Pizza Pizza

Remember that old Little Caesars commercial? Pizza Pizza!

Seems everyone is on the homemade pizza bandwagon these days. I just saw MS today making homemade pizzas with Jennifer Garner. Must be the recession. Are we so recessed that pizza is a luxury?

In my opinion, homemade pizza runs circles around delivery with or without a recession. Other than when I was 22 and didn't know how to cook, pizza has never been on my weekly rotation. But this homemade pizza could definitely change my ways!

As I've previously mentioned, I just finished Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingslover. Barbara and her family make pizza a Friday night tradition. Her husband makes the homemade dough and the toppings are from their garden of course. This is where I first got the idea to try homemade pizza.

However I know my limits, I wasn't making homemade dough. Oddly enough my husband told me that he saw homemade pizza dough at Trader Joe's (our favorite grocery store) so Ozzie and I headed out for a pizza ingredients shopping day. I knew I had an old pizza recipe saved in my recipe binder so I decided to give it a try.

Here are the results...

Delicious right? We made two versions.

Version 1 on whole wheat dough

Ingredients:

1 package of Trader Joe's whole wheat pizza dough

3/4 cup grated Romano

3/4 cup grated Fontina

1 cup low fat Ricotta

2 roasted bell peppers or 2 cups bottled if you don't want to roast your own but why wouldn't you?

4 oz. ultrathin Italian salami

Directions:

Roll out dough as directed on package

In a bowl mix Romano and Fontina and sprinkle on dough

Add Ricotta in dollops

Add salami and peppers

Cook at 450 degrees for 10 minutes or until cheese is bubbling and crust is golden brown

Version 2 on plain white dough

Ingredients:

1 package Trader Joe's plain pizza dough

Tomato sauce to taste- I cheated and used TJ's canned pizza sauce but you could make your own. I want to try that someday too.

1/2 cup Romano

1/2 cup Parmesan

2 roasted bell peppers

Directions:

Roll out dough as directed on package

Dollop tomato sauce on dough

Add cheese mix

Add salami and peppers

Cook at 450 degrees for 10 minutes or until cheese is bubbling and crust is golden brown

Tomato Sauce

Fresh plum tomatoes

3/4 cup chopped fresh basil

2 tbsp finely chopped fresh garlic

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Salt & Pepper to taste

So we loved the pizza so much, we made another the next week. Like I said weekly rotation.

Margherita Pizza

Same as above except omit tomato sauce and add fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced tomatoes, fresh chopped basil and salt & pepper to taste.

For those of you that REALLY want to make your own dough here is a recipe I've saved for years and have yet to try.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp molasses

1 package (1/4 oz) active dry yeast

2 1/2 tbsp kosher salt

2 1/2 tbsp olive oil

1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour

2 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

Vegetable oil cooking spray or olive oil

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine molasses and yeast with 1 1/3 cups lukewarm water and stir.

Set aside until bubbly, about 5 minutes.

Add salt and oil and stir.

In a seperate bowl, mix flours together.

Add yeast mix to flours and stir with wooden spoon until dough forms. (I think I'd use my kitchenaid here but to each his own)

Using hands, roll dough into ball and coat with cooking spray or olive oil

Roll dough out on lightly floured surface

Top with favorite topings and bake according to pizza recipe