Skillet pizza

My daughter and I made a pizza crust after school. I think this is what we did:

• 1 cup warm water
• 1 teaspoon yeast
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1.5 cups white flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
  
• 1/3 cup rye flour
• 3/4 teaspoon iodized sea salt
• 1 packet Papa John's pizza seasoning
  
• 1/3 cup corn meal
• 3/4 cup oats
• 1/4 cup flax seed

Mix and set in a warm dark place. Could take an hour to rise. (Bake at 400 for 12-15 minutes)

Toppings:

• Wegmans extra chunky pizza sauce
• monterey jack cheese
• cheddar
• asiago
• parmesan
• black olives
• four color organic peppercorns
• Pasta and pizza seasoning
• Garlic powder
  

Method:
Here's the plan.
I hope heat my Le Creuset skillet on the stove over medium high with a thorough greasing of extra virgin olive oil. Then, I plan to carefully arrange the pizza dough inside and put the toppings on and bake in the skillet.

Will it work? I hope it will. I thought it was a cool idea but now I realize, it's PAN PIZZA.

Garden Pizzas

Well, the visitors have gone home and I didn't cook much while they were here. Today I had $15 left to my name and I stopped at Giant for some odds and ends.

We had leftover mozzerella sticks from a dinner out. For lunch I made English muffin pizzas with cheddar, tomato AND basil straight from my garden.

At Giant, I spent my $15 on the following:

• Dole Spring Mix, 2/$5
• Thomas' English Muffins (Buy One, Get One)
• Multigrain Rotini
• Giant Pizza Sauce, on sale for 49 cents each
• Light and Lively Cottage Cheese, the big container
• 8 oz. New York Extra Sharp Cheddar
• 16 fl ounces of Coffeemate in the funky Parisian flavor

$15.38, and I got a coupon for $4 off my next $45 purchase.

Mixed Up Pasta

We had leftover spaghetti in the fridge that my husband made to use up the jar of Wegman's chunky pizza sauce that he opened by accident. It made the spaghetti really yummy.

But for lunch, our daughter wanted boxed macaroni and cheese (also Wegman's brand, their spiral macaroni and cheese dinner tasted incredible, in my opinion).

We added some peas, sliced the spaghetti small, and mixed everything together and it was fabulous!

Un-Chicken Parm

My husband once again saves the day. This whole week is a blur for me and eating has not entered my mind as a priority. I thawed out a loaf of homemade French bread. That was my contribution. My husband made tuna with soy mayonnaise and crackers (the funky gluten free multi-grain or ritz I wonder) for lunch. And carrot sticks. For dinner, he made "chicken" parm with Morningstar Chik'n Patties, cheese, Wegmans pizza sauce and the homemade bread. He cooked some mixed veggies in seasoning (probably garlic pepper and a touch of butter) and voilà.

Good news is that the budget post-home disaster (we had a minor flood a month ago) has recuperated and I might be able to go to the grocery store soon! And I expect this week to be nutty, and full of bad food, but next week (fingers crossed) we'll get back on track.

More French Bread Pizzas

We made little French bread pizzas for lunch today. I cut one loaf of homemade bread into six pieces (or was it seven?) and covered half with the last of the commercial spinach dip and the others with Wegmans pizza sauce. Then we added parmesan cheese and shredded cheddar. And black olives. 

Poor Man's Calzone

I emerged from class this afternoon starving... and I also had an acute awareness that several dairy products in my fridge were approaching their expiration date. Among them was a $4 container of large curd cottage cheese. I don't have any riccotta, and we're low on cheese in general, so I thought maybe I could somehow make the cottage cheese more riccotta-like and make some homemade pizza dough and build funky calzones.

I mixed the

 cottage cheese, shredded mozzerrella, italian seasoning, fresh garlic, grated parmesan and drained c

an spinach (someone gave the spinach to me, 

I usually buy fresh and frozen). 

I also mixed in the last of the commercial spinach dip.

I can't help but think it won't be gross as Mimi used to always use cottage cheese for such things. I don't know if she didn't know about riccotta or what but...

I made my usual pizza dough and made five little calzones to serve with sauce. Hopefully they are edible because I have a freezer bag of stuffing for another batch.

The verdict is in. The family loved

 them. It made so much we have enough for lunch AND one to freeze. For dessert, we're having Lindor Truffles from Valentine's Day.

Artichoke and black olive pizza

With five inches of snow and rain getting it all wet, I surprised my family with a hot breakfast of scrambled eggs and English muffins when my husband came in from shoveling. My daughter had just gone out to play. My husband could not avoid going to work, as apparently he is essential these days since the students are still buying textbooks...

My daughter and I made black olive and artichoke heart pizza. The artichoke hearts were an impulse buy at Wegmans. I have already detailed my pizza making process (click on pizza below). I thought I'd treat my readers to some "how-to" style photos. My four-and-a-half year old is doing the work.  

This meal was originally intended as lunch tomorrow, but with the snow it gave us something to do. I also needed to use up some tomato sauce that had hung around my fridge too long.

Pizza for Lunch

So by the time I returned from taking my daughter to the library, I opted for pizza for lunch with a winter salad. Except now that I'm 75% through the preparation, my blood sugar is out of whack making it near impossible to prepare a nice winter salad. Hopefully, we can have that for dinner maybe to accompany a quick boxed mac n cheese. I'm  working late again.

With my preschooler's help, I made a hybrid Quick Pizza Dough, combining a quick recipe with a more standard recipe, both from Veglist, a veg*n recipe email list I used to belong to years ago when I was learning to cook.

A note about yeast. If you plan to make a lot of bread products forget the individual packets. Get the jar. It's in the refrigerator/dairy aisle. Even if it says it's for bread machines or whatever... it works. And if your house is cold and drafty and your bread won't rise, place it on top of a warm oven or preheat your oven to about 150 degrees, turn it off, let some of the heat out and stick the dough in there for a while. Not too hot or it will cook, not rise.

Note on pizza sauce: I do use pre-jarred. Specifically Wegmans. And there's a reason why. I read labels, and Wegmans Chunky Pizza sauce offers 15 % RDA vitamin A and some calcium and some iron in every serving. Nothing in a can had nutritional value. (Plus it tastes good.)

Note on cheese: This is one of those items that I will keep some preshredded pizza blend cheese in the house. I usually get it at Aldi's, and I make sure the cost is pretty darn close to what I pay for the block. I say it's so I can make a quick easy meal, but I could grate my own cheese quick while the dough rises for the crust.

On to the recipes...

This is what I made today:

Today's Pizza Crust

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix:

1 cup hot tap water;

1 teaspoon yeast;

1 teaspoon honey;

1 teaspoon olive oil;

Separately:

3 cups flour (only because I accidently used TWICE the water I was supposed to; if you're into wheat, substitute up to half with wheat flour);

1 teaspoon salt;

italian seasoning;

garlic pepper;

1 tablespoon sesame seeds (I get mind at the mediterranean deli);

Combine, knead, adding flour as needed so it doesn't get sticky. Let rest about 15 minutes (I put mine in a towel on top of the preheating oven). Grease pan lightly with olive oil. Sprinkle on some cornmeal and some sesame seeds. (I one heard the cornmeal helps get the bottom of the crust that genuine texture.) When dough is ready, spread in pan. Top as desired. Bake 15-20 minutes. My daughter's favorite toppings-- broccoli and black olives. Neither of which we used today.

 

PS-- it ain't pretty, but my daughter was in charge of the sauce. When you have a four-year-old cooking, pretty isn't on the menu.