I must say, since Neil and I split up about a month and a half ago, my food life has really changed. I don't do a whole lot of cooking anymore because it's just me, and I can't afford to go out to eat nearly as often as I used to. While in theory I like the idea of cooking for myself so that I'll have several nights' worth of leftovers, the reality is that I get a lot more enjoyment out of cooking when I'm doing it for someone else. Food is a sensual thing and it's meant to be shared. I just don't get as much out of it when I don't have someone else's nose under which I can thrust a bunch of fresh-from-the-garden herbs, or another tongue onto which I can place a bit of divine Capriole goat cheese.
My parents have been extremely generous to me over the course of my setting up housekeeping, so tonight I had them over for dinner as a tiny token of my appreciation. Because I'm a bit out of practice cooking (and because I was honestly never that competent to begin with), I decided to do something simple and make a pizza. My mom declared this one of the best pizzas she's ever eaten, which I think might be a bit of hyperbole, but it was pretty darn tasty.
I started with some ingredients from Lotsa Pasta. They have wonderful frozen balls of pizza dough, so I picked up one of those, some Italian sausage, and a container of basil tomato sauce. The sausage came as links, so when I got home I busted two of them open, took the meat out of the casing, and crumbled it in a skillet. Then I sauteed some garlic, onions, and portobello mushrooms. I rolled out the dough, baked it for a few minutes as directed, and then topped it with the sauce, veggies, sausage, and some Kraft Italian Style Five Cheese (yes, I know I could have used better cheese, but I'm not made of money!). It baked for about 10 minutes and came out all covered in golden deliciousness. It really was incredibly good, and except for the dough, I have enough ingredients left over to do it again. And I plan to!
For dessert we had strawberry shortcake. This was sort of a last-minute dessert idea, so I didn't have time to make the shortcakes myself. I did, however, whip my own whipped cream, which was delightful. (Seriously, why does anyone use store-bought whipped cream? It takes 30 seconds to make and it's so much better.) The strawberries were surprisingly good for being from Kroger.
Overall it was a very easy and very good meal. Now that I finally have some dining room furniture and most of what I think I need for my kitchen (though I realized tonight that I lack a pizza cutter), I'm going to have to start doing some more entertaining. I have a really wonderful kitchen and I want to get a lot of use out of it!
