My Morning Chocolate

Making pizza at home

During spring break, Kenny and I were staying at his brother and sister-in-law’s house in New Jersey where, after getting home late and hungry one night, we made pizzas.  They were easy and delicious, and after that I decided I would make pizzas at home too.

Oddly enough, I had thought too much about making pizzas for two reasons:  we don’t have a pizza stone or round pan for cooking them and I’m terrible at making tomato sauce.  I’ve just never mastered it.  Looking back, these “challenges” are about as difficult to overcome as a bad hair day.  You just work with what you have and wear a hat.

What I do have are several square baking sheets, so I baked our pizzas on those, a la Joe Squared, and used an Eating Well pizza dough recipe to make two fresh crusts.

I also had a jar of ratatouille spread from Trader Joe’s and a block of tofu to make a vegan cheese – two sauces for two pizzas.

For toppings, our refrigerator was full of asparagus, zucchini, arugula, black beans, broccoli, and carrots, and we had several onions on hand.  Because we were going away for the weekend, I used them all – asparagus, zucchini, and onions for the tofu spread pizza, and black beans, carrots, and broccoli (both stems and florets) for the ratatouille pizza.  (Another reason to eat pizza: it’s a great way to use up leftover veggies, proteins, and fruits.)

Although it took a couple of hours to make and chop everything, all in a small kitchen that quickly ran out of space – which, I have to admit, was so frustrating that I eventually was blurting out obscenities like Ian Frazier’s Cursing Mommy – it was worth it.

We ate pizza for lunch and dinner the next couple of days, no cooking necessary.

Pizzas

Ingredients
Eating Well’s Easy Whole-Wheat Pizza Dough (double the recipe for two pizzas)
1 jar ratatouille or tomato sauce (or make your own)
Tofu Spread (like this lemon herb tofu goat cheese recipe from Sweet Beet and Green Bean)
Any vegetables, protein, and fruits you like and think will go well together
Your favorite cheese

My blobby yeast

I had to include this picture because I love the blobby texture of the yeast after it has sat in a mixture of warm water, sugar, and salt for 5 minutes.  I had lots of fun jiggling the mixture back and forth and watching it move like thick, foamy waves.

Making the pizza dough, topping the pizzas

Once your yeast is set and your dough is mixed (follow the Eating Well recipe), making pizzas couldn’t be easier.  Clockwise from top left:

1)  After mixing the dough, knead it until it’s smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes, until it looks like…
2)  this nice ball of dough.  Then,
3)  Roll out your pizza crust.  As you can see from my Ziggy-shaped dough (it kind of looks like Ziggy from the nose up, right?), you don’t need to be too exact here. Bake the crust at 450 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. 
4)  Then, top with veggies, cheese, protein, etc.  This first pizza has ratatouille spread, broccoli (both florets and stems), carrots, black beans, and monterey jack cheese, and
5)  the second pizza is vegan, made with a tofu spread, zucchini, asparagus, and caramelized onions.

Finally, bake again until the curst is crisp the cheese melts, about 8 to 10 minutes.  

Do you have a favorite pizza topping combination?  We’d love to hear what it is!