Cooking Club hosts a Pizza Par-tay

Saturday was Cooking Club night and this month we hosted a pizza party. Think pizza parlor in the midst of the Gilmores' kitchen complete with flying flour, melty cheese, vats of veggies and, of course, a gourmet twist. We started off the fiesta with this homemade all-natural caramel corn (the picture hardly does it justice). The recipe came from Cori's SuperNatural cookbook and was a blend of sweet, salty and spicy. Definitely a winner.

Mary (with baby in tow) and Angela (Jeremy and Marcy's new foster daughter) went to work on pizza crusts. They rolled out the dough for Dorina's own Honey-Whole Wheat crust for our Thai Chicken Pizza (ala Rachael Ray) and our more traditional Meat and Veggie Extravaganza Pizza. The flour was flyin' but there were no pizza tossers in the house. Too bad.

Jana added the toppings to the Meat and Veggie Combo. Uh...she got a little carried away. Who ever heard of cauliflower on pizza? Well, Cooking Club is all about trying new things in the kitchen so we let her be creative and the results were gone in no time. We also made Giada De Laurentiis' Acorn Squash and Arugula Pizza minus the arugula. This was definitely creative and surprisingly spicy, but still a hit.

The winner pizza recipe of the night was no contest: Giada's Chocolate Pizza using Cori's whole wheat shortbread crust. Marcy and Cori pressed our creative crust into tart pans and then we all added the toppings. Cori brought bananas and dark chocolate chips. I added coconut and walnuts to the choices. We popped the chocolate pizza tarts into the oven for a few minutes to melt the toppings and presto! we had a deluxe dessert pizza-style. They were so yummy we even forgot to get the vanilla ice cream out of the freezer to go with them.

After indulging on our chocolate pizza tarts we busted out a game of Ticket to Ride. What better way to spend a cold, winter's eve than to munch pizzas on paper plates (no dishes!) and play our favorite games with friends. Very casual. Very memorable.