Day 6: Pizza Party!

Earlier this week my friend Lonnie sent me a text inviting me to a pizza party at his house this weekend. The premise of the party was to see which pizza place in town had the best pizza. Every store (and we live in a collage town, so there would be a lot of them!) would be represented and the guests would vote for their favorites.

I said "Hell yes I'll be there!" 

How fun! I was so excited, totally my kind of party! A couple of days later I remembered I couldn't eat pizza. I felt like a kid who just discovered that Santa, Easter Bunny, AND the Tooth Fairy were a lie. Everything I loved, ripped out from under me! No pizza for me. Not cool bro, not cool. 

Oh well, I still planned on going just to be social. I thought about taking my own pizza, there are plenty of paleo pizza recipes after all. But without cheese what's the point?

However, a few hours before the party I decided the temptation of delicious pizza would probably be too much for me to stand if I didn't go in there with a plan. And no other food was going to satisfy me if I had pizza on the brain. So paleo pizza it is. I guess I can survive without cheese, just this once. 

I looked up some recipes and found this one that looks delicious, but it just used so. much. almond flour! That stuff is pricey, and the 2 cups would clear me out. I kept looking and found this dough recipe. Sounds good to me! And I already had all the ingredients :) For the topping I decided to go with roasted red onions and red peppers with spinach and grilled chicken. 

So delicious! Sorry, forgot to take a picture before I cut into it!

It really was so, so good! The crust had this almost nutty flavor, which worked perfectly with the roasted vegetables and grilled chicken. Several people who tried it told me that if my pizza had been entered in the contest it would have ranked high, just because of how delicious the roasted red onions were. Here's how to make this deliciousness happen!

First, start by chopping up a large red onion and 1-2 red peppers. Spread them out on a foil-lined pan and drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. 

Toss them around, making sure everything is covered, then spread them out evenly on the pan again. Broil on high until the vegetables have reached the level of softness you prefer, and they have blackened a little. Don't forget to stir them a few time during the cooking process. 

Ready!

Next, grill up some chicken. Cook it up however you like it! For today I simply cooked it in a frying pan with some coconut oil and various Italian seasonings.

Now that your toppings are ready, make the dough. In case you missed it earlier, here is the link again. 

Once your pizza crust is cooked and ready for toppings, assemble! For pizza sauce I just used my left over spaghetti sauce from earlier this week. Use whatever sauce you like! Then I put on spinach, the vegetables, and chicken. Pop back in the over for another 5-7 minutes to make sure everything has warmed back up and voila! Paleo pizza!

Just look at that yumminess!

*The roasted peppers and onions are delicious on all sorts of things, or just by themselves as a side! I love them on penne pasta with Alfredo sauce and chicken :)

Food Log:

Breakfast: 1 grapefruit with 2 strips of bacon

Lunch: Leftover chicken leg with onions and sweet potatoes

Snacks: Nuts, more left over chicken

Dinner: Paleo pizza

Desert: Still munching on those brownies!

Want to throw your own pizza party? Here's how we did it! 

Assign your guests a store to purchase a pizza from.

Have one person write the name of the store on the bottom of the plate, and another put them on the table (the more you can split up the process the better, you don't want someone knowing all the pizzas, that ruins the fun!)

Assign a different color sticky note to each pizza, and place a stack of them by that pizza

Each person goes around the table, takes a sticky note and slice, then write comments about the pizza on the note. You can decide whatever criteria you want your guests to rate the pizzas on. We compared crust, taste, and texture.

Once everyone has tried all the pizzas, they put their sticky notes in the order they liked the pizzas. 

That's my name there on the end. With no votes :(
It was nice just to be included, ha!

Once everyone's votes were up we took an average too see which pizza place won. Wanna take a guess as to everyone's favorite? It was Domino's! Go figure! Haha! It's their crust, it's so good! All garlicky and yummy... Pizza Hut took second, followed by a local favorite, the Pizza Cart Guy, then Papa John's and another local favorite, Centro Pizza. (Both local places are wood fired pizzas, and they are delicious! If you ever find yourself in Cedar City, Utah, you have to check them out!)

This party was so fun! Would of been even more fun if I could of tried everything, haha! Next up we're going to try burritos from all the Mexican restaurants in town! 

Have fun!