Pizza shizza

Its been sometime since I put up some food posts. Probably because I've been out so much that I haven't really been able to experiment too much. So last night my hands were itching to try something! I had a lot of left over veggies in the fridge and for me Italian food is the best way to use those - be it soups, pasta or what's going to be this post, pizza!!

After trying a few pizza dough recipes, the one that I like the most is here. I did however use whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour for a much healthier alternative. The dough was just the right consistency and steps in this recipe are simple and straightforward. I also froze this dough for 3 weeks without any issues. A good pizza sauce would be:

5-6 cloves fresh garlic, minced
5 tomatoes, pureed
1/2 cup red wine
1 cup water
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon dried parsley
2 tablespoons dried basil
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons salt, or to taste

Lightly saute minced garlic in olive oil over medium heat until golden. Add the tomato paste and fry with the garlic. Add to the rest of the ingredients and blend. This sauce can also be frozen. You could omit the wine and add some vegetable broth instead. Also, I like to add fresh tomatoes but you could use canned as well. I love the flavors of different herbs, and you could definitely play around with those as well.

The pizza dough recipe also has good step by step instructions on how to roll the dough. You can adjust the thickness to your liking. For example, to create a Chicago style pizza at home, I rolled out the dough a little larger in diameter than my cake pan. Then, I fit it into the cake pan with the sides rolled which created a deep dish pizza effect. Last night, I just made a regular thin crust pizza. I highly recommend using the fresh dough immediately. The texture of the pizza crust is much much better.

For the toppings, I used some roasted Indian cottage cheese (Paneer), Parmesan cheese, Goat cheese, Corn, Red pepper, green pepper and onions. I also had some shredded plantain on hand which I added as well. I think this was a good balance of veggies and cheese. I also added some mango peach salsa to the paneer for some flavor. The assembled layers were pizza sauce followed by parm cheese and the veggies weighed down by the paneer salsa mix with goat cheese and plantain sprinkled over the top.

The final step is to place the pizza in a 450 F degree oven for about 15 mins and let it bake! Keep checking on it after 12 mins have passed by. Let it cool for a few mins before devouring it! This particular combination of toppings was really tasty. I've tried others and will keep experimenting but I just wanted to let you know the one I loved!