Pizza! Pizza!

I love a good pizza, and in Minneapolis/St. Paul there are a few great spots. If you've ever read my blog before you'll notice I'm always talking about Punch Pizza. I love getting a Napoli pizza with Proscuitto and Mozzerella di Bufala. They even put Olive Oil underneath so it's super good to dip your crust in. For thin crust pizza another great place is Carbone's in St. Paul. Now there is a chain of Carbone's elsewhere, but this was the original. The others are really quite tasty, but none compare to this place. It's a very thin pizza with toppings all the way to the end, possibly 1 cm crust. It's always super delicious. I always get the large pepperoni, extra cheese, onions & garlic. I save half the pizza and eat it the next day (reheat via oven, or put in frying pan with a little bit of water on stove.) For a good classic pizza Cossetta's in Downtown St. Paul has some amazing pizza with regular crust. We used to get one every Tuesday, as my former roommate's family owned the place. However, if I go to Cossetta's I have a hard time straying from the Mostaccioli with a meatball and garlic bread. It's just so darn good!

For the best take and bake pizza I used to say Papa Murphy's. And while they are delicious, there's something that's just better. Those in the Chicago, Washington D.C. or Minneapolis areas are privy to all natural HomeMade Pizza. Started out in Chicago it took them 2 years to perfect their crust! I had never heard of them (even though they were apparently on Oprah) so when I got invited to their 'Friends & Family' event I decided to try it out. We were given samples of pizzas (all delicious) and then also given a free medium pizza and large salad. Now when I say this pizza is divine I mean it. The crust is the perfect amount of bubbly, crunchy goodness. It has good form, it won't flop all over the place but it isn't hard to bite into either. The cheese stretches out and you can taste that it's actually good cheese, not what you would find on Pizza Hut or Papa John's or Domino's.

Even more attractive is their customer loyalty card. Buy any 9 pizzas and get the 10th free. Buy any 9 salads and get the 10th free. Want more? Well Monday thru Wednesday you buy any medium or large pizza and get a medium salad and dessert (take and bake cookie or their AMAZING ice cream) for just $5. While their pizzas are more expensive than Papa Murphy's, the benefit is that I can make this meal last longer. Their pizza actually tastes good leftover, unlike Papa Murphy's. I usually take the salad to work and eat half one day and the other half the next day. I get the Cobb Salad; they pack bacon, eggs, cherry tomatos, fresh avocados, bleu cheese crumbles, hard boiled eggs, chives & hearts of romaine lettuce in there plus your choice of dressing. I like it with the caesar.

For dessert I'm sure they have great flavors of ice cream and the cookies are probably superb. However, I tried the Mint Chocolate Chip one time and can't stop getting that. I don't like the green kind of ice cream, it never tastes as good as the natural white ice cream. For a long time I've gotten Bryer's, and theirs is delicious. However, I noticed they have made their containers smaller and kept the price the same if not higher than when I was younger. So, instead I just get a free ice cream with my salad. I did this last night and I will have gotten 5 meals out of this plus dessert. Not bad in this economy, if I do say so myself!

To find out more about all their pizzas and salads check out their website.