Tulips & Pizza

Gotta catch up again...had a fun, kinda busy weekend. Took a lotta pictures. Didn't have time to upload them or post anything. So today I'm gonna unload a whole lotta pics on ya! Whoo hoo!!

That one up top is a tulip from our front walk. It's a little washed out because of that beautiful sunlight, but they are yellow with red edges. They look like a row of little torches running along the sidewalk to the front door. Some of the torches didn't come up, but they're still cool.

This and the next one are in Miss Chef's cutting garden with the hyacinths. Those blue beauties are fading, and the tulips are taking over. She really did a great job with spring color in there!

And speaking of Miss Chef, here she is hitting that herb garden before the plants have even had a chance to settle in.

This weekend, she bought some more oregano and a lemon thyme plant she is most enthused about. It does smell amazing. We also saw some pineapple basil at Home Depot. It really does taste like pineapple! Crazy, man.

Rosie is almost as camera-shy as Miss Chef. "You can't see me...I'm ignoring you..."

So, the reason Miss Chef was out there gathering herbs was 'cause we had an impromptu pizza party on Sunday. A friend of hers from culinary school--we'll call her Chef Tia--who recently moved to the other side of town, wanted to do something with us. She suggested she bring down some pizza dough she had just made, and we do lunch.

Of course, you know with two chefs in the house, these were no ordinary pepperoni pizzas....

Chef Tia rolled out individual crusts for us (notice the tiny amount of counter space...you'd be amazed if you saw the kitchen Miss Chef makes her masterpieces in):

A little tossing action:

Meanwhile, Miss Chef and I gathered the toppings:

Let's see if I can do this sort of left to right. Top(-ish), nearly out of frame is some Bosky Acres goat cheese, then a roasted red pepper sauce, some fresh chives and herbs, an olive spread. Middle-ish, we have local oyster mushrooms over dried tomatoes, our homemade pesto from last summer, and caramelized onions. On the cutting board we have potatoes, bacon, and Miss Chef's hands, which are not to be consumed on a pizza!

(I helped a little...chopped the herbs and onions, and of course, made pesto last year. Just thought I should point that out, for my own honor.)

We each assembled our own pizzas...here's Miss Chef sprinkling some of that goat cheese onto hers...looks like she's already got wilted spinach, potatoes and bacon on there. This week, she's been running a lunch special at the restaurant of potato, bacon and goat cheese pizzas. I made myself one at our party, and it was pretty good, but the potato texture on top of the pizza crust texture was weird to me.

And here's Miss Chef's finished product:

I also took a picture of mine, but it didn't look nearly as good as this. Naturally!

So, well, that's about it. Not much of a conclusion to this one. Except that now I'm hungry again, just from looking at this pizza.