Food and the Army Way of Life

One of the most interesting things to me about moving around with the Army is the people we get to meet. Growing up, I never would have imagined I'd want to marry someone in the Army. Moving around all the time just didn't seem to fit into what I envisioned as a "normal" life. Edward and I even talked about it at great length while we were dating, trying to decide if we'd be okay raising a family while moving so much. We even asked one of his Air Force ROTC buddies who was an Air Force brat if he liked moving around as a kid, to which he replied it made his family extremely close. That's what made it okay for us. Now, I can't imagine anything different than what our life is. Yes, it's hard to be away from family and friends, but that's our life.

Something that I have really enjoyed about moving around is having neat friends and trying all their interesting recipes. I love to cook, and anytime I come across something delicious, I have to get the recipe. It puts a smile on my face anytime I make something I got from a friend...I remember who gave me the recipe and where it came from...I still make the taco dip and sour cream chicken my college roommate, Jenn, liked. Edward requests spinach dip every football Saturday, that recipe from a fellow teacher on my team in Florida. We learned great ways to grill fish from our next door neighbor from Ft. Lauderdale, Terry, who used to be a professional waiter in a posh downtown Miami restaurant. I crave the awesome empanadas and tres leches cake my neighbor and good friend, Marisol, always made from her Puerto Rican roots (still need that recipe, Marisol!). And, here already, I've gotten a few great things...taco soup from Sara is a current hit at our house :)

Tonight, I made a dish I haven't had in over two years, a homemade pizza. Yes, I've made homemade pizza in the last two years, but not this particular recipe. My friend, Nancy, gave me this at Ft. Bragg. Her husband was the colonel over all of primary care at the hosptial and were both close friends of ours. In fact, we really enjoyed their weekly Bible Study. Nancy was in our clinic coffee group, which was ironic because we didn't drink coffee...the ladies went out to dinner once a month. Anyways, we also took meals to each other as people had babies and were a close group. Nancy was a fantastic cook and brought me her homemade pizza after Luke was born. Any of my fellow clinic wives who follow the blog would probably agree Nancy was one-of-a-kind. In fact, she was our food delivery person on my birthday that year, which was a pretty rough day. I spent the greater part of that day at the clinic with Luke, who then, nine days old, had lost over a pound, and just wasn't gaining weight easily. After hours there where I had to feed him, etc., they finally ended up putting him on a formula (who knew he'd be allergic to that one and go through four others before finding a formula he could take??), a frustrated me brought my two kids home (on my birthday), hours late, to find Nancy still waiting at my house with food. She was awesome. Of course, I hadn't planned on being gone that long, but Luke with his weight issues took over the day...and, I didn't have a cell number for her to let her know what was going on, and still she waited...awesome lady. She could tell I was upset-who wouldn't be when you are frustrated your baby isn't gaining weight back?? She was so sweet to come in, help with the kids, and make me sit down and eat some of her pizza at now dinnertime (lunch totally didn't happen that day). She made my birthday that year. Her pizza was fantastic, and it was a nice memory to think back of her being so kind to me just over two years ago. So, tonight, we enjoyed the delicious pizza again!!!!

The homemade dough...totally from scratch, which was new for me. I've always used a box or Pillsbury crust base, but this was a yeast/flour scratch kind of real pizza!

Ready for the oven...what makes this so different is there isn't a drop of tomato sauce on the pizza. The dough is covered first in mozzerella cheese, then sausage, then diced tomatoes (completey drained), then parmesan cheese...that's it. Very different, yet really good.

All done and well received at the dinner table.

The recipe...I have to laugh at this because she scribbled it out at one of our monthly dinner's out. It was just written on the back of a piece of paper someone happened to have. I've kept this in my recipe box since. Great memory because the pizza was perfect.