An anniversary meal all the members of my family couldn't wait to eat: HOMEMADE PIZZA

2010-8-3

Today, my husband and I celebrated our eight wedding anniversary. Food is such an important part of our lives, so that had to be part of the celebration. We wanted to celebrate with a delicious meal on a budget.

For our anniversary meal, I made two pizzas for about $7. No kidding. TWO PIZZAS for about $7. And? It was so tasty, hardly any leftovers, among two adults and two very small children (one 2 yrs old and one will be 4 next month). Due to my influence, my husband is a fan of mushroom and pineapple (not to be confused with the Hawaiian ham and pineapple combination) pizzas.

Ingredients - 6 total:

1. French loaf dough King Soopers (aka Kroger) uses to make their French bread. It comes frozen. Just ask the bakery for the dough. They charge the same amount as the stuff that's baked. After tax it was $1.77.

2. Olive oil, just enough (not enough to make greasy) to thoroughly cook the onion and mushrooms (separately). 3. Red onion. 4. Pineapples. 5. Mushrooms.

6. Shredded cheese.


The process and preparation:

Peel and cut the red onion.


Cut thinly.

Like so.


Wash and cut the mushrooms thinly as well.


Until they are all cut.


Separate the juice from the pineapples. I drank the juice.


Pizza sauce. Need that. Goes on top of the dough flattened on the baking surface.



With just a bit of olive oil, cook the red onion until it's transparent. The onion and mushrooms must be cooked BEFORE placing on the pizza; otherwise, the result is nearly raw onion with crunchy mushrooms.


Put the onion aside, leaving any remaining liquid in the pan and cook the mushrooms. I added a hint of sea salt to the mushrooms. Then set that aside once cooked until tender and soft.


This will be needed last, on top of the toppings.


One of two pizzas before I added the cheese.


The other pizza, with the cheese added on it. Ready to bake.


After the baking, cooling, and cutting. I baked my pizzas individually at 475 for about 18 minutes.


The other pizza after baking.


The girls ate the cheese portion of the pizzas, and my husband and I ate the pineapples, mushrooms, onion part of the pizzas. My husband and the girls did not want to stop eating the pizzas. No kidding. People were drooling as they thought about and talked about the pizzas.

Viola.


And gone.

Homemade Pineapple, Mushroom, and Caramelized Onions Pizza

2010-7-4

Homemade Pineapple, Mushroom, and Caramelized Onions Pizza

Yesterday was the 4th of July; a celebration of freedom and liberty that must be observed. Also had my best friend since the 4th grade visiting from out of state; last night was her last night in town. Wanted to have something special for dinner; the verdict was home made pizza.

Our friends, Liz and Geoff, had has over for dinner not long ago, and they told us about getting dough from King Sooper's (perhaps owned by the same company as Kroger's) bakery section. Liz said to ask a bakery employee for the dough used to make the store's French bread. The store uses ready-made, frozen dough to bake their French bread. I took that suggestion and ran with it.

Troy and I enjoy having the combination of mushrooms and pineapples on our pizza. Abby is a vegetarian, didn't specify other ingredients she preferred on the pizza(s), and agreed my suggestion of putting mushrooms, pineapples, and onions on the pizza(s).

This is a very easy recipe, considering I didn't need any time or effort to make the dough. Six ingredients. A bit of cooking, before the baking. Loads and loads of deliciousness. Ready?

Ingredients:

1. dough.

2. mushrooms - sorry, no photograph available.

3. red onions.


4. pineapples.


5. pineapples.

6. shredded cheese.


Directions:

Flatten dough on stoneware (I love using my Pampered Chef stoneware to bake, and no, I am not being paid or being given any gifts to speak highly of their products). Um, we could have easily used one loaf to make two crusts, but we didn't take that route this time. My husband rolled the dough.


Wash and cut the mushrooms. Cut very thinly.


Peel and cut the red onions. Half an onion, and cut into very, very thinly, then half.


Lessons learned from the past. Make sure to cook the mushrooms BEFORE baking them; otherwise they turn out crunchy.

I first caramelized the red onions (in a pan, cook the onions with a bit of olive oil on medium heat, until a bit transparent). Pull out most of the red onions and set them aside in a bowl, leaving behind the olive oil and any onion juice in the pan. Then, throw in the cut mushrooms. Add a bit of sea salt. Cook until tender. Pull out the mushrooms (leaving behind the juice that developed from cooking the mushrooms) and set them aside in a bowl.

Spread the pasta sauce over the dough. Then add the toppings - in this case - onions, pineapples, and mushrooms. I left part of each pizza without toppings, for our daughters.

Look good?


Then add the cheese.


I cooked each of our pizzas (individually - because the huge round stoneware didn't fit alongside the rectangular stoneware, and I didn't think about baking them on different levels simultaneously) at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes. I baked ours until the crust started turning a bit golden.

Here's one of the final products:

***

Oh, and by the way, those two generous size pizzas barely lasted the night, last night. The girls polished off the little remaining at lunchtime today. The pizzas were ever popular.