Christmas Eve for us this year was a bit of an adventure. Mr. Handsome’s family has a tradition of eating homemade deep dish pizza, and I have tried to keep that tradition going with our little family. I spent the entire morning preparing pizzas so we could cook them for the evening. Deep dish pizza is a little tricky to make and very labor intensive. We then went to Christmas Eve service at Church, thinking we would be out in plenty of time to put the pizzas in the oven.
The pastor decided to dial up a hard hitting Christmas message, complete with an altar call at the end. It was wonderful to see people coming forward to commit their lives to Jesus. But by the time it was all said and done, the service was about 30 minutes longer than expected.
We rushed home and put the pizzas in the oven. By now, the kids were whining and complaining because they were starving, so we gave them a snack. After cooking the pizza for the amount of time indicated in the recipe, we took it out and let it cool for 15 minutes. We all sat down for dinner, only to realize that the middle of the pizza was still completely raw.
Deep dish pizza is about two inches thick and is more like pie than a pizza. It is a bit of a challenge to cook thoroughly without burning the crust. We turned the oven back on and put the pizzas back in. Finally about 30 minutes later, the pizza was ready to eat.
Little Buddy took one bite, spit it out, and said “Spicy, spicy, spicy! I can’t eat it.” He used to like pepperoni and sausage but has apparently decided that it’s too spicy. We tried to take the meat off, but it was challenging because the toppings were baked into the center of the pizza. I had made a Hawaiian pizza for myself, but it wasn’t fully cooked yet.
Littlest Buddy, who doesn’t mind sausage or pepperoni, had also decided that he didn’t like the deep dish pizza, probably because it looked different than the pizza he was accustomed to. Out of desperation, I pulled some frozen chicken nuggets and vegetables out of the freezer and microwaved it for the kids. So much for spending the whole day cooking a delicious meal for the family.
After the kids wolfed down their food, it was past bedtime, so we decided to wave the white flag and call it a night. We did their bedtime routine and then sat down to eat our pizza at 8:30. It was a little dried out, but after waiting so long, it tasted great.