#104 Mother's Day weekend, Serving 10 and the much beloved Pizza Magherita

This weekend, I had a taste of how busy it is to run a bed & breakfast place. Haha! We had guests over, (Yay!) well, actually they were my good friend's guests, and we all kind of stuck together from Friday to Saturday. Very fun and chill. It was a great weekend spent with amazing and genuinely nice people who carry funny and very intelligent conversations, wear smiles- all the time, love laughter, love good food and love planet/star gazing. We brought the massive telescope out, and I saw the moon, Jupiter and it's moons, Saturn and it's rings and a few bright stars, all in one night..which I was told was rare. Cool stuff!  I also had the pleasure of making breakfast and lunch, for...10 people, who know a lot about good food. Taking on the big responsibility of being an instant chef for a day is a remarkable experience for a neophyte food blogger like me, did I say yes to it because of the blog? Well, yes- it was definitely something to write about and cherish for many years to come, but I mostly did it  out of love for  friends; it was really fun cooking, but mind you, it was very, very nerve wracking around 15 minutes before serving.. It's been ages since I cooked for more than 4! Although I was on the brink of a major panic attack making 5 different breakfast dishes: pancakes, eggs, sausages, bacon and hashbrowns and preparing the table with breads, fruits and yogurt and all others in 1 hour, I kept smiling because I already said early on that I did not want help!..haha..to my relief, everything went fine for breakfast. I used our pancake recipe, but added whole eggs, and everyone loved it! There was nothing on the breakfast menu that I want to write about because the dishes were very simple, so I will only post 3 dishes that we enjoyed for lunch and dinner this weekend. First off is Pizza, we served several with a variety of toppings, but the recipe that I will share is the one that everyone went gaga over. We made our own tomato sauce to use for our Pizza Magherita. A variation  of pizza that uses only tomato sauce and cheese. You can add any topping that you want, but I learned that making a good sauce and simply adding fresh basil leaves is more than what you need for a satisfying pizza. The fresh mozzarella cheese tastes very different from the shredded ones. Absolutely delicious! This is by far the best one I made to date, and the pizza dough that we used is perfect. You  can keep left overs for two days in the fridge, and it was still be tasty and the dough will be soft but not mushy. I was worried that we went overboard with the pizza sauce, but no, its a really great tasting sauce. We used sugar plum tomatoes that we got from Trader Joe's,  some fresh herbs and lots of love to make this fantastic Pizza Magherita.

PIZZA MAGHERITA

Ingredients:

Pizza Dough, recipe here
Fresh Mozarella cheese, sliced
Sugar Plum tomatoes, or cherry tomatoes, halved
Fresh Basil


FOR THE PIZZA SAUCE:

Ingredients:

8 ounces organic tomato sauce
24 pieces of sugar plum tomatoes (or cherry tomatoes)
4 pieces of large fresh basil leaves
6 pieces of fresh oregano leaves
1 small onion
1 small garlic clove
2 pieces of mint
1 tablespoon water
3 pieces of brown mushrooms
salt and pepper to taste


Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 500 F degrees.
2. In a food processor, blend sauce recipes until smooth, best if made in advance and chilled for 1 hour.
3. Form pizza dough into a circle, then spread a thin layer of the tomato pizza sauce.
4. Top with sliced fresh mozzarella cheese and halved sugar plum tomatoes. (you can use cherry tomatoes too)
5. Bake for 10-15 minutes.
6. Scatter fresh basil leaves over your freshly baked pizza.

 

 

Looks like Christmas, in the Spring. It really felt like it was Christmas time, it felt like I'm home with family being with these amazing people. There was Bob who said, "you're in the family now".  And there's the lovely ladies who said, "thank you, it was delicious" a million times. And then there's also the gentlemen who uttered the word "fantastic, outstanding, thank you" so many times. I heard and saw so much love and so much kindness  not just towards me, but towards everybody in a span of 6 hours, and more during dinner. Lunch ended with hugs. Simple things like kind words, touch and smiles can truly move hearts, it was a Saturday morning well-spent, indeed. :)

 

Happy Mother's Day to all Moms especially to my beautiful mother! 

It was one of the best Mother's Day weekend, what would have made it perfect is if I had my entire family together. Next Mother's Day will be the best one ever!