Eating my first home made Pizza (sort of)

[ConcernedCanuk]

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Bought a frozen "Italian Melt" 10" pizza today - just a real simple pizza - a mix of cheddar and mozzarella, and a garlic spread.

Was an experiment - live too far in the boonies to get delivery, and no patience, or equipment to literally start from scratch.

Had a plan tho - it worked

Nuked some already cooked/frozen meatballs, sliced them and put them on the pizza halfway through cooking (gas oven), along with a freshly sliced tomato - all spread around pretty.

When almost done, I put a whole green onion (with a 1-1/2" white bulb) picked from my outside planters - sliced and diced on top - and cooked for two more minutes.

I've read that you get more of the benefits from tomatoes when cooked (antioxidants) and more from onions when raw - that's why I used that schedule.

Pretty good, but next time two onions, mushrooms, and add more garlic.

It'll get better.



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[Incitatus]

1. I love homemade pizza.

I've yet to find a place where I can order one that comes out as good. A local grocery stores sells fresh dough and I use canned sauce and other fresh ingredients.

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. This is my first home-made - gotta say I've had better

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from order in - used to have an excel file with prices/toppings provider etc.,

Would get 2 for 1's - free delivery - freeze slices for future munching, then just nuke them . .

But I like pizza - It'll take experimenting

I'll get there . .

Make some dynamite spaghetti sauce when I get at it - been doing that for over 30 years - same thing - make a bunch, freeze it up for the future in snack/meal size - then just nuke, do the sketti - and munch!



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[Incitatus]

5. It's just trial and error. Your spaghetti sauce it probably a lot better now then your first batch.

Some of my first attempted recipes were meh, then after some tweaking much better.

I think the fresh dough made a big difference. Then fresh mozzarella, a little fresh cooked bacon and some pepperoni. Sometimes ground beef, sausage, and ham. I use cast iron skillets and make them deep dish style.

[applegrove]

2. I had a roomate who made a homemade

pizza with ham, tomato sauce, artichoke hearts, mozarella, oregano, etc. It was yummy.

[ConcernedCanuk]

4. There's a thought!

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Get me a roommate that's a great cook!

and . . .

naw - nevermind . . .



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[Arkansas Granny]

6. I used to do something similar for my kids.

As a single working mother of four, there wasn't much in the budget for trips to the pizza joint or a lot of time to spend on prep.

To keep the kids happy, I would buy a frozen pizza and "embellish" it with other ingredients. We got a decent pizza at a good price and it took very little time to fix. What's not to love?

[ConcernedCanuk]

7. Wanna share the other ingredients?

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recipes are welcome!

CC

[Arkansas Granny]

10. I didn't really have a recipe, just whatever looked good at the time or what I had on hand.

Any kind of meat, either fresh or leftovers can be used along with different veggies and cheeses. I usually used onion, bell pepper and ripe olives because we all liked it and I had some in the fridge. By the time we finished, we would often wind up with a deep dish pizza.

[Chan790]

8. Want a pizzeria-quality cheat?

The next time you're in town, buy enough unglazed red-clay tile to line an oven shelf.



Cheaper than pizza stone, produces better results. You can cook the pizza directly on them. Actually, you can do all your baking on them. You can leave them in the oven at all times and use the shelf normally without having to remove them. When they get dirty (food residue. Don't worry about oils or soot or flour), pull them out while cool and wash them in the sink using only hot water (no soap!!) and return them to the oven to dry out (if you need to use them again immediately, the heat from preheating will dry them.)

It will improve the quality of your pizza 100%.

[ConcernedCanuk]

9. Definite can and will do!

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The people that sold me this place left a propane range, but advised me the oven did not work.

After I moved in, I inspected the oven, although 8 years old, not one spot of grease - thought to check the bottom drawer to see if there was a pilot light not lit - bottom drawer is a broiler, it too was pristine.

Turned on the oven, held a lighter near the pilot - did not light.

OK - oven don't work -

but me being a curious ole mechanic,

downloaded the manual for this particular stove - a $1600 gas range, that's without taxes, delivery and installation.

Turned out the "pilot" is lit by electrical, taking anywhere from 45 seconds to 2 minutes to light.

Turned the oven control back on after reading the manual (why don't people read the manuals??)

anyhoo -

I waited - "poof" - oven works perfect!

I be cooking!



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[R B Garr]

11. Meatballs are great on pizza!

Round Table had a meatball pizza special for awhile, and we were ordering it all the time. Loved it. Then I did the same thing you did with some frozen meatballs I wanted to use up and started putting them on my own pizzas. Usually I just split the casing on an uncooked Italian sausage and sprinkle it in bits over the pizza before baking.

It sounds like you like to do some home kitchen projects, so you might find you can make some really good pizza dough from scratch with very little effort with the yeast. The ingredients are fairly cheap, so if your efforts go awry, you won't cry (ha at my poetry there).

Lately I've been using Martha Stewart's pizza dough recipe, but I halve it since most of the recipes make too much for our use.

http://www.marthastewart.com/332275/basic-pizza-dough

I think there's a how-to video there also. You'll probably always have the ingredients on hand: flour, olive oil, salt, and the yeast. It's fun to do.