on the near horizon. I was in high stress mode while we waited for the call from Childrens with his surgery date. When I become stressed I do two things: run and bake. (Fun fact, on the night of the 2016 presidential election I stress baked nine dozen cookies. We ate molasses and chocolate chip cookies for weeks, I do not regret a thing.)
So I dipped my toe into yeasted baking and quickly learned making your own dough is a life hack on its own. It is easier than most assume.
Over time and with a wisely stocked pantry, it is cheaper. You can customize it any way you please. Lastly, kneading dough is next level stress management. It’s like taking a kickboxing class only you get delicious food at the end. I probably over worked the dough the first few times but once the surgery passed, Covid became more defined and life just was, my flatbread confidence grew from trepidation to poised chaos.
I learned how to play with sauces, add caramelized or roasted veggies for the toppings… the recipe became a staple on the weekly rotation merely for its versatility. A year and half passed and without realizing it, Hudson was watching and learning. He began requesting pizza night. At first I thought he was asking for one of the frozen Costco pizzas we have stashed in our deep freezer, but no. He wanted to make pizza with me. This was the first time his sous-chef services were being offered, not requested.
Without realizing it, my pizza night shifted to our pizza nights. My stress-baking/refrigerator cleansing night was now a learning, one-on-one play time. I think this is where Clements Kitchen Chronicles was born. It was either pizza nights or when I started making ice cream. Either way, pizza night has become synonymous to something familiar again. It is quality time with family. It is slower paced, comfortable and simple with just a little side of chaos. So please do not let the homemade-ness of this deter you. Check out the recipe up top and have fun and relax, that is what pizza nights are for.
This evening we went simple. We used some plum tomatoes and basil from the garden. (I have managed to salvage one basil plant. Huzzah!). Hudson requested pepperoni and cheese and I added an egg for extra protein. I let the pizza cook for about 8 minutes, quickly cracked an egg on top, and let it cook for another 7 minutes. Enjoy!
