Pizza Throwdown

We took our annual Canada trip a few weeks back, and a part of that trip was the annual food throwdown, or cook-off if you're from around here. Last year was wings, this year, pizza. There were 6 entries and 5 judges, an afternoon of pizza cooking and eating, and lovely Canadian weather that meant we could spend most of the day outside. Prizes include bragging rights, drinks service, and, this year, the privilege of choosing the theme for next year's competition.More on that one later.

The Husband spent several weekends prior to the trip practicing, preparing, and generally making lots of pizza. We tried crust recipes, sauces, and a variety of toppings before settling on our favorite combination. As we learned, however, only so much preparation with American ingredients can be done for a contest in Canada. Food is different up there. We couldn't find the tomatoes or the sausage we wanted to use, but we made due and the substitutions were more than adequate. Our WINNING recipe for dough, sauce, and toppings will follow this post, with a few words from my first guest blogger, the Husband himself. (That's right, we won the pizza throwdown!)

(Side note: I love going to the grocery store in Canada, because they do have different foods, brands, and produce readily available. In Canada, Kraft makes peanut butter. Even so, after this trip, and the failed attempts to find particular pizza ingredients, I was very thankful for my HEB waiting for me back home.)

Here are some of the moments from the contest:

 Contestants

Making Pizza

The Judges' Table

Kitchen Work

  

Tossing Dough

Another Contestant

The Final Contestant (and the winner!)

Judges hard at work

Judges discussing their tastes

Presentation to the Winner

We did it!