Weekly Recipes: Homemade pizzas!

[tassosss]

Welcome to the weekly recipes post! The idea is to give folks who want to try new recipes ideas.  Each week we'll have a theme chosen from the themes list on this post. If you would like to suggest a theme, comment there and I'll add it to the top of the list.

If you would like to signup to write the opening post and pick out a theme for the week because you found a really awesome recipe or you love a certain vegetable, let me know in comments what week you want and it's yours.

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This week I did a pita pizza recipe so we're gonna start with homemade pizza!

I must confess that making pizza at home has always been intimidating to me because it always seems like a big production. There's the dough, and the sauce, and the cheese, and then all the toppings, then you have to bake it. Having done it a couple different ways now, it's actually not so bad.

The pita pizza recipe I did yesterday was from GoodHousekeeping's Family Vegetarian cookbook.
Ingredients
4 6-inch whole wheat pitas

1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese (I don't think mine was skim)
1 can of garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 red onion
8 ounces of head of broccoli (I used 1 head)
1/4 cup of water (I didn't use this at all)
1/4 teaspoon of salt

1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese (I used asiago because I had that)
1 chopped tomato (it says plum tomato, but I just grabbed a tomato looking tomato at the store)

What to do:
Preheat oven to 400 F
1. Heat the olive oil, saute the chopped onion till it's golden, add the garlic and red pepper, mix it all up. Then add the broccoli and salt. It says to add the water, and bring it to a boil to cover and cook, but I missed the water part, and don't have a lid for that pan, so I just kept sauteing till they were cooked but crunchy and it worked just fine.

2. Mash up the ricotta cheese and garbanzo beans together with salt. This is what you use instead of tomato sauce.

3. Toast the pitas in the oven for 3 minutes, then pull them out and put on the ricotta and garbanzo bean mash, then the broccoli and onions, then top with the grate parmesan/asiago cheese. Put them in the oven for seven to ten minutes, then pull them out and top with the chopped tomato.
It makes four servings and took about thirty minutes. I had a friend over to help cook and eat, and I took the leftovers in for lunch today. It was pretty good, a little drier than I was expecting because of the beans, but I'd do it again.

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Another way I know to do homemade pizza that's healthy is to by a Bolo's pizza crust at the grocery store and your favorite tomato/spaghetti sauce. Then slice a ball of mozzarella cheese and chop up whatever vegetables you want, precook things like onions. Then you load up the pizzas and stick them in the oven for ten minutes or until they're done.

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So favorite homemade pizzas? Does anyone make their own dough? What toppings do you like? Is there good healthy take out pizza that works too?

Comments

[majoline]

I do make my own dough but I either use a modified no-knead dough or I use my bread machine because I don't believe in using spoons on dough.

Or if I'm really hungry, I'll just use English muffins and pop them in the toaster a little before putting sauce/cheese on them.

[tassosss]

Sorry for the late reply - was out of town this weekend without internet.

I know what you mean about making dough without a bread machine - way too much effort.

I hadn't thought of using English muffins though it makes perfect sense! I'll have to try that sometime. That sounds like it would make a nice lunch.

[all_adream]

Good reminder of how fun it can be to make pizzas, and the vast range of choices available. Maybe I'll try this for lunch or dinner. Thanks!

[tassosss]

My pleasure! Go forth and eat!