HBinFive June 15th Bread Braid

Writing to you live from Cape May during our annual vacation. Can you hear the seagulls yet?

I can't be stopped from telling you about the fabulous pizza I made at home for this assignment before leaving.

Those pizzas were so good, it is worth taking a little time away from the beach to tell you about them. I suppose this is saying a lot.

I won't be baking bread for two weeks, so maybe writing about it will keep my withdrawl shakes at bay.

I decided to use the Olive Oil dough from ABinFive for my pizzas in this assignment. It's one of my favorite dough's, and I have been missing it.

It was refreshing to get away from the tomato sauce and fresh mozzarella (not as if that is a hardship!) for a change. These two pizza recipes are both so simple, featuring only a few ingredients, which is my favorite way of cooking.

For the Pesto Pizza with Grilled Chicken on the Gas Grill, I used basil from my garden for the pesto, which made me tremendously happy. While this pesto was delicious, I didn't use anywhere close to the full amount of olive oil called for, and even then it was looser than other pestos I have made in the past. This was almost more like a sauce than a paste. Regardless, it was delicious, and we used the leftovers on some pasta the next evening.

We chose a wine that we had been saving all year to accompany our pizza . I thought we should enjoy it and then go get more on this trip.

Husband grilled the chicken (I do not grill), using breasts instead of thighs (I'm a white meat only kind of girl). A couple years ago I gave him a pizza stone for the grill. It was fun to make this a collaborative effort.

Husband said this is his new favorite pizza. I could see making it often this Summer.

The Oven Baked Whole Grain Pizza with Roasted Red Peppers and Fontina was just as enjoyable. It's a simple combination, that I would not have thought of for pizza. I cheated a little, buying my roasted peppers at our co-op, but they are freshly made, and I think better than I might manage.

Overall here, we have been liberated from our tomato sauce with some new ideas. This alone is worth stealing time from the waves to tell you about!