Atlanta and Pizza

Hi everyone! My husband and I took a long weekend off and took a road trip to visit our son and daughter-in-law in Atlanta. Based on the mileage, the trip should take about 7 ½ hours, but the traffic was horrendous around both Orlando and Atlanta, so it actually took well over 8 hours. We were exhausted by the time we arrived. However, we hadn’t seen them for ages, about 6 months, so it was great to get together. We hadn’t spent any time in Atlanta before, and we were excited to see what it had to offer.

They live in an Atlanta suburb that has a darling old-town area. It has really cute shops and interesting (and delicious) restaurants surrounding a park. We had some great meals there. But on Saturday, my daughter-in-law took me to Piedmont Park in downtown Atlanta. It has more than 200 acres, so we concentrated on the Atlanta Botanical Garden, which is 30 acres itself and is located in Piedmont Park. We were thrilled that the Origami in the Garden exhibit was there. Origami in the Garden is a traveling exhibit of metal sculptures inspired by the Japanese art of folding paper. The garden itself is incredible, and the sculptures are stunning. We spent hours walking around and taking everything in. Here are some photos that Sarah took – thanks, Sarah!

We loved every minute we spent in Atlanta, but we only had a couple of days we could be away, so we left Sunday morning to drive back home. Even on Sunday, the traffic was amazingly heavy. By the time we got home, we were beyond exhausted, and hungry. We were much too tired to go out, so I went into the pantry to see what I could find for dinner.

I found a couple of individual pizza crusts and sauce packets left over from the last time the grandkids were over (we had a make-your-own-pizza party). This is a really quick, easy and cheap meal. I spread the sauce onto the pizza crusts and looked in the fridge for toppings.

I had a few leftovers in the fridge that I needed to use anyway, so those were the toppings for the pizza. Once the crusts were sauced, I added some thin salami we had used as appetizers. I just cut the thin slices in half and covered the crusts. I also found some leftover mushroom ragout that would be absolutely delicious. Then there were left over peppers and onions from a sausage, pepper and onion meal we had eaten just before we left, so after I added the pepper and onion slices, there were a lot of veggies on top of the salami. We had served a caprese salad on Mother’s Day, so I had some mozzarella I was able to add as well.

While I waited for the oven to heat up to 450 degrees, I went out to pick some lettuce and tomatoes, and put a quick salad together (I’ll write about my favorite, quick salad dressings in a later post).

Once the oven reached 450 degrees, I put the 2 pizzas directly on the middle rack and let them bake for 10 minutes. The crusts were nice and crispy, the salami added a bit of heat, the veggies were soft and flavorful, and the cheese was melting over everything. All we needed at that point was a glass of wine, and some sleep.