Easy Peasy Pita Pizza

Every now and again I like to skip a week of grocery shopping and 'shop' at home. You'll be amazed at the stuff you keep in your pantry. Even more amazed if you don't look often! I had three ingredients on hand (all left over ingredients from previous recipes) and threw together these easy peasy pita pizzas!

Ingredients:

Whole Wheat Pita

Basil Pesto (Store bought or homemade)

Mozzarella Cheese

Top each pita with basil pesto and mozzarella cheese bake in oven at 350 degrees until cheese is melted! It's that easy!

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

 

 I had some of this in the freezer and came up with......

Buffalo Chicken Pizza!

There's a pizza place near my house that makes a great buffalo chicken pizza; instead of ordering it in one night I decided to try it out at home. I'm happy I did because it actually came out pretty darn good and was really easy to do. 

I'm a huge fan of hot, spicy foods which is probably why I enjoy this pizza so much. I believe this was one of those nights that I didn't have anything planned. So I started looking through the kitchen to see what I can mix up...I had chicken, pizza dough, hot sauce, and blue cheese. The stars were aligned! 

You can make this pizza as spicy as you wish.  If you're not a fan of blue cheese, try Gorgonzola.  I always find the pizza dough bakes up nicely when I pre bake it. 

Ingredients: 

Pizza dough (see recipe here) 

1 cup Hot sauce, plus 2 tablespoons butter

1 lb grilled chicken breast, chopped

1/2 cup blue cheese grumbles 

Bake pizza dough for 12 minutes at 375. While pizza dough is baking, combine hot sauce and 2 tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan on medium heat.  (Add more hot sauce if you wish.) Layer chicken, hot sauce, and cheese. Bake for an additional 10 minutes.

Spinach and Meatball Calzone

Call me nuts but I've been craving slightly cooler weather. Mostly because a lot of my favorite meals go really well with cooler temperatures. I've been craving sauce and meatballs and thought this recipe would work perfectly as I stumbled upon it while re-reading the May 2010 issue of Everyday Food. I had whole wheat pizza dough in the freezer. Just had to make some turkey meatballs. Overall, this meal was pretty simple.

The recipe suggests using sausage meatballs. I used my standard turkey meatball recipe but any would work just fine.  I'm keeping this recipe in mind when I have plenty of leftover meatballs! It's a great way to get several meals out of one main dish!

• Extra-virgin olive oil, for baking sheet and brushing
• 10 ounces baby spinach
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• All-purpose flour, for work surface
• 1 pound store-bought pizza dough (thawed if frozen), cut into 4 equal pieces
• 8 meatballs, halved, and 1 1/2 cups sauce
• 8 ounces fresh mozzarella, torn into pieces
• 1/2 teaspoon red-pepper flakes (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Lightly oil a rimmed baking sheet. In a large saucepan, bring 1/2 cup water to a simmer. Add spinach and season with salt; cover and cook until wilted, about 2 minutes. Transfer spinach to a fine-mesh sieve and drain, pressing with a rubber spatula to release as much liquid as possible. Transfer spinach to a cutting board and roughly chop.
2. On a lightly floured work surface, roll each piece of dough into an 8-inch round. In a medium bowl, stir together spinach, reserved meatballs and sauce, cheese, and red-pepper flakes (if using). Season with salt and pepper. With a slotted spoon, divide mixture among bottom halves of dough rounds, leaving a 1-inch border. Fold top half of each round over filling and roll and pinch edges to seal. Carefully transfer calzones to baking sheet. Brush tops lightly with oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake until calzones are golden brown, 15 to 18 minutes.

It's about time I give 'pizza dough' it's own post

I realized the other night as I was making my standard pizza dough that I have blogged a lot about pizza but never gave credit to the dough itself. How foolish of me, right? 

I used this recipe all the time. I love keeping pizza dough in the freezer as I often find myself using it if I'm in need for a quick dinner or when I have nothing planned (yes, sometimes that happens).

There are many recipes out there but I'm running on this motto "if it ain't broke, why fix it?" So I'll be sticking with this pizza dough unless you can convince me otherwise.

Of course this great recipe comes from Martha! Did I mention it's whole wheat? Must mean it's better for you, right?

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups warm (115 degrees) water

2 packets ( ounce each) active dry yeast

1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for bowl

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons coarse salt

2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for kneading

2 cups whole-wheat flour (spooned and leveled)

Directions

1.Place water in a large bowl; sprinkle with yeast. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Brush another large bowl with oil.

2.In bowl with yeast, whisk sugar, oil, and salt. Stir in flours with a wooden spoon until a sticky dough forms. Transfer to oiled bowl; brush top of dough with oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap; let stand in a warm spot until dough has doubled in size, about 1 hour.

3.Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface. With floured hands, knead until smooth, about 15 seconds; divide into two balls.

4.Set balls on a plate (they should not touch); freeze until firm, about 1 hour. Then freeze in a freezer bag up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in refrigerator.

5.Divide each ball of dough into 4 pieces. Using your hands, stretch each piece into a 5-inch disk (if dough becomes too elastic to work with, let it rest a few minutes). Freeze shells on two parchment-lined baking sheets. Stack frozen shells between layers of parchment paper. Freeze in a freezer bag up to 3 months. Bake from frozen.

Yes, another pizza

I can't really take credit for this pizza since Nadya came up with the idea while we were in the middle of an extremely crowded Whole Foods. An easy pizza with only 2 ingredients, pesto & mozzarella.

We used my standard whole wheat pizza dough which usually have on hand in the freezer. The trick to this pizza is to cook the dough alone and then top with pesto and mozzarella to heat up and melt the cheese. We'll be making this again. Really easy and super tasty!


Ingredients:
1 Whole wheat pizza dough
1/2 cup of pesto, store bought or homemade (check out my previous post for a great pesto recipe)
Mozzarella

Bake for 15 mins at 400 degrees.

Pizza! Pizza!

We tend to turn to Pizza a lot during the week for a quick meal. I find it hard to find a good pizza sauce at the store so I thought I'd try to make one. It's much easier than I thought. Although I don't have a food mill so the sauce was a little bit chunkier than I prefer but the flavor was very good.

Ingredients:
2 28oz cans of whole peeled tomatoes
2 tablespoons of olive oil
salt, pepper, oregano, red pepper flakes

In a medium skillet heat olive oil. Crush tomatoes using a wooden spoon (your clean hands work just as well) add salt, pepper, oregano, & red pepper flakes to your liking. I added more red pepper flakes since I like a little spice in my sauce. You can omit them if you're not a fan of heat. Cook until thick, about 30-4o mins. Let cool and pass through a food mill unless you're in the mood for a chunky sauce.

Pizza: Whole Wheat Pizza Dough with Pesto, Roasted Red Peppers, Grilled Chicken & Mozzarella Cheese

I came up with the idea for this pizza based off one of my favorite panini's (roasted red peppers, mozzarella, & pesto).

The pizza dough is so simple that it will make you question why you use store bought. This recipe for pizza dough makes enough for 2 large pizzas or 8 individual ones. I used one for this recipe and put the other half in the freezer for later use (probably sometime later this week).

Ingredients:
1 whole wheat pizza dough (recipe here)
Pesto
2 Red Bell Peppers, roasted
8 ounces of Mozzarella cheese
1 lb of grilled chicken breast, cubed

Prepare pizza dough according to directions. Bake for 8 mins.

Spread pesto on crust, top with roasted red peppers, grilled chicken, & mozzarella cheese. Bake at 450 degrees for 12-16 mins.