Friday Night Pizza and Movie

Sometimes the smallest of things turn out to be the most remembered traditions.  

When I was growing up, one of the things my dad and I shared a love for was movies.  We liked the same kinds … or maybe he just pretended to like my movies! We’d stay up to the wee hours of morning watching the 1950s horror movies that were on PBS in those days.  Much to his credit, I fell in love with Star Trek, Indiana Jones, John Wayne westerns (yep!), The Lone Ranger, Abbott and Costello, The Thing and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  I also fell in love with Jaws … the first one.

Somewhere along the way, once we were able to rent VHS tapes at the local video store, Friday nights turned into movie nights in my house. Then we added homemade pizza.  This tradition lasted well into my High School years, although we missed a few Fridays nights here and there!

Making the pizza was a family affair … we all pitched in somehow.  Mom had huge cookie sheets that we would use to bake the pizza.  We piled on all sorts of toppings … sometimes it depended on what we had on hand.  These were lean days in my family. There wasn’t must splurging on fancy pizza toppings.  If you’ve never made your own pizza from scratch, it’s SO much better than anything you can have delivered. Maybe it’s the family time associated with making it, maybe it’s the smell of the yeast while the dough is rising, maybe it’s a lot of things.  

This isn’t a tradition I’ve kept with my own family.  We often do pizza and a movie, but not typically homemade pizza.  MPG worked in a pizza parlor as a teenager, and I think he has an aversion to making pizzas now!

But, my mom decided we were going to make pizza last night … so she showed up with dough, cheese, and really good Italian sausage. I whipped up some pizza sauce and sliced up some mushrooms to hide in the pizza!  Mom makes her dough from her friendship bread starter … it makes a great pizza crust! You should try it.

The sauce is super easy, too … tomato paste, Parmesan cheese, spices, sugar and garlic.  

After pizza, we watch the Disney Lone Ranger movie. Noodle loved it! I loved it! Okay, I just love Johnny Depp!

Here are some photos of the night … and the pizza sauce recipe is below. Noodle only had a little sauce on her face after we finished the pizza.  She licked the bowl nearly clean!