Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Two Pizza Tips


Last fall I found some great veggie tray markdowns. Instead of the usual $10 they were $2. We ate lots of fresh veggies that week! I decided to use some of them on our Friday night pizza.
I had some Vodka Sauce, which is basically just a creamy spaghetti sauce, in the fridge leftover from a pasta meal I had made earlier in the week. I used this for the pizza sauce.
My Vodka/Veggie Pizza was a tasty success!
Pizza Tip#1--Be Creative! Try something new and experiment with what you have on hand!
At best, you may find a new favorite topping and at worst, you can laugh about the flop and at least congratulate yourself on breaking out of a rut and trying something different!



Pizza Tip #2--BEST PIZZA CRUST!

Back in November, I used up some chickpeas and made and froze 5 containers of garlic hummus. Though I love hummus, I've found that it's not getting used up as fast as I had thought. Since I've often thrown chickpea or white bean puree in with my pizza dough in the bread machine (thanks to my cookbook The Sneaky Chef) I decided to try using up my hummus by adding it to my pizza dough. It was the best pizza dough EVER! I thought it would make the pizza taste strongly like garlic and cause the kids to not like it, but there wasn't a strong taste at all! It was delicious and the whole family wolfed it down! I may just continue making hummus for the express purpose of adding it to the pizza dough!
My favorite bread machine pizza crust:
11/4 C. warm water
3 T olive oil
3/4-1 t. sea salt
2 t. yeast
1/3 c. hummus or chickpea puree
2 C. whole wheat flour
2 C. unbleached white flour
Put on dough cycle and once done, divide in half. Spread on pizza stones sprinkled with cornmeal or lightly greased pizza pans. If your crust is thin, add toppings and bake for 15 minutes. If it is a thicker crust, pre-bake the crust for 10-15 min., then add toppings and bake for 15 minutes more. Makes 2 medium-large pizzas.
Our favorite toppings:
Mushrooms and onions and green peppers that have been saute'd in butter and sprinkled with garlic salt
Taco pizza (use taco sauce instead of pizza sauce) top with taco-seasoned ground beef, black beans, crushed tortilla chips, cheddar cheese, olives, salsa, etc.
Pepperonis that have been snipped into heart shapes or baby pepperonis (sold at Walmart) are fun!
Ham and Pineapple
For More Kitchen Tips, please visit Tammy's Recipes!

5 comments:

Heidi said...

I hope you will find the humor in this, but in my news feed your truncated/teaser post cut off right at the phrase, "I had some Vodka..." and stopped there.

I had to click over just to see what you really meant :)

LS said...

I got a huge kick out of that Heidi!

Anonymous said...

You're using vodka in your pizza?????????? Oh the horrors! LOL Seriously, that is some good sauce. ;)

Unknown said...

Wow, that looks good! I definitely need to make homemade pizza again. We get our crust from the pizza parlor--well, we buy the dough. It just comes out better for me.
I have a tip for you, although from the looks of that bubbly concoction, you don't need any tips: always use low-moisture mozzarella. It will keep your pizza from getting runny. (The pizza guy told us this!)

Brie said...

I have this in the breadmaker now. I had a bit of hummus left and am so excited to be able to use it. I'll freeze this pizza dough but later this week it'll become a great dinner so thank you!

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