Friday, September 25, 2009

Fun Food Friday! Pizza

Is there any food more fun than pizza? My husband loves fun food. Every weekend we must eat fun food. During the week he will gladly consume lentil soup and chicken and dumplings but come the weekend and anything not deemed to be fun food will be frowned upon. Pizza is the best fun food weapon in a frugal mom's arsenal. Above you can see my latest creation, yellow squash pizza. The name just makes me laugh. Over the years I have been weaning Joe off of man-pizza, crust piled with a pound of meat and fifty thousand toppings. My hard work paid off when everyone happily gobbled down yellow squash pizza. The kids all made their own pizzas and I baked two large ones with leftovers in mind, silly old me, they disappeared as fast I could slice them. If you've never made homemade pizza, you are in for a treat. And they make $20 take-out pizza that you have to blot orange grease off of look pretty bad. First you have to make your crust.
Mix up a batch of My Favorite Bread, after it rises, divide it in two pieces and roll it out. After years of making rectangular pizzas on cookie sheets I finally bought two bona-fide pizza pans from a restaurant supply store. Don't know what took me so long, but it's great to finally be so cool and all.
Lightly oil the pans and sprinkle with cornmeal, then put your rolled out crust on them. The bread recipe makes two thinnish crusts that bake quickly and are divine.
Spread sauce on the crust, I usually just mix up a can of tomato sauce with garlic, salt, pepper, oregano and a pinch of sugar. This step is where the fun begins. You can use anything you like, red sauce, olive oil, pesto, salsa, sausage, pepperoni, chicken, canadian bacon, fresh pineapple, artichokes, olives, onions, black beans, tomatoes, squash, broccoli, on and on. Really, anything that's not moving or nailed down can be put on a pizza. If you like it, go for it! After you have everything arranged just so, slide the pizza into a 450 degree oven for 20 minutes. My oven is about the size of a Suzy Bake Oven so I bake two pizzas for 10 minutes then switch them in the oven so they each bake 10 minutes on the top rack and 10 minutes on the bottom.
Take them out and slice 'em up. Feed to all the starving people that are now clustered around the kitchen drooling and begging. By the way, Bren, this recipe's for you!

2 comments:

Ron Hollis said...

Hey! Where's the little hairy fish?

Kristin said...

audra, that looks so good!!!