Pizza Pizza

Jake and I are big time pizza people. We love creating a basic crust then looking through our fridge and pantry to make unique and delicious pizzas. For this recipe we used leftover ingredients from the meals we made this past week and combined our favorites to make this lovely creation.

Have any extra dough from the calzones we made earlier this week? Use it to make this pizza.

Here's what you need:
-Pizza dough (I used about 1/3 of this dough recipe)
-Sauce
-Mozzarella Cheese
-Grape tomatoes
-Green bell pepper
-Kalamata Olives

Here's what you do:
-Pre-heat oven to 400 F.
-Lightly grease a baking sheet.
-Roll out dough into a 1/4 inch thick circle. Place on baking sheet.
-Dice up the bell pepper into small bite-sized chunks.
-Slice grape tomatoes and Kalamata olives in half.
-Spread desired amount of sauce evenly onto pizza dough.
-Top with cheese, tomatoes, peppers, and olives.
-Bake for 20-25 min, or until crust is firm and golden brown on the bottom.

We haven't thought of a name for this pizza. Any ideas?

I hope you all have a great weekend! I'm going to go check out a local vintage sale. They have a lot of cute valentine's decor! What are you up to?
  Pin It

Make-Your-Own Calzone

When my husband and I got married, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law put together a cookbook with some of their favorite recipes. It is such a great gift because it included recipes Jake ate growing up. 

When we moved a few months ago, I put all my cookbooks in a drawer and completely forgot about them. Luckily when I was wondering what to make for dinner this weekend, Jake remembered this calzone/pizza dough recipe and we pulled that cute red cookbook out of the drawer and got to baking.

This calzone was seriously the best I have ever had. I'm not a big fan of calzone, and probably haven't had any for quite a few years. Now I want to eat this calzone for every meal. Of course I won't, but if you come over for dinner sometime soon, there's a big chance we'll be making this.

Here's what you need:

Dough

-2 Packets dry active yeast

-2 c. warm water

-2 tsp Salt

-6 Tbs Olive Oil

-1 tsp sugar

-5 cups of Flour (and a little extra for rolling the dough)

Toppings It's up to you! Get creative. Here are a few suggestions.

-Marinara Sauce

-Mozzarella cheese

-Pepperoni slices

-Canadian Bacon

-Pineapple chunks

-Green pepper chunks

-Olives

Here's what you do:

Dough

-Dissolve yeast in water

- Add olive oil, sugar, and salt. Let sit for about 8 minutes

-Add mixture to the flour in a large mixing bowl. Kneed until smooth. (add more flour if needed)

-Place dough in a greased bowl, cover, and set in a warm place to rise for 1-2 hours. Dough will double in size.

-Preheat oven to 400 F

-Divide dough into 6 equal pieces.

-Roll out each piece on a floured surface until the dough is about 1/4 inch thick.

-Let each person assemble their calzone with the toppings they like.

-Fold calzones in half and fold over the edges to keep the toppings inside.

-Place calzones on a greased baking sheet and bake for 20-25 min.

These are fun to make with a big group of people. Make sure you decorate the top of your calzone so you can pick yours apart from the rest after they bake.

Enjoy!

Margherita Pizza

This weekend my mom and sister came up to visit. We had a blast! One day was spent at the beach taking my sister's senior pictures, another lounging around the house, and one of the last included a trip to Trader Joe's. A couple of my favorite purchases were the Tomato Basil Marinara Sauce (We love this on pasta. I've never liked store-bought sauce, but I buy two jars every time I'm at Trader Joe's. It's that good.) and a big basil plant. The two inspired me to make a fresh margherita pizza.

Here's what you need:
-1 box Jiffy pizza mix
-Fresh basil leaves
-About 2 roma tomatoes
-Roughly 1/2 pound mozzarella cheese (I like cheesy pizza, ok?)
-Tomato Basil Marinara Sauce

Here's what you do:
-Make pizza dough according to instructions on box. (make sure to pre-bake the dough for about 3 min. before adding toppings)
-Slice tomatoes and mozzarella into thin pieces and cut basil leaves in half
-Cover pizza dough with as much marinara sauce as you like.
-Add tomatoes, mozzarella slices, and basil until pizza is covered.
-Bake according to box.

What I love about this pizza: it's fresh, the crust is thin and crunchy, and the marina adds an extra flavor that many margherita pizzas lack.

Enjoy!