Pizza two ways

I know I said the next entry would be carrot cake, but that’s still coming… (the cake was delicious but writing it up is taking awhile.) In the meantime, here’s something I made tonight.

We very rarely eat fast food or takeout for several reasons – firstly, it doesn’t generally taste very good compared to anything homemade, secondly it’s too expensive for what you get unless you spend a fortune on it, and thirdly you can whip up something at home in less time than it takes to wait for delivery. But we love pizza. There are a number of pizzerias around that make BRILLIANT pizza, but they’re outside our price range unless it’s a super special occasion. We used to turn to Dijiorno’s ‘Ultimate’ pizza for our pizza fix, but they’re very salty and not cheap… and since John can’t eat capsicum/peppers any more, the only flavour we could have was pepperoni. And I find that boring and far too salty… so what did we do? I learned to make them at home!

Okay, confession time. I do not make my own pizza crust from scratch. I know it’s not very hard, but it takes 24 hours to make a good dough, and when we want pizza, we want it NOW, not tomorrow! So I started trying various bought alternatives. Frozen bread dough tastes pretty good, but you have to let it thaw out and then sit for an hour before you use it, and it’s VERY sticky and gooey from all the moisture. A precooked bought crust (Bobolli etc.) is expensive for what you get and not very satisfying. It tastes too much like frozen pizza. And the fresh pizza dough they sell in the grocery store fights back too hard when you try to get it into the pan, even though it tastes great when it’s done. Non-pizza crust crusts work pretty well in a pinch – pita bread makes nice individual pizzas… but we wanted the ‘real thing’. And I found it in the most unexpected place. It lets me make a pizza from start to finish inside 30 minutes, it’s exactly the right texture, not too wet and not too dry, it doesn’t stick to my hands, and it tastes amazingly good for what it is. My secret weapon? Don’t shoot me – but here it is… something that I never would have dreamed of using if I hadn’t tried it in a grocery store tasting – Pillsbury Pizza Crust!

All you need to do is to pop open the can and unroll it then gently ease it into the corners of your pan. This is supposed to make a ‘thick crust’ for a small sheet pan, but I turn it into a large thin crust pizza instead, and it comes out just right for our liking. If you decide to try the crust, ignore their cooking directions on the pack – crank the oven up to 450 and bake the pizza for 15 minutes.

The other problem with pizza-making is what to put on it? John is a meat lover. He doesn’t mind mushrooms and olives and a little onion on his pizza, but all he really wants  is pepperoni, sausage, salami, ham and/or bacon, or any combination thereof. I’m more of a veggie-girl. I love pizza with all the fresh veggies I can pile on it, a little ham or salami for flavour, some egg for extra protein, and just enough cheese to help hold it together. So what do I do? Either  I split the pizza down the middle and make ‘his half’ and ‘my half’ or if I have a little more time I make two seperate pizzas. That way he can have his heart-attack-on-a-plate and I can have something healthy… and that’s what I did tonight.

John’s pizza –  tomato paste, cheese, onion, mushrooms, olives, lots of salami and pepperoni.

My pizza – tomato, onion, zucchini, mushrooms, olives, cherry tomatoes, a little frozen corn, beaten egg underneath, 2 slices of shredded ham, 4 slices of salami ditto, some leftover chicken, and a small amount of cheese on top.

Now tell me – which pizza would YOU rather have on your plate???

Tags: pizza