Food | Travel | Family | Life
Pizza lovers rejoice. It’s that time of year, where eating pizza does the city good. It’s YYC Pizza Week, a 10-day event put on to support local business and Calgary Meals on Wheels. There are over 40 pizza restaurants participating with a new menu item in one of four different categories: thin, thick, gluten-free and unique. Partial proceeds from every pizza sold goes to Calgary Meals on Wheels. Head on over to yycpizzaweek.com to find out more.
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Pizza is one of my favourite things. Carbs, cheese, sauce and an endless variety of toppings – what’s not to love? Usually when have pizza at home, you can be sure that the bottle of Sriracha is served alongside, adding just the perfect amount of heat.
Pizza 73 now has Sriracha-infused menu items, combining the delicious pizza with the spicy sauce. They sent us their new items to try and we loved them!
The Sriracha Chicken Pizza uses their
new Sriracha Honey Garlic Sauce as the base and is topped with
pineapple, chicken and fresh green peppers. Q couldn’t get enough of their chicken wings which were tossed in the same sauce. I thought they would be too spicy for him but that didn’t stop him from devouring them. They also have a new dipping sauce, the Sriracha Creamy Garlic Dipping Sauce which was perfect with their curly fries.
Want to win a $50 gift card to try out their new items for yourself? Leave a comment, either here, on Facebook, on Twitter or on Instagram, and let me know what you like on your pizza. Contest closes on Monday, July 11th at 11:59pm MST. Two winners will be chosen. Good luck!
Starting on Friday, it’s everyone’s favourite week – YYC Pizza Week! What better way to support Meals on Wheels than by stuffing your face with delicious pie at participating restaurants. With so many options to choose from, you could technically have pizza for every meal – all for a good cause, of course.
I was happy to participate once again in the Food Blogger Pizza Challenge. We were supposed to pick two out of the four ingredients from The Italian Store to come up with our creation. The four ingredients were: fig spread, homemade pesto, ricotta, pitted assorted olives.
I chose to use fig spread and ricotta and Hubby helped in creating the Fiery Fig BBQ Chicken Pizza. The fig spread was used in creating the fiery bbq sauce. Made with the spread, poblano peppers, ketchup, balsamic and spices, the sauce was tangy and sweet and oh so good. We literally licked the pot clean.
I topped the pizza with cheese, bbq’d chicken and red onions. Once out of the oven, I topped the pie with ricotta fresca, which added a creamy, cool component to the pizza.
The pizzas from all the challengers will be posted on Friday where you’ll have a chance to vote. Be sure to visit a participating restaurant next week and support Meals on Wheels!
Fiery Fig BBQ Sauce
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
3 TB fig spread
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp paprika
1/2 poblano pepper, roasted
salt
pepper
oil
sriracha, as hot as you like it
Heat some oil in a pan and add the onions and garlic. Add the ketchup, vinegar, fig spread and spices and cook for a few minutes. Add the mixture to a blender along with the pepper and sriracha. Blend until smooth. Enough for one pizza.
Today marks the start of YYC Pizza Week! The team behind YYC Burger Week have partnered up with some great restaurants in the city to raise money for Calgary Meals on Wheels. From September 26 to October 5th, 40 restaurants will compete in a pizza battle, with a portion of all sales going to Calgary Meals on Wheels. What a delicious idea!
There is also a Blogger Challenge which I am participating in along with 8 other local bloggers. We were given a list of three secret ingredients which we needed to incorporate in our pizza. You had an option to choose one or all three: chestnut puree, anchovies or fire roasted tomatoes.
I would love your votes for my Donair Pizza! The base of the pizza is a creamy white sauce loaded with garlic and sweetened with chestnut puree. This was topped with homemade donair meat, crisp onions, fire roasted tomatoes and loaded with cheese. My pizza is up against some tasty creations so your vote would be most appreciated. Thank you!!
Q is turning five in a couple of weeks. Five! While deciding what we were going to do to celebrate half a decade, I realized I didn’t post pics from his last party, almost a year ago. Oops! Last year, Q was very much into Bubble Guppies. Since he also loves to help out in the kitchen, we combined his two favourite things and had a cooking party at Loblaw’s (aka Superstore).
They provided the activity – pizza making from scratch. All the kids got to decorate a chef’s hat and wear that along with an apron while they made their pizzas. The kids were shown how to make the dough, and they each got to roll their dough and put on their own toppings.
The parents got to chill, while the instructors taught the kids what to do,
helping with hand washing, dough kneading and decorating. It was
perfect!
Q’s little friends each got to decorate a cake and were able to take it home as their “loot bag”.
They even provided Q with a birthday cake. Talk about a no fuss party!
I was really impressed with the dough that they made. With very minimal rising time, it was actually a pretty good crust! In fact, I have used this recipe many times since then, and it’s perfect, especially in a time crunch.
Easy Pizza Crust
Courtesy of Loblaw’s Cooking School
1 tsp sugar
1 cup warm water
3 tsp active dry yeast
2 TB vegetable or olive oil
2 1/2 to 3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
In a small bowl, dissolve sugar in warm water. Sprinkle in yeast; let stand for 10 minutes or until foamy. Stir in oil.
Combine flour with salt. Stir with finger. Stir about 1/2 the flour mixture into the yeast mixture. Keep adding slowly until dough is sticky enough to take out of the bowl in a ball.
On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for about 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic.
Cover dough and let rest for 10 minutes. On a lightly floured surface, roll out into a 12-inch circle.
Transfer the pizza to a lightly greased baking sheet and stretch with fingers carefully to desired size.
Let rise for 15 minutes before going into the oven to bake. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until dough is fully cooked / golden brown.
Since my sister was in town, we celebrated the holidays with our cousins by having a pizza party! Although I was hoping to make the dough, I ended up making my life a little easy and purchased pizza shells. Everyone had the chance to top their pizzas with homemade pesto (nut-free for those with allergies) or tomato sauce and then tons of toppings. Meat toppings included spicy chicken sausage, beef bacon, ground beef and beef pepperoni. Veggies included peppers (green and red), onions (white, red, green), tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, artichokes, sundried tomatoes, pineapple, roasted garlic and basil. Everyone had a great time being creative when topping their pizzas. It was a fun idea and we will definitely be having another pizza party!
