Pizza Night: Portobello & Pesto Pizza

It's been quite some time since the family has had a homemade pizza night, so I decided to add it to the meal plan (and ACTUALLY do it...). We decided to revisit an old favorite... Portobello Pizza Night.

As always, this was a HUGE hit (even without meat which the hubby is rarely ok with).

We actually made 2 pizzas, plain old cheese for the girls and the Portobello for us.

Southern Living's Portobello Pizza Recipe

Ingredients

2 3 (we like a lot of substance) large portobello mushroom caps, sliced
1/2 large onion, sliced 
1/2 teaspoon salt 
1/2 teaspoon pepper 
Vegetable cooking spray 
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar 
2 tablespoons yellow cornmeal 
1 (10-ounce) refrigerated pizza crust dough 
2 tablespoons basil pesto 
2 tablespoons plain nonfat yogurt 
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil 
6 fresh mozzarella cheese slices (6 ounces) 
5 plum tomatoes, chopped  (try to remove seeds and liquid)
2 tablespoons shredded Parmesan cheese

Preparation

Sauté first 4 ingredients in a large skillet coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat 5 minutes or until onion is tender. Add balsamic vinegar; cook 2 minutes or until liquid is evaporated. Set aside.
Sprinkle cornmeal over baking pan; spread out pizza dough. Bake on bottom oven rack at 425° for 5 minutes.
Stir together pesto and yogurt. Spread over pizza crust, leaving a 1-inch border. Sprinkle with mushroom mixture and fresh basil. Top with mozzarella cheese and tomatoes. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
Bake at 425° on bottom oven rack for 18 minutes or until edges are golden brown and cheese is melted.

Pizza Night #17: 1st Pizza Night in the NEW House!

We have officially been in the new house for 5 weeks and I think I am starting to get myself into a routine... which has been kind of hard because IN those 5 weeks we had house guests 3 times (ok, so it was just my parents for 2 times but STILL... a house guest is a house guest), went to Busch Gardens twice, celebrated Easter, and had my daughters 4th birthday party. Phew!

We did manage to start up on of our old traditions, Homemade Pizza Night, which was so fun! The girls love to watch daddy toss the pizza dough and help put on all the toppings. We didn't try a new pizza recipe, we just stuck with good old premade publix dough, fresh mozzarella, pepperoni, sausage, and mushroom.

 

 

 And Voila...

{Pinned there, Done That} Pizza Night #16

Pizza Night #16 was thanks to Mrs Happy Homemaker . I had pinned this recipe for Eye Round of Roast (which was awesome by the way), see...

Anyway, we had LOTS left over... so scrolling to the bottom of her recipe, she says:
" *Got leftovers?? Turn them into a mouthwatering Philly Cheesesteak Pizza!"

So that's what we did!

It was fabulous!

However, I must say that she said "Using a food processor or blender, shred up the leftover roast into small bits" ... not gonna lie... it turned mine into crumbs! No joke! I tried both my food processor (which wouldn't work and kept jamming) and the blender. It still tasted great and was probably easier for the kiddos to eat anyway.

Here's the recipe in case the original is MIA:

Philly Cheesesteak Pizza
Mrs. Happy Homemaker - Phlly Cheesesteak Pizza
Ingredients:
 •leftover eye of round roast, or any other beef roast
 •cheese
 •sauteed onions & garlic - you can add bell peppers and mushrooms too if you want
 •jarred alfredo sauce
 •pre-baked pizza crust

Instructions:
Saute whatever veggies you want & set aside.
Using a food processor or blender, shred (or puree in my case!) up the leftover roast into small bits.
Spoon a little alfredo sauce onto an prepared pizza crust uncooked pizza dough.  Top with the roast, sauteed veggies, & cheese.  This go round, I used green peppers, onions and garlic for the veggies - and on one pizza I used pepperjack & on another I used parmesan, mozzarella & torn strips of provolone.
Bake at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes. as long as the dough requires... ours was closer to 18/20 minutes

Pizza Night #15 - Revisit Portobello Pizza

For our 15th pizza night (well, 15th posted pizza night) we decided to revisit #5, Portobello Pizza.

The only difference was we used the Publix (grocery store chain) bakery pizza dough instead of a can of refrigerated pizza dough and we baked it for 18 minutes or so.

Again, we were HUGE fans! How yummy does this look?!

Pizza Night: Spinach White Pizza

I found another fantastic pizza recipe!

I have a hard time trying to find pizza night recipes to try because whenever I google "homemade pizza" I get all sorts of dough recipes, and we've established that I am not a dough maker. So then I have to think of the type of pizza I want and google that. Like for this time, I googled "spinach pizza". And Voila... up came King Arthur Flour and their Spinach White Pizza Recipe.

We kind of goofed for this recipe, because we put ALL the cheese mixture onto ONE pizza.... looking back at the recipe it does say "Our Pizza Crust recipe is great; it make two 14″ pizzas, which is a perfect size for the amount of filling in this recipe." Woops.

Hubby and I alway try to figure out how to make whatever recipe better, adding sausage, more or less of stuff etc.... well he says, next time lets try to make the cheese layer thinner, like roll it or something (roll it? Ok hubby), and THEN it dawned on me that the picture I saw showed TWO pizzas.

It was still yummy cheesey goodness (just maybe a touch too much!)

Then just in case the girls didn't like our fancy shmancy white pizza, we did two flatbread pepperoni pizzas.

Clearly, Jillie was a fan!
 

Pizza Night #13 - Margheritta Pizza w/ Basil Oil

Boy it has been a WHILE since I have posted a pizza night, and that's probably because we have been so dern busy we haven't really done many pizza nights (although I do have 2 new pizza nights to post when I have time so keep an eye out). For a few Pizza Nights, we made our Spinach, Ricotta, & Mozzarella pizza (which we LOVE) but we kind of grew sick of it... it's a pretty "heavy" pizza.

So off to the computer I went and found this yummy recipe. We didn't make the dough as the recipe calls for (remember my pizza night fail?), so here is what we did.


Margheritta Pizza with Basil Oil
Ingredients

About 6 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, divided

1  can (14.5 oz.) crushed or diced tomatoes (preferably organic), whizzed briefly in a food processor to a chunky purée

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 cup lightly packed basil leaves

6 oz fresh mozzarella, cut into 1/2-in. cubes

About 1 tsp. dried oregano

Preparation

• In a medium pot, heat 2 tbsp. olive oil over medium heat until hot but not smoking. Add garlic and swirl in hot oil until it starts to smell good, about 15 seconds. Stir in tomatoes and simmer, uncovered, to thicken and cook off the "canned" flavors, at least 25 minutes.
• While sauce is cooking, put 1/4 cup olive oil and basil leaves in a food processor and whirl to finely chop basil, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Stir 1 tbsp. basil oil into tomato sauce as it's cooking, along with 1 pinch salt. Pour remaining basil oil into a small bowl and cover surface with a thin layer of olive oil.
• Toss dough and set on pizza stone or baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal.
• Spoon 3 to 4 tbsp. tomato sauce onto dough, leaving at least a 1/2-in. border.
• (optional) Layer pepperoni
• Cover with mozzarella and oregano
• Bake according to dough directions (ours says *400 for 18-25 min), until dough is slightly golden.
• Remove from oven and let sit a few minutes
• Drizzle pizza with basil oil (we then used a spoon to spread it around)

Enjoy!

This is definitely a keeper!

Pizza Night #12: Spinach, Ricotta, and Mozzarella (Oh My!) Pizza

... and there's some pesto in there too.
Oh. My. Awesome. Pizza! I was looking for a white spinach pizza recipe and wasn't having much luck until I happened upon Selfish Mom 's Spinach Pesto Pizza. I REALLY liked the idea of the pesto and spinach, but I'm not a fan of refrigerated pizza crust OR feta cheese. So I took the spinach, pesto, and tomatoes and then added in some ricotta and mozzarella (and fresh pizza dough). AWESOME!

Spinach, Ricotta, & Mozzarella Pizza
Pizza Dough (I prefer freshly made dough from my grocery store bakery section)
4T pesto (I use Barilla jarred pesto)
8 oz fresh mozzarella
14oz can petit diced tomatoes, drained
8oz package frozen spinach, thawed and drained
4oz ricotta (I am guesstimating here, I put in a few spoonfuls)
3T butter
~1/2 t garlic salt
~1/2 t cajun
cornmeal

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400*
2. Combine thawed/drained spinach, pesto, diced tomatoes, & ricotta in a bowl and set aside.
3. Roll out and/or toss pizza dough and place on pan/pizza stone (yes, I still need to buy a pizza stone)  covered with a handful of cornmeal.

4. Melt butter and add garlic salt, cajun seasoning and mix.
5. Brush butter mixture onto pizza dough and bake 6 minutes.

6. Remove from oven and spread spinach mixture onto pizza dough.

7. Top with slices of fresh mozzarella.

8. Bake 15 minutes or so until mozzarella cheese is melted.

Yum yum yum!!!

The ONLY thing that would have made this recipe better was to add some diced up chicken... and some fresh basil leaves on top!

Pizza Night #12 - TOTAL COMPLETE Success!
Movie Night: Rango (not a fan of the movie... kinda a weird, but whatev)
Enjoy!

Linking up: Little Rays of Sunshine, Running with Glitter, Sarahndipities, Delicateconstruction, Making the World Cuter, Tales of a Trophy Wife, Sweet Ps and BB, Women Who Do It ALl, Dragonfly Designs, Crafty Blog Stalker, House of Hepworths, It's A Keeper, Momnivores Dilema, Ladybird Ln, Naptime Crafters, Delicate Construction, Just a Girl, Faith Trust Pixie Dust, Making the World Cuter, Keeping it Simple, Remodelaholic

Pizza Night #11: Portobello Pizza (Take 2)

For this weeks pizza night we decided to one-up one of our favorite pizzas so far! We tried the Portobello Pizza again with a few minor tweaks.

If you'll remember, we thought that the pizza had a bit too much liquid pooled on top of the pizza which we determined was probably from the mushrooms or the tomatoes. SOOOO this time I cooked the mushrooms a little more to try to get rid of ALL the excess liquid. I also removed the juicy seeds from the tomatoes when I diced them. It seemed to work, but even though there was still some liquid on top the pizza did not get soggy at ALL because...

(tweak #2) ... we took Jessica, from Cajunlicious | All things Cajun,'s pizza dough tip of brushing the dough with an oh-so-yummy butter mixture and baking it for a few minutes before adding the toppings. And let me tell you, the smell wafting about our kitchen as the dough was baking for that few minutes was heavenly.

We used a whole grain dough this time, and to be perfectly honest.... it doesn't hold a candle to the original dough... but it was STILL a great pizza!

And still one of our favorites so far.
Pizza Night #11 - Yummy!
Movie: Harry Potter (yeah, my 2 year old now requests Harry Potter)

Pizza Night #10 - Cajun Pizza {Cajunlicious}

It's been a little while since we had family Pizza & Movie night between us traveling and my being out of town. So when I saw Cajun Pizza by Jessica over at Cajunlicious | all things cajun come through on my blogger reader, I just KNEW I had to give it a shot!! (the pictures made my mouth water!)

This was AMAZING! (ok, so anything after week 9's pizza night would be great, but no joke... Ah-may-ZING!)

Going through all of our pizza weeks, hubby and I have picked up different "tips", I guess you would call it, from each recipe and added them to our repertoire. For example, one recipe told us to use cornmeal on the pan instead of flour... LOVED IT! So now we always use cornmeal.

ANYWAY, the tip we picked up from Jessica's Cajun Pizza recipe was to brush the entire pizza with a butter/garlic (and of course Cajun) mixture and then bake for 8 minutes... and THEN top with rest of the toppings. The dough was nice and crispy, but not like too-thin-crunchy-flat bread pizza. Come to think of it, we may jump back to our portobello pizza recipe and do this.... I'll let you know how it turns out :).

My little Emeril... "BAM!"

The ONLY thing I changed when making this recipe was we used our grocery stores pizza dough (found in the bakery section), I use a cookie sheet instead of the pizza stone (mental note... must go buy pizza stone), and it was covered in cornmeal... oh and I used more Andoulli sausage. Other than that... this recipe was FANTASTIC !!

Doesn't that look wonderful?

I HIGHLY recommend Cajun Pizza by Jessica over at Cajunlicious | all things cajun !!

Pizza Night #10 - COMPLETE Success!
No Movie, we got started too late!
Enjoy!

Linking up: CRAFT, Making the World Cuter, Running with Glitter, Delicate Construction, Marvelously Messy, Litte Rays of Sunshine, Keeping it Simple, Creating my way to Success, Blackberry Vine, Bacon Time, Not Just a Housewife

Pizza Night #9 - MAJOR fail!

Sorry this post is about a month late... I never got around to posting it before all of our trips. Actually, I debated NOT posting since it was a complete and utter failure, AND a waste of good toppings, but what the heck...

I consider myself a pretty darn good cook (according to the 'about me' to the right), but apparently, homemade pizza dough eludes me.

I wanted to do a meat lovers pizza... AND make my own dough. So I got meatball, crumbled sausage, and pepperoni, yummy jarred pizza sauce, and cheese. Time for the pizza dough; so I open my trusty Joy of Cooking and pizza a simple pizza dough recipe.

I THOUGHT I followed it to a T, I guess not. I ended up with a gooey sticky mess.

But not sure how pizza dough looks before it rises... I decide to let it rise... It DID double at least. 

But when we tried to work with it... it was like slimy goop. We added more and More flour to FINALLY make it manageable

and hubby did some magic to make it look like pizza.

We were still hopeful, so we went ahead and had fun putting on the toppings.

It even looked edible.

BUT this is where it ended up.

It literally tasted like cardboard. Sheesh.... back to grocery store fresh pizza dough for us!

Pizza Night #9: MAJOR FAIL

Pizza Night #8: My first calzone!

Hubby was still out playing army, but potty training was completed (for the most part), so I determined to go ahead and make "actual" pizza again (no more english muffin pizzas). So I decided to make a calzone!

I have NEVER made a calzone before, so I head over over to google and typed in "how to make a calzone" (clever huh?). Apparently, it's not that hard although the ONE tip that I'm probably glad that I followed was to cut a slit in the top. It didn't happen to me, but I read about a few calzone explosions from skipping that step.

I gathered my ingredients (and my little helpers)

Publix pizza dough, separated into two {relatively} equal pieces
ricotta
mozzarella
pepperoni (I figured for my first calzone I'd stick with simple... although I would love a spinach mushroom one!)
Pizza sauce (Ragu left over from last week)

The Calzone Process:
1. Lightly oil the baking pan
2. On a lightly floured surface, Charlotte and I set out to roll toss somehow manage to get the dough into 2 decent circles.

3. Once that was completed, we started on the ricotta cheese. I read that you should put the cheese near the center, not too close to the edge so it doesn't leak out (makes sense); I think mine was a LITTLE bit to centered. I had a lot of dough at the edges post baking, but oh well. Anyway, spread a few spoons fulls of ricotta onto each circle.

4. Next came the pepperoni & the mozzarella cheese (Jillie liked the pepperoni).
PS - I had to run to google again at this point to see if Calzones have pizza sauce IN them... apparently they traditionally do not, but are served WITH sauce. Check.

5. Folded over to dough to make the calzones and pinched the edges. I then went over the edges with a fork to make it extra tight.

6. Place on the greased baking dish (I put some corn meal down too) and brush tops of  calzones with oil. Then cut a few slits in the top.

7. Bake at 425* for 20-30 minutes until golden.

Yeah, that's one mamajamma calzone!

I am definitely going to make calzones again with more cheese and fillings!

Pizza (and movie) Night # 8: Success!!
Movie: Incredibles

Linking up: Remodelaholic, Keeping it Simple, Little rays of Sunshine, Running with Glitter, A Bowl full of Lemons, Homework, Blackberryvine, Sew Much Ado, My Girlish Whims, Momnivores Dilema, JessicaNDesigns