I love cooking, and I love taking care of my boyfriend. So it's a little selfish of me to tell him I'm going to make him any meal he wants -- because it turns out pretty damn good for me. I asked Jeff earlier this week what he wanted for dinner Saturday, and pizza is what he told me. And so Operation Grown-Up Pizza Party commenced.
I established a menu featuring 1) mushroom, artichoke, ricotta, and white garlic sauce pizza 2) tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil pizza 3) buffalo "chicken," red onion, and bleu cheese pizza. I chose the buffalo combo as the wild card pizza, cuz my baby loves buffalo sauce. (I had also considered pesto and barbeque chicken pizza as well.)
There were a lot of moving parts so I had to consider time management. Some of the first things I did was chop basil, prep and saute mushrooms and onions, and toast fennel, and set aside. I also cooked up the "chicken" (I'm vegetarian, so this was Quorn) and let sit in buffalo sauce.
Then Jeff and I started on the dough. We used about half and half white and wheat flour. (I wouldn't recommend any more wheat than that. Otherwise you get a very wheaty flavor that overpowers the pizza taste.)
I taught Jeff how to properly measure flour. Guess he missed Home Ec class! Then I made the garlic sauce on the stove for the first pizza, the mushroom, and set aside to thicken. We made a no-yeast crust, very simple, made of flour, baking soda, oil, and water. We mixed the toasted fennel seeds into the dough. Jeff did all the flattening and stretching!
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Boy do I love ricotta cheese on pizza. It's important too to fold over the crust. The sauce was really juicy, so it would've just spilled over otherwise. This one baked up reaaaaaaal nice!!
Then onto the next pizza. Buffalo chicken. The cilantro is a nice little touch.
Meanwhile, Jeff made some more crusts. Onto the margherita pizza -- a classic! I had to use real mozzarella here. The log kind.
Large beefsteak tomatoes, sliced thin, with the wet seedy parts pulled out, were put on the pizza with abandon. Nobody likes soggy pizza! For the sauce, plain tomato worked just fine. The kind that costs like 79 cents. No need for pricey "pizza sauce" -- tomato sauce pretty much has all the same ingredients. The extra fennel seeds went on this as well.
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Add a healthy dose of shredded basil and dusting of parmesan... Pop it in the oven at 400 degrees. 18 minutes was about perfect (separately, not together, in the oven).
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I mean, look at that mozzarella (right). How brown and toasty it got. Seriously, they kicked ass!! We ate happily! Grown up pizza night was a huge success. And if I had to choose, the mushroom was the best... but the margherita was a close close second. The buffalo was for my baby -- so I didn't mind that one wasn't fabulous. Although, buffalo sauce lovers would say it was -- fabulous. :)
What will we come up with next pizza night? There is plenty of mozzarella left....
I established a menu featuring 1) mushroom, artichoke, ricotta, and white garlic sauce pizza 2) tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil pizza 3) buffalo "chicken," red onion, and bleu cheese pizza. I chose the buffalo combo as the wild card pizza, cuz my baby loves buffalo sauce. (I had also considered pesto and barbeque chicken pizza as well.)
There were a lot of moving parts so I had to consider time management. Some of the first things I did was chop basil, prep and saute mushrooms and onions, and toast fennel, and set aside. I also cooked up the "chicken" (I'm vegetarian, so this was Quorn) and let sit in buffalo sauce.
I taught Jeff how to properly measure flour. Guess he missed Home Ec class! Then I made the garlic sauce on the stove for the first pizza, the mushroom, and set aside to thicken. We made a no-yeast crust, very simple, made of flour, baking soda, oil, and water. We mixed the toasted fennel seeds into the dough. Jeff did all the flattening and stretching!
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Then onto the next pizza. Buffalo chicken. The cilantro is a nice little touch.
Meanwhile, Jeff made some more crusts. Onto the margherita pizza -- a classic! I had to use real mozzarella here. The log kind.
Large beefsteak tomatoes, sliced thin, with the wet seedy parts pulled out, were put on the pizza with abandon. Nobody likes soggy pizza! For the sauce, plain tomato worked just fine. The kind that costs like 79 cents. No need for pricey "pizza sauce" -- tomato sauce pretty much has all the same ingredients. The extra fennel seeds went on this as well.
.jpeg)
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I mean, look at that mozzarella (right). How brown and toasty it got. Seriously, they kicked ass!! We ate happily! Grown up pizza night was a huge success. And if I had to choose, the mushroom was the best... but the margherita was a close close second. The buffalo was for my baby -- so I didn't mind that one wasn't fabulous. Although, buffalo sauce lovers would say it was -- fabulous. :)
