My site was nominated for Best Food Blog!

www.flickr.com
The Gourmet Foodie Blog's items Share your food photos here!


Homemade Pizza

Dinner, How To, Informational, Recipes

Do you still call a big pizza chain to get your pizza?

Can I ask you why?

In this post I wanted to make a case as to why you should never; I mean NEVER, order pizza again:

1. Unless you live under a rock you have probably seen via YouTube what happens to food in these places. Not exactly appetizing….
2. You can make a pizza for about half of the cost.
3. Homemade pizza can be made in less time than it would take for them to deliver it to you! Especially on the weekend!

Still don’t believe me huh? Okay well I guess I will take a moment to show you how quick, easy, delicious, and fun this really can be!

First you need to roll out your pizza dough. Now you can make this from scratch if you would like and nothing truly compares to homemade pizza dough. However, seeing as how we are trying to save time, store bought dough will do just fine.

Next, add your pizza sauce. I personally make my pizza sauce by using some sicilian seasoning. It is quick and easy as well. Again, if you are trying to save some time and money you can find this at the local grocery store too.

This is where pizza making gets fun. Add whatever toppings you want. Be creative! Think of all the ingredients you wanted to have on your pizza but were told that they couldn’t do it! Keep this sane though; think of what each ingredient will bring to the table. Combining anchovies and pineapple might seem like a good idea at first but may be regretted later.
Seeing as how I am a long time fan of delicious meats I created a pizza that is literally mounded with meat. If you however, are more vegetable minded and don’t want to see the heaping pile of meat monstrosity I created, then click here.

For me my `meat lovers’ pizza starts out with some freshly grated mozzarella, provolone, romano, asiago, and parmesan cheeses! Then I top this will pepperoni, mushrooms, pancetta (try getting that added to your next chain ordered pizza), Italian sausage, oregano, parsley and finally some more asiago and mozzarella cheese! Now that is a hearty pizza. Just look how high that is stacked up!

Put your pizza in the oven for 10 – 15 minutes depending on how crispy you want your crust and you are done! Once your pizza comes out give it a few moments to cool and dig in.

Now if you are meat adverse there is always the vegetarian option. My wife went this route as she was not feeling the meaty heart attack I was soon to be facing. For her margarita style pizza she used some fresh sliced mozzarella, tomato, and basil. Put your pizza in the oven for 10 – 15 minutes depending on how crispy you want your crust and you are done! Once your pizza comes out give it a few moments to cool and dig in.

What’s that you ask? Where’s the photo of the finished margarita pizza you ask? Well let’s just say that someone (who will remain nameless) was so excited by their creation they didn’t wait for photos to be taken. I guess I could have taken a picture of the empty plate but unfortunately that would have been a little dull as the plate was licked clean.

I think that the best part of homemade pizzas come from the creativity that you can use when creating your own personal masterpiece. A while back we used this as a party concept where we had all of our guests create their own pizza. It was tons of fun and super easy to do! Simply put out all of the ingredients you think your guests might like to cover their pizza with and let them go at it. Since the pizzas only take a few minutes to cook everyone will have a completed personalized pizza to dine on all at the same time!

Ryan’s Meat Loving Homemade Pizza

Ingredients:
• ½ pizza dough (8 inch thin crust)
• 3oz pizza sauce
• ½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• ¼ cup shredded provolone cheese
• ¼ cup shredded romano cheese
• ½ cup shredded asiago cheese
• ¼ cup shredded parmesan cheese
• 1 Italian sausage
• 25 pepperoni slices
• ¼ cup sliced mushrooms
• ½ cup diced pancetta

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Roll pizza dough into a thin circle.
3. Spread pizza sauce evenly over the surface of the dough leaving approximately ¼ inch outer ring.
4. Add remaining ingredients.
5. Cook approximately 10 -15 minutes.

Jessica’s Homemade Margarita Style Pizza

Ingredients:
• ½ pizza dough (8 inch thin crust)
• 3oz pizza sauce
• 4oz sliced mozzarella cheese
• ½ tomato sliced
• 2oz basil chopped

Directions:
6. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
7. Roll pizza dough into a thin circle.
8. Spread pizza sauce evenly over the surface of the dough leaving approximately ¼ inch outer ring.
9. Add remaining ingredients.
10. Cook approximately 10 -15 minutes.

  • Share/Bookmark
13 Comments

13 Comments

  1. Julie Jams  •  Jun 10, 2009 @7:33 am

    Great post!!! Love the pizza. I’ll have to try sometime. Thanks for sharing.

  2. Pink Foodie  •  Jun 10, 2009 @8:24 am

    The Sicilian pizza looks amazing. Thank you for sharing these recipes.

  3. Phillyeat  •  Jun 10, 2009 @11:46 am

    A lot of people don’t realize how easy pizza is. Also, it’s possible to buy frozen pizza dough. We buy it at Trader Joe’s and also at our local “Italian store.”

  4. Stacey  •  Jun 10, 2009 @1:35 pm

    I LOVE PIZZA! I am always looking for cool new pizza joints to try…but my favorite is doing a make your own pizza party and have a bunch of toppings laid out and have your friends over for pizza and a movie…its a lot of fun and no one complains they didn’t get what they wanted

  5. Savory Tv  •  Jun 10, 2009 @3:16 pm

    Gorgeous! Funny, I have been reviewing pizza videos all day and have a pizza poll on twitter today, and now this! I think I know what’s for dinner tonight!

  6. Miranda  •  Jun 10, 2009 @6:54 pm

    First of all, great pics!!! It looks amazying!!
    I am a huge fan of homemade pizza. I make it for my girls all the time.

  7. Hillary  •  Jun 12, 2009 @11:01 am

    That pizza looks so fabulous! Next you need to try making deep dish! :)

  8. Candy  •  Jun 12, 2009 @4:24 pm

    Hey fellow pizza lover! I saw your pic next to mine on slice.seriouseats.com and I love your version of meat lovers pizza. Homemade pizza is always better than delivery.

  9. Chrissy  •  Jun 22, 2009 @1:52 pm

    I totally love this recipe!! I tried it and it wonderful. Great job!

  10. Andrea  •  Jun 26, 2009 @11:49 am

    I rarely order in pizza anymore, but on the odd occassion that I don’t even have pizza ingredients on hand (and really don’t want to go to the store), we keep a selection of pizzas from a specialty store in the freezer for those “just can’t cook” nights. Even that’s a little better than the scarry pizza chains!

  11. shaiby  •  Jul 15, 2009 @2:56 am

    great pics!!! It looks amazying!!

  12. karuna  •  Jul 20, 2009 @12:18 pm

    I knw ther is nothing like a home made pizza. Make it as cheesy as one wants. urs looks yummy. great step by step post.

  13. Dungeness  •  Jul 27, 2009 @2:53 pm

    Good recipe ideas. Two comments: 1) please include Pizza Dough recipe and method. Since they are different it would be nice to see which you prefer. 2) We do family pizza night about once every two weeks and cook them in our BBQ/Smoker with fantastic results. So I would recommend that everyone gets a pizza stone and tries it. And the author of this is right, once you make your own and see how easy it is and how it brings the family together, you will never eat pizzas from the chains again.

Leave a Reply

Allowed tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>