My sister rocks. She sent me a great two part gift: the most excellent pizza cookbook Pizza: More than 60 Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pizza
{image from amazon.com}
Why no dough? In the most excellent pizza cookbook, there are quite a few dough recipes I was planning on trying. Once I finally read through the recipe I read the final words of the last paragraph I had skimmed over, “Let rest at least 10 hours and no more than 2 days in the refrigerator before kneading.” Say what? Well, crap. That takes thinking ahead, which I had not done. Leading into the busiest 2 weeks of the year, painting a mural + coordinating volunteers, I will not have time to make said dough. Well, double crap.
I definitely didn’t want to let all these amazing toppings go to waste and I definitely wanted some homemade pizza. I had been anticipating it for awhile. So here is what I did.
Option 1: Jiffy pizza crust mix. This stuff is 59 cents and simple and tasty. It takes about 10 minutes to prepare and all you have to add is water.
Option 2: Pita pizzas. Pitas are a great inexpensive base to make personal sized pizzas on.
Some pizza thoughts: Jason worked at a pizza place for quite awhile and he said that you may think “more toppings = more tasty pizzas.” That is not always the case. The more toppings you add, the harder it is to cook all the way through. If you are loading it up with things like tomatoes, it causes the dough to get soggier.
Jason and I debate about cheese on top or cheese on the bottom. He says you should go: sauce, cheese, toppings. I say: sauce, toppings, cheese. Ha. It’s a personal preference, so use your own judgment.
On the pizza above we used the Jiffy pizza crust mix, canned pizza sauce (I was in a rush), italian sausage (spicy), Canadian bacon, red onions, and mozzarella cheese. We went all meaty on this one. We also have mozzarella, basil, and tomato pizza pretty regularly. My favorite and Jason’s least favorite: sauerkraut and Canadian bacon!
On my next pizza adventure I’ll share the dough making outcomes and my favorite homemade sauce recipe.
Happy pizza making!
Kristin
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Pizza is really tasty and I really miss it since I can’t eat most cheese.
I’ve been trying to come up with a few recipes that involve hard aged cheese but I don’t think that it be quite the same.
I love homemade pizza – but tend not to make it as often due to the crazy amount of rising time most doughs need. But I just found something amazing when I was at the grocery store the other day: Fleischmann’s Pizza Crust Yeast! It has a recipe right on the jar for a no rise necessary pizza crust. Just mix it up, knead for 4 min, roll out, top and bake – no rising no waiting and it comes out great! I think this might have just saved homemade pizza in my house :)