Sausage Calzones

Here is another wonderful recipe from Annie's Eats. My husband just LOVED this and told me to make them again soon! These were really easy to put together and satisfied my pizza craving that I always have! (I always crave pizza or tex-mexican food. :-D) I didn't have all the ingredients that I needed so I played around with it a bit and it turned out great!

However, I'm just going to include Annie's recipe because how I wish I had had everything I needed because I bet it would have been even better. I didn't have mushrooms or spinach so I left out the mushrooms (sad day) and put in some fresh parsley instead of spinach (obviously not as much). I have a little pot of parsley that is growing nicely on our balcony that was just begging me to use it. I also added the tomato sauce to the calzone before I put it in the oven! Yum!

Check out Annie's Eats Sausage Calzone recipe here.

How to Grill Pizza

Hello Again!

So I'm giving myself 100% for my efforts on blogging this past week. :-D I'm pretty much caught up now and I need to find some more recipes to grace you all with.

Since its pretty much summertime, we are doing most things on the grill. I am not a fan of cooking things over the stove because I always worry that it isn't done, and dislike cooking with oil. Last week, I decided that I wanted to try cooking pizza on the grill. I had never done this before and I was SOOOO nervous. My husband was even more nervous that I was going to ruin his precious grill. :-D

I could not for the life of me find a good tutorial on cooking pizza on the grill. So... I read a couple of different things and just decided to go for it! And here is my tutorial for you. :-D

1. Oil down grill. To do this, pour some olive oil onto a paper towel and rub down the area you will cook on.
2. Turn on grill and put it on high heat. Mine was at 500 degrees by the time I was ready to put the pizza on.
3. Make pizza dough. Lightly brush pizza dough with olive oil. Once dough is ready, place it on the grill. It will start to bubble immediately. Turn grill down to low heat. Once it is puffed up, you know to turn it on it's other side. (You may want to use two spatulas or a pizza turner. I made my pizzas kind of small since I don't have another grill spatula or a special pizza one!)
4. Start adding your pizza sauce and toppings.
5. Close the lid and allow cheese to melt. Once melted, your pizza is done!

SUPER EASY... and I didn't ruin the grill!

Here are some pizza recipes you can try on the grill.

Chicken Barbeque Pizza (This is the one pictured above)
Chicken Garlic Pizza
Ranch Chicken Pizza

...or you could always go for good ol' pepperoni and cheese!

Source: Gianina

Chicken Barbeque Pizza

I made this on Saturday night as an impromptu visit from my parents. I knew Emi wasn't going to be home when I got home from work so I gave them a call and bribed them with food.
I have been planning to make BBQ pizza for the last 3 months and have just never gotten around to it. I've been trying to find a recipe that I thought would be amazing since I love BBQ chicken, but I was afraid that on a pizza it would just be too strong of a taste. I came up with this concoction myself. :-D This is the best BBQ pizza I have ever had. Emi and my parents would agree with me.
You can find the original pizza dough recipe here, but I've made a few changes.

PIZZA DOUGH
1 pkg. Dry yeast (2 tsp. = 1 pkg.)
2 Tbsp. Lukewarm water
Dissolve yeast in warm water.
1 egg
1 tsp. Salt
½ tsp. Sugar
1 Tbsp. Shortening or oil
1 cup boiling water
3 cups flour
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
1 tsp. parsley flakes

Beat egg, add shortening, salt, sugar. Slowly stir in boiling water. Cool to lukewarm and add yeast mixture. Add ½ flour, italian seasoning, and parsley; stir (or beat with electric mixer) until smooth. Add remaining flour. Knead to soft dough. Roll to fit pan. Spread light coating of oil over dough on pan. Let rise 15 minutes. (You can spread on sauce and toppings while waiting for dough to rise.)

Cook at 425 for 15 - 20 minutes. (Check at 15 minutes.)

HINT WHILE BAKING: Turn oven to BROIL for one minute at the very end of pizza cooking time. This gives the cheese a nice brown that is so delicious!

BARBEQUE CHICKEN PIZZA
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cubed
Italian seasoning
Parsley flakes
Worchestershire sauce
Salt
Pepper
1/2 cup Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce (or your preferred)
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 red onion, sliced
Mozzarella cheese
1 T. olive oil
1 T. fresh cilantro chopped

Cube chicken breasts and saute over medium-high heat seasoning with italian seasoning, parsley flakes, worchestershire sauce, salt and pepper to taste. Mix BBQ sauce and cream together and spread over crust. Top with chicken, then cheese, then red onion slices.

Chicken Garlic Pizza

Last night we had a little change of plans. Originally I was going to make some BBQ pizza, but I just really didn't feel up to BBQ pizza so I went on the search instead. Where I live, we have an AWESOME pizza chain called Papa Murphy's. They make the pizza for you and then you take it home and bake it. It is a little bit less expensive than the regular pizza chains. I was trying to find a recipe that was like their Chicken Garlic Pizza and I found a couple of different ones, but this one sounded the yummiest so I chose it. It didn't taste exactly like Papa Murphy's but it was close and very good! I only differed from the original recipe in that I used green onions instead of red, more garlic, and more tomatoes.

I used the pizza dough recipe found here. I made one change to the pizza dough. I added Italian Seasoning and some dried Rosemary. I think next time I will add some garlic salt to the olive oil when I brush the crust to add some extra flavor. I always have a hard time eating crust because the lack of flavor.

Chicken Garlic Pizza

Ingredients
4 ounces light cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup nonfat sour cream
6 cloves garlic, mashed
1 cup cooked chicken, diced
3 stalks green onion
2 small tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup mushroom, sliced
1 cup mozzarella cheese, part skim milk,shredded
1 pizza dough
3 tablespoons parmesan cheese

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix together the cream cheese, sour cream and mashed garlic until smooth.
3. Spread on the pizza crust.
4. Top with the chicken, onion, tomato, mushrooms and cheese.
5. Bake for 15 minutes or until the crust is done and the cheese is melted.
6. Top with parmesan cheese.

Ranch Chicken Pizza

Last night I made some more Homemade Pizza. While Emi liked the kind I made last time, he thought the dough was a little bit too crunchy so he wasn't too excited that I wanted to make Homemade Pizza again. This dough came out with a little bit of a crunch to it, but for the most part it was soft. This will be my standard go to Pizza Dough recipe from now on.

Emi LOVED the flavor of this pizza and ending up eating most of the pizza himself. The only change I wanted to make was to add some green onions to the topping, but then I found out that I didn't have any. Next time I will try that for sure. I LOVE green onions. (Side note on the picture: I thought I picked up sliced olives, but instead they were chopped, so that is what those weird clumps of black on the picture are.)

I found both the pizza dough recipe and the sauce and toppings recipe at Shayla's Kitchen (as linked in the recipe title).

Pizza Dough

1 pkg. Dry yeast (2 tsp. = 1 pkg.)
2 Tbsp. Lukewarm water
Dissolve yeast in warm water.
1 egg
1 tsp. Salt
½ tsp. Sugar
1 Tbsp. Shortening or oil
1 cup boiling water
3 cups flour

Beat egg, add shortening, salt, sugar. Slowly stir in boiling water. Cool to lukewarm and add yeast mixture. Add ½ flour; stir (or beat with electric mixer) until smooth. Add remaining flour. Knead to soft dough. Roll to fit pan. Spread light coating of oil over dough on pan. Let rise 15 minutes. (You can spread on sauce and toppings while waiting for dough to rise.)

Cook at 425 for 15 - 20 minutes. (Check at 15 minutes.) HINT WHILE BAKING: Turn oven to BROIL for one minute at the very end of pizza cooking time. This gives the cheese a nice brown that is so delicious!

Ranch Chicken Pizza

1/2 cup Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing
3 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 Tbsp. tomato paste
*2 chicken breasts, cooked, and cut into strips
2 cups mozzarella cheese
1 can olives, sliced
2 stalks green onions

Blend together dressing, cream cheese, and tomato paste. Stir in cooked chicken. Spread on pizza crust. Top with mozzarella cheese and olives.

Homemade Pizza

I got this pizza dough and pizza sauce recipe from MyKitchenCafe. She has another pizza dough recipe on there that I will try next time. To view all of her pizza dough recipes go here. I doubled the pizza dough recipe so I can made two more pizzas tomorrow night when my brother comes over.

This was way easy to make and so good. Emi wasn't particularly looking forward to pizza tonight because he claims he doesn't like homemade pizza. Well, looks like I've squashed another one of Emi's prejudices.

Slow-Rize Pizza Dough
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
1 1/3 cup water
3 1/2 to 4 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt.

[The words of Melanie from MyKitchenCafe] The beauty about making this recipe the night before is you can just throw all the ingredients together cold (no warming the water) and stick it covered in the refrigerator. That is all I do - mix the dough to the desired consistency (I like my dough pretty soft) and really try not to overflour it and then place it in a greased bowl covered with saran wrap in the refrigerator. Be sure to take it out of the refrigerator a few hours before you make the pizza so the dough has time to warm and relax. This recipe makes 2 good-sized pizzas. I understand the term "good-size" is very subjective...but just know it feeds our family of two adults and two children and we eat a lot of pizza.

Homemade Pizza Sauce
1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
1 tablespoon sugar
Oregano
Garlic powder
Italian seasoning
Crushed red pepper (optional)

[Melanie from MyKitchenCafe] Combine all ingredients in food processor or blender and blend until desired consistency. I leave mine slightly chunky. On the seasonings, I just sprinkle them in to taste. If I use crushed red pepper, I only use a few flakes because my kids don't like spicy things, but it definitely adds a nice kick to the sauce to use it. I also substitute for whatever I don't have: basil leaves for oregano, garlic salt for garlic powder, etc. This recipe is open to interpretation. Use what you like and it will be delicious.