Good food, at home

The other day one of my sons and I stopped off at the new wood-fired pizza/cafe in town. We'd been out and about and thought it was as good a place as any to stop for a while and have a chat about his future and his plans. Plus, he likes pizza, and this place has been advertising widely since it recently opened and we thought it would be a nice lunch.

I had something lighter with a nice salad but I did try a morsel of pizza. We were quite disappointed.

Making most of our meals from scratch and not eating out very often any more, we realised once again that we've come to so enjoy the meals we prepare at home that bought food is definitely missing something!

Home made pizza dough made by one of my sons, heading for a second rise...

All the boys make their own pizzas, from scratch - they mix the flours, knead and rise it, flatten it out and top it with simple ingredients and a great mix of herbs grown right outside our kitchen (and sometimes an organic dried mix from the good folk who operate this local company).

We are still without an oven however they cook pizzas first of all in a large heavy pan on top of the stove, then finish it off on a pizza tray under the grill. Despite that, their pizza tastes twenty times better than the wood fired effort we paid for the other day.

I'm fairly ashamed to say that there was a (short) time in my life, many decades ago, when I was of the opinion that restaurant food was somehow superior to simple home meals. When I was first married, we entertained a lot for the business my husband was in, and were entertained, and ate in lots of ritzy places. Many of the meals were quite enjoyable but home cooking they were not!

As much as I like Thai food, the last couple of times we've come home later and grabbed a takeaway at the local award winning (best restaurant in our state one year!), I just haven't enjoyed it all that much. I'm yet to prepare Japanese food which tastes as good as that found in a good Japanese restaurant (don't make it very often though!), and there ARE some restaurants around which serve fantastic food, but on the whole, I'm really, really, enjoying home cooking and home prepared food at the moment!

Over the years I have come to appreciate more simple flavours, too, and as I study and research more into nutrition and health issues I have confirmation time and again that Simple is Best for health and digestion.