We had a fun, festive Mother's Day lunch that I LOVED! All my favorites were there...
Homemade garlic cheese sticks
homemade ranch dipping sauce (extra thin just like I remembered from Mr. Gatti's pizza buffet)
make your own pizzas with homemade crust
Cherry Limeades (copycat of Sonic)
and banana splits to continue our "Sundaes on Sunday" tradition that is PULLING us through quarantine
When we can't go out and about (and some of the places I really want to go you can't find readily in the North anyways. I was born and raised in TN and so miss a lot of the southern chains)....we make things AT HOME! Especially right now...it has been so much fun for us.
So...say you want to plan this super fun pizza party for your family? What details do you need to know? My hubby was kind enough to cook for me for Mother's Day, but we got our recipes for cheese sticks and for pizza dough from Sally's Baking Addiction...one of my TOP TEN baking blogs. Honestly, if this blog turns into me traveling around the internet trying every recipe we can find, I will be jazzed :)
I love Sally's blog because her instructions are EXCELLENT. If you don't know how to bake...start here. She won't do you wrong. And her stuff TASTES SO GOOD. Click here to find the recipe for the garlic cheese sticks. They are pizza buffet worthy and my husband said they were very simple to make. During quarantine, I have had the time to SLOW down and enjoy the process of cooking. I have found that just taking a FEW extra steps... like making homemade dough or homemade salad dressing can take our family meals from ok to awesome. The extra five minutes will be worth it.
For the pizza, my husband doubled Sally's recipe for pizza dough (we eat a lot haha). And he was able to use the dough for the cheese sticks and the pizzas.
After he got all the dough rolled out, everyone got to roll their dough to desired thickness and add toppings. We had sausage, pepperoni, salami, cheese, and pineapple. What can I say we love our processed meats? :)
The kids enjoyed this part...as did adults! Adding that corn meal to the outside of the crust gave such nice texture. I prefer a mid-level thickness to my crust, but most of the family went for thin. It all turned out great after convection baking in the oven on 400 degrees for about ten minutes.
For drinks, we did a copycat Sonic cherry limeade, MY FAVORITE. This one was from another great blogger Lil' Luna. Again, very simple recipe but adding fresh limes and actual cherry syrup made the drink WONDERFUL. Other than that all you need is a jar of cherries and some Sprite or 7UP. The only thing I was missing was that fabulous Sonic crushed ice. ;)
For dessert, we ended with traditional banana splits. (another very easy buffet style bar to set up for a family) The kids enjoyed getting to design their own creations, but we definitely stuck with the traditional pineapple, strawberry, and chocolate sections.
Pre-quarantine, my life was SO rushed. I really don't want to go back to that part of pre-Covid. I also am thrilled that my kitchen has become my sanctuary, not the place I dread. Also, having meals to look forward to has really united our family. I am excited for restaurants to open again, but I am also really inspired to keep trying new things at home. We will definitely be having more pizza parties like this. All in all, we also spent about $50 on this meal for five. SO much better than most pizza places and WAY cheaper than most Mother's Day meals out!