Pizza Dough

1 cup water, warm
2 1/2 tsp yeast (1 package)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 TBS sugar
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 lb flour

1. Put water, yeast, oil, cream of tartar and sugar in a bowl.
2. Mix until yeast dissolves.
3. Pour in bread flour slowly, while continually stirring.
4. Knead with dough hook for about 10 minutes straight.
5. Roll dough into a ball and place into a slightly oiled bowl.
6. Cover bowl with damp kitchen towel.
7. Let dough raise for about 30 minutes, in a warm environment (we turned the back burners on the stove to low and stuck the bowl in the middle)
8. Slightly flour countertop and roll dough to desired thickness.

Nate is the expert dough maker at our house. Honestly, I don't ever make the dough (for pizza). But, he's totally a pro now. And he's decided that this will now be our go-to dough. Its mixes so well with our kitchen aid, and turns into such a good little (not really little) ball. He loves the consistency of this dough, so after 2 times making it in one week there will probably be many more to come.

We used this dough for some delicious calzones, check the recipe out here.

Garlic Ranch Chicken Bacon Calzone

The past couple of days we've been lazy, so we just heated up some frozen food (potstickers one night, breaded chicken another) and topped them with some teryiaki sauce. Because both of those meals were 'asian' I told Nate we had to to Mexican or Italian last night. We decided upon Italian, but we wanted something new. Now, I can't say this recipe is VERY Italian, but anything calzone/pizza is close enough in my book. Plus, even if this isn't "Italian" I promise you'll love it, nonetheless.

1/2 cup ranch dressing

1 TBS chopped garlic

2 chicken breasts

1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded

7-8 slices of bacon

1 large pizza dough

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Cut the chicken breasts in half and slightly season (I used seasonall, garlic salt, onion salt, and basil)

3. Cook the chicken for about 15 minutes (until inner temperature is 165), chop into 1 inch pieces when cooked.

4. Cook bacon strips over medium heat, crumble into small pieces when cooked

5. Combine ranch dressing and chopped garlic in a bowl and stir.

6. Seperate pizza dough into 2 equal sized sections. **

7. Roll each section into a circle, about 10 inches.

8. Top 1/2 of each circle with garlic ranch dressing.

9. Cover garlic ranch generously with cheese.

10. Top with chopped chicken and crumbled bacon.

11. Fold dough in half, completely covering toppings

12. Crimp edge over itself a little and pinch closed.

13. Make 3 slits on top of dough with knife (so the hot air can be released).

4. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes.

**If you don't like calzones, you could always just make these into pizzas instead.

If you like tomatoes, these calzones would probably taste great with them.

Warning, these calzones were VERY filling. We cut one of the calzones into 6 slices and we each only ate 2. We saved some for Sunday lunch and froze the rest. So we're hoping it tastes just as good reheated.
 

But seriously, this turned out to be so good.  Nate gave this meal an A+, and I HAVE to agree. Like, oh my goodness good. Pizza is always one of my favorite meals, and this type will have to be added to the regular rotation.

 

What's YOUR favorite type of calzone/pizza?

Dessert Pizza

I've always wanted to make a dessert pizza, and never actually made one, but then yesterday Jessica posted a picture of one on her blog and I decided that I needed to finally make one. So, I found the base for my recipe at allrecipes and decided to tweak it a little bit, to make it more homemade and to fit with the fruit that we had on hand.


18 oz Sugar Cookie Dough (you could also use pre-packaged dough)
2 cups Whipped Cream
1 package Neufchatel cream cheese
Sliced Fruit (Use whatever fruit you have around, or whatever fruit you like best - we used bananas, mangos, strawberries and blackberries)

1. Pre-heat oven to
2. Roll out cookie dough on a pizza pan (or baking sheet).
3. Roll out dough to fill about 2/3 of pan, . **
4. Cook 'pizza' for 12 to 15 minutes, until golden brown
5. Cool 'pizza' on pizza pan, above a wire rack.
6. Mix whipped cream and cream cheese together.
7. Once cooled, spread cream topping evenly on crust (I didn't use all of the cream mix that I made, but you can use however much you want)
8. Arrange fruit evenly on 'pizza', or in a decorative pattern.
9. Store in refrigerator until ready to serve.


**Remember that the dough will expand as it cooks.

This turned out so yummy, and I will definitely have to make it again. The only sad thing is that we accidentally left it out overnight, so it (although doesn't yet look rotten) surely has spoiled, due to things that need to be kept cold not being kept cold.

I think in the future I might try to make 'personal pizzas' too, just for fun.

Personal Pita Pizzas

As Nate and I were trying to figure out what to have for dinner, he suggested homemade pizza. We used to make pizza once every week or two, but we haven't made homemade pizza in at least a couple of months. We just bought pitas from Costco today, so I suggested we try personal pizzas with pita for the dough. I did however make homemade sauce, because I feel like it is always so much better than canned/store bought sauce.

It was so nice to have our own personal pizzas because we were able to choose our own toppings and how much sauce and cheese we each wanted. We especially liked being to pick our own toppings, although for these pizzas we used the same toppings, Nate is happy that he'll be able to have mushroom on his pizza in the future (I hate mushrooms). We also decided this was a perfect amount of pizza for each of us as well. (Because when we cook a frozen pizza or buy a pizza we always feel like 'if there is more to eat, I might as well eat it.')

Pizza Sauce  (Please note that for the parsley, oregano, basil, garlic, salt and chicken broth these amounts are guestimates, taste the sauce as you are making it, and add more spices according to what you like.)

1 small can tomato paste

1 can tomato sauce

1 1/2 TBS parsley

1/2 TBS oregano

1/2 TBS basil

1 tsp minced garlic

1/4 tsp salt

2-3 TBS chicken broth**

cheese (we used italian blend and a little cheddar)

4 pitas (we actually made 3 (Dain had one) but have enough sauce left over for maybe 1.5 more.

**Tomato paste is a little sweeter than I like, and so I added a little chicken broth to take away from the sweetness. This little addition made the sauce have a perfect amount of sweetness.

1. Combine tomato paste, sauce, parsley, oregano, basil, garlic, salt and chicken broth in a small pot or pan.
2. Bring to a boil over medium heat.
3. Reduce to a simmer.
4. Simmer for about 7 minutes, (until it is the consistency you like) stirring occasionally.
5. Coat pitas with pizza sauce (as much or as little as you like).
6. Sprinkle with cheese, covering entire pita lightly
7. Top with your favorite pizza toppings. (We used canadian bacon, pepperoni and sausage. Yum!)
8. Bake in the oven, set to 450, for about 8-10 minutes until the cheese starts to bubble.

Having the pita as the crust was also perfect because it tasted delicious. It tasted like a really good pizza crust, without all the hassle or making it and waiting for the dough to rise. Our crust was still soft with a little bit of crispiness on the ends. If you want a crisper crust, try toasting the pita for a couple minutes before you put everything on.