Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Pizza Night

Every Friday night at my house is (homemade) pizza night. Period. So even with the oven out of commission, nothing was going to stop me from enjoying this (albeit new) tradition. But the task was not a difficult one, as a toaster oven is just a teeny, tiny, tabletop oven…right? Whatever the toppings, the crust is always the same. I found this recipe a few months back and absolutely love it. Made as it, it is crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside and rises to heights that put some chain pizza restaurants to shame. I say “made as is” because I no longer make it as is. I am real big on whole wheat, so I simply replace the all purpose flour with whole wheat. I started doing half and half, then slowly whittled the ratio down until I was brave enough to try it all whole wheat. This crust still is crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, but it doesn’t rise as much and has a nutty flavor to it. But that is to be expected. I still love it, though (I love whole wheat), and will continue to make it this way. I've included three pizzas in this post, a calzone, southwestern chicken, and oreo. There are no recipes, just a description of what I did.


For the calzone, I rolled my balls of dough out, topped half with cheese and turkey pepperoni and put some green pepper on one side for Justin (because I could only cook one at a time and neither of us was waiting to eat), folded the empty side over, and crimped the two sides together. I dipped mine in pizza sauce while Justin ate his without.

The next weekend I decided to make a southwestern chicken pizza. I first took a chicken breast and cut it into bite size pieces. I then sprinkled them with a little cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, and red pepper flakes before grilling. For the sauce, I (not all the way) drained a can of black beans and put it in the food processor with the same spices. When it was to the sauce consistency I like, I spread a little over a prebaked crust (which I had sprinkled with a little garlic powder and red pepper flakes before baking). I topped with a little cheese, the chicken, then a little more cheese. I baked it for about 15 minutes on 400.

I'm sure by now everyone has seen the commercial for Domino's new Oreo Pizza. If you can get past the disgustin Oreo beards on the actors, you see nothing but a glorious crust filled with crushed Oreos. When I first saw it I thought "that's my kind of pizza!" So tonight, though I have never had one, I decided that was going to be our dessert to go with the chicken pizza. I prebaked that same white pizza dough (I know, I know I said I use whole wheat, but I didn't think the Oreos would taste very well on ww dough) and topped with cream cheese frosting. I then crushed about 10-15 oreos and piled them on the crust, after which I drizzled with a powdered sugar/milk glaze. I put it in the ove just to warm everything, since the crust was already baked, for about 8 minutes. It also gave the powdered sugar and the oreos a little chance to brown, so it was really yummy. I will definitely be making this again (though not on a reguar basis because look at the sugar on that!).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How come I never hear about this pizza night?