Dinner with a Challenge

This weekend presented my first significant dinner challenge. Here's the story: My good friend, Amanda, is severely lactose intolerant. She can't take any form of milk no matter what it's mixed into or how diluted it is. Her digestive system is also not a fan of pizza, even with homemade dough and no cheese - too many good things all at once.

Friends don't let friends live without pizza. Hence the challenge: create a pizza that won't put Amanda in the ER. (The last four times she tried "Amanda-friendly" pizza she ended up in the hospital.)

So, I did a little research and came up with a plan: making french bread pizza with mozzarella made from almond milk. There was no record of french bread ever giving Amanda trouble and she had yet to discover the almond milk non-cheese at the local grocery store.

Challenge accepted!

Since we planned on having a ladies' night, I decided to make a few different kinds of pizza to make sure that everyone was happy. On the regular pizza dough I put together a caprese pizza and a supreme pizza. I made the freanch loaf into two supreme pizzas as well. Only the caprese pizza contained real fresh mozzarella cheese.

All the best pizza fixin's.

Assembling pizza is fun: sauce, toppings, cheese . . . or cheese substitute.

About 20 minutes in the oven and the pizzas were hot, bubbly, and ready to be put to the test!

The pizzas were cut up, we helped ourselves to multiple slices, and then we gathered around the kitchen table and dug in.

Amanda digging in.

We all agreed that the pizzas were very tasty. Amanda ate four slices of her specially prepared pizza. However, flavor was only part of the challenge. Amanda's taste buds gave the pizza an A+, but it was her tummy that would make the final call.

It was touch-and-go for a while there: some pepto-bismol was consumed . . .

In the end, good triumphed over evil.




Two thumbs up and all smiles!



Our ladies' night was a complete success. Good food, good wine, and a good movie - what elese could we ask for after a long, hard week? Maybe world peace . . .