I have the tendency to fall into cooking ruts. For a while, I was making a big pot of curry about once a week. These days I’m doing the same with homemade pizza. It’s true what they say, practice makes perfect, and through all of my pizza making, I have learned a few tips that have really helped my pizza improve.

I figured that many of you would be putting together some homemade pizza pies for the big game coming up this Sunday, so here are some tips for you.

• Don’t over-sauce: If you’re like me, you love tomato sauce. For a long time, I was a little heavy with the amount of sauce I was using on my pizzas. Sometimes, it would even leak over the side of the crust, dripping into my oven and making a big mess. Even if it doesn’t make a mess, it makes the crust kind of soggy. My advice is to go light on the sauce, and if you love it as much as I do, add some to the top of the pizza after it comes out of the oven.
• Pizza stones aren’t all they are cracked up to be: I’ve always had bad luck with pizza stones. For one, they are hard to get pizza onto. You need a peel, and I just don’t have room in my kitchen for one. Plus, my pizzas have always stuck to the peel when I have used one. I’ve found that a nice pan with holes in it does a great job in getting a nice, crisp crust.
• Easy on the fresh mozzarella: If you like to use fresh mozzarella, as I do, you have to be very careful with it. The stuff melts and flows like crazy. If you’re going to use it instead of the more conventional cheese, make sure that you slice it very thin and don’t cover 100% of the pizza. There is going to be some spreading of the cheese, and if you have too much on, it’s going to run off the crust and make a mess on the bottom of your oven. I usually go for 75-85% coverage and find that it works really well.
• Pierce the crust: Avoid those big crust bubbles by taking a fork to the rolled out dough. It’s also a great way to work out your frustration, wildly stabbing at the dough. I love doing it, but maybe that’s just me.
• Salt the crust: This is really important. Right before popping your pie into the oven, sprinkle some salt around the crust edges. The result is a tasty little surprise when you reach the end of your slice.

I hope your pizza turns out as well as mine have recently.

I’ve mentioned before how I have recently become obsessed with making homemade pizzas. I bought the perfect pizza pan and my local Whole Foods market just makes it too easy. All it takes is a quick trip to the market and I can grab some fresh, delicious dough, sauce, cheese, and any toppings that I might have a hankering for. It even makes enough that I can have a few slices for leftovers at lunch the next day.

In the last few weeks I’ve made some particularly delicious pizzas that you may not have considered.

I was looking for something different to do with my pizzas. I was sick of the same veggies and meats and wanted something unique and delicious to get me excited about my homemade pizza. Instead of raiding the salad bar at the grocery store to find toppings, I headed over to the antipasto bar. I figured some salty/vinegary treats on my pizza would do the trick. I ended up with some fresh olives, roasted tomatoes, balsamic marinated pearl onions, and marinated mushrooms. I gave all the ingredients a rough chop and topped my pizza with them. The results were really terrific.

This past weekend I made some homemade pulled pork to christen the brand new crock pot that I received for Christmas. It was delicious, but made an enormous amount of pork, so I had a ton of leftovers. I figured that a pulled pork pizza might be a a fun and different way to use up the barbecued pork butt. I spread out the pulled pork on the crust and covered it with fresh mozzarella and fresh tomatoes. I had really hoped for some smoked mozzarella, but I couldn’t find any at the market. Tragic, I know. Regardless, the pizza turned out really well.

Next time you’re thinking about something different to do with your pizzas feel free to try one of these ideas, I think you might enjoy them.

Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

It looks delicious, right? I so wish I could confirm that, but Pizzeria Uno’s gluten-free pizza kind of sucks, and that’s just too bad.

I suppose I should be commending Pizzeria Uno for providing fare that the gluten-intolerant can enjoy; it’s a lovely sentiment. But here’s where it gets tricky … no one, even someone with the most limited of diets, could truly say they enjoy this tasteless pizza.

It’s been quite a few years now since I’ve partaken in Pizzeria Uno’s amazing deep dish pizza, chock-full of flavor. I remember loving it, and even though I could only eat a slice or two, it was worth it … full of sausage, veggies and everything that makes pizza worth eating.

In all fairness, maybe that pizza sucks these days too. Nothing, though, excuses the gluten-free pizza’s lack of … everything. Sure, it’s got veggies, which is always a good thing, but the cheese just kind of sits there on the very lame excuse for pizza crust, and the sauce is truly the unseasoned version of a cheap, canned sauce. Not a green fleck to be had. Dude, try an herb or two, really.

Perhaps I am spoiled, not only by our own homemade, wheat-free (not gluten-free) pizza, but also by the Boynton Restaurant’s amazing gluten-free choices. This is a local restaurant (about 15 minutes away) whose owner’s son has celiac disease, so they’ve developed the most luscious gluten-free pizza you can imagine. The sauce is spectacular, tomato-y and filled with herbs and spices. The three-cheese blend is satisfying, and if you order the broccoli, feta and onion pizza (we’ve even created our own version of this favorite) , you’ll get four — four! — cheeses and a rich, decadent white sauce. I really can’t express in words how delicious this pizza is.

So Pizzeria Uno, what were you thinking? People who don’t eat wheat enjoy flavor just as much as the next bub, so I hope you’ll revamp your gluten-free pizza and add some taste, flavor, herbs … something!

I’m just not quite sure how to open this post, without a bunch of OMGs and such. This really, truly was one of the best pizzas I have ever tasted (if I do say so myself).

We based this recipe on a pizza that we adored from a local restaurant, The Boynton, that has a gluten-free pizza menu. This was the four-year-old’s favorite pizza we sampled that night, so we were eager to try to duplicate it for him.

I did make some changes, though, because I wanted to lighten up on the tummy-ache and mucus-inducing dairy a bit. Instead of a white sauce, we used a garlic oil. Why waste the dairy on a milky sauce when we could enjoy more cheese? Six cheeses, to be exact.

Six-Cheese White Pizza with Caramelized Onions and Broccoli

Ingredients:

• your favorite pizza dough (sprouted spelt flour pizza dough for the bread machine wins out here), enough for 2 12-inch pizzas
• 2 onions, thinly sliced and caramelized
• 3-4 cups broccoli florets, chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 1 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
• 6-8 cloves garlic, minced
• about 2 cups of four-cheese blend
• about 2 cups feta cheese, crumbled
• about 1/2 log fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced

Do your dough however you do it and have your two crusts ready for topping. Add the garlic to about 1/4 cup of olive oil in a small microwavable dish, and nuke it for a minute or two. This cooks the garlic slightly and infuses the oil with all of the garlic yumminess. Spread the garlic oil on your dough.

Meanwhile, quickly steam the broccoli just until it turns bright green, just a minute or two. Layer the cheeses, basil, onions and broccoli onto the pizza crusts.

Cook using the dough’s instructions. Ours is at 450 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Now just enjoy. Be sure to overeat and combine it with plenty of beer so that you’ll be good and bloated. It is totally worth it.

Recently I’ve become really obsessed with making pizza. Between the beauty of my awesome pizza pan, and the delicious homemade crusts from Whole Foods, it has become my recent fall-back meal. It’s fast, easy, versatile, and makes great leftovers. Can you ask for anything else from a weeknight meal? As I have been making more and more of the pies, I’ve learned an important lesson: the salad bar is your friend!

One of the pains of making homemade pizza is getting all the toppings that you want. It’s been my experience that if I buy a container of mushrooms to top a pizza, I end up using a third of the carton at most. I always have things leftover. It even seems like one pepper never fits perfectly on a pizza.

There is, however, a great solution to all of this: the salad bar. It has now become a staple stop on my pizza runs. If I want peppers, there they are! I can take the perfect amount, and they’re already chopped for me! The same can be said for just about anything that you would want to throw on a pizza: mushrooms, onions, broccoli, etc.

My favorite salad bar item, though, has to be the sliced chicken breast. I love chicken on a pizza, either a barbecue pizza, or a chicken Alfredo pizza, or even a Thai peanut chicken pizza. The problem, however lies in having to cook up a couple breasts of chicken if you don’t have any leftovers. Never fear, you can pick up as much chicken as you need, already cooked, at the salad bar!

I know that some of our dairy-challenged friends like to have cheese-free pizza, but I just can’t bring myself to make a pie without some cheese on it. I’m a bit of a traditionalist; I even have trouble using a cheese that isn’t mozzarella. I know that fontina is a great cheese for pizza, but for me, I really need a nice gooey, stringy cheese that challenges the pizza cutter and makes big long strings that you need to break with your fingers. Good times.

There is, however, another question that this brings to mind: which mozzarella do you use, fresh or shredded?

The quick answer is that you use both. I think that each have their appropriate place in pizza making, with each bringing their own strengths and weaknesses to the party. Let’s break them down:

• Flavor: The fresh mozzarella has a subtle, distinct (and delicious) flavor. Sometimes, however, the slightly sharper and more traditional shredded mozzarella is preferable. Whenever I’m making a pizza with a lot of toppings, I always use standard shredded. I think that fresh mozz is a special enough ingredient that it really has to sing on its own on the pie.
• Texture: Both are delightfully stringy and melt wonderfully. I have to say that I really love the texture of fresh mozzarella though. Plus, if you do it right it browns up beautifully and gets bubbly and delicious.
• Color: If you get high quality fresh mozzarella, you can’t beat the bright white, clean color that it can add to your pizza. Standard shredded mozz tends to be more on the yellow side, certainly less exciting.
• Challenges: A big detraction for fresh mozzarella for me is the difficulty to work with it. It’s hard to cut or grate because it is so soft. Besides that there is a really high moisture content, which usually means that water leaks out and either prevents a crisp crust, or drips all over my oven.

In closing, there is definitely a place for both cheeses (as well as other varieties all together) in the world of pizza making. Do you have a preference?

It’s been a while since we’ve made grilled pizza, but tonight the stars were in alignment and the weather was cooperating, so pizza we grilled. It was nothing fancy; in fact, it was an old go-to combination of whatever we had in the veggie bin and Trader Joe’s pesto chicken sausage.

The toppings were onion, green pepper, sliced fresh tomato, sausage, 4-cheese blend and feta. They all nestled in among the delicious pesto (this recipe but with almonds added too, which adds a surprising sweetness) and danced together on our bread machine spelt pizza dough.

I know, what a completely flaky way to describe the perfect harmony or our grilled pizza, but it was fun writing it, and admit it, it made you laugh. Or at least roll your eyes.

I’m going to go ahead and make a bold claim here: pineapple is the best pizza topping in existence. It’s sad because I’d all but forgotten about the deliciousness that is pineapple pizza until recently. Why, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because my husband isn’t a huge fan of the stuff so we usually just use a different topping. But when my birthday came around last month and we decided to order pizza from our favorite pizzeria (because no cooking + no dishes = a happy birthday!) I remembered my favorite pizza topping from long ago and had to have it right then.

I have had pineapple pizza from just about every pizza place I’ve ever been to, from Domino’s and Pizza Hut to little hole-in-the-wall places scattered around the Jersey Shore and Boston, and I can tell you that even the crappiest, greasiest, most over-sauced pizza is tasty when it’s covered in chunks of sweet-tart, juicy pineapple. It’s a fact.

This past weekend I made pineapple pizza at home, with my own freshly-made whole wheat crust and homemade sauce, and I really don’t know why I haven’t done it until now. I’ve been making pizza at home for the last year or so, but pineapple apparently skipped my mind. Forgive me, pineapple! It won’t happen again. Especially now that I know that my husband has no qualms about eating it while he’s waiting for the pizza with chicken to finish baking.

In my own little circle of friends, pineapple pizza was something of a tradition throughout our high school years. Movie night wouldn’t have been complete without it! Having it again has brought back a lot of fond memories from those times. It was something both the meat eaters and the vegetarians enjoyed, as well.

You can, if you really feel the need, add meat to pineapple pizza. But if you stick to the traditional pairing of pineapple and ham, you’re missing out. In first place, I don’t think that ham belongs on pizza ever. But that’s just me.

If you want a really amazing combination that includes meat, you have to try — and just hear me out here because I know it sounds a little strange — pepperoni, pineapple and mushroom pizza. Alas, I’ve given up pepperoni, but back in the day, it was my favorite. My cousin Beth can attest to its virtue, because she was the only person who would ever eat it with me! Without the pepperoni to tie it all together though, the pineapple and mushrooms don’t really do it for me. I’d rather have just one or the other.

Are you a pineapple pizza lover, like me?

I had no choice but to share this link with you, as I pretty much salivated while reading it. Pizza is one of the best food inventions ever, if for nothing else than its mass appeal. You can slum it and get a slice of “beach pizza” while cruising the boardwalk for bikini babes, or you can dress it up to the nines with fresh figs and fennel. There’s a slice for everyone, there are so many variations to the delightful pizza pie.

Epicurious has got the pizza recipe to please you. Yes, you. You may be thinking that I don’t know you so how could I possibly say this with any amount of certainty behind my bold statment, but I can tell you that it is very much a fact. Twenty-six pizza recipes, ranging from the simple margherita pizza to the completely bizarre escarole stuffed pizza (um, yum, but how did they think of that?) to the mouth-watering wild mushroom pizza with garlic confit and bacon.

So I dare you to defy me… go ahead, tell me there isn’t a pizza recipe there you’d like to try. Even if you only have one combination of toppings you’ll ever eat, as long as you live, there are a bunch of pizza dough recipes you could try.

I’m dying to know… which one are you going to try first, and why?

The one that gets my stomach juices flowing (yeah, a pretty gross image; sorry for that) the most is definitely the grilled chorizo, goat cheese and watercress pita pizzas. I’d make mine on my homemade sprouted spelt flour pizza dough, but the topping combination sounds divine. C’mon, sausage and goat cheese? With the fresh crisp of watercress? I’m there!

So share… I may be a bully, but I really want to know!

Who doesn’t love pizza? There is a large part of me that is convinced it is the next evolutionary step for food, sort of like people who are ambidextrous. It’s nearly perfect; it’s portable, versatile, can be eaten hot or cold, and in most cases tastes really, really good. Even the nastiest, greasiest piece of junky pizza is still worth eating.

I’ve recently become obsessed with cooking homemade pizza. I don’t go to the trouble of making my own dough, not when there are readily available little balls of the stuff at my local Whole Foods Market. What has really pushed me over the edge into my recent binge of pizza making has been the purchase of my brand new pizza pan.

I know what you’re thinking: a pan?!? Yes, I realize that everyone and their mother love those pizza stones, but I’ve never had good luck with them. My pizza always sticks to the peel or something else happens and I end up with pizza landing everywhere but on that damned stone. Also, since my roommate moved out and took her grill with her, grilled crust is out of the question. As much as I love crust done on the grill, with the charred outside and slightly chewy inside, my grill pan just isn’t big enough.

I was left with no choice but to use a pan. For a while I had a standard round pan that did an okay job, but the crust never came out crispy. The edges of my crust would puff up and the middle would sink under the weight of the cheese, sauce, and toppings. I finally decided that I had had enough of this nonsense and turned to the same place that I turn to with all my problems… Amazon.

Searching around a little bit, I found a nice nonstick pizza pan with holes all along the bottom. Thinking it was the solution to all my problems I bought it (and actually sprang for two day shipping because I was so eager to try it). Lo and behold, it kicks some serious ass. Now my pizza comes out perfect, with a crispy bottom to match the puffy outside crusts. The only problem with the new pan is that you can’t really roll the dough out on it, as it just smushes through the holes. Luckily, I still have that first pan to roll the dough on, then I just move it to the new one. It works like a charm.

If you’re sick and tired of fighting with pizza stones or getting soggy middles in your pies, I highly recommend checking out this pan.

Bob’s post about tomatoes and basil, the perfect pair, got me craving some margherita pizza. There are so many different ways to make this simple, traditional pizza — what’s your preference?

Like Bob, I prefer a simplistic version of this pizza, like the one in the picture. There’s got to be lots of fresh basil, fresh tomatoes and a sprinkling of Parmesan and feta cheese with some globs of fresh mozzarella. This recipe marinates the fresh roma tomatoes in garlic and olive oil — a fabulous idea.

If you want to mix it up a bit, though, there are lots of recipes you could try that spin a twist on the original margherita pizza, although I’m not sure you’ll get my seal of approval:

Now, Mario Battali, whom I usually kind of worship, uses passata, a tomato concentrate, instead of fresh tomatoes on his margherita pizza. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I’m willing to keep an open mind; after all, it’s Mario.

Food and Wine‘s margherita pizza recipe works for me. They include dried oregano and a truckload of fresh mozzarella.

We’re starting to take some liberties here … onion and parsley on a margherita pizza? I’m still thinking yum, though; I haven’t been offended yet.

Here’s where we get crazy: canned tomato sauce and Kalamata olives on a margherita pizza? Sure, I’d definitely still eat it, but perhaps we could call this one something else?

Cooking Light drizzles their version of margherita pizza with an emulsion of olive oil and vinegar before serving. I say: oh yeah!

Would you say that it’s important to designate buffalo mozzarella as the cheese of choice? Then this margherita pizza is for you, and I say serve it with pride.

I’ll leave you with one last plea. All pizza is great, but please don’t go adding a bunch of fancy toppings to your creation and call it margherita pizza. That’s just wrong, wrong in every sense of the word. Call it a cheese and olive pizza, call it a carmelized onion surprise, just don’t call it margherita pizza.

Do you have a favorite pizza sauce? As much as I love a good old fashioned red sauce pizza, I tend to detest jarred pizza sauces. They are never the right consistency for me (too smooth and runny) and they’re too salty.

I’ve gotten around that in a couple of different ways. Sometimes, I’ll just use canned tomato sauce with no salt added and dress it up with a little garlic powder, oregano, basil and freshly ground black pepper. Other times, I’ll drain a can of diced tomatoes, pulse them a bit in my food processor and add the herbs and spices.

I’ve found a video (thanks YouTube!) that demonstrates how to make the world’s easiest tomato sauce for pizza. It’s one of those, “Why didn’t I think of that?” moments as you watch it, but then you realize that unless you are fond of digging into a can of gourmet Italian tomatoes and squeezing shamelessly that it probably wouldn’t have occurred to you.

Nevertheless, this is probably the perfect pizza sauce if you’re looking for taste and texture along with ease and speed. Try it — just wash your hands first.

Remember the roasted garlic and peppers pizza? Yeah, that was a good one. About the only thing that pizza and this roasted garlic one have in common would be the roasted garlic.

So let’s travel east, shall we, to a place where the sun always shines, the people speak another language with weird letters and the food is fantastic. It may be all Greek to you, but this Mediterranean-inspired pizza is just simple enough to let all the flavors meld and shine through at the same time.

It’s a white pizza, but you won’t miss the sauce because the sun-dried tomatoes give it the punch it needs. I took my inspiration from this roasted garlic pizza recipe, but you know I always want more, more, more — hence the changes and additions. Oh, and Kona, this one’s for you — lots of garlic and vegetarian to boot!

Roasted Garlic, Spinach and Feta Pizza

Ingredients:

• pizza dough of your choice (you know you want to choose the sprouted spelt bread machine pizza dough), enough to make 2 12-inch thin crust pizzas
• extra virgin olive oil
• 4-6 cups baby spinach
• 6 oz. feta cheese crumbles
• 1 cup four cheese blend (Trader Joe’s Quattro Formaggio)
• sun dried tomatoes, one package dried or one jar packed in oil, sliced
• 2 heads of garlic, roasted until mushy
• 1 cup Kalamata olives, sliced
• fresh basil, torn, 1/3 cup or to taste
• fresh rosemary, chopped, 3 tablespoons or to taste
• fresh oregano, chopped, 3 tablespoons or to taste

Wilt the spinach by quickly pan sauteing in a little olive oil, then set aside.

Once you’ve stretched your dough, brush on olive oil, spread on roasted garlic and sprinkle on the four cheese blend (1/2 cup for each pizza). Then layer on the spinach, herbs, olives, sundried tomatoes, and feta.

Cook according to your crust’s directions (450 degrees for 16 or so minutes works great for ours) and enjoy.

Man, I wish I could be more like Debbie. She makes her own spelt pizza dough; I buy the pre-made Harris Teeter-brand dealie. She cooks exciting things that she just has laying around the house; I have to go on a grocery excursion. She’s finding inventive ways to cut carbs from her diet; I decide that throwing potatoes on a pizza would be a totally rad idea.

The thing is, it really is a rad idea. Sure, potatoes on a pizza may not exactly up the health quotient, but damn, does it make a good dinner. I’ve been completely obsessed with asparagus lately, so I searched around for new asparagus dishes and found this asparagus, fingerling potato and goat cheese pizza.

I enjoy all of these ingredients, but I wouldn’t necessarily think to put them together on a pizza. I’m always wary of sauceless pizzas, but I decided to give this one a go. Besides, with three different kinds of cheese (goat, mozzarella and parmesan), I figured it would probably be cool.

The key to any good pizza is that it be simple. This one doesn’t disappoint. You throw the potatoes in a pan of water and basically just let them cook while the oven is pre-heating. After that, the only time consuming part is the slicing. Cutting the potatoes is no big deal, but I’m not exactly a graceful cutter (note to self: when you form that emo band, name it “Graceful Cutter”), so slicing the asparagus spears in half was comically difficult for me.

I really should have just gotten a pizza mix, but I saw the prepared crust first, so I grabbed that. It’s a white pizza, so instead of sauce, you just rub the dough with garlic and olive oil. Like always, I tripled the amount of garlic they called for, because garlic is God’s way of telling us, “I love you.” I also just sliced the mozzarella and used it as a base instead of grating it. Other than that, it was just a matter of stacking.

It turned out amazingly. The mozzarella got all brown and bubbly around the edges, and the asparagus got baked and crispy. It was obviously very filling– it is mainly bread, cheese and potatoes after all, but at the same time, it was light; if you could believe that. Maybe it’s because it didn’t have a sauce or a lot of gooey cheese, but it turned out to be a nice, summery pizza. Maybe one day I’ll make things out of spelt, but in the meantime, I’m going to have a glass of wine and eat potatoes on my pizza.

Bob Degon‘s got me thinking about foods that go well together. He’s come up with a great idea for a new feature — Perfect Pairs — and he’s already made me salivate with his first entry, the spectacular combination of pomegranate and chocolate. I’ve got a few pairings I’ll be writing about soon enough, but let’s just say for now that I’ve had figs on the brain.

I love figs fresh, and I love them dried. I adore them as snacks, or as an ingredient in a more complex dish. They taste great with prosciutto, but let’s face it — you’re all going to revolt on me if I post another pizza recipe using prosciutto. So taking a break from the delightful cured ham, I’m willing to sing the praises of fresh fig and fennel pizza today (although no one is stopping you from adding prosciutto to this because it would be really, really delicious. Now pretend I didn’t write that).

This recipe is based on one from Food Blogga, but a few changes will give it some added pizazz that the original recipe was lacking (not that there’s anything wrong with the original recipe… I just like changes!).

Fresh Fig and Fennel Pizza

Ingredients:

• your pizza dough of choice to make 2 12-inch pizzas; do try the sprouted spelt dough you can make in your bread machine
• 2 leeks, thinly sliced
• 1 bulb fennel, thinly sliced
• 10-12 fresh figs (or a package of dried, reconstituted in warm water), thickly sliced
• 1 log chevre goat cheese
• four cheese blend (Trader Joe’s Quattro Formaggio’s my choice)
• fresh rosemary, 2-3 tablespoons chopped
• fresh thyme, 2-3 tablespoons chopped
• fresh basil, 2-3 tablespoons chopped
• sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
• 1 package prosciutto (optional but yummy)
• aged balsamic vinegar for drizzling

Stretch your dough onto 2 12-inch pizza pans lightly sprayed with olive oil. Meanwhile, caramelize the leeks and fennel by cooking them in olive oil slowly over medium-low heat until golden.

Sprinkle about 1/3 cup of the four cheese blend on each pizza. If you’re using the prosciutto, tear that into pieces and layer that on now. Then, layer the caramelized leeks and fennel, the sliced figs and the fresh herbs. Season to taste with sea salt and black pepper.

Now, plop on the goat cheese evenly and sprinkle with more of the four cheese blend, to taste.

Bake at 450 degrees for 16-18 minutes. Before serving, sprinkle on the pine nuts and drizzle with the syrupy goodness of the aged balsamic vinegar.

You know that I’d serve this with my gourmet mesclun salad, Molly would opt for her lazy, lazy green salad. Either way, you’ll have an amazing meal. Serve it to guests; you’ll see.

One of our all-time favorite pizzas is California Pizza Kitchen‘s Thai Chicken Pizza. There’s just something about the spicy nut sauce, the crunch of the veggies and the way it all melds together.

Of course we make it at home ourselves, using our spelt pizza dough recipe; not that there’s anything wrong with CPK’s honey wheat dough, but we enjoy our healthier version using sprouted flour (digests like a veggie). Even though I seem to end up with a lot of dishes, it’s a relatively easy recipe, and that’s what a husband… I mean dishwasher is for, right?

We’ve learned a thing or two about this recipe since we’ve made it so many times throughout the years. I’m willing to share my secrets with you….

• You really don’t want to skip the bean sprouts. We’ve made it on the fly without having these in the house, and we desperately missed the crunch.
• Ditto on the fresh cilantro. In fact, I’ve been so annoyed with lots of recipes over the past week that call for fresh herbs I didn’t have in the house, so I bought cilantro, parsley and basil yesterday, just because.
• Use fresh ginger. The dried ground ginger simply doesn’t taste right. Fresh ingredients exist for a reason.
• We grate the carrots in our food processor; it’s so much easier that peeling the separate pieces the way CPK makes it look in the photos.
• You can make this pizza peanut-free and it won’t lose a thing taste-wise. Use roasted almond butter and slivered almonds instead of the peanut butter in the sauce and the peanut topping. I’m sure you could use sunflower seed butter or soy butter with similar results, though we make it regularly with almond butter. Hooray for the peanut-allergic, like my son (who supposedly has outgrown his peanut allergy but I’m not messing with it).

This pizza is big on taste — a unique taste that you wouldn’t normally associate with pizza but that you’ll claim as a favorite just like we did.

If you’re not up to trying the non-wheat variety of pizza dough, you’re sort-of missing out when it comes to grilling. I’ve had better luck using gluten-free dough on my grill than the standard pizza dough, as it shrinks less, retains more of that grill smoky flavor, and has the perfect crunch.

There’s really not a whole lot more to this “recipe” than how you’d make a traditional pizza. As cliché as it sounds, the key with grilling a pizza is all in the technique.

In this particular recipe, I originally used Gillian’s Foods pizza dough, which comes frozen in a ball. Another dough I’ve used before, Nature’s Highlights, doesn’t work well at all on a grill — I wouldn’t recommend trying it at all. The first key to using Gillian’s on the grill is to make sure you thaw the dough out on your counter in the morning, if you’ll be cooking that night. If for some reason you’ve lost that window of opportunity, the second best way to thawing the dough is to keep it in its bag and immerse it in hot water until thawed. It’ll be a little wet that way, but you can just use spelt flour when you roll it out to prevent sticking.

Since originally posting this recipe, I’ve learned to make a perfect wheat-free, low-gluten spelt pizza dough myself, which is incredibly easy to do.

You’ll want to roll the dough into two crusts, as one huge one will simply not fit on the grill. I use a rolling pin on a large wooden pizza peel, dusting with spelt flour to prevent sticking to the wood or rolling pin. Make sure they’re not too thin, as you may break them when trying to get them on the grill.

Once I have both crusts rolled out, I get the grill going full blast with the cover closed. Get that baby up over 500-degrees. This is just to get things ready for later.

Once the grill is good and hot, I carefully lay the dough right on the main grill rack and turn the temperature down to its lowest setting. Spray or paint the dough with olive oil, close the lid and wait about five minutes. Check the underside of the pizza every so often. You want to get it so it’s a nice brown color with black grill marks, but make sure it’s not overdone. If anything, you want it underdone at this point. Once they’re done, take them off the grill and flip them over so the cooked side is on top.

Next up, we actually cook all of the ingredients either on the grill or inside on a pan. If you don’t cook the ingredients at least half-way to doneness before dressing the pizza, everything will be way underdone, unless you like it al-dente. In this recipe, I grilled the sausages and yellow pepper rings. The tomato slices were put on raw later.

The pesto we used was homemade, traditional basil pesto. Spread that evenly over the now cooked side of the pizza doughs. Don’t use too much pesto – it’s not necessary to have every inch covered in thick, green stuff. As long as olive oil is spread everywhere, you’re golden.

Put the rest of the ingredients on the pizza (sausage, peppers, and tomato slices), then crumble goat cheese over each crust. Return pizza’s to the grill and close the cover. Check the underside of the pizza every so often, and this time you’ll want it done a little more than the first time. You just don’t want the crust turning black. Remove from grill with spatula and pizza peel.

Now, as for slicing a pizza, I highly, highly recommend ditching that pain-in-the-arse pizza wheel for a rocking pizza knife. Perfect slices every time, and no more pushing all the junk all over the pizza when trying to use a wheel.

(Most of the content originally published by me on Slashfood, September 26, 2005)

I read the post Debbie wrote about the bacon asparagus pizza the other day and I thought, pizza sounds really good. So I read the post again. Yeah, definitely need to have pizza.

Luckily I had a pizza crust mix tucked away in the back of the pantry. I dug out the crust mix and started looking for toppings. I didn’t have the prosciutto, or the tomato sauce, or the volcanic vinegar, or the asparagus, or the goat cheese, so I changed a few ingredients. I gathered the toppings I had on hand and here is what I came up with.

Bacon Bear Pepperoni Pizza

Ingredients:

• dough of your choice (my choice is Jiffy’s pizza dough)
• sauce: One can of Nalley’s Walla Walla sweet onion chili
• caramelized onions (slow-cook 2 thinly-sliced large onions until soft and golden)
• 1 pound thick-sliced bacon fried, drained, and crumbled
• 1 pound Black Bear pepperoni, sliced
• 1 pound chopped mushrooms (If you have gathered any fresh Morels use them)
• 1 Red, Green, and Orange bell pepper, chopped
• 4-cheese blend (Walmart’s Fiesta blend)
• Hot sauce of your choice to taste

Follow the directions on the box to prepare the dough. Roll it out on a pizza pan and spread the can of chili over the dough. If you want to change the taste you can substitute a can of baked beans, Manwich sauce, or mini ravioli for the chili.

Layer on the bacon, pepperoni, peppers, onion and mushrooms. Top with the cheese and bake at 400 degrees for 15 to 19 minutes.  Now that is a darned good pizza.

Being eternally hungry and all, I decided to peruse the internet this afternoon and vicariously experience a gooey piece of pizza. I could have gone with the traditional pizza Margherita, or the pizza-joint pepperoni special. Instead, this bacon and asparagus pizza recipe caught my eye.

Maybe it’s because I actually have these ingredients in my house right this very minute (I know, I’m wondering why I’m not making it instead of writing about it too), or perhaps simply because you don’t see asparagus on pizza everyday. But you all know the real truth: it’s because I wanted to re-write it.

As usual, there are a few things I’d change about this recipe that would elevate it to new heights of yum. Instead of bacon, I’d use prosciutto, and not because I’m a food snob, but because prosciutto is just better, in this instance anyway. What do you mean, I’m being a food snob? Follow along, if you will: prosciutto provides a salty delicateness that bacon simply doesn’t have. Where bacon could overpower the asparagus, prosciutto will accent it.

I’m also a little unimpressed with a sauce-less pizza. It doesn’t always have to be a red sauce, but there has to be something there. This recipe’s got nothing. I’d use a traditional red pizza sauce in this case, but a balsamic vinaigrette would taste lovely. Oh, I’ve just created the perfect sauce in mind. You’ll see when we get the the recipe….

A few more tweaks here and there and we’ve got it… ready?

Prosciutto Asparagus Pizza
enough for 2 12-inch pizzas

Ingredients:

• dough of your choice (my choice is my sprouted spelt flour dough)
• sauce: mix together 8 ounces tomato sauce, 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, 2 – 4 tablespoons olive oil and garlic to taste
• caramelized onions (slow-cook 2 thinly-sliced large onions until soft and golden)
• 1 package prosciutto, torn into small strips
• 1 bunch asparagus, chopped
• 4-cheese blend (Trader Joe’s Quattro Formaggio)
• 1 package of goat cheese crumbles
• fresh chopped thyme, parsley and sage to taste
• red pepper flakes to taste

Layer ingredients onto your dough: sauce, a bit of 4-cheese blend, all the other toppings, then the goat cheese and more 4-cheese blend. Cook according to your dough’s directions, then enjoy.

We’ve just taken a so-so pizza recipe, tricked it up and made it appropriate for the classiest brunch or the quickest family dinner. All it took was a few easy switches, a bunch of fresh herbs, a souped-up sauce and some caramelized onions added to the mix.

For my son the main culprits are soy and egg. There are substitutes, like Kashi frozen pizzas, but they’re expensive and don’t really taste like the pizza at your local restaurant. There’s also the option of purchasing fresh dough from places like Whole Foods. Again, that can also be pricey and the dough can spoil if not used fast enough. Then there’s the option of making the pizza dough from scratch. Uh, remember the part about having kids? That probably won’t be happening any time soon.

There is one other option to make pizza that is quick and tastes like something you get delivered. It’s a mix from a box and it will cost you less than a buck.

Jiffy Pizza Crust Mix can be found in practically every supermarket in these here United States. A 6.5 ounce box can be found for well under a dollar (at my local super WalMart I’ve bought it for under fifty cents). One package will get you a pie the size of a large personal pizza. So, if you were making this for a family of four then two boxes would probably be sufficient.

Preparation for the crust is utterly simple. All you need to do is add 1/2 cup of hot tap water to a package of crust mix until moistened. Like the preparation of regular dough, you will need to cover the mix and let is stand for 5 minutes to give it time to rise and form. Once the five minutes is up you will take the dough out and knead it several times on a clean surface dusted with flour.

You are now ready to form it into a crust. After greasing up your fingers, you’ll press the dough on the bottom and sides of a baking pan. The size of pan will vary depending on how many packages of mix you use. Pre-bake the crust in the oven for two to three minutes before adding the toppings.

If you’re creating a basic cheese pie, the biggest issue will be with the tomato sauce. Unfortunately, most name-brand sauces contain soy as one of their ingredients. However, we found that Prego doesn’t contain any traces of soy (this has made for very happy Pasta Nights, by the way). The cheese can be a simple mozzarella or a cheddar/Monterey Jack mix (not just plain cheddar — the result is too greasy). When ready, pop it into the oven for about 20 minutes.

The result is a pizza with a crispy, golden crust that has the rise and texture of what you would get from store-bought dough. I would provide you with a comment from my son about how he feels, but he’s only two years old. So, the only thing you would get from him would be “Mmm. Delicious.”  We have made this for the other kids at one time or another, and the results have been positive there as well.

Sure, it’s pre-packaged mix that comes from a box. But, anything helps when you are trying to feed a child who can’t eat 75% of food on the market. The fact that he, and his siblings, enjoy the taste is a definite plus.

Did you really think we couldn’t find a way to extend the luck o’ the Irish to the Pizza Clack column? For shame, you non-believers!

I don’t know about you, but I just can’t get excited about corned beef and cabbage, I don’t care what my last name is (which I married into anyway, so there’s really no connection). Corned beef is a truly weird flavor and texture for me, and the cabbage and potatoes are pretty flavorless. My taste buds want more!

It’s funny, because like Molly, I adore cabbage. Asian cole slaw, grilled or pan sauteed cabbage wedges and a little cooked cabbage in a stir-fry is delicious. There’s got to be a better way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day than corned beef and cabbage, right?

Penguin Pizza in Boston seems to think so. Their Corned Beef and Cabbage Pizza, the recipe of which is featured on Food Network, could very well be the Foodie way to enjoying a ho-hum dish. All the fixin’s of a St. Patty’s Day meal, on a bed of delectable dough: potato, corned beef, cabbage, pickling spices, topped with cheese, cheese and more cheese. That can’t suck.

I’m thinking I’d probably add a traditional red sauce to the pizza for some zing, although I suppose the right pickling spices would do that too.

Anyone trying Corned Beef and Cabbage Pizza this St. Patrick’s Day?

Ah, the Holy Grail … a pizza dough with less calories and more nutrition. Could it be possible, and still taste good? And more importantly, can it fool your kids?

I haven’t tried this recipe for Zucchini Pizza Dough, but I’m going with a big yes to the questions above. OK, I admit, it seems a little weird, even to this chick who bakes with sprouted spelt flour. When I stop and think about the big hit my zucchini chocolate chip cookies are (I’ll post the recipe soon — promise!), and the fact that this dough recipe is full of cheese (the ultimate kid-pleaser), I figure it could become a family favorite.

The ingredients include lots of shredded zucchini, a little bit of flour, eggs and a bunch of cheese. It sounds delicious, but not very traditional. There’s no yeast, so I’m thinking this dough will probably turn out to be rather like a soft cracker. It’s also pretty easy to prepare, you’ll just need to give the zucchini some time to drain, so plan ahead.

Maybe you’ll have to call it “funny pizza” or “pizza pancakes” or something. It will probably become a whole different meal that you can’t compare to your usual pizza, but could be a fun and nutritious alternative.

Leave it to CliqueClack Food to find the weird stuff, eh?

One of our favorite things to cook together as a family is pizza. Sure, the bread machine makes the dough, but I stretch it out on the pan (or Keith rolls it out and grills it when weather permits), Owen pinches and snitches chunks of raw dough while he spreads the sauce on, and we all take turns sprinkling on the marvelous toppings that make it pizza.

Since we have trouble doing almost anything the traditional way, we tend to come up with rather strange topping combinations. Sure, I guess red sauce and cheese might be good and all, but have you ever had a butternut squash, sage and prosciutto pizza before?

Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it; this one wins us rave reviews and requests for the recipe whenever we serve it.

This recipe is based on one in an old Vegetarian Flip Book for Cooks that I have (Yes, you can find anything on eBay….). I have, of course, tweaked it considerably, obviously adding the prosciutto (that’s meat, people).

Butternut Squash, Sage and Prosciutto Pizza
- makes 2 12-inch pizzas

Ingredients:

• crust of your choice
• tomato sauce (about 1/2 can for 2 12-inch pizzas)
• 1 package of all-natural prosciutto (Trader Joe’s), ripped into small pieces
• 1 onion or 1 shallot, thinly sliced
• 1/2 butternut squash,peeled and cut into small cubes
• 1 bunch of fresh sage
• crumbled feta cheese
• grated 4-cheese blend (Quattro Formaggio from Trader Joe’s)

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees, or 400 degrees convection roast if you’ve got it. Toss the onion or shallot, the squash and half of the sage leaves in olive oil and sperad on a baking sheet. Roast in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, spread the sauce, remaining sage leaves (you can coarsely chop them if you like; we do) and the proscuitto on your pizza crusts. When the other ingredients are ready, spread them on the crusts and then top with both kinds of cheese to your liking.

Cook according to your crust directions (we use 450 degrees for 14 minutes) and enjoy. And no, it’s not weird to eat pizza without garlic. Really.

There’s something about a slice of gourmet pizza. I’m not talking about the cardboard “beach pizza” that Keith craves on an intermittent basis, but a pizza with a rich, bubbly crust and a delectable combination of toppings that make you feel like you’re eating much more than yummy stuff on dough.

We’ve gone through lots of metamorphoses in our pizza making throughout the years. We started by putting our toppings on a pre-made supermarket crust; not so good, but easy. When we stopped eating wheat, we found Gillian’s gluten-free frozen dough balls at our Whole Foods market. This dough works great on the grill, in case you’re a junkie for grilled pizza like we are.

Now, thanks to the trusty bread machine, I make a sprouted spelt flour honey pizza dough that is just about the best pizza crust you’ll ever eat.

I don’t remember ever being dissatisfied with our pizza. Even when we used the pre-made, pre-cooked shells, I still looked forward to the BBQ chicken or the Thai chicken or the pesto (some of our “regulars”). However, now that we have found the crust that we love so much, I know I could never go back. The bubbly, crunchy, chewy perfection that is our pizza crust has won me over.

So I come to you with this question: Is the pizza about the toppings, or the crust? Take our poll and elaborate in the comments!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

There’s almost nothing you can do to make a slice of pizza unappealing for me. Even if it is a wheat crust slathered with cheap mozzarella cheese, it still appeals. I wouldn’t eat it, but boy, I’d smell it and drool. Man, I passed by a Subway today and nearly made a pizza pit stop….

When we make our own pizza at home, though, which is about once a week, we like to up the ante a bit. You’ll see that we make our own pizza dough from almost-scratch (I know, it’s not Jen’s, but it’s close!), thanks to the bread machine. And we don’t normally just toss on sauce and cheese and call it a pizza.

This particluar combination you could enjoy over pasta just as easily as on your favorite pizza crust.

Pesto, Sausage and Goat Cheese Pizza

Ingredients:

• your favorite pesto (we make ours all summer long with fresh basil and freeze it)
• your favorite sausages (we like chicken sausages, most often mushroom asiago or roasted garlic flavors)
• yellow peppers
• sliced fresh tomato
• caramelized onions
• goat cheese crumbles

Plop them on your dough, cook according to dough’s directions and serve.