Most of you know about our NFL inspired pizzas. We make them every year for the four teams in Championship Sunday, but we also make the for the NFL Draft. How many pizzas we make vary. This year, because of the way dessert pizzas fell, I did the top 8 Draft teams- 4 each night of the first two rounds.
I got the recipes originally years ago on the Boboli site, though they're no longer there as "NFL Pizzas". Some of the recipes are still there, just not listed as NFL. Some of them are gone completely. Years ago, Calib suggested I make my own cookbook of them, which I made on Shutterfly. But, somewhere between last Draft Day and this Championship Sunday the cookbook has gone missing. I can't figure out where it went off to. Luckily, it's all saved in my Shutterfly account so I can still access them, though. I'm actually working on a new and improved cookbook for these, since along the way we've changed some pizzas that we didn't particularly care for, and there's a few new cities with NFL teams (here's looking at you Vegas & LA). I've also learned some tricks and tips along the way, so those will all be included in the new book. I almost printed the book this time, but I decided to wait until after this Draft so I'd have even more pictures to add.
Night one of the Draft we made the NFL pizzas for the first four picks (Note: I've also upgraded to labeling the pizzas with my cricut machine!)
The first pick this year went to the Jacksonville Jaguars. For most pizzas, I use the Boboli crusts. But, this is one where we had it the first time liked that and decided it was no good. Instead, I now make a cake pizza crust. I just take a box of yellow cake mix, prepared with one less egg, and a little less oil and water than the box asks for, and spread it out into a pizza shape. Topped with cool whip, and berries and you have yourself the Jacksonville Jaguars Fruit Tart Pizza. Always a fav around here. In fact, Peyton sometimes asks for this one for his birthday (when I sent him a picture of these, this was the pizza he was most sad he was missing).
The second pick in this years draft went to the Detroit Lions. Previously, we've had a Honey Mustard Chicken Pizza for this one. Not really sure why that was the Detroit pizza, but it was decent. Not life changing or anything, but good. We decided this time though, that we should make a Thanksgiving pizza for Detroit, since they always play on Thanksgiving. Basically it's a pizza topped with mashed potatoes, gravy, and turkey. Add a little cheddar cheese and ta da!
Except, when conceptualizing this one, I was like, what if we make it on a crescent roll crust? I sometimes make a taco pizza like this for dinner, but I wasn't sure how it would hold up to the heavy toppings here. Answer: pretty good. At times it can be more of a fork and knife pizza. But, it totally works. The only thing I might do differently is flip the crescent roll crust toward the end of baking and give it a few more minutes- and serve an optional cranberry topping. Other than that, this is a winner.
The number 3 pick went to the Houston Texans. They have a ground beef BBQ pizza that is pretty simple, but surprisingly delicious. Instead of making my own bbq sauce, I take some help from the store and buy the Stubb's brand. We also topped it with some cubanelle peppers this time, and it was awesome.
The fourth pick went to the New York Jets. They have an Italian Sub pizza. Now usually I have to serve this one with no mayo because Peyton is here (and he loathes mayo!) But this time, it was really yummy with the mayo brushed on the crust. A little Italian Dressing, some deli meat and cheese, some italian seasoning and into the oven it goes. Then, when it comes out we top it with lettuce, tomato, and some onion.
Overall, a delicious group for the first four picks, and the first night of the NFL draft.
Of course, no draft in this house is complete without Calib and Asa printing out all kinds of mock drafts, and making their own to see who can get the most right.
They highlighted yellow for correct player to the correct team, in the correct spot, and pick for right player to the right team, just the wrong spot.
For prosperity heres how it looked after night one. (Asa had six correct, while Calib had 6.5)
Dane Brugler came out the best of all the analyst drafts. Calib and Asa beat most of them. Which, just tells me this is all just a total crapshoot. But, they like doing it, so the tradition continues on. If you're uninterested, which seems likely, just scroll down there's more pizzas. These pictures are mostly just here so when they argue about who did best last year, I have these photos easily accessible!
On to night two of the draft!
Since we did the first four picks the night before, we moved on to picks 5-8 for night two.
The fifth pick in the draft went to the NY Giants, who have a Coney Island Dog pizza. It's just like it sounds. Nothing too crazy here.
The number six pick went to Carolina. Previous, there was some weird shrimp pizza with whipped ricotta sauce for this one that just didn't land very well here. Plus it was pricey. It has like pine nuts and asparagus and shrimp. It just wasn't great. So, we went with a Carolina Pulled Pork Pizza, made with Carolina BBQ sauce.
Optional toppings for this one included coleslaw and pickles, which fun fact: I made on my own! We had some pickling cucumbers and I found a recipe for easy refrigerator pickles, so I gave it a go. Turns out after a couple days, they actually taste like pickles!
The 7th pick actually also belonged to Giants, but I wasn't going to make two chili dog pizzas. Since they had acquired that pick from the Bears, we had the Chicago Sausage and Peppers pizza instead. Pretty straight forward, but still delicious.
Finally, coming in at number 8, we had our second dessert pizza: The Atlanta Falcons Peach Cobbler Pizza. We've had this one before on a Boboli crust, but we thought it could be improved. I put it on a sugar cookie crust and it went... ok. I should have let the cookie crust cool more maybe? I don't know, but I left the cobbler part under the broiler a smidge too long. It was still good, but it doesn't look very pretty.
There you have your night two pizzas!
Night two was actually interesting, because we had the top pick. Unfortunately, I spent the entire night waiting for the Bucs to pick and then they traded out of the first round, so we didn't even pick. But, then it was cool we got to pick first in the second round, we didn't have to wait around for it at all.
Worth noting both Asa and Calib picked up .5 to their draft day totals, since they both had a player to the right team, just the wrong spot. It happened for Asa first, and Calib claimed it didn't count, until it also happened to Calib.
In other non-draft day related news, Asa and I made a weekend trip up to Brooksville. There's lots of upicks going on right now, so we stopped by JG Ranch and picked ourselves some blueberries, blackberries, and even some strawberries. No jam or anything this time, more just stocking up on our produce for the week. I'm over the prices at the store and I'm looking for anything to get a discount. Plus, u-picks are fun!
Then we swung by the Blueberry festival in Downtown Brooksville for a snack.
And we headed out to Beasley Farms for their special produce box. As an added bonus we got to feed the animals again.
I've since learned this cow's name is Bella. And, I love her.
It wasn't just a produce box day, they also had some u-picks.
And then of course we picked up a produce box, and a damaged box of peppers ( I get SO many peppers for $4 and then just freeze them, it's awesome). We actually did this the weekend before the draft, so a lot of the produce on the pizzas was from this weeks box.
We decided to swing by Krate at the Grave on our way home. This has been in the works for so long, but covid really hung things up. It's basically a whole shopping and dining area where everything is out of shipping containers. So far only a few places are open, but we wanted to try them out.
We got some awesome onion rings and mac and cheese bites from the Bacon Boss HQ. We've had them before out of their food truck, but this is the first store of theirs.
We got a few other things, including this pina colada from some other places. Everything was good, but menus were limited and service was pretty slow. Growing pains, I suppose. I think this will be a really awesome place once it gets going into the full swing of things though. Krate is having their grand opening in early June, so we'll try it again sometime after that.
The Monday after the draft, we made it to the pool for a picnic lunch. Asa's done pretty good scheduling his students, so sometimes he has a little more time and we can hit the pool.
One of our neighbors also gave us this giant Watermelon, which was awesome. I cut the whole thing up and filled our giant red watermelon bowl, but still had about a quarter of it left, so we took that part over to another set of neighbors. It's a community watermelon for sure.
And Nate sent us a surprise from Brunei!
We haven't tried it yet, but we're excited for it.
I leave you with some Waterstraut puppy pictures. It was cold enough one evening for Phenom to wear his sweater. Or rather, he was cold enough- after a bath. He's also taken to nesting on my comforter whenever it's on the floor.
And some napping Ellie pictures for you.
Next up: Dr. Strange and Cinco De Mayo!
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