Family Tuscan Pizza bowl

This is another recipe I saw at my moms  in her Demarle catalog and had to try.  I loved it.  The kids all griped about it.  I think Benjamin ended up actually liking it once he ate it because he ate his whole piece.  Tavio said he wasn't hungry, but ended up finishing his piece - but I know he didn't like it much.  Brandon, myself and my mom all liked it.
Again I had to make some changes and rearranges with this recipe - starting with the fact that we didn't have the size pan they wanted.  We also didn't have their dough mix or spices.  So here is what we did and I LOVED it.  Very fresh tasting because the veggies only got to crisp tender because they were only heated until the cheese melted.

Lets start with the pizza dough recipe.  I looked up my quick wheat recipe and clicked the link back to Mel's kitchen cafe and used her recipe with some extra spices.  Turned out great, and we really did make it quick and easy - mom didn't knead it long at all.  Super simple

Ingredients

• 3 cups flour
• 1 cup water
• 1 Tablespoon honey
• 1 Tablespoon yeast
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/4 teaspoon each thyme, oregano and basil

Directions

1. Heat oven to 425.  Mix all ingredients in a mixing bowl until well combined.  Let the mixer knead it for a minute or 2.  
2. Roll out into a very large circle.  WE put this over a 14 X 2 inch pan.  I know I don't have one of these at home, but that is what my mom had, so the circle was probably 16 inches.  
3. Either brush the dough with oil or spray your pan with cooking spray.  Gently lay the dough over the reverse side of your pan (ours was 14 X 2 - original recipe's was 11 1/2 x 2. You may also get away with 2 smaller cake pans.) 
4. Bake 12-15 minutes until center is light golden brown and edges are cooked.  Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes.  Take it off the cake pan and place it on a pizza peel or cookie sheet (if it fits - ours went on the peel because it didn't fit anywhere else.  

While the crust is baking and cooling, prepare the veggies for the rest of the pizza

Ingredients

• crust above
• 12 stalks asparagus, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 golden bell pepper, chopped
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped (That was 8 for me.  I didn't use all of the whites, but I did use most of them and all of the greens.)
• 1 cup baby spinach
• 1/2 cup fresh basil (I stuffed the cup somewhat - not tight, but not super loose for both the Spinach and the basil.)
• 1 vine tomato, diced
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt (Mom had kosher so that is what we used.)
• 1/4 teaspoon Mrs. Dash garlic and herb seasoning.
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan (optional - we didn't measure this and we used the powder stuff because that is what we had but we just sprinkled)
• cheddar cheese - we just added a tiny sprinkle of cheddar for color and flavor-maybe 1/4 cup

Directions

1. Prepare veggies while the crust is cooking - chop and put in a bowl.  Add the salt and garlic mix.  Toss to combine/coat everything.  
2. Pour veggies into the pizza crust bowl made above.
3. Top with Mozzarella cheese.  Sprinkle with Parmesan and cheddar.
4. Return to oven and cook until the cheese melts.  (We placed this directly on a pizza stone to cook the second time around.

Quick wheat pizza dough

So I decided to do movie night with pizza as a bribe to get my kids to work really hard on cleaning the playroom.  They did a decent job helping and the room looks ton better so I had to make good on my promise (not to mention the meal I had planned for today was slow cooker, so when I made the bribe I really hoped they followed through.)  However, planning pizza on short notice doesn't work for our favorite pizza dough recipe, so I looked for a new one.  What I made was a cross between a quick recipe I had in a book and one I saw on Mel's kitchen cafe with my own twist of agave because I like to sweeten my wheat bread with agave.  I made a lot because typically my family can go through a lot of pizza.  We did end up with a decent amount of left overs, but DH is out of town, and DS2 didn't eat quite as much as he normally does - could be that we made some tasty smoothies to go with our meal. -Our new green smoothie ingredient thanks to that same DS- Ovaltine.   He got fancy when I wasn't looking yesterday. But, that's another post (maybe.)

Here's how I made the pizza dough today - It made 3 large pizzas.

Ingredients

• 2 cups warm water
• 2 Tablespoons yeast
• 2 Tablespoons agave
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 5 1/4 cups wheat flour (more or less)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 500.  Combine all ingredients in a mixer.  Mix with a dough hook until smooth and pliable.  Let rest/rise while preparing sauce/toppings.
2. Punch dough down.  Divide into 3 balls.  Roll each out to desired size/thickness.  sprinkle a pizza peel with cornmeal.   Roll up the edge of the dough.  (this will form the crust when flipped over.)  Gently flip the pizza crust over onto the pizza peel.  Give it a shake to make sure it will slide - if not add more cornmeal underneath before topping.  Top pizza as desired.
3. Bake for 5-6 minutes.  (I did all of mine 6, but they were slightly overdone, so I'd probably do about 5 min 30 seconds or something.

Deep dish pizza potpie + pizza dough recipe

Tonight's dinner was also inspire by $5 dinner mom.  I love her book.  Has some great ideas.  I didn't make as many changes to this one as the pasta salad from last night, but I did make some.
Warning - it is pretty time consuming - plan 2 hours - dough has to rise, sauce has to simmer, then it all has to cook in the oven.
It was pretty well liked by the kids.  Aaron is finally getting better at trying food and actually tried a couple of bites - of course he called what he as trying eggs (it was really cottage cheese.)  I was happy he tried that and sausage.  Hooray for small victories.
I'm also including $5 dinner mom's pizza dough or at least my adaptation of it.  It isn't my favorite for pizza - I have used it - not following her instructions to cook it first, top it and cook some more, but just like I always do - cook it at high temp with topping already on.  It is OK.  It is full of seasonings which I don't care for in a pizza crust.  I like my crust more smooth.  However, I don't mind using this for calzones, or in this case as the top of the pizza pot pie.  However, I made some changes in directions this time and had no problems with it so here is what I did today.

Ingredients

• 1 pound Italian sausage (we used homemade, took it out of the casings and fried it up in crumbles)
• 1 Tablespoon butter
• 1 clover garlic, minced
• 1/2 large onion chopped
• 1 bell pepper, chopped (we used a few tiny sweet orange, red and yellow that we have - would have equaled 1 normal size)
• 2 14.5 oz canes diced tomatoes drained
• 16 oz. cottage cheese (original was ricotta but for some reason I forgot to buy it.
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 batch homemade whole wheat pizza dough (see below)

Pizza dough ingredients

• 1 cup + 2-4 Tablespoons water (I started with 1 - wasn't enough and poured more - not sure exactly how much, but I added a little 3 times, so my guess is 2-4 Tablespoons.)
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup white flour
• 1 packet active dry yeast
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 2 Tablespoons Parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Mix all dough ingredients together in a mixer.  Let knead in the mixer for 6-10 minutes - until smooth and elastic.  Cover and let rise until doubled.  (that is it for the pizza dough - use it any way you like - for this I just let it rise while I prepared the rest.  It was ready when the rest was.)
2. In a saucepan, cook sausage -we crumbled it as we cooked it.  Transfer to paper towels to drain.  
3. In the same skillet melt butter (we didn't have any grease to clean our, or to even saute the onions because we were using a lean homemade sausage -you may need to adjust directions accordingly), saute onions, garlic, oregano, thyme, and Italian seasoning until the onion begins to soften.  Add bell peppers and saute briefly.  Add diced tomatoes and cooked sausage.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer 20 to 30 minutes. (I worried this wouldn't simmer since I had drained the tomatoes, but it worked fine.)
4. Preheat oven to 375.  In a medium bowl, whisk eggs.  Add cottage cheese and Parmesan and stir to combine.
5. Pour half of the sausage filling in a 9 X 13 baking dish.  Pour cottage cheese over the top and smooth out to cover sausage layer.  Top with remaining sausage mixture - coating cottage cheese evenly.
6. Spray counter with cooking spray and roll dough into a 10 X 14 inch rectangle.  Carefully pick up the rectangle and place over the baking dish allowind 1-2 inches to flop over the edge of the dish.  Press dough alond the edge of dish to seal.  Cut 4-5 slits in teh top of the dough to vent.
7. Bale for 50-60 minutes or until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbling.  Remove and let cool for about 10 minutes before serving.

Stuffed Spinach and cheese pizza with dipping sauce

Today's dinner was a compilation of 3 cookbooks.  The original idea came from no whine with dinner cookbook.  It called for a refrigerated wheat dough - I had a recipe for that I wanted to try in $5 dinner mom, and then I thought it would be good dipped in a red sauce - so I used my go-to sauce from American pie.  All good books.  It turned out OK.   Not a bad way to eat your spinach, and I didn't mind adding the nice tomato sauce either.  Here is how I made the entire dish.


Dough Ingredients

• 2 cups warm water
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 4 cups unbleached white flour
• 2 scant Tablespoons (2 packages) yeast
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
• 4 Tablespoons (1/4 cup) Parmesan cheese -I used the powdery Kraft stuff for this because I thought it would incorporated better

Dough directions

1. Combine water and 2 cups white flour in a mixing bowl (I used my bosch.)  Add yeast, sugar, salt and oil.  Whisk or stir together to make very liquid dough.  Let sit 10 minutes.
2. Add remaining 2 cups white flour and 2 cups wheat flour.  Mix with the mixer until smooth.  Add Parmesan and Italian seasoning and mix until well incorporated.  
3. Cover and let rise 45 min to 1 hour.

Filling ingredients

• 1 16 oz. package frozen chopped spinach, thawed
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• dough from recipe above
• 1 8 oz package shredded mozzarella -2 cups
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan (I used the real stuff here - a triangle that I shredded)
• 1/2 cup crumbled feta (this was optional and I didn't have any, but I really wanted to try it.  I think it would be delicious.)
• 20-30 slices turkey pepperoni coarsely chopped (I chopped mine with kitchen scissors)
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425.  Drain spinach in a colander.  Press into the colander to squeeze out extra water. Pat with paper towels.  Place in a medium large bowl.
2. Add cheeses, pepperoni, garlic powder and a few grinds of pepper to the spinach.  Mix together well.
3. Take out 2 large rimmed baking sheets.  Pour a little bit of olive oil onto one pan.  (1/2 Tablespoon or so)  Use your fingers to spread the oil all over the pan.  Place 1/2 of the dough on the prepared pan.  Spread it over the oil to cover the entire pan.  
4. Spread the spinach mixture evenly over the wider bottom 1/2 of the crust leaving 1/2 inch border.  Fold the top part of the dough over the spinach mixture.  (At this point I turned the dough on the pan and kind of stretched it out a bit, pushing it a little flatter.)  Use a fork to press edges of dough together.  Poke the top of the dough with the fork a few times to allow steam to escape.
5. Bake until crust is golden brown about 15 minutes (I may have done 20)  Cut into slices and serve with sauce.

Crushed tomato sauce Ingredients

• 1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 2 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic (5 cloves)
• 1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• salt

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl.  (I totally forgot the salt yesterday and it was fine.  I also warmed it up for a minute or 2 in the microwave yesterday to use as a dip.)

papa john's pizza crust

Here is another recipe from Fast food fix.  She actually makes a Hawaiian bbq chicken pizza complete with home-made sauce.  I made that at a later date than this picture, but don't plan to include the recipe.  It would have been just as good (and easier) with purchased bbq sauce.

  This picture was just a day I decided to make pizza after noon, and our regular dough needs to be started before that so I tried this dough.  It turned out well.  The best thing I learned here was how to roll the dough like Papa John's (and I didn't even read it in the book, I just got the brilliant idea on my own (OK so really it wasn't all that brilliant, really I should have thought of it earlier, I just didn't.  I used to always try to roll it under.  This time I tried rolling it to the top and flipping the whole thing over onto the pizza peel.  Worked like a charm.  I made my dough this way the last 2 times I have made it.

Here is how I made the dough.  I found that I didn't need any extra flour that she called for, and I cooked it the way I cook all crust now.  I also doubled it for our family size.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup warm water 
• 1 Tablespoon instant yeast
• 4 teaspoons sugar
• 3 1/2 cups unbleached flour
• 1 cup bread flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 teaspoons olive oil

Directions

1. [If not using instant yeast, proof it in a small bowl (place water sugar and yeast in bowl, stir until yeast is dissolved, let rest until it starts to bubble.)]  If using instant yeast like we always do, place all ingredients in a stand mixer.  Mix with dough hook until dough is smooth and elastic.  (6-10 minutes depending on the mixer.)  Cover and let rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
2. Preheat oven to 550.  Divide dough in half. Roll out half into a 14" circle (mine probably wasn't quite that large - I made as big as fit on my pizza peel.)  Let rest for a minute or 2.  (this reduces shrinkage of the dough when you transfer it to the peel.)   While you are waiting, sprinkle a pizza peel with cornmeal.   Roll up the edge of the dough.  (this will form the crust when flipped over.)  Gently flip the pizza crust over onto the pizza peel.  Give it a shake to make sure it will slide - if not add more cornmeal underneath before topping.  Top pizza as desired.
3. Slide pizza off onto pizza stone.  Bake for 5-8 minutes until cheese is melted and crust is golden.

Sweet and Sour Onion Marmalade (Pizza Sauce)

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 4 large yellow onions, sliced wafer thin
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced wafer thin

Cook onions over medium heat until caramelized, about 20 to 25 mins.

• 3/4 cup sugar

Add sugar, stir until onions are coated and sugar melts / begins to bubble, about 3 mins.

• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 tsp salt.
• 1/8 tsp. black pepper

Move onions to sides of pan, pour vinegar into the center and reduce.  

Let cool completely before storing in airtight container.

This was a great sauce for pizza, with sausage and mozzarella cheese.

Candy corn pizza, quick pizza crust

Here is another item that I forgot to post, but as I'm adding pictures (soooo far behind I know.)  I found this picture.  I wanted to make this "pizza" as a side to go with my dinner in a pumpkin.  It was simple pizza.  I had made the crust to be eaten on Oct. 30.  We had trunk or treat, and a million things to do, so I pulled out an old recipe I had for a quick pizza crust from a friend of mine back in college.  I made the crust and then we ended up not having time to make the pizza before the trunk or treat so I refrigerated the dough and made it as a side to our Halloween meal.  It was tasty.  I don't suggest refrigerating the dough, it grew bigger than the container and then got dry spots.  But it was still workable.  The dough is great in a pickle though if you need a good pizza crust quick.  I didn't follow the regular directions on the dough - I cooked it how I always cook pizza which is with the oven as hot as it will go on a pizza stone for 8 minutes (giver or take 2 minutes.)  I'm just writing out the recipe for the dough.  

To make candy corn pizza with this crust (or any other crust), just add mozzarella in the middle and cheddar on the outside.  You could also do a gouda in the middle for yellow.  That would be fun, but we didn't have any.  We did try one with feta for the white and that was good too.  Heat until cheese is melted.

Ingredients

• 1 cup warm water
• 1 Tablespoon yeast
• 1/2 Tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 Tablespoon oil
• 2 cups flour

Directions

1. Dissolve yeast and sugar in water.  Add salt, oil and flour.  Mix, knead for a few minutes until smooth.  
2. Spread on a greased pan.  Let rise 5-10 minutes.  Add toppings.  Bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes. (When I cooked this as candy corn pizza I baked it like I do all pizza crust  now - for 6- 8 min at 550 directly on my pizza stone.)

Chicken apple pizza

We have been trying to have pizza a bit more often since everyone likes it, but in addition to a regular pizza, I like to try something new. This was our something new this past week. The original recipe called for a chicken-apple sausage. I would have loved to try this with chicken apple sausage, but I didn't go and find any. Saw a couple of recipes for chicken apple sausage, but I really didn't have time to make them because we ended up doing pizza on a piano lesson day (my regular slow cooker night because I'm busy teaching and don't have time to make an elaborate meal.) I'd love to try this with a chicken apple sausage.  I saw an intriguing recipe at marthastewart.com.  And another rather different, yet still intriguing recipe at about.com.  They used ice rather than fat in their sausage - very interesting.  Another day.  

This recipe was in my Taste of home magazine, but it was in an add for lucky leaf pie filling.  

I have to be honest, I was a bit worried to try this pizza.  I mean, apple slices, onion, chicken and gouda - I wasn't sure if I even liked gouda, but this pizza was really good.  I loved the caramelized onions on it.  Yum.

This recipe also had baby arugula on it.  I bought arugula and everything then forgot to add it at the end.  Silly me.  I'm writing it how I made it because I changed a few things.  Our pizza was a bit smaller than the original recipe.  It wanted you to make a 14" pizza but our pizza peel and pizza stone won't really accommodate a pizza quite that large.  I've adjusted the amounts accordingly where I could.  Some things like cheese and chicken I don't measure.  I just add until it looks nice.  We also never follow directions for cooking pizza.  The original had you cook it cooler, cook the crust part way, add the toppings and cook again.  We just put the oven as hot as it goes and cook it raw crust with toppings until the cheese is melted and crust is done.

 

Ingredients

• 1/2 Tablespoon butter
• 1/2 medium sweet onion sliced 1/4 inch thick 
• pre-cooked chicken (not sure on an amount)
• 1 pizza crust - we used a roman dough, but you could use a tube refrigerated crust.
• 1 can premium pie filling (we used the sugar free.  It had tons of apples.)
• 1 - 1 1/2 cups shredded gouda cheese (original called for gouda or provolone)

Directions

1. Pre heat oven as hot as it will go.  (550 for us.)  
2. In a small skillet, saute onions in butter until tender and slightly caramelized.  
3. On a floured or greased surface, roll dough into a 10-12 inch round pizza.  Spread with pie filling.  (We did not use the whole can.  Maybe 2/3 of it.)  Top with onion and chicken.  Sprinkle with cheese.  Bake 8-10 minutes until cheese is melted and crust is golden.  (You may want to check it after 5, but it seems like this one took a bit longer to cook.)

Bruschetta pizza

Woohoo.  Dinner is still cooking, and this is my last post to catch myself up - oops, spoke too soon, dinner is beeping.
OK, dinner is over.  Now to finish blogging before I go make some cookies.
This is a pizza we made the other day.  We used Roman dough and Neo-nepolitana from our pizza dough book.  But we used the toppings from a recipe I saw on Recipe shoebox. I liked this recipe for a change.  I liked the freshness of the tomato and basil on top.  I also liked that it didn't have the traditional red sauce, just the toppings.  It was quite taste.  For sausage we used some more of the Italian sausage that Brandon had made the other day.  It was tasty.

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound pork sausage (not sure how much we used per pizza)
• 1 pizza crust of choosing (we used a home made like this one but you could choose a pre-made)
• 1 package turkey pepperoni
• 2 cups mozzarella cheese
• 1 1/2 cups chopped plum tomatoes
• 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon minced fresh thyme (or 1/8 teaspoon dried)
• 1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper

Directions

1. In a small skillet, cook sausage until no longer pink.  Drain.  
2. Top pizza crust with sausage, pepperoni and cheese (we actually made 2 smaller pizzas with this amount of toppings.)  Original had you bake these at 450 for 10-12 minutes.  We baked our on our home made dough at 550 for 6-7 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, combine tomatoes, basil, olive oil, garlic, thyme, vinegar, salt and pepper in a small bowl. 
4. When pizza is out of the oven, top with tomato mixture.  

no yeast pizza crust

Found this too at sparkrecipes.  I accidentally cooked it a long time with the toppings, but it didn't seem to do it any harm.  It tasted fine, but the texture wasn't what I am used to or like in a pizza crust.  A little chewy for me.  I'm not sure why the texture wasn't what I liked because the cornmeal crust was a bit different texture but it totally went with the taco pizza.  Anyway, the Italian seasoning in the recipe totally helped this, so like I said, it tasted good, it just wasn't my favorite texture for a pizza crust.  However, I did also bake it in a pan, but it was a stickier dough and not holding together very well so it seemed to need the pan.  So, on to the recipe.  I did double it from what I found on sparkrecipes.  Thankfully with this recipe I added the water slowly, but I still had to add about a Tablespoon of flour.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 Cup White flour (plus 1 extra tablespoon)
• 1/2 Cup Whole Wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning 
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 3/4 Cup water

Directions

1. Combine dry ingredients in mixer bowl.  Mix until combined.  Gradually add water until you get a nice consistency dough.
2. Place dough on a greased cookie sheet and press to the edges.  (This didn't work so well for me.  I rolled it partially out on my counter, then pressed it the rest of the way into the cookie sheet.)
3. Bake at 400 for 4 minutes to set the crust.  (you could probably do a tiny bit more here)  Add toppings (we added sauce, cheese, ham, pepperoni, and pineapple today.)  Bake an additional 5-10 minutes until cheese is melted.  (I accidentally left mine in a long time because my 5 minute buzzer went of, I thought "I'll just leave it a couple minutes longer"  then someone brought in the baby who had fallen down and I kind of forgot about it.  Oops - even turned the oven up for the other pizza.  Somehow it wasn't burnt to a crisp and it was still edible.)

Taco pizza with wheat/cornmeal crust

It was pizza night tonight.  I didn't start early enough for my regular crust that I love, so I started looking online.  Honestly since we upped the amount we have pizza, I wanted to try something new for the crust anyway.  I must post this right away before I forget what I did.  It was tasty.  I got the idea from a sparkrecipe that I found but it needed some editing because I didn't want to follow the directions and add the water slowly.  I just added it all and it was way too wet.  So I added more cornmeal until it was a decent consistency.  I actually liked the additional cornmeal.  Added to the taco feel.  I also really ended up liking the easy-made refried like black beans I made up to go on this.  I thought they went wonderfully with the crust.  YUM!

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 Tablespoon instant yeast (If you use active dry you may want to proof it first
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 Tablespoon agave
• 3/4 cup cornmeal
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup warm water

Topping Ingredients

• 1 15 oz. can black beans rinsed and drained
• 1 cup salsa (I used Pace picante, mild)
• 2 roma tomatoes diced
• 1 red pepper diced
• 2 cups chopped lettuce
• 1 small can sliced olives
• (optional toppings - avacado, jalapeno, sour cream, diced onion (totally meant to add sour cream and diced onion tonight.  Oops.)

Directions

1. Combine all dough ingredients in mixer and mix and knead until a smooth dough is formed.  (It was a little sticky before the rise, but I left it that way thinking the cornmeal would absorb some of the liquid and it did.)  Preheat oven as hot as it will go.
2. Let rest and rise 30 min (give or take depending on how much you want it to rise - I just let it rise while I was making my other pizza.)  Divide dough into 2 equal parts, roll out to the size pizza/thickness of crust that you want. Place on a pizza peel covered with cornmeal.  
3. Combine black beans and salsa.  Mash with a potato masher until desired consistency.   Top with cheese.  Cook on a pizza stone for 6 minutes.  Remove from oven.  Let cool on slightly on a cooling rack.  Top with chopped tomatoes, red pepper, olives, lettuce and anything else you might want to add.  I actually added different toppings to different sections of the pizza according to my children's tastes - so half had tomato, half red pepper, all had olives and tomatoes....

Bacon-Chicken club pizza

We've decided to have pizza more often because everyone likes it.  However, in sticking with my -don't repeat the same foods in a month routine, I've been looking for different types of pizzas to try.  Sunday we tried way to many new things for one day.  Luckily, we had started some of the stuff the night before.  We had just run out of time and decided to finish it for Sunday dinner.

First, Brandon decided to make some homemade Italian sausage.  (recipe to follow.)  We decided to try that on a new type of crust.  It was supposed to be the thinnest you can make.  Basically you make a large pita, cut it in half,(into 2 rounds) and then use 1/2 the pita as the crust.  It wasn't either of our favorite crusts, so I'm not posting more about that.  It was good, but we like Roman dough better.  We topped that crust with our regular sauce, and either mozzarella, homemade sausage and/or pineapple.
Along with that I decided to try a non red sauce pizza.  It is from my simple and delicious magazine.  However, it calls for a prebaked 12 inch pizza crust.  I tried a new crust recipe that I found on the sisterscafe.  It was a bit thick for my liking normally, but I think it paired well with this particular pizza because it was a hefty pizza with lots of toppings.  I'll write the pizza recipe followed by the crust I used.

Ingredients

• 1 prebaked 12-inch pizza crust (can use recipe below.  I cooked it for 3-5 minutes before adding toppings)
• 4 oz. cream cheese, softened (I used neufchatel)
• 1 shallot, minced
• 2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken (I used my pre-cooked)
• 1 1/2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese (ended up using white cheddar here)
• 8 slices ready to serve bacon (Fried my own, but would be quicker to use pre-cooked)
• 1/4 cup sour cream (fat free)
• 3 Tablespoons milk (I used skim)
• 2 teaspoons ranch salad dressing mix
• 1 cup shredded lettuce
• 1 plum tomato, chopped

Directions

1. Place crust on an ungreased pizza pan (we put it on our pizza peel and baked it on our pizza stone at 550 for only 5 more minutes)  Combine cream cheese and shallot;  spread over crust.  Top with chicken, cheeses and bacon.  
2. Bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes or until edges are lightly browned and cheese is melted.
3. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine sour cream, milk and dressing mix.  
4. Sprinkle lettuce and tomato over pizza; drizzle with dressing.

Pizza crust Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups very warm water
• 1 Tb sugar
• 1 scant Tb yeast
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 Tb olive oil
• 4 cups flour

Directions

1. In a large mixing bowl dissolve sugar and yeast in warm water - let sit for 10 minutes. Foam should form on top. Whisk in salt, olive oil and 1 cup flour. Whisk in 2nd cup of flour. At this point put on dough hook and turn mixer in low as you add the last 2 cups of flour. (I just used the same dough attachment on my bosch for all of it.) If your dough is too sticky, add flour a little bit at a time until dough forms a ball. Knead for 5 minutes. (Or 10 minutes by hand) Place dough in oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise for an hour in a warm place until double in size. Punch down dough and divide into 2 parts. Each half will make a 12 inch pizza. If you only want to make one pizza now, then put other dough ball in an oiled freezer bag and pop in the freezer for another day! Allow dough to rest for 15 minutes then roll out.

Note:  I found t his dough to be a tad sticky, but not unmanageably so.  I did not add any extra flour because it did gather together in a ball.

New York Style Pizzas

I've decided we will have more pizza nights because we all love pizza and everyone eats it without complaint.  Can't beat that right.  However, since I don't like having the same thing over and over, I've decided with this new pizza more often plan that we will try different pizzas.  DH wanted to try and even thinner crust pizza today, but I decided to flip through the our favorite pizza book, American Pie,  (I love this book.  It is purely pizza, but also a lot of story about trying the pizzas, and where he found them.  Great book!)   The first interesting recipes I came to that were not using Neapolitan or Neo Neapolitan crusts (which we use most often around here) were the New York style.

Pizza Bianca

A friend of Brandon's e-mailed him this pizza recipe. Aaron was home with a fever from church again today, so Brandon started the crust and I finished it when I came home from church and switched him places. I really liked the crust - not so much as a pizza, but as a bread. It was yummy. I thought the sauce was way too plain. I like some flavor in my crust. It was an interesting way to make dough though. I just copied and pasted the e-mail from Brandon's inbox. Not sure where it originally came from, but it looks like there may be links in there. It is kind of mixed up directions/ingredients/ then directions again.

Serve the pizza by itself as a snack or with soup or salad for a light meal. Once the dough has been placed in the oiled bowl, it can be transferred to the refrigerator and kept for up to 24 hours. Bring the dough to room temperature, 2 to 2 1/2 hours, before proceeding with step 4. When kneading the dough on high speed, the mixer tends to wobble and move on the counter. Place a towel or shelf liner under the mixer and watch it at all times during mixing. Handle the dough with slightly oiled hands. Resist flouring your fingers or the dough might stick. This recipe was developed using an 18- by 13-inch baking sheet. Smaller baking sheets can be used, but because the pizza will be thicker, baking times will be longer. If not using a pizza stone, increase the oven temperature to 500 degrees and set the rack to the lowest position; the cooking time might increase by 3 to 5 minutes and the exterior won’t be as crisp.

Toppings
1	(28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
1	tablespoon olive oil
1/8	teaspoon table salt
1 1/2	cups shredded mozzarella cheese (6 ounces)
Dough
3	cups unbleached all-purpose flour (15 ounces)
1 2/3	cups water (13 1/2 ounces), room temperature
1 1/4	teaspoons table salt
1 1/2	teaspoons instant yeast
1 1/4	teaspoons sugar
5	tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Instructions

1. 1. Place 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes in fine-mesh strainer set over medium bowl. Let sit 30 minutes, stirring 3 times to allow juices to drain. Combine 3/4 cup tomato solids, 1 tablespoon olive oil, and 1/8 teaspoon table salt. (Save remaining solids and juice for another use.)

2. 2. Place towel or shelf liner beneath stand mixer to prevent wobbling. Mix flour, water, and table salt in bowl of stand mixer fitted with dough hook on low speed until no patches of dry flour remain, 3 to 4 minutes, occasionally scraping sides and bottom of bowl. Turn off mixer and let dough rest 20 minutes.

3. 3. Sprinkle yeast and sugar over dough. Knead on low speed until fully combined, 1 to 2 minutes, occasionally scraping sides and bottom of bowl. Increase mixer speed to high and knead until dough is glossy, smooth, and pulls away from sides of bowl, 6 to 10 minutes. (Dough will only pull away from sides while mixer is on. When mixer is off, dough will fall back to sides.)

4. 4. Using fingers, coat large bowl with 1 tablespoon oil, rubbing excess oil from fingers onto blade of rubber spatula. Using oiled spatula, transfer dough to bowl and pour 1 tablespoon oil over top. Flip dough over once so it is well coated with oil; cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let dough rise at room temperature until nearly tripled in volume and large bubbles have formed, 2 to 2 1/2 hours.

5. 5. One hour before baking pizza, adjust oven rack to middle position, place pizza stone on rack, and heat oven to 450 degrees.

6. 6. Coat rimmed baking sheet with 2 tablespoons oil. Using rubber spatula, turn dough out onto baking sheet along with any oil in bowl. Using fingertips, press dough out toward edges of pan, taking care not to tear it. (Dough will not fit snugly into corners. If dough resists stretching, let it relax for 5 to 10 minutes before trying to stretch again.) Let dough rest in pan until slightly bubbly, 5 to 10 minutes. Using dinner fork, poke surface of dough 30 to 40 times and sprinkle with kosher salt.

7. 7. Bake until spotty brown, 15 to 17 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking. Using metal spatula, remove pizza from oven, spread tomato mixture evenly over surface, and sprinkle with shredded mozzarella. Return pizza to oven and continue to bake until cheese begins to brown in spots, 5 to 10 minutes longer.

Secrets to No-Roll Pizza

1. The dough for pizza bianca is far too wet to roll out. Instead, pour it onto a well-oiled baking sheet.

2. Shaping is easy: Press the dough from its middle toward the edges of the pan.

3. To cook the moisture off, bake the crust on a pizza stone on the middle rack of a 450-degree oven.

Recipe Testing

Pizza Water Works To achieve its chewy, bubbly texture, our recipe for Pizza Bianca calls for 9 parts water to 10 parts flour—an almost 30 percent higher level of hydration than in most other pizza dough. Water aids the development of gluten, the network of crosslinked proteins that gives bread its internal structure and chew. Up to a point, the more water in the dough, the stronger and more elastic the gluten strands and the chewier the bread. These strands, in turn, help to support the air bubbles formed as the dough bakes, preventing them from bursting and creating an open, airy crust.

Barbecue Chicken pizza

We have made this type of pizza before. I got some extra ideas from my Food Nanny book - like trying smoked Gouda on the pizza. I thought that was good the first day, but definitely didn't reheat well. I also tried her pizza dough recipe. While the kids really liked it, I prefer the Reinhart's doughs that we normally make. The pizza did look pretty though, but the one I took a picture of was under cooked. I ended up putting it back in the oven on the pizza stone for a few extra minutes.



Pizza Dough

• 1 Tablespoon yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon honey
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3-4 cups flour (I used 1 cup and a partial cup of wheat, then finished out with white.)

Pizza

• pre-cooked chicken
• barbecue sauce
• shredded smoked Gouda
• 3 1/2 cups mozzarella
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion

Directions

1. Mix yeast and water in a small bowl, cover and let stand until foamy, 5 to 10 minutes.
2. Mix oil, honey, salt, and yeast in mixing bowl. Mix in 3 cups of flour. If dough seems too wet, mix in more flour, 1/4 cup at a time until the dough is moderately stiff and somewhat firm to the tough. (I'm bad at explaining this, I just know what it should look like. Directions in the book say to mix with a wooden spoon, then knead by hand - I didn't. I mixed it in my mixer with my dough hook until it looked and felt right.)
3. The recipe says to grease pans and cook the dough on pans, but I don't like that. I actually made one on a pan because it stuck to the pan I was going to use as a pizza peel, but it stuck - it ended up not cooking all the way through. I cooked mine right on the pizza stone. Roll out the dough to the thickness you want. Put on a pizza peel covered with cornmeal.
   
4. Spread barbecue sauce on pizza. Sprinkle with mozzarella, chicken, onions and gouda.
5. Bake at 425 for 8 to 10 minutes on a pizza stone.
   

Pizza

We love pizza at our house. It is one of the few foods that we have regularly. I found a book by Peter Reinhart called American Pie that I absolutely love. It has recipes for all types of pizza dough - Napoletana, Roman, Neo-Nepolitan, New York -style, Americana, Chicago style deep dish and more. It also has some recipes for sauces, and even ideas for toppings. I've also used a wheat recipe out of his book Whole grain breads. That was quite good too. Our favorite to make is Neo-Nepolitan with whatever toppings we like, but we also like all of the others we have tried, and we had tried most of them. We even like the super thin crust - it comes out like a cracker - super fun to try something different. I highly recommend the book if you are a pizza nut like we are.
Here is a slightly amended and definitely abbreviated (instructions) version of Neo-Nepolitan recipe. If you want more details or to try his exact recipe, check out his book. I got it at the library and liked it so much I bought it.

This is actually not a picture of the pizza I have put the recipe to. I thought I had multiple pictures of pizza already taken, but this is the only one I can find. It is a picture of a super thin crust. If I find more pictures I'll post them later. This recipe is for a medium crust - not too thin, not too thick.

Ingredients

• 4 1/2 cups bread flour
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon instant yeast
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 3/4 cup room temp. water

Directions

1. Mix all ingredients in mixer with dough hook 4 minutes (until it forms a ball.) Let rest 5 minutes. Mix again on medium low speed for 2 minutes or until dough clears side of bowl and sticks to bottom. If it is too sticky add more flour, if it is too dry, add more water. (It should be soft and slightly sticky, but not so sticky that it will stick all over when you try to roll it out later.)
2. Divide into 4 balls. Round into a ball and brush with oil. Put each ball in it's own container with a lid (or zip top bag.) Let set at room temp for 15 min. Refrigerate overnight of freeze any pieces that won't be used the next day.
3. The next day, take dough out 2 hours before you want to use them. Preheat the oven to highest setting. After 2 hours, roll out dough or toss if you are good at that. We put our dough on a pizza peel that has cornmeal on it then add the toppings. (Today we had ham an pineapple, cheese, and pepperoni.) Then we slide it into the oven right onto the pizza stone.
4. Bake on a pizza stone for 8 to 10 minutes until done.

Like I said, that is my version and it is a super abbreviated version of the directions. Check out his book if you want lots of details and pictures. Not to mention the fact that it is a decent read - talks about his travels to try different pizzas.

Another idea I love from his book is his pizza sauces. He has a crushed tomato sauce and marinara pizza sauce that are both yummy.
Here's how I made a crushed tomato sauce based on his today.

Ingredients

• 1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1/2 teaspoon basil
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• 2 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions:

Mix it all together in a bowl.

Honestly I was surprised by how much I loved this sauce. It is so simple with no cooking involved. I guess because I like spaghetti sauce that simmers all day I thought that this would need to do the same. I change the herbs up all the time trying different ones out. I'm not a huge fan of basil, but I like thyme, so I tried changing those up today. You can sub out red wine vinegar for the lemon juice, and add more salt if you like it more salty. Have fun experimenting. I just like the idea of using crushed tomatoes and making my own sauce.

Update 12/04 - This time when I made the sauce I used a full teaspoon of thyme and red wine vinegar in place of the lemon juice. I think I liked this better. This may also be the day my basil ran out so I only ended up with about 1/4 teaspoon. Still yummy. Here are pictures from that day. In one I rolled the dough out a little thinner and then rolled the edges back to form the crust. In the other, I semi-tossed it -DH is the one who can toss, not me and he was not home. Still, I spread it more on my fists and ended up with a bit thicker crust that was automatically a tiny bit thicker around the edges. Toppings today were ham and pineapple (left over from Thanksgiving.) and sauce and mutz (fresh mozzarella) with the cheese placed right on the crust and the sauce put on top of that.