Pumpkin and Spice

Sunday was Kyle's birthday, and after spending Saturday evening out with friends and Sunday afternoon with family, we were ready for a quiet, relaxing Sunday evening together. Since Sunday's grocery store day, we decided to just pick something up to make a quick, easy dinner- and homemade pizza seemed like just the ticket!

(Yum! You can see my pizza in the foreground and Kyle's in the background. That's my Diet Coke. I know it's bad for me... And check out the sweet Iron Man napkins! Those were leftover from birthday cake earlier in the day.)

One of the nice things about anything that you make at home is that you can control the quality of the ingredients. We used Mama Mary's whole wheat pizza crusts- they were thin, crispy and yummy, plus they contain no high fructose corn syrup, which is something that I feel is important. (They also come two to a pack, so Kyle and I could make our own pizzas!)

We used Newman's Own Sockarooni pasta sauce as our sauce base. (It's my favorite jarred pasta sauce- it has a good flavor and a little bit of a spicy kick!) I bumped up the spice on my pizza with some red pepper flakes, then added sauteed portabella and shitaki mushrooms, as well as pineapple. It may sound weird, but mushroom and pineapple are my absolute all-time favorite pizza toppings! Kyle topped his with some of the mushrooms and some turkey pepperoni.

To keep the cheese a little healthier, we mixed Sargento's reduced fat italian cheese blend (which has mozzerella, smoked provelone, asiago and parmesan cheeses) with Kraft fat free mozzeralla. I think fat free cheese melts really weird and plasticky, but mixing it with some reduced fat cheese gives you a proper gooey melty-ness with a little less fat and calories.

Fifteen minutes in the oven and we were ready to eat! There are few things nicer than relaxing on the sofa and eating pizza and soda while catching up on your DVR... it was a good way to end the weekend.

P.S.- Here's Kyle waiting to cut his birthday cake- it's a Dairy Queen ice cream cake. Yeah, I know, I'm a pastry chef. But he gets to eat my baked goods all the time- how often do you get a Dairy Queen cake?